[The Fear Saga 01] - Fear the Sky (2014) Read Free Page B

see how this would affect the mass calculations.” In fact the colonel was wondering if he should be getting frustrated with Neal for wasting his time, or with himself for not getting it. He decided to remain passive until he found out, and by passive he meant obstinate.
    The hitherto silent woman at the back of the room chose this moment to interject, stepping slowly down the steps from the balcony to the main floor and introducing herself as she went. “Neal Danielson, Laurie West, I’m an astrophysicist myself, on occasion.”
    Neal whirled to her, momentarily sullen in reaction to the apparent additional assault on his expertise. But his wariness wavered when her name came to him, and he tilted his head inquisitively.
    “Dr. Laurie West … of the Hubble Institute?” he said, his right hand starting to rise from his side to meet hers as she approached, but moving slowly, as if its cooperation were dependent on her response.
    But she merely nodded and shrugged offhandedly, as though the title were a prank she had played in college which she hoped no one had heard about. They shook hands, Neal shaking hers with increasing enthusiasm as it sank in that he was talking to one of the premier physicists of this, or frankly any other time.
    She returned the handshake in kind, not one to think that her title made her better than the clearly quite sharp man in front of her, and then said, “So your report posits that our estimate of the objects’ masses should account for their having recently been a part of a cohesive mass. I agree that it is almost certain that they were, until recently, part of a larger whole. Too close together, as you say, and diverging even now.” He nodded and she smiled, but then she frowned and carried on. “But why would this affect the mass estimates?” she asked, her hazel-grey eyes glittering with intelligence and curiosity as she released his hand but held his gaze.
    Reticent at this rare opportunity to talk shop with someone that actually knew more than he did, Neal started in slowly, choosing his words carefully to try and avoid a misstep. “Well, it would seem to me that an object’s mass would probably be affected by its environment over time, therefore if these were previously, recently, even, part of a larger whole, then they would have been compressed into denser mass, giving them a higher mass to volume ratio. Their volatiles would also not have been exposed to as much freeze-cracking and UV bombardment.”
    She didn’t hesitate for a second, “But the exposure to vacuum that they are having now would have the same effect on their volatiles as it does on any other meteor, probably more drastic due to their previous lack of exposure, so wouldn’t they have stabilized to something more like the mass norms originally estimated once separation occurred?”
    Neal had had the benefit of thinking about this for a week versus her five minutes, but she was still only just behind him. “Well, that was my thought too,” he said, “but then I reviewed the imagery that the array had compiled and noticed that, well, there is surprisingly little debris.”
    “And if there had been a sudden combustion of volatiles due to exposure, there would be a cloud, probably even a tail.” she continued his thought.
    “Exactly. No tail, very little debris.” he said with satisfaction.
    The colonel looked on, taking some small satisfaction in the knowledge that if she had needed to have it explained to her, then his ignorance was more than acceptable, and felt suddenly more comfortable interposing his own question: “Well, I guess I am still unclear why this would affect the estimates.”
    Neal looked to Laurie as if to say, would you like to field this? But she chose to deflect the courtesy.
    “Please, go on.” she prompted with a beneficent, almost parental smile.
    He smiled in return and turned to the colonel, saying, “If they haven’t exuded volatiles it means they don’t, or rather