The Cloud - 7. Chapter 7

Coolgardie, Western Australia

Graves Estate

Kelly watched quietly as Graves worked. He might not be what was called a professional astronomer, but it was clear to her that he knew what he was doing.

Graves had archived images of the sky for every night since the object had first appeared that he used to create a track as the object as it moved through the Southern Cross and into Centaurus.

He did some calculations on a white board and ran a few programs in Mathmatica on one of the PCs. Finally, he said, “Kelly, I think that I’ve got some answers for you, but they’ll only raise more questions.”

Kelly turned on her tape recorder and said, “Go ahead, Bill.”

“The object seems to be approaching us from the general direction of Alpha Centauri. It’s moving very, very fast. Much faster than I’ve ever seen a natural object move. According to my calculations, it’s slowing down, and it is going to come very, very close to Earth.”

Kelly didn’t know what to say. “Bill, what does that mean?”

“I don’t know what it is, but it’s big- huge that I can see it so far out. It’s moving through a part of the Solar System that we call the Oort cloud. It’s going to make a close pass into the inner solar system and… Sorry, Kelly. I just don’t know. If you can wait until it’s a little darker, we’ll take a closer look at it with the big scope. Are you hungry?”

She hadn’t eaten since she had been on the plane. “Why yes, I am.”

Graves said, “Call your cameraman, and I’ll see what I can put together in my kitchen. By the time we eat, it’ll be dark enough for us to have a good look at your bogey.”

“Bogey?”

“Sorry. That’s from my years in the Air Force. It means unknown.”