WATCHING MATHILDE #253

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 ___