Short Story: When Worlds Collide…

Short Story: When Worlds Collide…

The asteroid was ancient. A kilometre in length, it travelled through the endless realms of space upon its slow axial revolution, rotating its whole body mass once every hour. It was a lone sentinel of the heavens, alone and cold, so cold that its own body of frozen water and heavy elements acted as a heart of iron, punching it through the darkness at tremendous velocity.

The ever-spinning gyration mass of the asteroid had remained unchanging since its birth. Its creation had been spawned from the remnants of a smashed planetoid, and dust of a supernova of a distant and exhausted star. The heavy elements of the stardust and the hydrocarbons of the pulverised planetoid had coalesced into a tight and knarled pack of heavy matter, which had been flung hurtling through space with the energy of a thousand atomic bombs. Although it had been cast into the heavens aeons ago, the momentum it contained was eternal. The parabolic orbit of its endless life had continued undisturbed outside the outer reaches of the solar system, barely feeling the pull of the sun. At the nadir of its orbit, it dipped momentarily in and out of the solar system for less than one percent of its enormous orbit, only to clip the ice rings of Uranus. So vast was its orbit, that its circumnavigation spanned a period beyond the memory and labels of man. It was an unknown and nameless brother of the Solar System, and it was coming home, and nothing in the heavens could stop it.

Fate had a slow hand to play in the cosmos, and patience was its game. The far flung ice crystals that circumnavigated Uranus twinkled in the dim star light of the distance sun, and their waltz in the ink-black vacuum was of no consequence and no matter, for indeed their entire bulk contained the least of anything that could be called something.

An ice-crystal, that had waltzed forever, within the furthest ice-ring of Uranus, split in two – and then another. Their velocity remained unchanged, but their gyrations impacted one upon another, and within the blink of an eye, a mere handful of ice had shifted position slightly, within the outer formation of the ring...

It was not until fourteen thousand years later, that the asteroid had once again momentarily pushed its nose into the solar system, and for the first time in its endless life had met another object. The spattering of ice crystals upon its flanks was but a kiss against its huge mass, however, imperceptibly, it had altered its vast orbit slightly. The microscopic change of its orbit, meant that upon its return in another fourteen thousand years, it would impact upon another body within the solar system, a planet, Earth - the die had been cast, and time unwound relentlessly in the cold vacuum of space.

Upon the face of the Earth the family of man huddled in the southern caves, waiting for the perma-frost and the cold fingers of the glaciers to retreat to the north. The retreat was slow, and it would take fourteen thousand years before they would see the glow of the electric light and the final banishment of their darkness…

The two main protagonists of the European Space Agency funding sub-committee had now locked horns, and their two egos could not be prised apart. Which would prevail? The decision to prevent the impending collision of the two worlds was still open for debate, but for the time being the financial director Adam Elander, appeared to have the upper hand, with the moral high ground of the dire and fragile financial market place in his court. The market place now ruled, and Peony La Frank, Senior Project Co-ordinator, felt the tide of opinion pushing her down into the labyrinth of a losing end-game.

The facts had been laid bare in the critical resource meeting, and the vehicle was already waiting silently on the launch pad. The longer the delay the more difficult it would be to nudge the approaching killer-asteroid from its collision course with the Earth. Yet there were those that did not believe the data, those that thought the whole thing was folly and a waste of taxpayer’s money. Why surely to send a spacecraft crashing into a celestial body was pointless, what did it matter? The asteroid was millions of miles away, and still only a bobbing spec on even the most powerful land-based telescope. Yes, better to stop the whole project now, and put the money to a better cause, a hospital or a new road perhaps? The balance, for the release of the funding for the launch was a fine one, and the debate had ebbed and flowed so that the matter now rested upon a knife-edge - salvation or prudence? It would take very little to tip the balance and break the deadlock, for even the smallest possessed the ability to affect the mightiest…

Random chance played their tunes throughout the cosmos, and the plush, centrally heated corridors of the European Space Agency central office tower, were no barrier to the music of its whims.

