The Twins Paradox by Alan Gasparutti (best contemporary novels txt) 📖

/> “Steve was telling everybody what a great job you and Corny did in diverting the asteroid into an orbital mode,” Frank told him. “No-one could decide what to call it, so someone suggested to offer one of the NASA crew the option of naming it.”
“What did they name the asteroid, or should I say the new moon?” Clint queried.
“Jenna, after Corny’s sister,” explained Frank.
“I remember Corny speaking to me about his sister,” said Clint, as it brought back a few memories of the mission.
“Do you ever hear from Corny?” Clint asked Frank. “How is he these days?”
“Apparently he’s okay,” replied Frank. “I haven’t actually spoken to him, but Steve keeps in touch with him.”
“How is Steve, by the way?” asked Clint.” Did he get your old job in the end?”
“No,” said Frank. “Apparently, they haven’t yet decided on my successor. The last I heard, NASA were holding second interviews. They’re certainly taking their time over this.”
“I can’t say I’m the best person to comment, but I’d have thought Steve would have been as good as anyone to fill your role,” said Clint. “I mean, he was your right hand man.”
“One of my right hand men,” Frank emphasised. “Mind you, I can’t help thinking he knew too much.”
“In what way?” asked Clint.
“I can’t really say right now,” Frank replied, before looking at his watch. “Come on, I think we’d better get a move on.”
Along the way Clint couldn’t help but be inquisitive, and kept asking what it was Steve knew too much about. Frank was reluctant to say too much, but at the same time felt Clint should know about this.
“I want this to be kept between us, do you understand?” Frank said to Clint, who by now was becoming more inquisitive. “Steve and I looked at the film of the asteroid from your shuttle destroyer. We both agreed that the asteroid seemed to be moving into orbit before the missile exploded on approach.”
“Why do you think that is?” asked Clint. “Could it have been the Earth’s gravity pulling it into orbit?”
“Possibly, though I doubt it, not from that distance,” said Frank.
“What about the missile?” asked Clint. “Perhaps the force of the missile, or possibly the shuttle destroyer herself, helped deflect the asteroid.”
“I doubt it, although we agreed there may have been a slight possibility that it was deflected by a combination of all three,” said Frank.
“But you believe it may have been something more suspicious?” queried Clint.
“There was something strange about that asteroid,” Frank replied. “The speed it first travelled at, the fact that it reduced speed on several occasions. It just doesn’t add up.”
“What about the shuttle’s camera?” asked Clint. “Could it have moved away from the asteroid as I swung the ‘shuttle around to avoid the explosion.”
“The camera was mobile, and geared to maintain focus on the asteroid,” explained Frank.
“I realise that, but I did take a sharp swing away from the asteroid,” Clint replied. “Perhaps that may have dislodged the camera slightly.”
“There was no sign of this on the monitor, though I can’t rule that out,” said Frank. “There was something suspicious about the asteroid. Can you remember precisely when the asteroid moved into orbit?”
“No I’m afraid I can’t,” said Clint. “I was too busy trying to maintain control of the shuttle as we swung around quickly at a tight angle. The only person who may have noticed something was Corny.”
“Steve’s asked him about that a few times,” said Frank. ”Apparently, he seems to think the asteroid’s trajectory did change slightly before the missile exploded, but he can’t be sure. He was more concerned and with strapping himself in while you swung the shuttle away from the asteroid.”
“And getting away of course,” added Clint.
“Of course,” said Frank. “By the time Corny looked at the asteroid monitor again, he thinks it may have been on a slightly different trajectory, but by this time he wasn’t really interested in the asteroid anymore.”
“Didn’t anyone at mission control notice the asteroid’s movements?” asked Clint. “Surely someone at NASA must have been watching the monitor at the time.”
“You’d have thought so,” said Frank. “I seem to recall slight drifting of the asteroid, but once the missile was fired, our screens were focused on the shuttle. We were more concerned with you and Corny getting away. Besides, the camera was focused at the asteroid and moved in whichever direction the asteroid moved in.”
“So you wouldn’t have really noticed anything,” said Clint.
“Until Steve and I looked at the pictures in slow motion,” said Frank. “That’s when we noticed stars in the background moving.”
“And that’s how you determined that the asteroid had moved from it’s original trajectory,” Clint said presumptuously. “Did you report this to anyone?”
“We couldn’t,” Frank told him. “We only looked at the film the day after I was ordered to close the case on the asteroid. Oh, by the way, if anyone asks you about this, you never heard any of it from me.”
“Well, as it happens, someone from Defence asked me about the asteroid,” confessed Clint. “I said I couldn’t recall the asteroid changing course prior to the missile exploding.”
“Well I suggest you stick to that story, if anyone asks again,” replied Frank.

