Panspermia Deorum by Hylton Smith Read Free Book Online

southern hemisphere.
Julien called Brandt.
    “We have a
conspiracy of some kind in our midst. The values indicating a
change in trajectory of Chocolate Orange are false. That’s the end
of the good news. The sophistication of embedding such marginal
changes can only have been to cause division in our efforts and
foster the belief that there would be no impact in 2039. The
question is – who would be both capable and evil enough to do this?
Anyway, I don’t have to go to South Africa, they have cleaned up
their system on my recommendation. I’m going to detour to Lyon, as
I have some serious family issues to tackle. I’ll have to leave the
detective work to you and the security people, but it did occur to
me that you might want to check out our previously employed
dissenting personnel, all of whom you fired when you put me in
charge of both the Mars mission and the asteroid deflection
programme. I should also say that this has created one other
spin-off challenge. The bogus trajectory values forced me to focus
more intently on the interconnections of the two projects. You
decided to stick with the 2033 Mars launch date, and I now suggest
that we alter the planned back-up missions from colonisation
objectives to survival shuttles. If for some reason we fail to
deflect the asteroid, and the new Martians can no longer depend on
Earth assistance, we should ensure they have life necessities for
years ahead, not merely prescribed scientific objectives. They
deserve the opportunity to exercise creativity with regard to what
they find on Mars. It could be very different from what we think we
know. Also, this would allow me to narrow down the research
channels for the deflection programme. The sheer number of
permutations we are wrestling with at present cannot be sustained.
Perhaps if we hadn’t been confronted with these bogus values, I
wouldn’t have had to conduct such a fundamental root and branch
analysis so soon. I’ll work on the additional expertise we need to
reduce our effort from multiple to dual strategies for deflection
while I’m in France. Of course, we still have to build a nuclear
arsenal in case it all comes down to an Alamo situation.”
    “Good work,
Julien. I’ll pull in the head of security immediately. Keep in
touch.”
    *
    Another long
flight provided Julien with space to search his heart as well as
his head. He even contemplated the possibility that he didn’t
actually realise precisely how much stress he was suffering. He
seemed incapable of reasoning with his wife, apparently his
daughter was on the edge of suicide, and his only ally within the
family was Eugene. But his son could offer nothing more than tacit
support, because he himself had been accused of being unsympathetic
to Sophie’s condition. His sister-in-law, Geraldine, had somehow
managed to stay neutral in this domestic disintegration. Julien had
religiously reminded himself that he must stay focussed on his
remit, whatever else he did. Otherwise, his family would simply be
claimed along with the rest of the human race. He’d briefly
considered marriage counselling, but at the same time thought it
would have all the hallmarks of capitulation. His entire life had
been plagued with setbacks; how they were dealt with was the making
of a person, so that should be his watchword. His wife really ought
to understand this, everyone else did. But then again there was his
little girl, she was in serious trouble, and he conceded that such
draconian self-analysis had to be guided by compassion as well as
logic. Why had he really taken on the role of saving the world?
There were other people with pretty much the same expertise. Was
there an element of wanting to be needed? Was that what Elise was
feeling too? His mental gymnastics had failed, as the plane began
its descent into Paris. He had the train journey to Lyon to
convince himself that he could turn a problem into an
opportunity.
    *
    The high speed
train metronomic acoustics threw out an