The meeting had been frosty, and human traits had been rubbed raw, and the tense atmosphere of the meeting spilled out into the corridor. Adam Elander reached the service lift slightly ahead of Peony, yet the echo of her hard stilettos upon the marbled floor behind him told him that she was still determined and resolute. He pressed the ‘down’ arrow, and stood aside to let the lady pass into the waiting car. He cast her a dry smile as he too entered, and pressed the panel at his right. The door swished briskly shut, and the two descended to the ground floor from the fourteenth in a moody silence. Their eyes did not meet, and both shared the ceiling view of the lift car. Adam sensed the tension between them, and could feel her anger pressing in on him. He had an uncontrollable urge to glance down at her fine long legs, but resisted, and contented himself with the absorption of her heavy fragrance.

A caprice of the energy network within the tower plunged the entire building into darkness, and momentarily back into the Stone Age. In seconds standby batteries and generators returned life to the network, and light returned once more to the small world of their lift car.

"…What’s happened?" asked the tall elegant woman.

"Oh! …A circuit has tripped out somewhere - but I believe there’s a back-up system in the basement."

The emergency light within the lift-car flickered momentarily on and then off and the main lighting quickly returned.

"There we are, no problem, we’ll be off soon…"

The lift car shuddered to a halt, and a buzzer squawked within the confines of the lift shaft.

"…It’s stopped," said Peony.

"...Yeah, strange?"

"Well press something! I don’t want to be stuck in here all day…"

Adam turned to Peony’s sharp face, and felt her unease, "You mean stuck in here with me?"

"No, of course not you silly man, I have to get to the conference room, the Press are waiting… I have to make a statement. Thanks to your department, you’ve put the project back weeks, and we don’t have weeks, the evidence is clear, but finance departments seem to have an in-built blindness to facts! …Come on press something…"

"I am pressing, Peony; I am pressing, come on give me a break here…"

"Great! …We’re stuck."

Peony reached forward her olive-brown hand and polished nails for the panel, and engaged into a bout of button pressing that defied the ability of the control panel to respond, and the buzzer continued to sound.

"There’s no need for that, I’ve already tried," offered the lean man in the grey suit, "…The alarm’s already on - it’ll soon reset."

"Oh! …I’ve broken a nail…"

Adam glanced down at the long legs at his side, "…are you alright?"

"Yes, fine, it’s nothing…"

"…I’ll try the phone here. …Great, that’s out too."

"What are we going to do? …I get a little sick in confined spaces," offered Peony, putting her hand to her mouth.

"It’ll be alright, don’t worry. I’ll look after you," smiled Adam.

Peony backed away from his words, and wedged herself into the opposite corner of the lift car. In moments the contents of her agitated stomach were gushing across the floor, and the elegance fell away from the tall woman, and she sank to her knees.

Adam stepped towards her, but she held up her hand.

"…Ahh! No… No…"

Adam removed his jacket and laid it across her bare shoulders, " It’s alright; it’s alright…"

"…Thanks - I’m sorry."

"That’s all right – there’s nothing to apologise for."

"No – no. I mean sorry for what I said about you in the meeting; calling you an imbecile, it wasn’t fair…"

"No, you were probably right, I can be rather a stuffed shirt at times…"

Peony raised herself up, and despite her strained face, beamed a wide smile. "Yeah, you’re okay, really," and with a quick hop, she stepped over the mess that had burst across the floor, and stood at his side. "…Thanks."

Adam felt a glow within his soul, and the surge of the moment.

The alarm ceased its chatter, and at once the lift-car shuddered into life, and continued upon its silent decent.

Adam Elander pushed his arm around the waist of the elegant woman at his side. "…You know, I think we might look at that final proposal of yours again. …I still have some reservations about the costing projections though, but I’m sure we can bring the project to a successful conclusion - if we work together…"