A Japanese telescope positioned on top of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, captured video of an eerie flying spiral in the night sky on Jan. 18.
In the video, a small bright spot appears and slowly gets brighter and starts to dissipate into a spiral before getting small again and disappearing.
In fact, it was the remains of a discarded Falcon 9 booster from the launch of a SpaceX satellite. And it isn’t the first time this has happened. Japanese TV talked about this, too (since it was a Japanese astronomy, at the Subaru Telescope, that first recorded it).
So, an Identified Flying Object!
Yay, more metallic junk.
(Thanks to Glen Hill for bringing this article to my attention.)
This installment is a bit longer than anticipated, so I will cut it into two parts. Metaphorically. Just like the Artemis crew will need to, following their agreement with the Mars colonies faction heads to train the afflicted settlers in controlling their odd new powers and sensations while assisting in distribution of temporary water and food supplies. Only Martin, the former Mars UN Overseer, who thinks he can manipulate the situation, is about to find out things are proceeding far faster than he planned. And Luna Base has a nasty surprise in store for Mars…
The storeroom chambers were nearly full by now. It had taken several days, but at last the food and water brought from Ceres had been stacked neatly, carefully portioned and labelled for each settler division. Orders were sent to each settler node requesting two or three representatives to bring their respective robotic platform dollies to the main supply chamber.
Cooper strolled casually along one earthen wall, rubbing a hand against the soil. He could feel the regolith composite materials, sense the minerals and hydrocarbon content. It would be so easy to extract and solidify what they needed, strengthen the structure. Or dig even deeper below the planet’s surface.
“Here,” Martin said, handing a pad to Cooper. “I’ve authorized the complete list of supplies brought by the Artemis. There’s my thumb verification, at the bottom.”
Cooper accepted the pad. He scrolled up to verify, nodding. “That should do it.”
“Now,” Martin said, addressing both Artemis crew members with him. “I’d like to find out what happened to my security chief, Hamels. She was outside the airlock when you dropped the ditrium on the ice cap.”
“First things first,” Enoch said. “We’d better make sure that the quantum teleportation nodes from Luna are severed.”
“Severed?”
“Yes. Completely.”
Martin turned pale. “That would seem a bit, er, final, wouldn’t it?”
Enoch grinned. “You bet. And necessary. Who knows what might come through the next time the UA turns the system on again?”
“Meaning?”
The geist spread his hands wide and made a booming sound, then laughed. The tall spacer slapped his crewmate on the shoulder, then both laughed hysterically for a moment. Martin stared at them. Cooper couldn’t help doubling over again, holding his stomach.
While Gennaji and the Sagittarius prepare to encounter an old friend/rival, the Artemis crew has internal issues…
He had done it. He had finally flown out to the Kuiper Belt. Him, Enoch Ryan. The solar system’s only Jewish-Irish-Hawai’ian navigator. He was the best.
And they all called him a loonie.
Enoch scoffed.
He wondered, though, why he was sitting in the pilot’s chair of an old Sopwith. Surely…surely, this wasn’t necessary.
He stood up, thinking he would simply…stretch.
Hands out like airplane wings, the plane dropped from beneath his feet. Body flattening as he rushed out to meet the edge of the Belt.
Next stop, the Oort Cloud. A shimmering field crossed his vision. Ice and dust particles swirling. Like dirty sherbet. Like when his Grandfather bought him one.
And he dropped it onto the Lunar surface. Only now all around him. It really was a cloud. He smiled, embracing it. Embracing him. He could see the long-lost planet in the distance. Planet X. Nibiru.
No, it was Hapu’u. Guiding him. All he needed was to find the Twin sister. A new future…
A scream.
What?
He turned around. From behind him. It came again.
Riss.
But Hapu’u…
He looked back to the Cloud. There it was. Waiting.
But.
He turned away. The Artemis. He needed to be on the Artemis. Stop dreaming, he told himself. Wake up!
Eyes opened, he found himself floating in his cabin. How had he returned so quickly? No, it was a dream. He pushed against the ceiling and fell toward the bed. Grabbing a wall rail, he yanked himself down.
Yes, a dream, he thought. He put a magboot on and saw his hands. Dust.
Was it?
He heard voices in the next cabin. No screaming.
Maybe he should’ve stayed in the Cloud.
Shaking his head, he got a drink pack from the minifridge and took a few sips. Didn’t seem to be anything other than regular water. Tasteless.
He couldn’t wait to get back to Luna and grab a Longboard Ale.
He released the pack, left it floating head-high, opened the door. In the next cabin, he found Riss and Sanvi arguing.
“I know what it was!” Riss was saying, hands on hips.
Enoch smirked. He liked those hips. Fiancé or not.
“I don’t question your experience,” Sanvi was saying, with a little wag of her finger. “But you have no way of knowing it was mystical or not.”
