by Jack Vantage
“Are you married Michael?”
Michael shifted on his feet, his restive uneasiness lingered his voice, “Happily. Three children, a boy and two girls, their being brought here from home in Central Capital Two.”
“I hope they make it. I hope my wife makes it.” David replied, “What was your favourite memory, here on Quazar?”
“The first day trip that my wife and I took with all three kids.” Michael smiled. “I remember we went to a space event that was held in the open-air fields of the galactic export centre. Fields of pristine grass, and a stage the size of a building with hot topics and beautiful music emanating from it. We were sat around the middle of the grassy area and were surrounded by thousands of people. Everybody was there for the love of science. I remember asking my eldest kid what he wanted to be.” David smiled as Michael continued. And do you know what he said. ‘Like you dad, like you.’ I remember the proud feeling of knowing my son would turn out ok. Right then I knew he was going to make something of his life, knew he would listen to what I said. Meanwhile the little one was just four days old, resting in my wife’s arms, farting and burping.” Michael laughed through forming tears. “I never laughed so much.”
“Mine was my wedding, the day I married. I felt like I’d found the one person who I could trust and rely on. It felt like I’d won, that nobody had what I had, I found love. All my life I never thought I would, then one day it happened. The wedding day was the most perfect day I ever lived. No one can take it away from me. I’m going to miss this place, I loved it here. I loved my life.”
“We all did. Millenniums of work all brought down in a few hours. What have we done to deserve this?”
“If there is a God, I guess he has his reasons, who knows? I’m not a religious man, what about you?”
“I believe there is something overlooking everything. I don’t follow religious texts, but I do feel there is something watching over us, something above us, but I don’t feel we need to pray to it.”
“I don’t think any kind of prayer would be answered, this is a stubborn move by the universe, something that isn’t going away.”
“I would like to have had one more day here with my children.” Michael said, “One more day to just sit under the sun, smile, laugh, and play. It’s going to be hard living onboard the galactic vessels, for the best part of our remaining lives.”
“At least we go on.” Shocked realisation grimaced in David’s face, “What is humanity going to do? How are we going to adapt?”
“History has evidence of our survival. We’re pretty tough if you think about it, we’ll always find ways of surviving. The last time this happened was when the dinosaurs roamed earth, and they stood no chance, but us we’re a different species capable of survival, capable of starting again, of taking the blow.”
“What do you think will happen to the corona and chromosphere in the first stages?” David said.
“Gone, it’s all going to be gone. Like slipping a sock from your foot, it will slip straight off into the black hole. I can’t believe this is happening. I never thought we’d be facing this.”
“There’s not allot we can do. The fate of the world has been decided by powers higher than us. We must leave and start again. Every time I think about it, my stomach clenches tight, I feel like vomiting, like crying, but we have stay focused Michael. We must work this out. We stand a better chance if we work this out. We’ll have time limits. We’ll have the destruction pattern. We’ll have something to go by.”
In the depths of despair, the world was a dark place. There was no light, no hope, and no restoration for humanity, just the hopeless void of nothingness. Like the phenomena of a black hole, a person could enter despair and never return. Not one shred of evidence would remain of humanities existence within the solar system after the hole had run its course. How little humanity was hit with frightening realization?
Michael stepped forward and tapped the window with his fingers. A black and grey curvy keyboard digitally flickered inside the glass, sandwiched between its layers. Quickly he typed. David made out a few of the words, Coronagraph was one.
The window digitally distorted with a glitch then blackened. After a second in darkness the window reignited in four sectioned images. Each image was of the sun through a coronagraph reading. David and the scientists called the tool the Newkirk coronagraph.
In the bottom right image, the disk of the sun was blackened, obscured like a total eclipse by the coronagraph, leaving the circular chromosphere and corona halo lighting the suns rim. Around the rimmed circumference streamers extended into space. Their eerie reach was heavenly, a sight made by the universe to show off its power of creation. All in its rainbow of spectra colour.
The top right image displayed the sun in its total integrated intensity. This was a green sun slowly revolving in the FE iron spectra line, which displayed the chromosphere in detail at its surface.
In the bottom left image three spectra charts sat atop each other, which looked like large rectangular litmus papers that had been dowsed in rainbow colour. The top chart read the Fe iron signal ranging from 0-15 across its green shift. Bellow that, a full spectra chart with a measure shift from red to ultra violet, displayed the suns velocity reading in kilometres per second, ranging from -7-+7. Bottom positioned another full spectrum chart which measured the wavelength of light in angstroms, a figure that summed up the minute size of atomic particles as each atom and molecule emitted from the sun was gauged by it. It ranged from 0.6-1.6 angstroms.
In the top left positioned, was the image of the suns visible natural light.
“The first thing I want to do is a re-cap of all readings in my head. I need to load it all up. At the same time, I will input the calculations into the computer for it to begin deriving a simulation model on the outcome. It can calculate quicker than me, you, and all the scientists in the world. It is our only hope of an accurate assumption.” Michael said. His eyes studied the images on the screen, “I suggest you do the same, think as clear as possible about all you know”
“The sun is active today, plenty of prominences, plenty of sun spots.”
