DOUG DONNANExecutive Editor/OMNI-GENRE+MAGAZINE!
donnan.doug@yahoo.com
WATCHING MATHILDE #253
by
DOUG DONNAN
“Well, Leefwater you’re the high-falutin’ astrochemist.
What do you make of this whole business?” Professor Lemp
asked with a bewildered shake of his bulbous bald head.
Gordon Leefwater held out a large folded
stack of
spectroscopic computer printouts as might a tidy hospital
orderly present a fresh stack of cotton bedding. The esteemed
Doctor Leefwater (who had more degrees than a rectal
thermometer!) possessed a swollen ego as well as an extremely
arid drollness.
“Make of it?” he
snapped back. “With all due respect
professor, I wasn’t consciously aware that I was supposed
to make anything of it.”
He plopped the cargo of green and white hardcopy down on
Lemp’s chromium work table where there were already sizeable
towers of astronomy periodicals, scientific journals and various
other assorted documents and research papers all of which were
related to the subject of asteroids. One asteroid in particular,
Mathilde #253, had gotten their undivided attention for the last
48 hours. This seemingly insignificant wandering little orb,
cruising all around way out there in space with the lion share
of the other rotating asteroids between the immense sweeping
orbits of the blushing Mars and massive Jupiter, had recently
been observed (quite by accident by a group of tenacious
amateur astronomers) to be acting rather strange.
“Listen here
Leefwater,” Lemp sighed as he guided his
wire rim eyeglasses up into the protruding loft of his open
forehead. “I sure wish we had never stumbled onto this crazy
can of worms. Do you know what I mean? This whole thing is
insane. Back in ’97 the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous
Spacecraft told us all we thought we ever really ought to know
about this little biscuit,” he blew out as he braced himself
up and rolled his eyes all about the vaulted periphery of the
dimly lighted planetarium. “But, nooo here we are well over
ten years later and we come across this! Please help me out
Leefwater. What in the world…the solar system I should say,
is going on way out there?”
Leefwater straightened
up and pushed his gnarled fists
up against the starched pockets of his long white laboratory
smock. He was as tall as he was arrogant. He looked down the
beak of his aquiline nose and over his thin black readers at
Lemp as if he were some pathetic lost dog or other domestic
house pet. He quickly decided that he now had the exasperated
astronomer right where he wanted him.
“Okay Lemp, I’ll just
cut to the chase and tell you what
I think might be going on with this little asteroid of yours.
Is that what you want to hear from me?” he scolded with his
lantern jaw poised up and out with a stoic confidence.
“Yes that’s precisely
what I want from you,” Lemp responded
to the curt challenge. “Not reams of color imagery and
spectroscopic printouts. Just your learned, personal opinion…
that is if it’s not too much trouble.”
“As you well know
professor,” Leefwater began as if he
was about to conduct an impromptu student lecture. “Astronomers
have been zooming in on these roving planetoids since the very
early nineteenth century. The Celestial Police, as they call
themselves, discovered the colossal Ceres moving around out there.
After that it seems all hell broke loose. It took some
considerable
time but eventually one asteroid, as they came to refer to them,
after another began popping up. The rookies and the regulars
were picking them up with their telescopes like so many rocky
space marbles.”
“Yes, yes…but what does
any of that have to do with—“
“Hear me out,”
Leefwater cut him off with a karate-like
hand gesture. “Let me see if I can try and get to the bottom
of all this.” He began to slowly pace about the floor in wide
concentric circles. “Let us begin by establishing a rudimen-
tary list of generally accepted facts about this heavenly
little body…the Divine Miss M.”
Very well,” Lemp
conceded as he threw his arms out in
total surrender.
“Now, as you said, ever
since NASA’s ‘NEAR’ spacecraft
did its asteroid belt tour of duty way back in mid-June of
1997, we have come to know plenty about Mathilde. First of
all she is a C type, carbon rich, main belt asteroid,” he
proclaimed as he gazed up at the vaulted ceiling as if now
pondering all the wonders of the universe. “Second, as our
asteroid friends go, Mathilde is rather large…approximately
fifty kilometers in diameter. Third, it has an extremely
slow rotation rate. Just a little over seventeen days. Some
of our esteemed colleagues will swear that she hardly spins
around at all!”
“But, what about the
mysterious lights, the numerous
and odd perturbations and all the crazy—”
“Please!” Leefwater almost
shouted as he tossed out yet
another silencing backhand chop.
Lemp sagged back into
his chair as though gravity had
suddenly become simply just too much for him.
“Thank you,” Leefwater
exclaimed as he continued his
circuitous parade. “It has no moons, no ice or water only
a high measure of silicate. She’s very porous almost like
styrofoam. Mathilde has five huge facial craters. She’s an
odd ball that’s for sure.” He stopped short and executed a
slow about face. He eyeballed the flustered Lemp.
“But—” Lemp peeped.
“It’s the government
professor. Surely even you can see
that!” Leefwater now almost whispered condescendingly behind
the back of his open hand.
Lemp was now numb. His
pale brown eyes glazed over like
tiny waxing moons.
“Oh for pity sakes man,
you people, you silly ass astronomers.
