The Meeting: Never Too Late

    "So," said Drachir. "The media are calling the thing that's supposed to hit the Earth tonight a 'giant dust bunny.'"
    Rex winced.
    "Dust bunnies in space!" Jerry intoned theatrically.
    "It's a lot less dense than anything you'd find under Jerry's bed," said Rex. Or on it, added Rex mentally.
    "Or on it," said Benny out loud.
    "Basically," Rex continued, "some of the zodiacal dust has risen above and below the disk, possibly propelled by electrostatic forces, and it's headed our way. I predict it will consist of the special kind of dust." He waved the little sample of museum dust.
    "They say if you're someplace really dark you might be able to see a faint glow in the sky," said Drachir.
    "If it's a natural phenomenon, that's probably all we'll see," said Rex. "However, if it's not, if it's Them, well, it's pretty big. It'd be the biggest thing we've ever seen Them do."
    "By far," said Drachir.
    "The Aerospace Force will have stratosphere drones collecting samples," said Rex. "But I think it'd be good to have a few of us positioned where we can observe. Just in case something happens. I was thinking of camping out in that big meadow on the south face of Mt. Shaovar."
    "Where the university observatory is?" said Drachir.
    "Yeah. Down the slope from there. The cloud is too diffuse to really see much with a telescope. If it's the sort of thing we've been...," anticipating/dreading/hoping for all these years, thought Rex, "considering might happen," he continued out loud, "it'll probably be an eyeball event."
    "Okay," said Drachir. "You and who else?"
    "I'd like Ronnie to be there with me," said Rex
    "Oo, how romantic," said Ronnie.
    "Ronnie? What do you need Ronnie for?" said Drachir.
    Rex paused, a little flustered by Ronnie's comment. He hadn't realized he was being that obvious. Then he decided he didn't like the tone of Drachir's question. Of them all, Ronnie had the least actual data to work with in her specialty. Ronnie was a xenologist, basically a sociologist/anthropologist specializing in Their society. Unfortunately, they had next to no information on how the They behaved among themselves. Even Harmony, a xenolinguist, had recorded samples of the Their writing to work with. Ronnie's work was almost entirely speculative.
    "Um, in case, if there's some kind of interaction, Ronnie could help me. Us," Rex stammered.
    "Okay, you, Ronnie, who else?" said Drachir.
    Rex hadn't been intending that anyone else be assigned to Mt. Shaovar. He'd been going to suggest that other members of Mal's team be posted at strategic locations elsewhere. Now, he didn't want it to look too much like he was trying to get alone with Ronnie. However, he didn't really want the others there, either. He hesitated.
    "We might want some Intelligence on hand, especially if there might be some kind of interaction," said Mal the Intel Op, grinning maliciously. He looked at Ronnie, and she returned his grin.
    "Okay, Rex, Ronnie, Mal, anyone else?" said Drachir.
    "How about Harmony, since she's not going to Washington? If there's going to be some kind of interaction, we might need somebody to translate," said Mal. He exchanged another smile with Harmony, his more tender this time, hers shy but pleased.
    "How about Justin?" said Ronnie, watching Rex.
    "Er...whu...Ju...," said Rex. Ronnie looked amused.
    "Sure," said Justin. "I didn't have anything planned for midnight."
    "It's never too late for Company work," said Drachir.
    "I know," said Justin resignedly.
    "What do we need Justin for?" said Rex, more to Ronnie than anyone else.
    "You said the circuitry was organic. He could be more use to you than I am," said Ronnie.
    "No he isn't!" said Rex. Ronnie, Mal, Jerry and Benny laughed out loud. Rex felt his face getting hot.
    "So, we've got Rex, Ronnie, Mal, Harm, and Justin on Mt. Shaovar at midnight, unless Rex has any objections," said Drachir. More laughter.
    "No. Fine," Rex gasped.
    "Jerry's group are going to Washington. Harmony's staying here to research those break-ins. Ronnie, you mind helping her with that?"
    "Not at all. It's actually the biggest clue to Their behavior I've gotten in a while," said Ronnie.
    "Thanks. Mal and Rex are at the university with me this morning. Rex is at Long Ley this afternoon. Mal, you mind going back out to the construction site this afternoon, see if you get any follow-ups on those rumors?" said Drachir, referring to Mal's "day job," working for the construction company that served as a cover for one of the Company's pet street gangs -- a cover for the cover's cover.
    "I suppose. I hope there aren't going to be any accidents today," said Mal.
    "Not in twenty years. We'll discuss insurance policies later," said Drachir. Mal perked up. "Justin..." Drachir began. He glanced back at the museum dust sample Rex still held. "That dust is older than two days, isn't it?" Drachir asked.
    "I said in the report a couple weeks ago...," Rex began.
    "Yeah, I remember now," said Drachir. Nearly all the samples of Their technology the Company had recovered to date had broken down into their component atoms after about two days. That was one reason the Company had never gone public with their findings. "Justin, want to see what you can find out about it? It might help with your observations tonight."
    "Sure," said Justin.
    "Okay, I think we've all got enough to keep us busy until tomorrow. Let's go," said Drachir.
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The Meeting: Space Dustup

  "Okay Rex," said Drachir. "Go. Space dust."