“I think it knows it’s in its last stretch, what do you think?” Michael looked to David and raised his eyebrows.
David replied “One last dance before lights out. This is the biggest event in the history of mankind, so many people are going to die, it’s hard to take.”
Michael tapped at the keyboard. “I know. We need to establish if the Sun will go into relativistic collapse. We need to calculate, if when the gravitational shift occurs at point of impact with the black hole, whether its internal structure will hold against the gravitational forces. When it starts swinging around humanity has got to pray that it holds stable long enough for us to get out of here. My first thoughts and assumptions are that it will hold for around eighteen hours before the gravitational shift overcomes its internal forces. It depends on the black holes size and power.”
“One thing’s for sure, it’s going to be quite a sight. We will get a better reading after a few minutes of impact, we will be able to calculate how long it will take before complete destruction of the sun, and complete extinction of Quazar.” David replied.
“The gravitational shift will crumble Quazar like a sand castle in extreme heat. At first the solar radiation will hit, then the earthquakes. Volcanic eruptions will occur beneath the public’s feet as the gravity shift tares the tectonic plates apart. Then the cold sets in.’ replied Michael. “What worries me is the possibility of asteroids being thrown at the planet by the hole. The thing just swallowed an asteroid belt. How many asteroids is it dragging with it?”
A communicator sounded with a simple repetitive beep.
Michael dipped his hand into his pocket and retrieved his communicator. He flipped it open and pressed a button.
It was the president. “Michael, David, the first galactic ship is full and ready to go. It’s leaving from the northern hemisphere. We have thus far
managed to hold off the press, and there is still no hindrance to our operation. No one knows yet, but people are prying, and we don’t have long before it gets out. Is there any progress on the chain of events? Do we have a solid deadline to leave? Our galactic vessels are filling quickly, ours will stay here attached to the station until you give us the word to leave.”
Michael replied. “Mr. President, we have begun our efforts to read this. We will know more within a few hours. Sir, we won’t let you down. We will be leaving before anything can happen to us.”
“I don’t care about myself. If I have to go down with this planet, go down I will, but there are some important people onboard this ship—people like yourself, people who we need for the future of our existence. I wouldn’t want to let them down. Are you sure when it hits there will be time to leave? Because if not, it leaves now, and that goes for you two also.”
“Mr. President, I am sure we will have time to get out of here.”
David looked to Michael. Mankind was looking to them, asking for their advice, their opinion. The fate of humanity rested in their hands.
“David and I are going to work this out. If at any moment we discover you must leave, we will instantly let you know, sir. The more we know, the more people we can save.”
“Be quick. The military force is awaiting orders and are awaiting the conditions of the evacuation to change on the ground. They do know what’s happening, and they are working to get those people to the ships, even at the expense of killing anyone who lets out the secret or threatens to discover it.” He paused. “Michael, this line is open for you every second of what time is left.” He disconnected.
Michael flipped the communicator closed and dropped it back into his grey trousers.
David said, “I thought we weren’t allowed to use communicators.”
“This one is linked to military channels onboard the station, the only network it will pick up. All communicator networks will be shut down within the next day over Quazar. One network at a time as to not arouse instant suspicion. We discussed this before your arrival.”
David nodded, then said, “Orbital shifts—we need to establish what will happen to the orbits of the moons, the planet, and the sun in detail.” He was ready to face his moment in history.
“In the computer is the simulation model of our solar system. Of course, we won’t be able to establish the effects of the black hole without knowing its size and power. As soon as it hits, I’ll begin inputting the calculations. It will give us a fairly accurate reading,” Michael said, typing away. “You know how to work this, right?”
“Yes,” David replied. “I have used it as an observational tool on numerous occasions, but not for some time.”
“It has been updated recently, but the same functions and commands run the program.”
David stepped to the window and tapped for keyboard retrieval. He began typing fast.
Michael said, “I have inputted the energy and temperature levels from both the chromosphere and corona. To get the accurate model, we need to input as much detail as possible, and quickly. Concentrate on the active sun, flares, prominences, and the solar radiation in its first few seconds. How hard is Quazar going to be hit? What effect will the radiation have on the electronic and quantum world? Let’s do it. Think quick and work fast. Anything you need to discuss, just talk, and I will vice versa.”
“I’m on it, we can do this. I will begin by reading the solar dynamo, the energy levels in the chromosphere and Corona. That way I can begin working inward to assess how much radiation is going to be thrown out at first contact toward Quazar. Also, I will work on the orbital mechanics of the sun and surrounding moons and planets.”
“I’m on the stability. Shortly I will be in-putting helioseismic readings of the suns’ current internal activities, at all layers, importantly at the convective Zone. This is where the supernova will, if it does, start its explosion outward, leaving the core to collapse. But first I need information from the spectrograph.” Michael replied. He ordered another reading from the computer with swift taps at the keyboard.
