Utopia - By Isaac Asimov,Roger E. Allen Page 0,81

from tens of millions of kilometers away. It also happens to be a rather dark body-and at its present distance, it has a very low apparent magnitude."

"You're saying it's too dim to see? But you saw it before-or at least the computers and the telescopes did."

"It's not impossible to see. But it's very dim and small and far away and with a very small lateral motion. And it's not just a question of seeing it once. We have to get repeated, accurate measures of its position and trajectory before we can reconstruct the orbit."

"But what about when it gets closer? Won't it develop a tail and all the rest of it? Surely that will make it easier to spot."

"By which time it will be too late. Grieg is a dark-body comet. The comet will be too close, and if it has developed much of a tail, that will mean it is starting to melt. If it gets too warm and melts too much, it will be too fragile to hold together during the course correction. Part of the plan I hadn't worked out yet was shielding from the sun. I was going to come up with some kind of parasol, a shield to keep the sunlight off."

"But there's a chance," said Kresh. "At least there is some sort of chance we could reacquire the comet if we tried." There was a brief moment of quiet again before the governor's voice spoke again. "Here's what we're going to do," he said. "We're going to keep everything moving forward, based on the assumption that we do reacquire the comet, and that we will decide to go forward with the diversion and the impact. We need to move forward on as many fronts as possible, as fast as possible, and I need some work out of you, right now.

"First I want you to set down the closest approximations you can of the mass, size, position, and trajectory of Comet Grieg. Even rough figures will give us someplace to start in planning for the impact itself. Send that information at once to my data mailbox. Then you are going to get to work at once organizing a search to reacquire Comet Grieg. I will instruct your superiors to give you whatever resources and personnel you need for the job. Tell them as much as you can about the comet. But get that started-and let someone else run it. Because I want you to get to work trying to recover your computer files. Maybe they're not as lost as we think. There must be something, somewhere-at least enough to give some leads to the team doing the telescope search. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir. Sir-if I might ask a question?"

"Yes, of course, Dr. Lentrall."

"I get the impression that you've become more convinced that the plan might work."

"That I have, Dr. Lentrall. I've seen and heard quite a bit here about your plan. Enough to make me think we just can't live without it. Was there anything else?"

"Not at the moment, sir. I'll be in touch."

"You certainly will," the governor replied, with just the slightest hint of humor in his voice. "Kresh out."

The line went dead.

That should have been his cue to swing into action, but instead, Davlo simply stared at the speaker, expressionless. After what seemed a very long time indeed, he finally stirred himself into action. He set down all he could recall of his comet data, as accurately as possible, knowing full well that the margin of error in most of his figures would render them close to useless. He sent a copy of it off to Kresh's data mailbox, and another off to the head of the astronomy department, asking for whatever help he could get. Of course, Davlo knew perfectly well that the department head absolutely refused to accept any after-hours calls. She would not get the message until morning. But still, best to have it done.

Simple enough jobs, both of them, but they seemed to take an inordinately long time-and to take a great deal out of Davlo. After the day he had had, there was not really a great deal left to take. When he was at last done with the messages, he did not get up. Instead he sat there, unable to rouse himself. There was a lot more he ought to do, but Davlo Lentrall could not quite bring himself to move. Not quite yet.

It was that hour of the night when rational thought seems most unreasonable, when