Grey Halo
Fiction - by Rosie Oliver
“This planet could sure do with a haircut,” Mike says from the second console down from me. He is the only other noise in the machine-hum quiet, having to stay late to make up for lost time this morning.
“Sure,” I reply, trying to focus on the funding request for our Planetary Analysis Centre. It has to be submitted by close of play, or we will lose another two posts and our analysis backlog will change from a manageable delay to absolute chaos.
“What do you want me to do with this, boss? File it under pretty pictures?”
He is obviously playing for my weakness of being easily distracted by anything astrogeological. I can’t but help go gooey-eyed at the colours and crumbliness of the plains, hummocks, hills, escarpments, cliffs, mountains and chasms flecked by craters and ice. All it took to become hooked was a moment of stupendous awe, seeing what remained of the wilderness on the Moon through a telescope for the first time.
But I am in the middle of making sure nothing is left out of next year’s anticipated expenses and have to force myself not to look his way. “Whatever.”
“Talk to yourself,” he mutters. “Look, Suzz. Take a good damn look.”
My flow of thoughts collapses into nonsense and I lose my place on the list. I silently damn his annoying persistence and snap my head round to see the screen. “What?”
The picture explains it all. Centre screen is a brown-grey rocky planet with polar ice caps. Calderas of dead volcanoes, sheer cliff edges, jagged abysses and a high density of craters are sharply delineated. This is typical for a planet too small to retain much of its atmosphere and close enough to its star to keep its temperature up.
The translucent grey lines rising from its surface represent the planet’s dark matter strands. They should be straight, ending up to ten times the height of the surface from the planet’s centre, making it a spikey ball. Instead, the free ends of those coming from a deep valley along part of the equator either turn back on themselves to form hooks or their ends are twisted into corkscrews. This curling gives the impression of a grey cloud hanging over the valley: totally impossible according to dark matter theory.
“Another one of your damned pranks. I haven’t got time for this.” I swing back to my editing, seething at his childishness.
“These are actual results.”
“Pull the other leg. And don’t you dare do the same to the Moon’s dark matter picture either.”
“Suzz! I’m not silly enough to cause worldwide panic. This picture is what the analysis says about the real data we’ve received. And yes, I have double-checked the analysis, in fact everything at our end.”
His voice having gone up from baritone to tenor shocks me into thinking he might be telling the truth. I stare at him, with his greying dark hair tied into a loose ponytail, the stubbly start for an excuse of a beard and redness subduing his blue eyes. He looks too tired for pranking. “You on a tight delivery schedule?”
“When aren’t we?” His voice has gone back down to baritone levels.
“Give them, wait, who’re we doing this planet for?”
“NASA.”
It had to be a prime customer. “Give them everything except that duff data. Apologise for what’s missing, saying we need to run some further checks and analysis. Got that?”
“Yes, boss. On it, boss.”
That comment normally irritates the hell out of me. Not this time: my mind is already back to wading through the expenses list. Keyboard tapping, bumps and grumbles become quiet enough to ignore. Finally, after reading the request through without making any changes, I hit the send button and glance at my watch. Enough time to go home, have a quick sleep and breakfast before I have to dash to the director’s office.
I semi sleepwalk into the Director’s office. Mike sitting opposite the Director, smiling, clean-shaven and wearing a suit surprises the hell out of me. His suit makes me feel grubby in comparison.
“Come in, come in. Glad you’re here.” The Director, more like a perfect robot than an actual person in his bespoke suit, waves at the free chair. “We were just talking about what to do next.”
I am absolutely clueless as to what he is talking about, and can only wait and listen to find out more. My dithering uncertainty makes me stumble towards the chair and I sit down with a thump.
“Why’s Mike here?” I know it is a daft question to ask before I finish speaking.
“He’s vital to the plan.”
Mike is facing redundancy. The thought brings up memories I would rather forget altogether. Mum had gotten dementia and Dad chucked in his job to look after her. Although they got some state benefits, it was not enough to keep the roof over our heads. Money was very short, the going hungry and cold type of short. Those days were a nightmare I could not escape from. The moment I could legally leave school, I got an admin job here at the Centre. Now Mike could be facing the same horrors. Shock makes me feel washed out. My mouth goes dry. “Quite.”