The current chronograph reading moved to the right side of the window as four huge images of the sun, all in separate spectral wave lengths, appeared left of the screen.
As they began talking back and forth, and as they both input data, David thought, This is it, the most important study and simulation equation in living history.
The book of mankind was being penned by them, and he wished he could write it with his wife beside him.
Chapter 18
Coming Around
Dylan’s legs dangled over the edge of a seemingly endless fall, where a ghostly mist floated a hundred feet below. Central Capital 8 glittered in the night light, its movement never letting up, not even for a second. Dylan’s fear of heights had disappeared from the sky chase, and his nerves were beyond the point of caring. He gazed from atop the towering city building that gave him the ultimate view, a view to a kill, a view to utopia, a view to the place he called home. City lights gleamed like a crowd of people holding candles high, twinkled like the most clustered constellation, and stayed awake like insomnia.
Lecodia lay asleep where he’d left her after the encounter with the wrong end of the law. Questions recurred in his thoughts like a digital glitch. Over and over they quizzed like a game host looking for an answer.
Who were they, those false Authoritarians? What did they want? And why did I have to pick up that case?
What he had was theirs, no questions there. Either theirs, or maybe someone else’s. Maybe they were just as bad as he. They had got the case back, so surely that was the end of it. But something else struck him. Why did they give chase like a fierce predator? Why did they not stop and turn the other way?
His heart turned despondent. The millennium hadn’t turned out like he’d planned. The night he had so eagerly anticipated had turned on itself, backfired like a malfunctioned blaster. The unthinkable had happened and time could not be reversed.
Lecodia would want to kill him. She'd hate him. What the hell did I get her involved in? He rubbed his weary head.
Since he’d opened the case his thoughts had burnt him, played tricks with him. These were unfortunate events, a trail of nightmares that had to end surely. If they didn’t, they might just push him over the edge. Like the fall below, his regret and guilt had no end.
He tapped his heels at the building and continued his ponderous gaze. The cratered moon Enzine, hazily watched over the city like a bright eye in the sky. His thoughts paced at a speed close to light and his energy was low. Who could he tell? By now it must be over the news channels. He was a fugitive from the law, a wanted man, and a criminal in society’s eyes. He’d seen them killing the Authoritarians, seen their evil first hand, but the world would think it was he who was to blame.
He began weighing up the situation and knew how futile it was trying to sneak around when trouble eyed you. The first door you’d walk through, game over. The second your chip was read dozens of Authoritarians would slam down on you like a ton of mass. He saw himself in the position of the criminals he loved to watch on the broadcast channels. He saw himself as an outcast of society, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t want it, but he had to deal with it.
They would have to use the sky-bike to move around, find a way to prove their innocence before they could approach an Authoritarian, or even go home. He could find some of his friends and get some help, some food. He had to form a plan, a tactical one at that. If the incident had permeated the news, then they would have to be discreet. They would have stay invisible, be as insidious as possible.
Another galactic ship caught Dylan’s attention on the dark horizon. All evening he’d seen a handful, a very odd thing. Usually one left central capital every other day, and usually the time lapse was longer. He was puzzled as to why the vessels had been moving all evening.
No time for fretting, he thought. There are bigger things to deal with.
&nbs
p; A cold hand moved over his right shoulder and Lecodia sat down beside him. Understandably she was a little shaky, a little cold, and a lot frightened.
“Hey, get close. You feel cold,” Dylan said.
She shifted. Her legs dangled next to his.
“How long was I out?” she asked. She was as dazed as could be expected.
“A couple of hours. Maybe three.”
“It got dark. I like the view.”
Dylan looked into her eyes.
She smiled with weak confusion. There was even a hint of wryness in there. She broke eye contact and looked out over the city.
Dylan said, “It’s quite a sight. I’ve been trying to find the Intake building but can’t make it out from here.”
“I think it’s over there somewhere.” She lifted her arm to point and turned back to him. This time her eyes weren’t so defensive. A little relief emanated.
The governmental buildings stood high to the left, the columns a pure white, lit by a golden glow of purple at their base. Standing over them were glass structures that reflected the columns, mirroring them upside down.
Dylan said quietly, “Look, I’m sorry about everything. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I really didn’t.”
“I know, Dylan Ajax. I know. It’s okay. It’s not your fault.” Her eyes said she meant it, but deep-down Dylan suspected the worst.
“Hey, there’s something I want to do,” he said and placed his hand in his pocket.
He pulled out his communicator, a small square screen that was rimmed by a violet bead. He tapped the screen and his three-dimensional avatar, the small funky fellow, popped up. The tiny figure placed his arms upward and fanned them, revealing a collection of options.
Dylan poked the setting symbol and more options appeared. He tapped the GPS icon, then said, “Give me your hand.”
Lecodia lifted her hand up and Dylan clicked the communicator over it.