“Thank you Amiée. And I appreciate your trying to help no matter what. Again, congratulations on your new position.”
“Thank you Abby, I will be in touch shortly.”
Abby fretted most of the day. She also felt guilty for putting her friend in such a spot when she was just getting her feet on the ground. The last thing she needed was to have to justify why she was willing to help an American.
She had them all knock off at midnight. She couldn’t see any reason to keep them all there. The object wasn’t going to go away. The telescope was tracking it by computer so just sitting there hour after hour waiting to catch a glimpse of it seemed like a waste of manpower.
She knew if they could get a confirmation that they would be up to their eyeballs in alligators in work. It would be better to have them all rested before the big bang.
“Take off guys. I’m not going to hang around either,” she had told them.
They had all looked at each other like she was speaking in some foreign tongue. They just sat there.
“I’m serious. You can take off. Just be back here at 7 o’clock tomorrow night. Everything is pretty much on automatic at this point and until we know if Amiée is going to be able to find time to verify our findings we can’t do much but wait. Doing it here isn’t going to accomplish anything. Go home, get some sleep and rest up. Once things start to happen, it will move very quickly. You will need to be at your best.”
“You promise you are going to not stay here?” Jeff asked.
“I promise. I could stand some rest too. It’s been a fairly draining last two weeks between the funeral and our discovery. I could stand to get a good night's sleep as well.”
“Alright. Just as long as we are all going,” James said picking up his backpack.
Ten minutes later the place was deserted and the parking lot empty of the first time since they had started.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Abby,” the excited voice said.
“Amiée. I take it you have some news.”
“You were dead on. I can hardly believe what you have found. We have finished our analysis and I will be sending it to you by email as an attachment. I am so excited I can hardly sit still.”
“Care to give me a quick rundown?” Abby asked, becoming more excited by the second.
“Hang on to your coat,” Amiée.
“Hat. But go ahead, I’m holding on.”
“It is something new as far as we can classify it. It is very close to the size of Neptune and is approaching our solar system at 33 kilometers per second. Our measurements place the radius being 11,422 kilometers. The classification is Chondrite. Its composition is obviously carbonaceous,” she told Abby.
“You’re saying that this thing is a planetoid traveling at close to 78,000 miles per hour? That it is close to 7100 miles in radius? How can that be? Why haven’t we discovered it long ago?” Abby asked, shocked.
“Probably because of the six rings and thirteen moons around Neptune. I think we all assumed that we were observing the phenomena of Neptune. That along with it getting closer to our solar system. What you were seeing were a couple of its moons. So far we have found that it has four. Look, let me email all of the material we developed. Abby, I believe you have discovered something that will really rock the world. I am prepared to back up your findings one hundred percent. I would suggest you call Doctor Kwame. He is the director of the Isla de La Palma Observatory. Tell him what you have found and get his confirmation as well. You can tell him I told you to call. We have worked together on many projects and he is a trusted friend,” Amiée told her.
“Alright. I’ll do that right away. I should hold off on notifying the JPL until I get his confirmation as well.”
“Yes. I think that would be better. I am one hundred percent confident of our findings but it never hurts to have a second and third opinion. Especially when dealing with the government.”
“Amen to that. Amiée thank you so much.”
“Actually I should thank you. This is a major find and I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of it.”
After the goodbyes were done Abby just sat at the desk. Unbelievable. They had actually found an unknown object. She couldn’t wait to get her hands on the full analysis. It was all she could do not to yell ‘YES’ at the top of her lungs.
Abby looked at the analysis again. The acronyms of the data they had run was seventeen pages long. Once they had found the object they had obviously become excited as well. Every piece of equipment at their disposal had been used. Everything from the NNT, UV–Visual Echelle Spectrograph to the TIMMI far-infrared camera had been used. Amiée had sent a hard copy of the data overnight as well.
Her entire team was giddy with what was transpiring. They had a nonstop barrage of questions for Abby but she didn’t mind. It was rewarding to watch their enthusiasm.
“Okay, quiet down. It’s time for my call to Doctor Kwame. She dialed and put it on speakerphone so they could all hear the conversation.
“La Palma Observatory, Doctor Kwame speaking,” he said with a slight British accent.
“Doctor Kwame. I’m Doctor Abigail Montgomery. I know that doesn’t mean much at this point but I would like to have you work with my team on a very special project.”
“First Doctor Montgomery, I am very much aware of who you are. I have your books. One I use with my students. Quite well done I must say. I certainly know who you are Doctor. No need to be modest.”
“Well, thank you. My friend and colleague Amiée Laurent suggested I call you to verify our findings.”
“Yes, yes. Very exciting. Amiée said you would be calling with some startling news but she said she didn’t want to sway my opinion. She is such a wonderful girl. We worked together on many projects and she is delightful to work with. Amiée said that she had sent you her data and that you would probably want to cross check it. I am certainly prepared to help in any way we can. From the excitement in Amiée voice I assume it is a very important discovery.”
“Well it is initially. But you know how skeptical everyone is in this field. Unless they discover it, it must be wrong. That’s why we would like to have your opinion and analysis as well.”
“It would be an honor Doctor Montgomery. All I need is the cosmic plot and what I should be looking for generally. I don’t want to know everything but there are a few things I would like to have to save some time.”
“Absolutely. What would you like to know?”
They spent the next five minutes talking as Abby gave him just enough data to help him locate what it was he would be trying to verify and to do his group's own analysis. It would not be quite as extensive NNT Observatory's but it would certainly confirm the existence of another celestial body. She was also anxious to verify the speed it was traveling and the distance from Earth that Amiée’s people had placed it at.
From the position that Carro Silla and Paranal gave them they knew the object will be in close proximity to Earth in less than nine months. She knew they had to let the JPL know as soon as possible.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Doctor Montgomery, do you know what you have here?” the excited voice of Doctor Kwame asked.
“I think so.”
“My God, this is big. No, bigger than big. Do you have any idea what this means? Listen to me. Of course you know. Sorry. I’m just so wound up. This is one of the most startling discoveries in my lifetime. It is huge. The thing is just slightly smaller than Neptune and it is already within our solar system and increasing in speed. We are working on plotting the exact trajectory taking into effect the gravitational pull of various planets. I’m sure you have already figured out that it is headed for Earth,” he said, stopping only momentarily to take a breath.