The Director rubs his hands together. “We need to put all our efforts in analysing… what was the planet’s name again?”
“They’ve nicknamed it Grey Anemone for now,” Mike replies.
“Yes, yes, of course. Obvious when you think about it. What effort do you need?”
“We don’t, not without more data,” Mike says.
“They’re sending a couple more sets from their archives. They want the results ASAP. Should be in your inbox by the time you get back to the Centre.”
I finally latch onto what they are talking about. “This the planet you were looking at last night?” I ask Mike.
“Yes. Didn’t you read the e-mail I copied you into?”
Damn it! He is right. I should’ve checked my inbox for urgent stuff. But when did I have the time?
The Director beats me to saying something. “And what a find if I may say so.”
“What?” My sluggish brain finally kicks in. “Mike, did you run the checks I asked you to?”
“You bet. Don’t worry, I put heavy caveats on the dark matter graphic before I passed it to NASA.”
“Splendid,” the Director says. “This is what we’ll do. Mike will do the analysis on the new data and you,” he points his finger at me, “will write up a short storyline. Copy me in on what you send to NASA and I’ll deal with the publicity side of things. Happy?”
“Sure thing,” Mike answers.
Stunned silence is my reply.
“Don’t you two need to get back?” the Director asks.
“What about the funding request?” I manage to stutter.
“This is far more important.”
“But-”
“No buts. Get to it.”
There is no choice. I follow Mike out of the office. My fog of stupidity is gradually eaten away by my anger at my own crassness. Even the excuses of tiredness and boredom from bureaucratic paperwork do not let me off my hook. As for Mike, he cannot be trusted, not after he went against my instructions. I will have to watch him eagle-eyed to make sure he does not damage the Centre’s reputation, and do what I can to mitigate the damage of Grey Anemone’s dark matter graphic that he has already sent out.
The Centre’s human hum drowns out the tapping and machine noises. I spot Mike logging into his console and go over to him. I check round the rest of the room. Everyone else is working away, as I had hoped. “Looks like I can’t spare anyone to help you. So I’ll be your checker and as we’re against the clock, I’ll watch while you do your analysis.”
He jerks his head round so fast that his ponytail flies over his shoulder. “You’re not qualified.”
That really means I do not have a piece of paper stating I have a postgraduate degree in an astronomy-related subject. My addiction drove me to look up and read anything on astrogeology, which included the in-house reports stored on our computers. Of course I kept quiet about it here. They were the experts and who was I to distract them from their work? Later on this question would be changed to who was I to have such pretensions? Now I probably know more than anyone in this room, but am still not licensed to analyse. To hell with this stupidity. “No choice. I’m the best that’s available.”
“If you say so.” His eyes are hard, messaging resentment.
There is nothing I can do about his attitude as long as he follows my orders. I grab a cup of coffee and my chair, and sit down beside him as he finishes downloading NASA’s first data set.
His analysis goes smoothly, resulting in a picture of the same planet with the face rotated round by a third. The dark matter’s hook strands have dropped their ends into the valley to form loops. The corkscrew ones are squashed down by becoming spirals all the way along. Away from the valley, straight strands have hooks or corkscrews at their ends, the less effect the further away. The changes are spread further along the equator than to the north or south. Whatever is wrong with the dark matter, it is spreading across Grey Anemone. I do not like it. “Is this later than the first picture?”
A few keyboard taps later: “Yep, by three months. Do you want me to send this analysis off now?”
“No,” I instinctively react. The reason coalesces in my mind a second later. “They could jump to the wrong conclusions. Work through the third set first.”
“Yes, boss. On it, boss.” He gets to work on the final set of data.
That phrase really grates. I bite my lips to prevent any reply coming out. There are too many people around. Anything I say is bound to get back to the Director. Instead, I watch Mike very carefully.
An urgent e-mail pings on the top right-hand corner of the screen from NASA. A second one from the Director immediately follows.
“You’d better open them,” I say.
NASA has sent over another set of raw data, just streams of numbers and random letters, loads and loads of them, for us to analyse, which they had collected from their space telescope during the night after pulling an urgent request stunt. They, having seen our first dark matter picture, were holding off any announcement until we came back with our results. My inner alarm bells ring. NASA always announces anything new and exciting the first second they can: it helps keep their governmental funding flowing.