“As if you do!” Riss retorted. “You’re an expert on mysticism now?”
“Not an expert, no,” Sanvi replied coolly. “But I have training, yes. My martial—”
“Your martial arts training, yes, yes,” Riss cut in. “We all know that. That doesn’t give you the sole privilege of understanding the nature of other people’s experiences.”
“What experiences?” Enoch said.
They stopped arguing and looked at him.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m here. On the ship. You know, the one I fly?”
“Sorry, Enoch,” Riss said. “Didn’t notice you.”
“Yeah, so…” He raised his eyebrows.
Riss and Sanvi glared at each other.
“You know,” Enoch offered, “I kind of had this strange dream. Was it a dream? Not sure. You know, this dream of kind of flying.”
“Flying,” Sanvi snorted. “So?”
“Outside the ship,” Enoch said. “By myself.”
Riss stared at him. Sanvi closed her eyes.
“Without a ship. All alone in the Belt. Like I could sort of, I dunno, control things around me?”
“The fields,” Riss said bluntly. “That’s what Sanvi calls them.”
“The what?”
“Fields,” Sanvi said, still with eyes closed.
She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “The material of the universe, shared matter. Currents. Atoms. Subatomic particles. The working of the cosmos.”
Enoch laughed. “Sounds—”
“Mystical?” Sanvi said, opening her eyes wide. “Remember when you said you didn’t want to talk about anything mystical?”
Enoch shrugged. “Yeah. But this cosmic working or whatever, it seemed like a dream to me.”
“Like you were walking outside your body,” Riss said. “Right?”
He paused, then nodded. “Yeah. Like I could control things around me. How far they were. How far I was.”
“Control,” Riss agreed. “Understanding.”
“And fear,” came a quivering voice from the hallway.
All three turned. The geist leaned against the corridor wall, as if for support. His ragged breath came to them.
“I, I was alone. All alone. Floating. My boots, they failed, and I was just…”
“Coop,” Riss said, with a note of sympathy.
The geist shook his head and waved a hand frantically. He was sweating, Enoch noted.
“I was just…drifting, for how long, I can’t say. But then…then I saw…”
Cooper’s eyes grew wide and he began to shake and mumble. Enoch could barely make the words: “O God, I will no longer be full of anxiety, I will not let trouble bother me. O God, purify my heart, illumine my powers—”
“God?” Enoch said aloud. “You saw God?”
Cooper stopped and grabbed Enoch’s shoulders.
“Dare you! How dare you!” he snarled. “You blaspheme…”
Just as Riss and Sanvi moved to intervene, all strength left the geist’s arms and he slumped. Enoch made as if to slap the hands away, but his anger was replaced by surprise.
Cooper was sobbing.
“O God,” he cried, “O God, you are the Powerful, the Gracious, the…”
He seemed to lose his voice and continued to sob in silence for a moment. Then he looked up.
Sanvi had knelt and was holding his hand.
“All that we are,” she spoke slowly, with conviction, “is the result of our thoughts. If one speaks or acts evil thoughts, pain follows. If one speaks or acts pure thoughts, bliss follows.”
Cooper made as if to remove his hand, but then looked up, seemed to calm down.
“I,” he started. He took a deep breath. “I’m not sure what I saw. What I was capable of doing, though. It frightened me. The power.”
“The beauty of the fear of Heaven,” Enoch found himself saying, “is noble performance.”
They all looked at him.
“The Talmud,” he replied, without being asked. Why did that suddenly come into my head? He felt compelled to add, sheepishly, “‘Love Heaven, and fear it.’ My dad used to always quote from it. I was named after one of the characters.”
“Whoever possesses God in their being,” Riss suddenly said, “has him in a divine manner and he shines out to them. In all things.”
“What is this?” Sanvi demanded. “Are we competing for the right to be mystical?”
Riss shook her head. “Memories. Snatches, clips of dreams. Things Sergey used to say to me, I think.”
“Sergey? Captain Bardish? Really?”
Riss smirked. “Actually, he usually said stuff like ‘the church is near, but the road is icy; the tavern is far, but I will walk carefully.’”
Cooper and Sanvi laughed. A welcome sound, Enoch thought, chuckling despite himself. But he was still feeling embarrassed. What ever possessed him to say the Talmud aloud? He hadn’t thought of it since…
Since Granddad died, he realized.
“‘Always confess to the truth’,” he said aloud. “Stuff my Grandfather used to say to me when I was a kid.”
Sanvi stood, pulling Cooper to his feet. The geist brushed off invisible dust, rearranging his shirt.
“What else did he say?” she asked.
Enoch paused. “‘Do not seek to wrong he who wronged you.’”
He looked at Cooper, then held out his hand. The geist hesitated, then took it.
“I think,” the astrogeologist said slowly, “that we have all been experiencing something unusual. Odd.”
