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“Which is what?”
“TheChangzheng 24was dispatched to investigate an aberrant radio signal rising from a deep-sea trench, where it eventually sank. It had on board a bevy of drones, autonomous ROVs that you yourself developed while designing theZhu Hai Yunresearch vessel.”
She sat straighter, proud of her accomplishment. Still, a worry settledin her gut.If something went wrong with one of my drones, will the blame for the sub’s sinking be placed on me?
She kept her voice guarded. “What were you searching for?”
Aigua looked down, clearly organizing his thoughts, before finally speaking. “Captain Tse, how familiar are you with the Chang’e-5 project, the lunar mission back in 2020?”
Daiyu blinked at the sudden change in the conversation’s direction. “Only that the spacecraft traveled to the moon and brought back a payload of lunar rocks.”
Aigua sighed. “Then there is much you don’t know—can’t know, in fact. What has generally been reported is that the Chang’e-5 landed atop an old lava plain on the moon’s northern edge, a region called Oceanus Procellarum. The lander drilled into the volcanic plain and brought home two kilograms of mare basalt. It was the first such lunar sampling in more than forty-five years.”
Daiyu frowned, still failing to see what this had to do with a sunken sub.
Aigua continued. “The purpose of the mission was to get a better understanding of the moon’sevolution. According to current consensus, the moon was formed when a Mars-size planetary object—called Theia—smashed into the infant Earth, some four and a half billion years ago. The ejecta of that collision—a mix of rock, gas, and dust—coalesced into a hot magma ball that would eventually cool into our moon.”
“I still don’t see what this has to do with—”
Aigua cut her off. “The sample collected by Chang’e-5 proved to be faryoungerthan the rocks from earlier lunar missions, showing evidence that they had cooled much slower. This demonstrated that the moon had been volcanically active for farlongerthan previous estimates. The results made no scientific sense. For the moon to still be hot for such an abnormally long span, it would require the presence of an unknown heat source—some element or process that delayed the moon’s cooling.”
“Like what?”
“Theories abound.” Aigua shrugged. “It is a mystery that continuesto baffle scientists. Some initially believed the heat source could be an unusually large concentration of decaying uranium or thorium. But the rocks recovered by Chang’e-5 ruled this out.”
“Then what could it be?”
“I have my own theory, one I’ve been trying to substantiate since the spacecraft returned to Earth.”
“Did that substantiation involve sending a submarine to its doom?” Daiyu asked with a note of bitterness. She had dealt with scientists in the past who grew so focused that they failed to see the larger picture, or the real-world cost of their research. “What discovery on the moon could possibly justify such a mission?”
“A discovery that could change the world,” Aigua said with a coldness to counter her anger. “While we sent lunar rocks to labs around China, we kept the most exciting bits at the SSF labs.”
“What bits?”
“A tiny fraction of dust. It took us a while to separate out those exotic particles. At first glance, they appeared to be ordinary basalt, a mix of silicates and metal oxides. But the particles were in a state of radioactive decay and were isotopically different from any other rock. Even their crystalline structure was unusual.”
Daiyu flashed to Dr. Luo Heng’s computer, showing the strange crystals that had coated the cells of the afflicted submariners. For now, she kept silent about it.
Aigua reached to the side of his chair and lifted a briefcase to his lap. He snapped it open. “If you’ll allow me, let me backtrack for a moment.” He rummaged inside the case while he continued. “For the longest time, many assumed that the moon was formed out of a piece of Theia, the planetoid that struck Earth. But we now know through isotopic studies that the moon and the earth are made of the same material.”
Daiyu sensed where this was headed. “But according to you, that exotic dust you discovered was isotopicallydifferent.”
Aigua nodded. “While it’s clear that a majority of the moon is derived from Earth, I believe a small fraction of the planetoid Theia got mixed into the moon’s formation, too.”
“You think those exotic particles came from Theia.”
“Exactly. The particles are elementally strange and radioactive enough that they could be the unknownheat sourcethat kept the moon hotter for far longer than it should have.”
Daiyu shook her head. “That’s intriguing enough, I suppose, but it still doesn’t explain why you came to Cambodia.”
“I’m here because—while the exotic particles from Chang’e-5 prove that a bit of Theia got incorporated into the moon—massiveslabs of the planetoid have been found elsewhere.”
“Where?”
“Right here on Earth. Under our very feet.” He looked hard at Daiyu. “And they may soon destroy us.”
2:44P.M.
