reassurance where needed, a bit of cheerleading at other times, and even a sharp correction when warranted.
It was quite remarkable, considering that Jones’s daughter, Yvonne Hall, had been one of the astronauts killed on Zack Stewart’s snakebit
Destiny-7
mission.
Then there was what Harley later called the “Close Encounter.”
It happened midway through their second day. Harley had been half-dozing when Sasha nudged him.
“Did you see that?” Sasha said. The large, flamboyant redheaded woman had become Harley’s closest friend throughout this mad adventure. With her highly irregular human interactions, she seemed highly suited to this new environment.
“Don’t tell me you saw something weird.” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
She slapped him on the shoulder. “Out that side…I thought I saw another blob.” The Houston Object—or, as most of them referred to it,“the blob”—was essentially a giant stiff-sided balloon…its skin was white and it was possible to see through it…though, given that the only visible features were the Earth, the Sun, and the Moon, Harley saw little point in doing any observations.
“‘Plotting an intercept course, Mr. Data?’” That earned him another slap.
“Actually, flying in formation,” she said. Harley and Sasha had begun to act like a bickering couple from a bad romantic comedy. It seemed inevitable that they would wind up together, if they could just overcome the immediate obstacles.
In their case, of course, the obstacles were possible death by impact on a strange planetoid, or suffocation or any of the dozen ways one could die in spaceflight.
One of the other passengers, a short African American kid named Xavier, agreed with Sasha that “something” was out there. But when Harley had dutifully looked where Sasha had indicated, he had seen nothing.
Which didn’t mean there was nothing to see. He knew, of course, that Bangalore had been struck by an Object before Houston had. Maybe that had turned into a scoop, too.
Finally, there was the landing itself.
Fascinating
was the best word Harley could come up with. He had already made the assumption, and confirmed it with Jones and Brent Bynum, the disturbed White House guy, and Weldon and even Rachel Stewart—everyone else he knew who had been scooped up—that the Keanu people weren’t going to send an Object to bring them across space only to smash them on the surface.
So, mentally, he had treated it like a landing, the kind of maneuver he had once hoped he would perform on the surface of the Moon.
And, sure enough, during what a
Venture
lander crew would have called the
terminal phase
, as the half-moon of Keanu became the single biggest thing in Harley’s universe, something inside the Object had gone online, some kind of deceleration engine.
Everyone had begun to feel it, too, as they started to slide toward the bottom of the spherical object. The terminal phase had dragged on, in Harley’s semiprofessional judgment. Of course, if you had unlimited propellant or a magic engine, you would go slow. Harley had flown a shuttledocking at the International Space Station, and the final closing rate was usually a meter per second. At that velocity, a bump wasn’t going to do too much damage.
Which seemed to be the idea behind the object’s touchdown on Keanu.
Or, to be precise, touchdown
inside
Keanu. During the last fifteen minutes of the descent, Harley had spotted a crater growing prominent through the cloudy surface of the object. No matter what maneuvers the blob made—and it was making occasional adjustments, each of which caused Harley’s stomach to turn over—the crater stayed square in the center of the field of view.
And kept growing until it was a target so obvious, no one could mistake it.
All Harley knew was that this wasn’t Vesuvius Vent, the large crater that had served as the
It was quite remarkable, considering that Jones’s daughter, Yvonne Hall, had been one of the astronauts killed on Zack Stewart’s snakebit
Destiny-7
mission.
Then there was what Harley later called the “Close Encounter.”
It happened midway through their second day. Harley had been half-dozing when Sasha nudged him.
“Did you see that?” Sasha said. The large, flamboyant redheaded woman had become Harley’s closest friend throughout this mad adventure. With her highly irregular human interactions, she seemed highly suited to this new environment.
“Don’t tell me you saw something weird.” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
She slapped him on the shoulder. “Out that side…I thought I saw another blob.” The Houston Object—or, as most of them referred to it,“the blob”—was essentially a giant stiff-sided balloon…its skin was white and it was possible to see through it…though, given that the only visible features were the Earth, the Sun, and the Moon, Harley saw little point in doing any observations.
“‘Plotting an intercept course, Mr. Data?’” That earned him another slap.
“Actually, flying in formation,” she said. Harley and Sasha had begun to act like a bickering couple from a bad romantic comedy. It seemed inevitable that they would wind up together, if they could just overcome the immediate obstacles.
In their case, of course, the obstacles were possible death by impact on a strange planetoid, or suffocation or any of the dozen ways one could die in spaceflight.
One of the other passengers, a short African American kid named Xavier, agreed with Sasha that “something” was out there. But when Harley had dutifully looked where Sasha had indicated, he had seen nothing.
Which didn’t mean there was nothing to see. He knew, of course, that Bangalore had been struck by an Object before Houston had. Maybe that had turned into a scoop, too.
Finally, there was the landing itself.
Fascinating
was the best word Harley could come up with. He had already made the assumption, and confirmed it with Jones and Brent Bynum, the disturbed White House guy, and Weldon and even Rachel Stewart—everyone else he knew who had been scooped up—that the Keanu people weren’t going to send an Object to bring them across space only to smash them on the surface.
So, mentally, he had treated it like a landing, the kind of maneuver he had once hoped he would perform on the surface of the Moon.
And, sure enough, during what a
Venture
lander crew would have called the
terminal phase
, as the half-moon of Keanu became the single biggest thing in Harley’s universe, something inside the Object had gone online, some kind of deceleration engine.
Everyone had begun to feel it, too, as they started to slide toward the bottom of the spherical object. The terminal phase had dragged on, in Harley’s semiprofessional judgment. Of course, if you had unlimited propellant or a magic engine, you would go slow. Harley had flown a shuttledocking at the International Space Station, and the final closing rate was usually a meter per second. At that velocity, a bump wasn’t going to do too much damage.
Which seemed to be the idea behind the object’s touchdown on Keanu.
Or, to be precise, touchdown
inside
Keanu. During the last fifteen minutes of the descent, Harley had spotted a crater growing prominent through the cloudy surface of the object. No matter what maneuvers the blob made—and it was making occasional adjustments, each of which caused Harley’s stomach to turn over—the crater stayed square in the center of the field of view.
And kept growing until it was a target so obvious, no one could mistake it.
All Harley knew was that this wasn’t Vesuvius Vent, the large crater that had served as the
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