“And small words,” Dr. Grayson muttered under his breath. Given that she wasn’t intended to hear it, Pam decided she hadn’t. And he wasn’t entirely wrong.

“Thank you for this.” She gestured with the tablet. “You’ve given us a chance, however slight. I’ll let you know what else we’ll need from you as soon as I find out.”

She’d started making notes before they were completely out of the office. The heads of equivalent organizations internationally would have to be informed. Media Relations could spin any leaks—and there would be leaks, there always were—on the conspiracy websites the government assisted the deluded to maintain.

Only nine million dollars of NASA’s yearly budget went toward searching for NEOs, the majority of it supporting the operations of several observatories, and a significantly smaller portion into finding ways to protect the Earth from a potential collision. That would have to change.

While waiting for the president’s office to get back to her, Pam started running the numbers, lips pulled back off her teeth as she imagined bringing this before the House Committee on Appropriations. “Let’s see if this is enough to free up more than not quite half of one percent of the budget . . .”

With Dr. Grayson dozing beside her, Kiren stared out the window of the taxi, watched the rain, and wondered if she should have protested General Yorlem’s interruption. The military might consider an assumption by a brigadier general to be fact, but she was a scientist and she knew better. Would have known better even had this particular assumption by the general not so personally concerned her.

Dr. Grayson had been the only person connected with NASA she’d told, but before she’d spoken to him, right after she’d checked the math for the sixth time, she’d called her oldest friend—fingers trembling so violently it had taken her three tries to make the call. She’d known Gary since third grade when his parents bought the house next door to hers. They’d gone through middle school and high school together—double-dated at both junior and senior prom—and headed off to MIT together, science nerds and proud. Their ways had started to diverge then; he’d headed into engineering and she’d gone into space science and data analysis, but they’d stayed friends. Accomplices when possible.

She’d stood for him at his wedding to a wonderful woman, her red sari a burst of color by their canopy.

“He’s like my brother,” Kiren always said when it came up. Actually, Gary was closer to her than her brother who was five years older and a bit of an ass. She hadn’t called her brother when she’d worked out the mathematical possibility of the world ending.

Gary had listened to her babble, taken a deep breath, and said, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Twenty-one months?”