The Director wants the results and draft press release soonest, and to this end, authorises parallel working. My inner alarm bells become a wailing siren and have me on the edge of my seat.
“Damn it,” Mike says. “I wanted to do the lot.”
His reaction is a flip change from the antagonism to date: he really is a geek at heart. “How far along are you?” Although I already know the answer, I still want witnesses for why the work will be done by someone else.
He eyes the screen. “This one’s taking longer for some reason. I don’t know when it’ll finish.”
“Sounds like we might have to do some double checking.” I look round for frizzy ginger hair. “Cassie,” I shout to make myself heard over the distance and noise, “drop what you’re doing and do the analysis on the data Mike’s about to send to you.” Then I notice the short blond hair, blue eyes and square jaw next to her. “Adrian, run a live check on it. It’s hyper-urgent.”
Their grins betray their eagerness to join in.
Mike forwards the NASA e-mail with the latest data set and returns, sad-faced, to his analysis. “Have you thought about what you’re going to put in your press release?”
“Apart from the due caveats and thanking everyone here for the extra effort?”
“Yep.”
The room goes keyboard-tapping quiet, making me extra cautious. There is still our reputation to safeguard. “Just highlight the changes over time. Stick to facts.”
Mike’s face droops further. “The same old dull, dull and dull.”
This criticism stings. Nevertheless, I have to do my job, and be seen to do my job. “I’ve seen what the press do people who make mistakes, skinning them alive doesn’t begin to describe it.”
Mike shakes his head and gets back to typing. After a couple of minutes: “Have you thought about using this as an opportunity?”
“For what?” I wish he would give up pushing.
“It’s either us or NASA. Who do you want to take the lead on this?”
“We haven’t got the funding, and the department hasn’t got any spare cash to hand out.”
“Suzz,” Cassie yells from across the room. “We’ve compiled our first visual results. Looks like the planet is in the final stages of forming, with large lumps of rock circling each other. No wonder NASA wanted this soonest.”
“What?” I find myself eye-to-eye with Mike. I am out of my chair to rush over to Cassie.
Mike, after pausing to lock his console, is a step behind.
Centre screen is the brown-grey rock with its polar caps, but it has broken into five pieces. Some stars shine through the widest crack, which is along the equator where the deep valley was.
The room has fallen to machine-hum quiet. Everyone is listening in.
“It’s us or NASA,” Mike says quietly.
“For what?” Adrian asks. “A study to confirm the planetary formation theory? Might as well give that to a postgrad.”
“I’d love to do it,” Cassie adds.
My hold on the situation is slipping. I have to correct this fast. “Whoa! First we got to confirm these results are correct.”
“She did everything right,” Adrian vouches.
All eyes are on me, waiting for me to say something. I stare at the cause of my silence; the picture of the broken planet, hoping it will change into something far more sensible. It remains as is in all its offensive stillness. Slowly, ever so eternally slowly, the inevitable conclusion of the evidence in front of me surfaces in my thoughts: dark matter can destroy planets, even our own home.
I want to smash the screen and its picture to smithereens, but they are still staring at me, waiting for orders. Even if I obliterate the damnable picture, the danger will still exist. This really is what I must nullify. I am just one single person who knows next to nothing about the demolition process, along with everyone else in the world.
Questions flood my mind. What triggers dark matter to destroy a planet? Does this killer mechanism only work on certain types of planets? Can it actually destroy our home planet or the Moon? I scratch my head as if that would juggle some sense into my brain. Instead sillier questions pop into my consciousness. Can a fool design and publish a picture of Earth being torn apart by dark matter? Will people react sensibly to such a hoax? Is it up to me to underestimate the power of human stupidity? How will the authorities stop the resulting panic?
I glance from green eyes to blue ones to brown. My heart pounds rapidly and my skin dampens with sweat. They need answers. Ones I don’t have. Ones I’ll never be able to have without a whole load of research, which means having money and time. Do we have the time? I don’t know. But we need to start to get the answers.
