Exodus (The Exodus Trilogy) Read Online Free

attention, so although interest had been virtually zero for years now, the idea that something might fall out of the sky to wreak havoc on Earth was nothing new. The thing that made this such a frightening, sensational story worldwide, besides the scale of it all, was its late discovery. In the past, people had expected to have at least weeks, if not months of warning before an asteroid or meteor impact. The possibility that an object like the rogue planet could suddenly just appear out of nowhere and, within a week, destroy an entire planet had caused a lot of debate.
    In the aftermath of the Mars incident back in the sixties, the American components of the Spaceguard Survey w ere largely disbanded, and although some foreign institutions still conducted their own surveys, the number of Near Earth Objects discovered had decreased drastically. Although the media exercised a great deal of self-censorship these days, this latest development was one they couldn’t shy away from, and even government representatives were calling for a renewed effort to protect the world from possible impacts, such as this one. Although no one could imagine how to protect Earth from something as massive as a rogue planet, most agreed that some sort of renewed Spaceguard Survey should be considered.
    The remaining slab of rock from the rogue planet was treated as a new minor planet. There were discussions about whether it would stay in orbit or be pulled into the sun, and the one-in-a-million chance of an impact with Earth held very little interest, except as a curiosity. A small minority worried, but they were mostly loons and doomsday preachers; good for laughs, but nobody took them seriously. Mars had saved us all, it was said. And although the red planet on which man had once walked would be missed by some, most paid more attention to the rock that now remained. As soon as the story of the destruction of Mars spread, the rock had been given a name. But the scientists naming such an object obviously didn’t have a sense of communication, so The Washington Post held a twenty-four-hour naming contest. The name that got the most votes was less fanciful than several others, but it was easily recognizable and conveyed an important part of its recent history. It was quickly adopted by others, and when even the president mentioned it by its new name, the name stuck. The object’s name was Devastator.
    Since the story broke , there had been daily briefings in the Oval Office on the situation. As Trevor Hayes sat down for the daily briefing, he noticed that Dr. Quentin was absent. Another scientist, a younger Asian woman, had replaced him, and she had a look on her face that was difficult to interpret. The president himself was the last to enter, and as soon as he had greeted them all and sat down, the new scientist introduced herself as Dr. Linda Xiu.
    “ As you know, we have been working round the clock trying to learn everything we can about Devastator. I’m not going to repeat the information already given to you by Dr. Quentin, as most of it is correct.” She paused for a second, and when the president urged her on, she still took her time about it. Then she dropped the bomb.
    “ Devastator may hit us, after all.” She ignored the reactions and continued.
    “ Like I said, Dr. Quentin was right about a lot of things. But to be absolutely clear, the chances of a direct impact by Devastator are not one in a million at all. It now seems that Devastator has settled into an orbit that will take it steadily closer to the sun, meaning also that it will come closer to Earth. We were calculating how the orbits of Earth and Devastator compared, when we found that at one of the points where the orbits cross each other, there will be an impact. There is a slight chance it will only be an extremely close encounter, meaning that it will enter Earth’s atmosphere, but escape Earth’s gravitational pull due to its speed. However, the likelihood of such an