Free Panspermia Deorum by Hylton Smith

first place? He hadn’t forgotten the duplicity of
NERO when they hung him out to dry. Perhaps with the assistance of
Ivan Kolorov he could meet the new deadline of 2031. At least he
now had no need to convince Brandt that they should monitor the
asteroid from Mars space, as he had already come to that decision
of his own volition.
    *
    Unknown to any
of the organisations which would make up the reconstituted clique,
Chocolate Orange was hurtling through the silent blackness of the
Cosmos bearing a scar. The altercation which shifted it to an
impact path with Earth involved an unregistered comet, from the
Kuiper belt. Julien had known of some collision for some time now,
but not precisely where it occurred, nor exactly which kind of
cosmic object it was. Its remains were embedded into the asteroid,
like a cuckoo in a happenchance nest.
    *
    Brandt’s
announcement of the decoy Mars listening post deception was allowed
to ferment before he offered Ivan Kolorov a key position in VB
Aerospace’s genuine mission to set foot on another planet. The
Russian was only too happy to consider joining Brandt, giving the
impression that Soyuz was about to conduct a thorough security
x-ray of their entire operation. Presumably this was required
before rolling out details of the changes needed to comply with
their altered launch plan.
    Kolorov
accepted Brandt’s offer almost immediately, in fact, a little too
easily for the German’s liking, not asking for many of the usual
assurances for such a post. But in fairness, he had to concede that
it would be better to take the guy on before he would have to
spring VB’s new launch date in 2031 on the unsuspecting Russian.
Kolorov would have to accept such ‘insanity’ just as Julien
had.
    Brandt hadn’t
yet ruled out that Kolorov’s haste may be explained by him being a
double agent, but he’d get an inkling of that when the reaction of
Soyuz was analysed. The stakes were so high that Brandt had to be a
willing participant in a poker game which was rigged by every
player.
    His patience
paid off. Soyuz hit him with every legal challenge in the book. It
would take months to even get to an international court, which
meant Kolorov was unable to take up employment with VB Aerospace,
yet couldn’t continue to work for Soyuz either. The bigger loser
was Soyuz. Brandt had bought a fresh delay for the Russian launch
without having to pay anything upfront. He came over as being
devastated when he told Julien that his new recruit was on hold.
They had to move on and begin the search for other candidates.
    Things got even
better when global polls showed VB Aerospace as the most trusted
outfit in tackling both the Mars project and preventing Armageddon.
This would go a long way to Brandt being officially asked to share
his vision with the world, and ultimately coordinating all
available resource to achieve it.
    Julien began to
see that the corruption which had triggered his outburst in Osaka
had only been a symbolic event in a ruthless mosaic of diplomacy
and cunning. He began to wonder if he’d jumped from the frying pan
into the fire. It caused him to shift focus back to his family.

Chapter 9
     
    2031
     
    T he world media had assembled in the remote,
locked-down facility in Guiana. Ninety-nine percent of the circus
personnel had never been within a thousand miles of the location.
In the past, all press releases from VB Aerospace had been handled
by the company’s PR division. This was different. Volker Brandt’s
name was reasonably well known, but the man himself was quite a
mystery to most of the world population. Philanthropist or recluse?
Perhaps both?
    He rose to his
position at the front of the gathering; there was to be no lectern
or prepared written notes for referral. He cleared his throat.
    “Thank you all
for coming today. I wanted to address the entire world, as I have
updates for ongoing programmes and a crucial announcement regarding
one of them. I wanted to avoid any