Yes, that’s right; a step forward. I scan the room for what can be called upon. The computers are old, well used and don’t have the legs for the job. The office is small, cramped, not enough room to swing a cat. The people, while good at what they do, are not the super-insightful-researchers. We need a couple of those. Did I think ‘we’? I look at Mike. His face is a muddled jigsaw of puzzled features. I turn to Cassie. She has puppy dog eyes of the eager to please type. Adrian’s face is a study of illegibility, the kind I have come to associate with sitting on judgment on something, in this case whether I have enough gumption to do the right thing. All visually scream the need for leadership.
A good leader deals with the alligators snapping at the ankles, while steering away from potential future problems to their ultimate goal. It is a mega juggling act, or so I have been told. Am I up to this job? Absolutely not. Do I want to do this? Hell, yes.
First up are the alligators: keeping this as quiet as possible until we have an agreed workable way ahead that among other things does not lead to mass hysteria; keeping NASA and the Director happy; and getting enough funds to at least do the back of the envelope research.
I take a deep breath, open my mouth and waver. I have never taken such an unexpected step before.
Damn it! Even if I cannot finish the job, I can at least start it. I have humanity to save. First up, the nearest alligator, keeping all this quiet for now.
“Listen up,” I croak. Then louder: “Listen up everyone. We’ve an urgent need for all the computing power. So would everyone except Mike, Cassie and Adrian tidy up and leave. You’ve got ten minutes.”
Mike looks stunned. Cassie and Adrian have puzzled frowns. The others, smiles on their faces, pack up and leave.
After the last person closes the door behind them, Mike says: “We don’t need that much computing power.”
“Agreed, but I had to clear the room so we could talk freely. First off, for now, nobody and I mean nobody contacts anyone about what we’re working on. Exceptions are the results without the dark matter, which I want you to send to the Director and NASA as soon as you’re happy with them. It’ll buy us time to figure out what to do next with the dark matter results. Let’s finish our analysis first. Any questions?”
“What’s going on?” Cassie asks.
“What’s wrong with the dark matter?” Adrian adds.
“Loads,” Mike answers.
“Let’s start with who wants what from the local take away,” I say.
Three hours later, we stand in front of four screens depicting the dark matter graphic of the planet.
The third data set that Mike analysed produces a picture with a grey halo of curvy strands around the planet’s equator. The greyness lessens as the eye moves away from the equator. A few straight strands remain poking out of the polar caps.
The final broken up planet picture has the dark matter strands coming out of each asteroid. Some cross between asteroids, with noticeable thinning in their centres, as if they are going to break. The corkscrew strands are scrunched up into balls that lie on or have partially sunk into the surfaces. A lot have disappeared altogether; our best guess being they are inside the asteroids.
We are quiet. My coworkers’ faces are strained, whether it is due to them working hard or to the realisation of what it might mean for all of us, I do not know. I still have to lead from the front. “I have one question.”
“Only one?” Adrian asks.
“For now. Do you have enough programming skills between you to pull together a tentative timeline of how the dark matter changed?”
“How would we go about this?” Mike asks, looking at each of us in turn.
“Have the positions where the strands break through the surface changed?” Cassie asks.
We study the pictures. “Doesn’t look like it,” Mike answers. “At least not in the first two pictures. So that’s our reference.”
“I can model the bending and corkscrewing with sufficient variables in for you to match up the change over time,” Adrian says.
“I’ll map out the those threads that haven’t changed their surface points,” Cassie adds. “And then label those that go missing or start up.”
“I’ll draw up maps of the spread of the distortions,” Mike joins in. “For both strand types and do a first pass assessment. What are you going to do, Suzz?”
“After drafting an urgent request for setting up a dark matter study team, you mean?” I never thought I would want to do another urgent request for financial help, but this dark matter threat fires me up. “Would eight people do?”
A grin spreads across Mike’s face. “Bloat it up. That way you can let the managers think they’re doing their job when they cut you back.”
“Trust you to be scheming. I like the thought though. No, once that’s done, I’ll look for correlations of the planetary geology with the strands. That’s a thought.” I pause. “The increasing density of the dark matter in places might have some interesting compression effects on minerals. I’ll also look for any parts of the planet that have suffered rapid changes prior to its break-up.”
“You’re not an astrogeologist.”
There is not the time to argue with him. “I can still spot differences in colour, texture, height and the obvious.”
