ONE
A thin, tearing sound like the ripping of a thousand sheets of paper grew with lightning speed to a violent roar that brought Gerry Abrams to her feet.
"What the hell is that!" she exclaimed, running for the cabin door. She flung it open just in time to see the white-hot sword of fire cleave the night sky. It came down from right to left on an almost vertical trajectory, smashing into the ground. The noise was ear-splitting and she shook with the impact.
"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed. "Was that a meteor?"
Then all was dark and silent again.
Grabbing a flashlight from the mantle over the fireplace, Gerry excitedly ran out into the yard, turned around again and ran back into the cabin. Grabbing her leather coat and the keys out of her purse, she scolded: "Christ, Gerry! Lock yourself out!"
This time shutting the door behind her and making sure it was locked, Gerry hustled across the yard and down a narrow path. She directed the flashlight ahead, sweeping it all directions. There were bear in these woods, she knew, and bobcats too. . .she didn't want a run in, but she did want her story.
A print reporter for the New York Daily News, Gerry was in her fifth year in the trade. She hated the work almost as much as she hated her ex-husband, Tom, but this was the kind of story she craved.
"Crack Reporter Sole Witness to Giant Meteor's Fall!"
Only a crack reporter she was not and neither was the meteor a giant. If it were, she'd probably be dead.
102
Emerging from a stand of trees, and stopping for a moment to catch her breath, Gerry scanned the dimly star-lit valley below for smoke or fire. She saw a few wisps rising from the pine trees to her right, and headed resolutely off in that direction.
"Let there be something left," she muttered, tripping over a root. "I need a three-column picture."
Away from the path and into the pesky undergrowth, briars tore at Gerry's pants legs and scratched at her hands; boughs whipped and stung her face. "Ow!" she yelled, more than once. Once she dropped the flashlight and had to go after it on her hands and knees--momentarily it went out.
"Great! Lost in the woods!"
Here in the northern Adirondacks after fifty two weeks of constant reporting in order to wash the stink of slayings, scandals and corruption out of her mind (in her ex-husband's cabin), the last time she got "lost" in the woods, Gerry had squat down on poison ivy, going pee. The itch had driven her crazy, finally forcing her into town to see the doctor. What an ordeal
that
had been!
Before long she heard a crackle of flames and caught the smell of burning. She emerged a few minutes later into a hundred-foot round circle, crushed flat by the impact.
Wow, she reflected uneasily, it was bigger than I thought.
Brush, grass and leaves, set afire by the impact, burned fiercely around the edge of the crater, which was ten feet wide. Smoke caught her eyes and made Gerry blink. She coughed lightly. She hated smoke. He ex-husband smoked. Then she saw the rock.
Only it was not a rock at all.
Half-buried in the soft earth thrown out by the impact, the object was a glowing polyhedron. Its surface was covered in a multitude of tiny faceted flats, perfectly geometrical in shape. A polyhedron that had fallen from outer space.
Gerry Abrams stared. And she was scared. Backing slowly away, she saw a new headline blasting out:
"Reported Killed by Polyhedron From Outer Space! Earth Invaded!"
Gerry took another step back, then a tentative step in the direction of the object. She gulped and her throat made a loud click. Her throat was parched.
"What the hell is that?" she muttered.
Cautiously, she took a step closer, mindful of the heat. The ground around the object gave off tenuous streamers of steam and smoldered in places like a cigarette tip. The object glowed white hot, but it wasn't hot at all, Gerry discovered. The glow was illumination, not radiant heat.
"What the hell
is
this thing?" she demanded.
It was a satellite, of course. Russian, American, who knew? Maybe even Chinese. But the truth was--and Gerry very well knew it--that nothing coming through our atmosphere arrived unscathed--if it arrived at all. This thing was fully intact.
Coming to a sudden decision, Gerry backed away. It was too big--too big for her. Way too big for any one person. Yet she fully deserved to have her byline on this piece, and as long as her name appeared first, that was just fine. She needed an expert, and knew just where to find one.
103
Turning around, Gerry struggled back through the woods to the path then followed it up the slope. Once inside the cabin, she climbed the ladder to the loft and pulled her flight bag out from under the bed. She thumbed on her cell phone, waited for the familiar Verizon logo to appear then hoped for a signal. She saw one bar.
Taking a chance he'd be on his couch in his office at the observatory, dialing 411, Gerry gave the following information: "New York, New York. Dr. Ferdinand Peters. Manhattan University Observatory."
Waiting for the attendant to pick up, she picked anxiously at her teeth. She needed to pee. She squirmed having to hold it in. When the operator thanked her for waiting, she wrote the number down on the back of her hand and then dialed it.
"Hello?" The astronomer's voice was sleepy and irritated, but at least it was him and no one else.
"Hi," she said. "This is Gerry Abrams."
Before he could speak, Gerry went on:
"You remember me, right? The reporter who spilled vodka martini all over your clothes?"
Even as Gerry held her breath in a fearful limbo, Dr. Peter's said: "What do you want, Gerry? It's pretty late."
"Did you like the article on your solar flares?" she asked. "It was published last month." Again, she fingered her teeth. Her own color had flared and tears began to well.
Why did I call him?
"I remember it contained no less than thirty-three errors," Dr. Peters answered, somewhat acidly.
Gerry groaned. "No."
"Yes."
"You’re kidding."
"I wanted to review it first."
"I know," Gerry sighed. "I should have sent it down."
There was a moment's silence, during which Dr. Peters sighed. "I'm sorry," he said. "I should have called you."
You certainly should have. Aloud, Gerry said: "I found something, Pete."
"Found what?"
Gerry slowly explained. She tried not to sound too crazy. She tried not to sound insane.
After digesting her words, Dr. Peter's said: "I'm coming up. By plane, if I can get a flight." Peter's hated to fly "You wait there and we'll go out and look at this thing together. Does anyone else know?"
"If they do, I didn't tell them."
"Well, it had to be seen. Most likely there's hunter's out scouring for it now."
What Peters meant by "hunters" were the professional meteorite collectors. They chased down any significant fall for selling to the highest bidder. The hunters were hated by professional and amateur astronomers alike.
"We have to beat them there," Peters said.
TWO
In the early morning light, Gerry stood beside the small but immaculately kept runway at Lake George Lodge. Used mostly by local inhabitants, twice a year the lodge drew an influx of profession sportsmen, coinciding with the start of fishing season and the bass tournaments they spawned. Gerry had never fished, but she liked bass well enough. She waited for the plane.
Jesus, Gerry, she thought. You broke up his marriage.
So what, the unrepentant side of her said. If he didn't want to jump, he didn't have to.
But jump he had, and Gerry and Peter's spent three incredible months fucking madly, often at her cabin in the woods, sometimes even bothering to talk.
His wife has the kids. she thought.
