“I get it. You’re not going to kill me. Also, the top of your head is a little terrifying.” He sat down heavily on a log, the upper curve polished smooth by countless pairs of jeans. “Okay. The secret. There’s an asteroid . . .”

“I know about the asteroid.” Charlie cut him off. “What I need to know is how you know and why you think millions are going to die.”

Gary stared at her for a long moment. “How do you know about the asteroid?”

“I have an auntie who can see the future.”

“Okay.” He pushed damp sand into a pile with one foot. “All things considered, it seems a little pointless to argue about that. So, why don’t you think millions are going to die?”

Charlie sighed. This was the third, no, fourth time today she’d sung the ballad of NASA and the asteroid. She felt like an episode of Schoolhouse Rock. “If it’s big enough to do extinction type damage in six months, it’s either big enough to see—and no one’s talking about it—or it’s still so far away NASA will have plenty of time to deal with it.”

“That’s . . .” He shook his head and laughed. “That’s actually a smarter observation than about eighty percent of the general population and a hundred percent of Hollywood could make. Unfortunately, in this particular case, you’re wrong.”

“I’m what?”

“I have a friend,” Gary said so softly that Charlie had to strain to hear him over the seagulls, “Dr. Kiren Mehta. We grew up together. She works at NASA, at JPL in California, and she was killing time waiting for Vesta data to run. She mathematically discovered that a NEO, Near Earth Object, that everyone’s seen and knows will miss us by a significant margin, has been masking another NEO that won’t. Won’t miss us,” he added, in case Charlie hadn’t understood.

She indicated he should continue, fairly certain that the roaring in her ears was the surf.

“The paths of these asteroids have already begun to diverge. Within six months, six months being the happy fun estimate, someone with a telescope will catch sight of two points of light where there should only be one and break the news. One of the big observatories, some guy in his backyard; there’s a Defense Research sky-monitoring project called SpaceView that uses amateur astronomers to track space debris and I’m banking on them, but in the end, it doesn’t matter.” The rock he threw skipped through the curl of a wave before sinking. “In six months, panic. In twenty-two months, impact. The Armageddon Asteroid . . .”

“I’m sorry?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “I didn’t name it. It’s bigger than the one that may or may not—depending on your belief in science or rhetoric—have wiped out the dinosaurs. Only this time, we’re the dinosaurs.”