Keene looked as if he were experiencing a bad taste. “Even supposing that they offered me a place, what makes you think I’d want to take you along?” he asked.
Voler licked his lips. “Let’s not allow past personal animosities to affect things at a time like this,” he said. “I don’t have to remind you that I possess powerful connections who would be permanently in your debt as a consequence. The future position that you could expect to enjoy in the new setting could be, shall we say, very advantageous.”
New setting?
So that was it. Voler had given himself away. Already, he was talking about not merely getting to Kronia as a refugee but aspiring to running things there. Keene could guess the nature of some of the friends who would be on the list. He shook his head and smiled, managing to enjoy the moment despite the circumstances.
“No deal, Herbert. You don’t seem to understand. Your kind of influence doesn’t count anymore. Kronia doesn’t need friends like yours. They don’t have anything to offer that’s wanted there. I guess you’d better go home and start boarding up the windows of that mansion of yours.”
With that, he turned and left the room.
* * *
Ten minutes later, Keene was staring down at the morning commuter traffic filling the Beltway. News announcers were describing widespread radio interference and attributing it to Athena’s tail fanning out wider than had been expected. There was some risk of meteorite showers, and emergency services were being ordered to take precautionary measures accordingly.
27
The first matter, as opposed to accelerated charged particles, to begin arriving was in the form of molecular clouds and microscopic dust swept ahead of Athena by the solar wind, recorded by satellite-borne instruments and measuring stations on the lunar surface. On Earth, the effect was seen in spectacular sunsets worldwide, followed, as the grain size increased, by brilliant displays of burnup trails in the upper atmosphere. From California to Calcutta, people threw barbecue parties or just ate outside to relax in the cool while watching the shooting “stars” and electrical displays. Others took the warnings of meteorite showers more seriously by putting a fire extinguisher or two in the attics and making sure to park the car in the garage.
Not all reactions were that complacent, however. Astronomers around the world were comparing results and beginning to realize that something was amiss. While some were cautious and unsure what to make of the new factors affecting orbital calculations that had been claimed at the Washington conference, others were quick to take their fears to the media. Observational data were shared over the Web as a matter of routine, and there were thousands of amateurs and enthusiasts with the software to determine that what had been predicted wasn’t happening. Some were already connecting the rumors with visions of Athena being a repeat of Venus, and news stories appeared in Germany, Taiwan, and Australia asking if something was being covered up. Very soon it would be noticed that public and emergency services everywhere were shifting into higher gear, and then the stampede to get information would begin. In fact, more than a few news reporters, journalists, commentators, activists, and others who made a business of sensing things in the wind were already asking questions. President Hayer’s policy, in which he had asked the other world leaders’ cooperation, was still to avoid risking a premature panic by deferring an official statement until the scientific community could at least present a consensus as to the scale and extent of what should be expected.
The problem was that the stories Hayer was getting were contradictory. Hixson at Goddard, for example, was now giving figures less daunting than the ones he had supplied to Keene and had backpeddled to a position of saying that perhaps his initial fears had been exaggerated. Reports from the IAU’s Cambridge center, where Tyndam was based, were confusing and seemed to vary between Hixson-like hopes for things perhaps being not be so bad, to violent disagreement, depending whom one asked. This contrasted with the input from JPL, which was consistent and bad—worse, in fact, than the predictions that Keene had heard from Hixson to begin with. And in this, the JPL line agreed with the picture Keene was getting from the other sources that he was in contact with directly.