“Wonderful,” Enoch said, still shaking Cooper’s hand. He let go and stared at his hand. “Exhilarating.”
“Yes,” Riss said. “Something entirely extraordinary. And frightening. And something that no one person owns.”
Sanvi bit her tongue. “Riss, I—”
“Look,” Riss said with a wave of her hand. “I think we all need a little time to sort our thoughts out. It does seem as if we are all basically having the same sort of experiences.”
“Dreams,” Enoch said.
“Experiences,” Sanvi said. “I’m not so sure they’re dreams.”
“What do you mean?” Cooper asked. “What else could they be?”
“Have you heard of astral projection?”
“What, you mean out of body experiences, that sort of thing?”
“Exactly.”
“I can’t believe that I was actually ‘out of my body’,” Enoch said with a smirk. “It felt more like a hallucination, or a really good trip.”
Sanvi nodded. “Yes, it probably does. Did.”
“Isn’t it possible that we’re all just tired?” Riss asked. “Sometimes people feel like this because they have some sort of inner ear problem, or they change air pressure too quickly because of a faulty air lock, things like that.”
“Well,” Sanvi said, then pursed her lips. “Do you think it’s possible that all four of us, suddenly, right after we started drinking water from that rock, started having the same trips, hallucinations, or whatever. Even though we’re all experienced asteroid hunters who have spent years in space without ever having such an experience?”
“Not all of us,” Cooper said glumly.
“And not all the experiences were just about projection,” Riss said, with a look. Enoch caught the look, wondering. What had happened before he entered Sanvi’s cabin? She wasn’t telling him and Coop everything.
“Projection?” Cooper asked.
“Astral projection,” Riss clarified. “That would explain how our experiences seem so real, and yet have a dreamlike quality. But it doesn’t explain being able to manipulate objects.”
“Is that why,” Enoch began. He stopped himself.
“What is it?” Riss asked.
He didn’t respond.
“Enoch. What.”
“Why did you cry out? You know. Uh. Scream.”
Riss was silent for a moment.
“I was scared,” she replied curtly.
Enoch opened his mouth, then thought better of it and closed it again.
Riss? The Captain, scared? Jeez.
“Well, that’s enough of that,” Riss said with a tone of finality. “We still have several days before we reach Ceres.”
“Yeah,” Cooper muttered. “Don’t remind me.”
Sanvi chuckled and nudged the geist with her shoulder. Which Enoch noted, with a sudden pang of jealousy. He narrowed his eyes briefly before relaxing. Things were moving too fast for his liking.
“What do you want us to do, Captain?” he said aloud. “You know, I don’t much feel like sleeping right now, if you know what I mean.”
She nodded. “I don’t expect that any of us are quite ready to return to Ceres that way. How about…”
She paused, then turned to the geist.
“Coop, have you finalized that analysis of the rock?”
He nearly flinched, Enoch thought. Then relaxed when Sanvi briefly touched his shoulder with a fingertip.
Dammit, he inwardly grumbled.
“No, R, Riss. I had nearly finished when, uh, when we were all gathered in the cargo hold.”
He looked at Sanvi worriedly. She closed her eyes and shook her head, smiling.
Something unspoken had happened, Enoch thought. He frowned. So why was he upset about it all of a sudden?
“Well,” Riss said, in a determined voice. “This piece of dusty ice clearly has some secrets. I think it’s time to finally see where our rock comes from.”
Next: Weng discovers a conspiracy in Bringer of Light, Chapter 17: Luna Base (dropping March 27, 2021)
(Riss is the leader of the Artemis Crew, Brady is the scientist, and Sanvi the pilot…but Enoch is the one who knows the way to go. He hopes.)
Kapow! Another German plane on fire, spiraling down from the sky, destroyed by a hail of bullets from his trusty Hellcat.
“Fuck you, Focke-Wulf!” Enoch chortled. His gloved hands danced in the air, finger tips wiggling as his 3D-goggled head bobbed back and forth.
He had no idea how long he’d been flying. What an addictive game! he couldn’t help thinking, as he shot down a Zero.
It made no sense, of course, but the game scenario creator allowed him to populate the battle with planes from any country, any time. He could have included a Sopwith Camel from the first world war, or a Mars Warplane from the shortly-lived Mars Colonies War if he felt like it.
But his favorite was World War II planes. Especially the Zero. How many times had he imagined himself saving the Pearl City from the Japanese invaders? Enoch, the hero, the half-Jewish, half-Irish Hawai’ian…
A stray memory entered his head as his Camel swooped over Diamond Head, strafing the dastardly Zero trying to attack hapless Waikiki swimmers as they sunned on Kahanamoku beach. He tried to push the thought away; once, twice, his fingers twitched, sending burst after burst of virtual machine gun fire into the Zero’s side. The enemy shuddered, smoke spurted from its canopy, and began its descent into the pounding surf.
