“I don’t think you’re being fair,” Onslow objected. “A lot of scientists now agree that something extraordinary occurred around that time. A close flyby by a large comet is proposed in a number of models. But Venus is much bigger than any comet.”
“Any comet seen in recent times, anyway,” Joe said.
“It’s a lot like Athena could look three and a half thousand years from now if it lost its tail,” Lomack suggested.
The mood of the room pivoted on an edge. The three just back from space were heroes for the day, and the journalists’ professional instincts were not to put them down. Onslow was still frowning but seemed disinclined to press his negative sentiments further. On the other hand, they had been heavily influenced by the official line heard over the years. Keene sensed a chance to bring them closer and perhaps win one or two of them around if the case could be put persuasively. He studied his clasped hands for a moment and looked up.
“You’re all media people. How do you refer to that thing out there in the sky that’s not the same as anything we’ve seen before? One of the most frequent descriptions I’ve seen over the past few months is `giant comet.’ Well, people in ancient times were no different, except they thought of celestial objects as gods. In the languages of race after race and culture after culture, the names of the gods they associated with these events turn out to be not only interchangeable with or identical to their word for `comet,’ but also the name that they applied to Venus.” Keene looked around. The room was noticeably stiller, eyes fixed on him.
“I hadn’t realized that,” a new voice said. “This is interesting.” Onslow busied himself noting something in his pad and didn’t comment.
Keene answered, “It is, isn’t it. And I’ll tell you something more that’s interesting. Old astronomic tables from places as far apart as Egypt, Sumeria, India, China, Mexico—and the accuracy of some of those tables wasn’t equaled until the nineteenth century—all show four visible planets, not five. And in each case, the missing planet is Venus.” He waited a few seconds for that to sink in. Here and there, heads were turning to glance at each other. He concluded, “They all added Venus at about the same time. They all showed it appearing as a comet. And they all described it losing its tail to evolve into a planet. So come on, guys. How much more do you want?”
* * *
Afterward, they all agreed that it had gone well. In the chat session that followed over refreshments, most of the questions conveyed genuine curiosity and interest to learn more. Keene felt more than satisfied with the way things had gone, and Harry Halloran was looking pleased. As the session was breaking up, Les Urkin returned from taking a call outside and drew Keene to one side.
“You’re still going up to D.C. tomorrow night, Lan, is that right?”
“I switched to an earlier flight,” Keene replied. “I’m meeting someone for dinner.”
“Good. The Kronians are having an informal reception at their suite in the Engleton on Monday evening. Gallian heard you’d be in town, and he wants you to know you’re invited. Want me to confirm? Or I can give you their number.”
“Sure, I’ll be there,” Keene said. “Let me call them, Les. I get a kick out of talking to them without any turnaround delay now. So now we get to meet them finally, eh?”
Things were looking better and better.
8
The next day, Sunday, Keene arrived at Washington’s Reagan National Airport around mid-afternoon, and caught a cab to a Sheraton hotel that he often used when in the area, overlooking the Potomac outside the city on the far side of Georgetown. After checking in, he called Cavan to confirm that everything was on schedule. That gave him a couple of hours to shower, change, and catch up on some of his backlogged work via the room terminal before Cavan was due to arrive.
Leo Cavan worked as an “investigator” in what was effectively an internal affairs department of a bureaucratic monstrosity called the Scientific and Industrial Coordination Agency, or SICA, charged with planning and overseeing the implementation of a national scientific research policy. Keene had gotten to know him when Keene was at General Atomic. Cavan had started out in the Air Force hoping for a life of travel and excitement, and ended up instead preparing quality control reports and cost analyses in an accounting office. When he put in for a transfer to Space Command to get a chance to go into orbit before he was too old, he was drafted to Washington to review regulations and procedures instead. He had never fit the role well in Keene’s experience, being too technically knowledgeable to project the ineptness normally expected from officialdom, and too ready to overlook transgressions of no consequence when his judgment so directed. The result was that the two of them had gotten along splendidly and remained friends after Keene’s exasperation with the politics of government-directed science returned him to the world of engineering to develop nuclear drives for Amspace.