back up on the walkway and looked around at the flat plain. “I thought Moonbase was inside a crater,” he said.
Evelyn was behind him, allowing him an unbroken view. “It is. But the crater’s big , and the Moon’s small. Alphonsus is a hundred seventeen kilometers across. We’re in the center of the crater, and its walls are all below the horizon. But they’re there. If you like, we can take a ride over.”
“Yes,” said Charlie. He studied her for a long moment, wishing he could see her face. “ You’d like to do that, wouldn’t you?”
She chuckled. “I think you caught me,” she said. “But yes. With the vice president’s permission, we can turn this into a jaunt.”
“By all means,” said Charlie. He looked at the horizon. “I wonder if we can see the comet from here.”
Evelyn was silent, and the voice of the technician came over the radio. “No, sir, it’s not visible from Moonbase.”
“Pity,” he said.
2.
Beaver Meadow Observatory. 9:30 A.M.
Wesley Feinberg canceled his flight home and stayed on at Beaver Meadow. Hoxon gave him an office and a computer and he got on the circuit with Kitt Peak and NASA and Zelenchukskaya and twenty other institutions. The astronomical community, of course, was fully aroused and scrambling to pin the comet down. Could it be identified with anything in the record? How big was it? Where was it going?
The quick way to get a handle on the object was to track down where it had been, say, in January or February. Then it would become possible to work out a trajectory. It should have been visible in the early part of the year. So it was just a matter of conducting a thorough search.
But as yet there was insufficient data to make even an intelligent guess where it might have appeared in the winter heavens. Feinberg worked methodically, bringing up sections of sky and comparing them against the database, hoping to find an object that did not belong. The images were produced by ACCDs, Advanced Charge-Coupled Devices, mounted on major telescopes around the world and in orbit. The pictures were far sharper than the photos with which he’d worked when he’d begun his career near the end of the last century.
He knew that an army of professionals and talented amateurs were doing the same thing, but he wasn’t interested in waiting for someone else’s results. Although he’d have deniedit, he was a competitor and wanted very much to get there first. He was, after all, less likely to be led astray by every point of light that didn’t fit the catalog. But after working through the night, he had nothing. That was understandable. What he did not understand was that no one else had anything either.
Feinberg had stayed with it until almost six A.M. , when he began to doze at the keyboard. Finally he’d given up and commandeered a couch in a utility room, where he slept until noon. By then several sites had reported positives. But after a glance Feinberg dismissed their “finds” as the carcasses of junked earth satellites, two known asteroids, and in one case, a nebula.
By late afternoon there was still nothing.
Curious. “It’s very hard to understand,” he told Hoxon, who had done some nominal searching on his own.
The director agreed. He was a garrulous, beak-nosed man who spent most of his time organizing public tours and who seemed to have remarkably little interest in real astronomy. He persisted in carrying on pointless conversations with people around him who were trying to work.
Feinberg extended his search, on the theory that the comet might be moving substantially faster or slower than the forty kilometers per second that was more or less the ballpark velocity. He worked through the late afternoon, sorting images while the mystery grew.
At six P.M. a postdoc at Cerro La Silla in Chile asked for help. She sent pictures that seemed to indicate she’d found a second comet. The pictures revealed an object on the far side of the Sun, out near
Evelyn was behind him, allowing him an unbroken view. “It is. But the crater’s big , and the Moon’s small. Alphonsus is a hundred seventeen kilometers across. We’re in the center of the crater, and its walls are all below the horizon. But they’re there. If you like, we can take a ride over.”
“Yes,” said Charlie. He studied her for a long moment, wishing he could see her face. “ You’d like to do that, wouldn’t you?”
She chuckled. “I think you caught me,” she said. “But yes. With the vice president’s permission, we can turn this into a jaunt.”
“By all means,” said Charlie. He looked at the horizon. “I wonder if we can see the comet from here.”
Evelyn was silent, and the voice of the technician came over the radio. “No, sir, it’s not visible from Moonbase.”
“Pity,” he said.
2.
Beaver Meadow Observatory. 9:30 A.M.
Wesley Feinberg canceled his flight home and stayed on at Beaver Meadow. Hoxon gave him an office and a computer and he got on the circuit with Kitt Peak and NASA and Zelenchukskaya and twenty other institutions. The astronomical community, of course, was fully aroused and scrambling to pin the comet down. Could it be identified with anything in the record? How big was it? Where was it going?
The quick way to get a handle on the object was to track down where it had been, say, in January or February. Then it would become possible to work out a trajectory. It should have been visible in the early part of the year. So it was just a matter of conducting a thorough search.
But as yet there was insufficient data to make even an intelligent guess where it might have appeared in the winter heavens. Feinberg worked methodically, bringing up sections of sky and comparing them against the database, hoping to find an object that did not belong. The images were produced by ACCDs, Advanced Charge-Coupled Devices, mounted on major telescopes around the world and in orbit. The pictures were far sharper than the photos with which he’d worked when he’d begun his career near the end of the last century.
He knew that an army of professionals and talented amateurs were doing the same thing, but he wasn’t interested in waiting for someone else’s results. Although he’d have deniedit, he was a competitor and wanted very much to get there first. He was, after all, less likely to be led astray by every point of light that didn’t fit the catalog. But after working through the night, he had nothing. That was understandable. What he did not understand was that no one else had anything either.
Feinberg had stayed with it until almost six A.M. , when he began to doze at the keyboard. Finally he’d given up and commandeered a couch in a utility room, where he slept until noon. By then several sites had reported positives. But after a glance Feinberg dismissed their “finds” as the carcasses of junked earth satellites, two known asteroids, and in one case, a nebula.
By late afternoon there was still nothing.
Curious. “It’s very hard to understand,” he told Hoxon, who had done some nominal searching on his own.
The director agreed. He was a garrulous, beak-nosed man who spent most of his time organizing public tours and who seemed to have remarkably little interest in real astronomy. He persisted in carrying on pointless conversations with people around him who were trying to work.
Feinberg extended his search, on the theory that the comet might be moving substantially faster or slower than the forty kilometers per second that was more or less the ballpark velocity. He worked through the late afternoon, sorting images while the mystery grew.
At six P.M. a postdoc at Cerro La Silla in Chile asked for help. She sent pictures that seemed to indicate she’d found a second comet. The pictures revealed an object on the far side of the Sun, out near
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