He pulled back on the throttle and veered right, soaring over Nu’uanu Pali, aloft on the wind that warriors of old would challenge. Jumping contests of bravery, daring the wind to push them back over the cliff, or failing in the eyes of the gods and falling to their deaths on the rocks below.
He let go of the controls. The plane sailed straight through the valley.
The hill of Kaipu-o-Lono on one side, Napili on the other.
Enoch’s grandfather often told him the stories of the piko stones, Hapu’u and Kalae-hau-ola, twin goddesses guarding and protecting the children whose parents made the appropriate sacrifice and performed the ritual of blessing.
“The stones are gone now,” Grandfather told him, when Enoch was a boy. “Destroyed by the haule who took our kingdom away from us. But the stones will return in time. And their spirit still guards us, even now.”
But Enoch was not pure Hawai’ian. He was not even hapa haule. Not for the last time, he wished that his father had not been Irish-Hawai’ian, his mother not Jewish.
“Shit,” he exclaimed, tearing the headset off and flinging it at the floor of his sleeping cabin. He yanked the controller glove off and clenched it in one fist. But he stopped himself, released the glove. It hung mid-air, fingers gently bobbing up and down like the disembodied hands in the Evil Dead movies.
He sat up in the bunk.
Who the fuck ever heard of an Irish-Jewish Hawai’ian?
From the Moon, no less.
A sudden banging noise came from the other side of the wall. Sanvi.
“Knock it off, Karate Kid!” Enoch shouted, knowing full well she wouldn’t hear him clearly. Who cared. She hit the wall about once every two days. What the hell was her problem, anyway?
He massaged the back of his neck, resisting the urge to stand up and stretch. Being born off-Earth had its advantages. Enoch’s height gave him the reach others lacked, but it sucked to be in a cramped cabin on a ship built for four Earthers.
Loonie. Yeah, he was a Hawaiian Loonie. Who had never been to Hawaii, and never would. Not without a special pressure suit, complete with robotic supports so that he could walk in normal Earth-g. And who needed electronic implants to see, because the Moon’s low gravity had permanently effed up the fluid inside his eyeballs.
At least he could zoom-in. Definitely a targeting advantage.
He folded his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. The vidgame headset floated upward opposite his bunk, gently rebounding against the door.
Another loud noise from the wall. Sanvi must have hit it twice.
Enoch shrugged. He thought she was cute, on first joining the Artemis crew. Hell of a fighter. With his Loonie-bones he stood no chance against her in a scrape. But the mysticism she got so hung up on was a major turnoff.
“Aren’t you interested in Kabbalah?” she asked him once, in the mess room. “You know, being Jewish and all?”
“I’m Hawai’ian, not Jewish,” he replied.
“But it’s fascinating!” she persisted. “Elements are similar to Zen…”
He had to let her babble on while he focused on his freeze-dried beans and faux-spam. He still wouldn’t touch real pork — who knew what was in it? Especially in deep space rations — but he just wasn’t interested in religion. Any of it.
He pushed the memory away. Another came to mind; Grandfather, taking him out for a swim in the Sea of Showers.
“When I was your age,” Grandfather was saying, “there wasn’t any water on the Moon. Not above ground, anyway.”
Enoch splashed his grandfather and laughed. “Bet it was colder, too,” he joked. “Bet you froze your tuckus off!”
“Language!” Grandfather said sharply. But the old man smiled.
Enoch looked out across the sea. “I can’t see the other side,” he complained. “It curves too much. Nothing to see.”
“That never stopped your ancestors,” Grandfather said. “The great navigators of the Sea, they had only the stars, the currents, the wind to guide them. Read the stars, Enoch. Let the universe be your guide.”
Enoch frowned at the memory. The stars, he thought bitterly. The gravity wells and planetary magnetic fields. He had learned. Those who controlled his life had not.
Like those morons at Zedra. What did they know that he didn’t? He didn’t need their help plotting trajectories for the thrower. He didn’t need their stupid pings about “optimal course projections” for returning to the happy hunting grounds, either. Artemis was his ship.
Well, Riss’s ship, technically.
He grinned. He’d do anything for that woman.
Sometimes in the command center, when she was lost deep in thought, staring out the window like she usually did, Enoch would try to sneak glances back at her. A little older than him, true. But still. He had a pretty active imagination. Too bad she had a boyfriend.
He shook his head. Fiancé, he heard. Some other Loonie. Nah, had to be an Earther sent to Luna for the government. Somebody connected to Bardish. Like Riss.
Dammit!
He grabbed the vidset and control glove again. No point in feeling sorry for himself. His time would come. Meanwhile, there was always the Hellcat.
Next: Bringer of Light, Chapter 9 (Part 1): Mars Colonies (Coming 12/19)
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