You stare into space all the live long night and you
never see things as they truly are…the real world. The stars
and planets get in your way!” Leefwater started towards
Lemp’s table as might a confident trial lawyer approach the
jury box for his closing argument. “Let us put two and two
together,” he sighed as he flipped an impatient look down at
his glistening Rolex. “It seems that we have all these things
going on way out on this little insignificant asteroid named
Mathilde—who in the hell cares? What’s it all about you ask?
Why this and what about that? I’m going to let you in on a
little secret my starry eyed friend. This ‘can of worms’ as
you call it should be left alone. Just roll over on this
and let it be…capiche? Somebody is up to something way out
there and I’ll bet you my last dollar that it’s our government
boys.
Some strategic nuclear missile base, a secret radioactive waste
depository…perhaps a new Area 51? God only knows what it
might be. But, I’m telling you, as sure as I’m wasting my time
with you, to swing that big ass telescope of yours in a different
direction or you’ll someday soon have all hell to pay!”
Leefwater pointed his long index finger down at the
mesmerized Lemp as if it were the barrel of a pistol.
“I’m giving you fair
warning on this my good professor,
stay away from this Mathilde business. And for that matter
any other little asteroid anomalies you just might come
across. Do you catch my drift?”
He shot another rude
look at his wristwatch and shook
his head. “I’m late for an important meeting professor, but
I truly enjoyed our little tête-à-tête,” he said sarcastically.
And,
at that, he did scurry off for the door and quickly whisk out.
* * *
“Yes sir that’s
correct. There are five of these rather
large craters and this is the first one we’ve begun full-
fledged construction efforts on. This particular AUI condo-
village we call Solar Hollow. Clever huh? Watch your step as
we descend. These state of the art robotic multi-rung extension
ladders can be pretty tricky.”
Congressman Neville
Garr, feeling rather foolish in the
silver and orange neoprene EVA space suit and accompanying
omni-directional wedge space helmet, had a death grip on the
vibrating sides of the ladder as he cautiously followed the
Astronomical Units Incorporated project foreman Lester Woods
down and down into the pit and progress of the vast crater.
The highly covert construction site was alive with activity.
Thousands of massive incandescent light towers were spread
out and around everywhere creating a veritable forest of
golden metal stanchions all aglow in an almost blinding sun-
like luminescence. There were endless stacks of gunmetal
blue Plexi-Plate siding and great spools of multi-colored
electrical wiring as far as the eye could see. All along
the periphery of the vast workplace were mountains of white
plastic piping and coils of flexible tubing. Thousands of
puff suited construction workers came and went from the
crawling yellow half-track work vehicles. And, as if purposefully
choreographing the complete astronomical ballet below were the
elongated swinging metal arms of hundreds of gigantic cranes
slowly swinging about delivering their heavy designated payloads.
The entire affair a literal beehive of astral-condominium
activity.
“It all seems so
surreal,” Garr breathed out from deep
inside his helmet. He had reached the final rungs of the
living ladder. A dramatic pause, as he scanned the impossible
vastness of the undertaking surrounding him. He was almost…
speechless.
Woods slowly extended
his puffy spacesuit arms upward
as if signaling some kind of momentous touchdown. “Yes sir,”
he cried out. “The last thing we’ll do on these projects after the
water reservoir points, sanitation and refuse details and a host
of
other transfer and delivery scenarios are ironed out is remove
that
over-hanging cover membrane you see stretched out above us. Then
it’s just a matter of positioning the gigantic plexi-dome bubble
that
will cover the entire Terra-Formed site. He lowered his arms and
turned to the gawking congressman. “That’s only a few months
down the road Mister Garr. Hopefully everything we’re doing way
out here will be legal and proper by then. I know that AUI wants
to
have this whole shebang done on the up and up…you know, take
all the deception and mystery out of it all. By the way congressman,
how is that redoubtable genius of ours doing with the cover-up
part
of all this? What’s his name again…Luftwaffe?
“That’s Leefwater! He’s
trying to keep the big name
astronomers off our back, but the pesky amateurs are everywhere
and they start little fires with their probing questions about
this
and that out here on the asteroid highway. It’s pretty obvious
we’re
sailing in uncharted waters on this solar system real estate
development business. A lot of do-gooder busy bodies back on
Earth desperately want to find out what’s going on way out here.
Leefwater is a very cagey operative. He’s the very best at what he
does in matters such as these, but…anyway, it’s a big step for
everyone involved. We’ll get the necessary bills passed.
We always do. You simply have to scratch the right backs
and procure the necessary stimulus funds to ramp it all in
the right direction…if you catch my drift? Once everything
is pushed through and squared away in Washington you can
drop your giant bubble domes as fast as you might on any and
all the asteroids you want to,” he finished and then took a
couple of moon-like steps forward as if that would help his
efforts to whisper something important to Woods.
“Just you don’t lose
that list of names I gave you back
in your station office. They’re all, for the most part, fine
upstanding men and women back there on capital hill. They
have a vested interest in all this and want to see it carried
out all clean and sweet…capiche?”
“I understand,” Woods
pushed out a silver circled index
finger and thumb. “It will all be one giant leap for mankind
right?” he laughed.
___ The End ___