  "Well, first, let me talk about some Earth dust," said Rex. He took a small plastic sample bag out of his pocket. The bag contained a quantity of what looked like ordinary household dust. "This is something the Tech department recently whipped up. I believe Charles helped." Charles made a little mock-bow in his seat. Rex continued, "It may not look like much, but this is a surveillance camera, recorder, and transmitter. The thing about it that I'm interested in is the optical properties." Using his Blacknet cell phone, Rex put some displays up on the big screen. "Here's the spectroscopic analysis of the index of refraction at various wavelengths. This diagram uses the refraction data to ray-trace the internal path of the incident light. As you can see, it's focused internally on the phototransistor grid."
  Rex took another sample bag out of his pocket. This one contained just a pinch of dust, darker than the first sample. "This was recovered in the BSU museum after the recent bogey sighting," said Rex. He flash more displays on the big screen. "The optical properties are very interesting. Even though the index of refraction is higher than in our dust..."
  "That's pretty high," said Charles. "It looks like...is it diamond?"
  "I believe it is high-quality synthetic diamond. Flawless, as near as I can tell. As you can see, the ray-tracing diagram shows that in the museum sample the light is also focused internally, on something that just might be an image raster. The image raster is composed of and is connected to a complex of organic compounds that may represent some kind of organic circuitry. Justin, you've looked into that. Do you concur?"
  "I can give you a definite maybe," said Justin. "It could be some kind of circuitry."
  "I can't show you the third sample," said Rex. "It was collected in aerogel by a stratospheric drone. Most of it looks like ordinary space dust, but one grain in ten thousand matches our possible surveillance dust here. Spectroscopic analysis of grains in space suggests that a similar ratio matches the museum dust sample."
  "Wasn't there supposed to be a space probe that was going to take samples of the dust orbiting the sun?" asked Benny. "Whatever happened to that?"
  Rex glanced down, dreading what would come next. He would have to answer Benny's question, then he and Charles would get into it..
  Drachir shifted irritably in his seat. He saw it coming, too.
  "It was canceled because NSA needed the funds for the Mars mission," said Rex.
  "You know...," Charles began. Drachir folded his arms and gave a small, impatient grunt. "...for what we're spending on the manned Mars mission, we could cover the planet with rovers and flying drones."
  "We need to learn how to survive in space," said Rex. "All our eggs are in one basket -- the Earth. If something happens to the Earth, the human race is doomed."
  The lights flickered briefly, and the surge protectors in the building bleeped as they registered a power glitch.
  "That's been happening a lot lately," said Mal, frowning.
  "Power distribution on the East Coast has pretty much been taken over by Plenty, Incorporated," said Charles.
  "That's the AmCap subsidiary?" said Drachir. AmCap was somewhat notorious for dealing with quality issues by arranging for big campaign donations to be given to interested politicians.
  "Yeah," said Charles. "They're pretty big in the Midwest, too."
  "I thought deregulation was supposed to foster competition," said Mal.
  "Plenty's pretty much out-competed everyone else," said Charles.
  "We're getting well beyond the scope of this meeting," said Drachir. "Can we get back to the topic at hand?"
  "I don't think we're ready for a manned mission to Mars," said Charles. Drachir put his hand over his eyes. "I think we should go in with the Russians on their space resort project."
  "That's just for a bunch of rich fat cats who think the Mile High Club isn't exclusive enough any more!" said Rex. "There isn't going to be any science being done there!"
  "I have to admit, the only space science I've seen recently that actually required humans to be in space involved studying humans in space," said Benny.
  "You're not helping," said Rex.
  "Rex, why don't you drop by Long Ley this afternoon and see how the mission planning is coming along," said Drachir. "You can take the tilt-rotor and be back here tonight for the light show."
  Rex bit back an intemperate reply. Long Ley Aerospace Force Base was all the way out on the coast, three hundred miles away. Even with the Company tilt-rotor, that was an hour out and an hour back. Plus, while he was intensely interested in the mission itself, he hated talking to the bureaucrats in charge. They didn't really understand what was at stake. "Do you still want me at the university this morning?" he asked.
  "Of course," said Drachir with what surely wasn't a sadistic little smile.
  Damn busy day, Rex thought. However, the thing with Dr. Reimer's lab intrigued him. Up until now it had seemed that Drachir had been keeping Rex away from the stasis field investigation, which was odd, since of all the operatives he knew about, Rex had the most relevant knowledge second only to Reimer himself. Now that Drachir was letting him in on it, Rex really couldn't say no. So he decided not to complain about the day's workload.
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Author's note: Wikipedia on optical lens design, digital cameras, the stratosphere.
Using aerogel to collect space dust.
Surveillance dust. A more advanced and paranoid version. If this guy's right the transparent society is already here, at least for some people.
Best argument for manned space flight that I could find. If you think that's lame, you should have seen the others. On the other hand, this critique of the US space shuttle and the ISS raises some pretty damning points.
Electricity deregulation -- the energy corporations are all for it, of course, but other people have found the results disappointing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/11/AR2006031101603.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0425/p02s01-usec.html
This may be because power generation and distribution may be natural monopolies. If one company can supply power for a lower price than two companies can, then competition can never get started. The results achieved by electricity deregulation -- the failure of meaningful competition to arise -- suggest that electricity is indeed a natural monopoly, as economists have long suspected.
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