Mike opens his mouth and quickly shuts it. “It would certainly be a start.”
We return to our consoles to work.
“How are we going to work tomorrow?” Adrian asks after a while.
“Reserve the back row and let none of the others cross into it. I’ll set up the notices before I go home tonight.” I glance at my watch. It is already eight-thirty. Tiredness hits me with the full force of a wet towel. My adrenalin that kept me going must have just run out.
The door flings open. “Where the hell’s the dark matter analysis for the last three sets of data?” the Director bellows.
“Not going out tonight,” I reply without thinking.
“I’ve got NASA yelling at me.”
“They’ve got the first one. I need to talk to their boss on a secure line tomorrow. Can you make that happen?”
“Who do you think you are?” He towers above me before turning round. “Mike, bring up the results.”
Mike looks at me.
“I’m the boss here, not her,” the Director adds.
Mike raises an eyebrow at me as if asking permission.
I nod to go ahead.
Four screens light up as before with the dark matter pictures of the planet.
The Director looks from one to the next. “Wow! This is exactly what I need. This is what NASA wants. Now! Send them off.”
“Not a good idea,” I say.
“You again. If you get in my way once more…”
I am too tired to put up with his shouting arrogance, and want to get rid of it, fast. In fact, I have had enough of him altogether and don’t care less what he thinks or does. If necessary I will go over his head. I stand up and stare eye-to-eye with him. “What do you think will happen when this gets out into the press? It only takes one genius to draw a picture of that strand pattern around Earth or the Moon and publish it. Guess what? Mass hysteria. That’s what will happen if I don’t stop you.”
“Rubbish! You’ve gone beyond-”
“Is it? What reassurance can you give the public against such made up pictures? Sure you can say the dark matter isn’t like that at the moment. But what about tomorrow?”
“Enough!”
“You’re going to back funding for a twelve-man team to investigate the effects of dark matter on planets. The official line for public consumption is it will be based on that one dark matter picture that’s already been made public. The line our bosses will see is that we are looking for ways to keep the public calm for when those other pictures become public. They’ll buy that. They want to keep their jobs.”
“This is blackmail.”
She glances to the side. Mike’s eyes are wide and his jaw has dropped permanently. Cassie is frozen into a look of astonishment. Adrian has his hand over his gaping mouth. “I wouldn’t have called it that, but yes. Are we clear?”
“Yes,” the Director growls through gritted teeth.
“One other thing,” I add. “You do not talk about this to anyone except on an absolute need to know basis. No going behind our backs to the press. If you do, we’ll deny the results and you’ll be out on a limb.” I make a mental note that we will have to draw up false pictures, ready to show the press just in case. That can wait until tomorrow morning.
He glowers at me and then storms out of the room.
Only the purr of the machines can be heard as we eye each other.
Mike breaks the quiet. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“He’ll get back at you,” Adrian says.
“He can try.” I slump on the nearest chair, lift my forearm up from the armrest and drop my head into hand. “Oh hell!” I mutter.
“How far have you got with that extra funding request?” Mike asks.
I look at my locked screen and imagine how it would be if it was open. “About a page’s worth of typing to go.” I shake my head. “You know something, it’s only taken me a couple of hours to pull this one together, yet the one I was working on yesterday took me over ten. You lot might as well call it a day.”
“I’ll set up the exclusion zone for us before I go,” Cassie volunteers.
“Thanks.”
“Send me the funding request to read through what you’ve done so far. The least I can do is check for typos,” Adrian says.
“It would be a help.” I unlock my screen and send him a copy.
I loll my head back and close my eyes. I realise how sore they have become.
“Um, Suzz,” Mike says.
“What?” I keep my eyes closed.
“Why did it take saving the planet to turn you into a damned good boss?”
“Don’t ask awkward questions like that and go home. I’m sure you must be uncomfortable in that suit of yours.”
“Yes, boss. On it, boss.” He continues tapping away at his keyboard.
This time, rather than the phrase grating, it is reassuring. With these three people backing me, I am sure we will get that funding. The rest will follow: we’ll learn how to control the dark matter to stop it breaking up Earth, should it become necessary.
We will certainly do our damnedest to make it so, or die trying.