Time. Stephen Baxter

– that there were beings, far beyond this place and time, trying to signal to the past, to her, through this lashed-up physics equipment?

      Was Cornelius right? Right about everything? Right, too, about the Carter catastrophe, the coming extinction of them all?

      It couldn’t be true. It was insanity. An infection of schizophrenia from Cornelius, that was damaging them all.

      Malenfant, of course, was hooked. She knew him well enough to understand he would be unable to resist this new adventure, wherever it took him.

      And how, she wondered, was she going to be able to persuade him to do any work at all, after this?

      3 7 5 3

      1 9 8 6 3 7 5 3 1 9 8 6 …

      Reid Malenfant:

      The puzzle of the Feynman radio message nagged at Malenfant, even as he threw himself into his myriad other projects. He would write out the numbers on a pad, or have them scroll up on a softscreen. He tried taking the numbers apart: factorizing them, multiplying them, dividing one by the other.

      He got nowhere.

      Cornelius Taine was equally frustrated. He would call Malenfant at odd time-zoned hours. Mathematics, even numerology, must be the wrong approach.

      ‘Why?’

      What do you know about math, Malenfant? Remember the nature of the signal we’re dealing with here. Remember that the downstreamers are trying to communicate with us – specifically, with you.

      ‘Me?’

      Yes. You’re the decision-maker here. There has to be some simple meaning in these numbers for you. Just look at the numbers, Cornelius urged. Don’t think too hard. What do they look like?

      1 9 8 6

      3 7 5 3

      ‘Umm, 1986 could be a date.’

      A date?

      1986: the year of Challenger and Chernobyl, a first overseas posting for a young pilot called Reid Malenfant. ‘It wasn’t the happiest year in history, but nothing so special for me … Hey. Cornelius. Could 3753 also represent a date?’ His skin prickled. ‘The 38th century – Christ, Cornelius, maybe that’s the true date of the Carter catastrophe.’

      Cornelius’s softscreen image, slightly blurred, showed him frowning. It’s possible, but any date after a couple of centuries is very unlikely. Anything else?

      ‘No. Keep thinking, Cornelius.’

       Yes…

      And Malenfant would roll up the softscreen and return to his work, or try to sleep.

      Until the day came when Cornelius, in person, burst into a BDB project progress meeting.

      It was an airless Portakabin at the Mojave test site. Malenfant was with George Hench, poring over test results and subcontractor signoffs. And suddenly there was Cornelius: hot, dishevelled, pink with sunburn, tie knot loosened, white gypsum staining his lower legs, clinging to the fabric of his suit pants.

      Malenfant couldn’t keep from laughing. ‘Cornelius, at last I’ve seen you out of control.’

      Cornelius was panting. ‘I have it. The numbers. The Feynman numbers. I figured it out, Malenfant. And it changes everything.’

      Despite the heat of the day, Malenfant felt goosebumps rise on his bare arms.

      He made Cornelius sit down, take his jacket off, drink some water.

      Cornelius brusquely cleared clutter from the tabletop – battered softscreens, quality forms, a progress chart labelled with bars and arrows, old-fashioned paper blueprints, sandwich wrappers and beer cans – and he spread his own softscreen over the desk.

      ‘It was staring us in the face the whole time,’ Cornelius said. ‘I knew it had to be connected to you, Malenfant, to your interests. Your obsessions, even. And it had to be something you could act on now. And what –’ he waved a hand ‘– could be a grander obsession than this, your asteroid mission?’

      George Hench paced around the room, visibly unhappy.

      Cornelius glanced up at George. ‘Look, I’m sorry to disrupt your work.’

      George glared. ‘Malenfant, do we have to put up with this bull?’

      ‘Whatever it is, it ain’t bull, George. I’ve seen the set-up –’

      ‘Malenfant, I spent my career fending off handwaving artistes like this guy. Colour co-ordinators. Feng Shui artists. Even astrologers, for Christ’s sake. Sometimes I think the US is going back to the Middle Ages.’

      Malenfant said gently, ‘George, there was no US in the Middle Ages.’

      ‘Malenfant, we have a job to do here. A big job. We’re going to a fucking asteroid. All I’m saying is, you need to focus on what’s important here.’

      ‘I accept that, George. But I have to tell you I’ve come to believe there’s nothing so important as the downstreamers’ message. If it’s real.’

      Oh, it’s real,’ Cornelius said fervently. ‘And what it means is that you’re going to have to redirect your mission.’ Cornelius eyed George. ‘Away from Reinmuth.’

      George visibly bristled. ‘Now, you listen to me –’

      Malenfant held up a hand. ‘Let’s hear him out, George.’

      Cornelius tapped at his softscreen. ‘When I began to wonder if the numbers referred to an asteroid, I thought 1986 might be a discovery date. So I logged onto the Minor Planet Center in Massachusetts.’ A table of numbers and letters scrolled down the screen; the first column, of four digits and two letters, all began with ‘1986’. ‘This is a list of all the asteroids first reported in 1986. This first code is a provisional designation –’

      ‘What do the letters mean?’

      ‘The first shows the half-month when the asteroid was discovered. The second is the order of discovery in that half-month. So 1986AA is the first asteroid to be discovered in the first half of January, 1986.’

      Malenfant eyed the numbers with dismay. ‘Shit. There must be dozens, just for 1986.’

      ‘More in later years; asteroid watches have got better …’

      ‘So which one is ours?’

      Cornelius smiled and pointed to the second column. ‘As soon as enough observations have been accumulated to determine the asteroid’s orbit, it is given an official designation, a permanent number, and sometimes a name.’

      The official numbers, Malenfant saw with growing excitement, were in the range 3700–3800. Cornelius scrolled down, until he came to a highlighted line.

      1986TO 3753 0.484 1.512 0.089 ….

      The key numbers jumped out at Malenfant. 1986 3753.

      ‘Holy shit,’ he said. ‘It’s there. It’s real.’

      ‘Not only that,’ said Cornelius. ‘This little baby, 1986TO, is like no other asteroid in the Solar System.’

      ‘How so?’

      Cornelius smiled. ‘It’s Earth’s second Moon. And nobody knows how it got there.’

      George Hench stomped out to ‘go bend some tin’, glaring at Cornelius as he did so.

      Cornelius, unperturbed, called up more softscreen data and told Malenfant what little was known about asteroid number 3753.

      ‘3753 is not in the main belt. In fact, it’s a near-Earth object, like Reinmuth.