They waited, tired eyes glued to radar screens and computer monitors, ears tuned to obnoxious sounds transmitted by sensing devices from orbiting satellites, tense, almost foreboding.

Major General Kurt Clemens bounced from station to station, fielding reports, scanning screens, evaluating, calculating.

The asteroid’s progress had surprised them. All calculations had fixed its nearest approach to Earth at over half a million miles. Close, but not alarmingly dangerous. It was streaking along a path over twice the distance to the moon. A near miss when compared to the size of the universe, but hardly significant when considering it was only a five-mile diameter object going by half a million miles away. A mere speck flying by, some would say.

Others would point out that an object that large, traveling close to 80,000 miles per hour, hitting the Earth, could destroy mankind, just as the dinosaurs were destroyed by a similar incident. An impact of such enormous magnitude, either on land or water, would throw up enough debris into the atmosphere to cool the planet enough to bring on another ice age, not even considering the earthquakes and tidal waves that would surely be generated.

At two million miles a strange reading was received from one of the satellites. The reading said the object exhibited an extraordinary gravitational pull for something its size; over ten times the expected amount. Calculations were refigured based on the new data.

Silent alarms went off in many minds when the results were tabulated. The object’s trajectory was being drastically influenced by the Moon. The possibility of a collision was likely. What would that do? Ten times the gravitational pull meant many times the density and weight. Could it crack the Moon, some wondered? The scientists said no; but the impact would surely cause havoc, ripping a huge crater on the moon’s surface, and blasting pieces into space.

The generally accepted rumor was that the Moon would forever be surrounded by clouds of dust and probably end up with rings of dust and rocks, similar to Saturn. The scientists knew better; the moon doesn’t revolve on its axis, therefore, no rings.

Did that matter? Not to the General. To him, the Moon was just a rock that looked like a piece of cheese. It would just be a fancier looking chunk of cheese.

The speculation soon went asunder; the asteroid was going to miss the moon by over 1,000 miles. Tensions relaxed. Idle whispered chatter skittered from station to station as the operators wound down from several hours of tense, nail-biting work.

Then, Victor Schwartz, astrological project head, furiously pouring over charts and figures revealed some unexpected news; the object’s path had been so altered that it would sweep within twenty thousand miles of the Earth. What will that hurt? No problem with the main object, but the thousands of small bits and pieces traveling with it, forming a tail over a million miles long, would probably sweep into the extreme edge of the Earth’s atmosphere. And? Probably just a spectacular meteor shower. Smaller pieces would burn as they streaked through the air, but larger pieces could reach the ground with unpredictable, possibly devastating results.

All eyes focused on the screens again. Nothing of any significant size was spotted. Two long hours crawled by. Still nothing of any consequence.

Another confusing signal was received from one of the satellites; an unusual radiation was being detected. Nothing like the scientists had ever seen before. It was very, very weak, fluctuating in intensity and frequency as if emitting an intelligent signal.

More discussions took place. No one had any ideas other than if one of the fragments actually reached the Earth, it would have to be found and studied. Until then, they could only wait and watch . . .