Part 30 (2/2)

Nor would rea.s.serting his unshaken conviction of dangers lurking on the moon accomplish anything.

Every suggestion over the years of a lunar program had been rebuffed. Krulirim were patient. They had to be-interstellar voyages lasted years.

Why was he the only one who believed Grelben's plans could be years in preparation?

None of this prevented Kyle from doing his d.a.m.nedest to be prepared. ”Dar predicts the President will

give the computer, too, to the UN. Our favorite diplomat implies I'm bitter.”

Britt clasped his hands, fingers interlaced. ”If, as I think likely, she's right, then what? Can I lure you into the District more often?”

”No, but with a good excuse.” They had arrived, at last, at the reason for his visit. ”I'd like to accept the President's offer of a job referral.”

CHAPTER 36.

Darlene's right leg dangled from the freestanding hammock, her bare foot inches above the patio brick.

The hammock was nevertheless swaying, Kyle's longer leg rocking them gently. Her head rested on his shoulder. Blackie was curled up and purring on her lap. A mild breeze was blowing, moonlight was streaming. ”Explain again why we hardly ever do this?”

He kissed the top of her head. ”Because, Madam Undersecretary, you're usually off gallivanting around

the world.”

That was a half truth not worth debating. She swigged some no-longer-cold beer rather than respond.

The past few months, he was in Houston as much as she was gone on her own, more varied travel. The President, true to his word, had gotten Kyle a shot at a payload-specialist berth on an upcoming NASA shuttle mission. The payload for whose calibration, operation, and, if need be, repair, Kyle would become responsible did upper-atmosphere measurements, the details of which eluded her. Kyle's understanding, of course, was infinitely deeper than hers and growing daily. (They'd been together long enough that she knew nothing was larger than infinite, but she didn't care. She just wouldn't express the thought.)

The astronauts she'd met were pilots and engineers, not scientific experts. That surely meant the payload could be operated without a full theoretical understanding of the measurement techniques, or the climate models in which the measured values would be used, or the abstruse controversies that swirled around competing climate models . . . but there was no way Kyle would be satisfied flying without that expertise. So when he wasn't training at Johnson s.p.a.ce Center, he was immersed in self-study of atmospheric physics. They were once again coming at a globally vital problem from two entirely different sides.

This time, thank G.o.d, the problem wasn't eating him up. She patted his arm.

”Beautiful, isn't it?”

That could have been a reference to togetherness, the weather, the patio and its wooded setting, or the

cloudless night sky aglitter with stars. Had her companion meant any of those things, he wouldn't have

been Kyle. ”The full moon? Yes, it's gorgeous.”They were silently admiring its round perfection when, as if by the throwing of a switch, the moon went dark.

”Yes, I'm serious!” insisted Kyle. ”How's the weather? Look out your window.”

”Sunny and warm. Basically like every day.” His old college buddy, who lived in LA, sounded puzzled and not a little peeved. ”Why did you really call?”

”The sun's normal?” Kyle persisted into his cell phone. He'd outwaited a call-waiting signal. Dar ran inside to answer the house phone.

”Big bright yellow ball, intends to set in the west. Yes, it's normal. So this is about . . . ?””Gotta go-I'll explain later.” He hung up over annoyed protests. Overhead, stars sparkled like diamonds, as brightly as ever. How, in a cloudless night sky, could the moon be ghostly dim when in California, where it was just after six, the sun was behaving?

There was no denying the apparition overhead.

He was swinging his telescope toward the spectral moon when his cell phone rang. Dar yelled from inside, ”That's Britt. I transferred the call.” ”Hi, boss.” As best Kyle could tell, the moon, apart from having gone ashen, was unchanged. He'd studied it enough nights to trust his impression. ”Yes, I know. Yes, the moon's gone dark and no, I can't say why.” He unbent from his crouch over the telescope eyepiece. ”But I'm on it.”

* * * Too many people jammed in a consequently overheated room. Too many speculations and too few facts. It was disquietingly like the arrival day of the Galactics.

Kyle fanned himself with a folder as he digested the latest findings. An obvious change from that earlier crisis was the medium of note taking: electronic whiteboards, read/writeable across the Internet, had replaced walls covered in Post-it notes. The Franklin Ridgers could as easily have coordinated from their offices, like the hundreds of scientists worldwide whose data they were collating. Crowding this room showed psychology trumping technology.

”That's one possible explanation shot to h.e.l.l.” Ellen Nakamura, a twenty-something new hire with spiky blue hair, hung up her cell phone. ”Thank G.o.d.” She threaded a path through the crowd to a terminal. On the big wall display marked ”solar status” new text appeared: SOHO readings nominal. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory probe was permanently stationed a million miles sunward from Earth, at an Earth-sun gravitational balance point. If SOHO, with its plethora of instrumentation and uninterruptible view of the sun, saw no variation in the sun's behavior, that was definitive. The sun was normal.

There weren't many ways to dim the moon. Moonlight was only reflected sunlight, so a solar problem could have been the root cause. Nakamura was right: thank G.o.d. If the sun were the source of the problem, they could all speedily freeze to death. A second wall was dedicated to an investigation of any unknown phenomenon impeding the light path from sun to moon, or moon to Earth. Regularly updated windows mirrored the findings of observatories worldwide. Some big light blocker in s.p.a.ce, never mind where such a thing could have come from, would likely also darken some stars. No such dimmed stars were in evidence. That did not eliminate a filtering disk precisely sized and placed to obscure only and exactly the moon as viewed from anywhere on Earth. But how could such an object be held stationary, against the solar-wind pressure on such a huge expanse? ”Matt. Any word on radar sweeps for a blocker?”

”He's stepped out,” answered a voice Kyle didn't recognize. ”But yes, there's news. Rear wall, lower left

corner. Radar sees nothing between here and the moon.”

”Thanks.” So if there were a light-blocking object in s.p.a.ce, it's not only precisely positioned and placed, it's radar-transparent. Stealthed. If such an object existed, and popped up out of nowhere, surely it would be an alien artifact. Spoiling the moonlight . . . Clean Slate couldn't be anything simultaneously so huge and so petty, could it?

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