Frank and Clint soon changed the subject, on their long journey to Colorado. By midday, they had crossed the border into New Mexico, and stopped for lunch just outside El Paso. Clint then took to the wheel for the next part of the journey, which saw them change highways. They could see the land rising steadily, with mountains in the background, and were now directly on course for Colorado.
It wasn’t until almost seven o’clock that evening, however, that they finally arrived at Clint’s house, just outside Colorado Springs. Their wives came to greet them, as the sun went down.
“How would you both like a treat tonight?” Jeanette asked them.
Frank, Clint and his wife Mary looked at eachother, a little uncertain.
“Would you all like to come for a meal tonight?” Jeanette asked. “It’ll be on me, as a reward for a long day’s slog behind the wheel.”
“Thanks for the offer, honey, but Clint and me are exhausted,” Frank said to her. “You don’t mind if we make it tomorrow?”
“If you’d prefer it tomorrow,” Jeanette replied. “I just thought you’d like a nice beefsteak, before all that shifting about tomorrow.”
“I’ll go and order a couple of pizza’s for delivery instead, or would you rather have a Tex-Mex?” suggested Mary.
“Can you make it pizza, kitten, as we had a chilli and beef on the journey,” replied Clint. “Oh, and could you get us a glass of wine, please.”
Frank and Clint were just happy to sit down and rest themselves. It had been a long day, and with the midday sun shining on them for much of it. They had become rather de-hydrated and exhausted, and soon fell asleep. They had to be awoken a couple of times after the pizza delivery had arrived, and didn’t manage to finish their portions, before falling asleep again.

Frank and Clint had another heavy schedule ahead of them the following day, transporting the furniture to from Clint’s house to Frank’s newly-acquired house high in the hills. To make things easier, Clint, who kept in contact with friends from the US Air Academy nearby, had arranged for a couple of men to come and help with the task-in-hand.
It was hard work moving the furniture and possessions, though not as de-hydrating as the previous day’s journey from Texas. They were now in the Rockies, where the mountains ensured a fresher atmosphere. By mid afternoon, everything had been unloaded, and after a cup of coffee, they sorted and moved everything around. Jeanette then took them back into town that evening for the meal she had promised the previous day.
“It’s rather fresh, don’t you think?” Jeanette said to Frank, after they had waved goodbye to Clint and Mary in the restaurant car park that night. “I wasn’t expecting it to be like this at night.”
“It is a bit fresh, but I shouldn’t worry,” said Frank. “At least it isn’t as stifling as it was back at Houston, even at this time of year.”
“You may have thick skin, but I feel the cold more,” Jeanette replied.
“We’re in the mountains now, it’s bound to be fresh at night,” said Frank. “It also gets fresh at night by the coast, even in California or Florida.”
“Not as fresh as this,” insisted Jeanette.
“Oh, I think you’ve forgotten what it can be like,” Frank said to her. “Anyway, at least we’re in no danger of any hurricanes here.”
“What have hurricanes got to do with this?” Jeanette asked as she and Frank got into their Dodge 4 by 4 motor.
“Hurricanes are an annual event in Florida, and the way this world’s heading at the moment, the hurricane season is likely to spread over larger areas,” Frank emphasised to her. “You saw what happened to New Orleans. One day, a hurricane like that will sweep parts of Houston.”
“You won’t get hurricanes in California,” Jeanette replied.
“I know, and you won’t get a hurricane season in Colorado, either,” said Frank. “We’d have been twice as far from our families if we’d have moved to California.”
“But that’s not the point,” Jeanette responded. “Besides, living twice as far from our families today doesn’t really matter anymore. We can speak to them by phone or mobile, or write to them on the internet.”
“And no doubt we will maintain close contact with our families,” said Frank. “If we wanted to visit them though, it’s bad enough driving between here and Houston, let alone from California.”
“You won’t get me driving to Houston. Or Dallas,” replied Jeanette. “It would be much easier to fly, and not too expensive either.”
“Don’t start that, honey, you know how I feel about flying right now,” Frank said to her. “Let’s just look forward for now. We’ve got the rest of our lives ahead of us. You’ve only just turned 50 and I’m 52. I could still stand for president in ten years time. We could go cruising around the world.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Jeanette sighed.
“Of course I am, honey,” said Frank. “Let’s settle down here first, and if things could be better, we’ve still got plenty of time to go somewhere else later. And if you’re feeling cold at night, I’ll always be around to snuggle up with.”
That cheered Jeanette up, not that she was upset, but it took a while before she became used to the fresh air at night. She and Frank settled down to their new lives over the next few months, though it was not until the following Spring brought warmer weather that Jeanette fully acclimatised.
Frank, meanwhile, was enjoying every minute of being free of NASA, but still went regularly to the Pikes Peak observatory to see the universe. Sometimes he took Jeanette, and often went with Clint, where the two of them focused most attention on the new moon, Jenna. Not the most obvious object in the universe, you may think, but one in which Frank and Clint had been absorbed by over the past 12 months.
As Frank and Clint looked closely at Jenna, they noticed some spots of light. They noticed that these occurred at the same positions on each cycle of the new moon, and wondered what they could be. Perhaps they were bright spots reflected by the sun’s light. Or could they be something else altogether?
Clint emailed NASA to notify them of their observations, to which he received a brief reply thanking him for the information and that it would be investigated ’in due course’.