Impact by Douglas Preston

against the side of hers with a little more pressure. There was an answering pressure. He could feel the flush of the martinis traveling through his capillaries.
    “You must have taken it hard,” she said.
    “I did. He was a really good guy. A little crazy.”
    “You know why he got fired?” she asked.
    “Not specifically. Other than a sort of general deterioration. He might have had a run-in with Derkweiler over data issues.”
    “Data issues?”
    “Gamma ray data.” Corso realized he was approaching a security compartment line, talking about data outside of the building with a person in another section. He sipped his drink; fuck the rules.
    “Oh yeah,” she said. “He was talking about that but I didn’t really get it. What about gamma rays?”
    “Seems to be a gamma ray source somewhere on Mars. A point source. At least, that’s what I get when I subtract the overall background noise—a faint periodicity.”
    She leaned forward. “Wait a minute. You’re kidding.”
    She got it right away , thought Corso. “No, no kidding. The period is somewhere around twenty-five to thirty hours. Which is pretty close to the Martian day.”
    “What the heck in the solar system could be producing gamma rays? Not even the sun has enough energy.”
    “Cosmic rays.”
    “Yeah, but cosmic rays produce a weak, diffuse glow from every body in the solar system. You say this signal has periodicity. That implies a point source on the planet’s surface.”
    Corso was even more taken aback by how fast she was figuring it out.
    “Right. Problem is, the Compton detector on MMO isn’t directional—no way to tell where the gamma rays are coming from. It could be anywhere on the planet’s surface.”
    “You have any ideas what it might be?” Leung asked.
    “At first I thought it might be from a nuclear reactor that crashed on the planet’s surface—maybe from a secret government project. But I ran the calculations and it would have to be, like, a reactor the size of a mountain.”
    “What else?”
    Corso took another swig. He could feel his heart pounding from the pressure of his knee, now on her inner thigh. She was returning the pressure. “I’ve been wracking my brains. I mean, high energy gamma rays are usually only produced by big-time astrophysical processes—supernovae, black holes, neutron stars—stuff like that. Or in a nuclear reactor or atomic bomb.”
    “This is incredible. You’re on to something big.”
    He turned to her. “I think it could be a miniature black hole, or a very small neutron body, somehow caught on the surface of Mars or orbiting around it.”
    “You’re shitting me.”
    He gazed steadily into her lively, black eyes. “No. I’m not. When you’ve eliminated the impossible  . . .”
    “. . . whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. ” She finished the familiar aphorism for him, punctuating it with a bright smile on her red lips.
    He lowered his voice. “If this is a miniature black hole or tiny neutron star, it could grow, eat Mars—and sterilize the Earth with killing gamma rays—or even explode. This isn’t some academic exercise. This is real .”
    Leung breathed out. “Jesus.”
    He put his hand on her leg, gave it a squeeze. “Yes. It is real.”
    She leaned forward, her face closer to his. He could smell her shampoo. “What are you going to do about it?”
    “It’s going to be the subject of my presentation.” He slid his hand just a bit under her skirt, which was riding up on her thigh as she sat on the stool. After a moment she flexed her hips forward, causing the hand to slide up farther. He could feel the hotness of her thighs.
    She leaned closer to him and said, “Mmmmm,” into his ear, her peppermint breath tickling his face.
    “Another drink?” he asked.
    She adjusted herself on the stool, sliding her hips even farther forward so that his fingers came in contact with the hot curve of her panties. She pressed her thighs together on his