by Chris Angus
“I’m way out of my depth,” said Ryan.
“Just one further point,” said Carlisle. “One theorist actually suggested that this might almost be a model for God. And that God would not like Higgs particles and would attempt to avoid them. In fact, there have been a number of utterly inexplicable mishaps to the collider program. Just in 2008, after the CERN collider was turned on, a connection between two magnets vaporized, shutting the thing down for a year.”
“A model for God,” Senator Graham said in a quiet voice.
“This is not entirely a new concept,” said Hauptmann. “In 2000, there were concerns that the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven might create black holes. But the fears soon moved on to the danger posed by hypothetical particles called strangelets. Some said strangelets could transform the Earth instantaneously into a dense, completely dead lump.”
“All this speculation is doubtless a great game for you physicists and scientists,” said Ryan. “But what does it tell us about what happened to our bomb?”
“Only,” said Carlisle, “that the universe is a strange place. Your weapon may have passed through a black hole. But if it did, it still had to go somewhere, the other side of the galaxy, another dimension, the past or future . . . or off the coast of Antarctica. Who can say? The random nature of quantum physics is such that there will always be a tiny, non-zero chance of anything happening, including a collider that spins out man-eating gargoyles.”
“Einstein once wrote that the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion,” said Andy Pryne.
“Well . . . that’s certainly helpful. Thank you, Andy,” said Carlisle irritably. “If I might bring this discussion back to the present for a moment. There’s something else the President told me. Reports have begun to come in that there may be tsunamis moving across the world’s oceans from the blast. It’s too early to be sure, but ships at sea report large swells in the Southern Ocean. The first nations to be affected will be in South America, Australia, and New Zealand. Several of our Navy ships are heading to the area of the blast to test for background radiation and . . .”
Carlisle stopped in mid-sentence, his mouth open. “Oh . . . my . . . God,” he said.
The others whirled around to see what he was staring at. All the talk about black holes, other dimensions, and strangelets had them jumpy enough to expect to actually confront man-eating gargoyles. In fact, what they saw was so incomprehensible given their current panoply of problems that their reactions were muted with disbelief.
Marching along the rim, above Laki’s distorted landscape, were perhaps a dozen men dressed in red robes. Periodically they stopped and engaged in a series of mumbled chants.
“What in the name of god . . . ?” asked Sam. “Are those what I think they are?”
“I can’t believe it,” said Carlisle. “The President warned me, but I’ve had too much on my mind to think about it.”
“Warned you about what?” asked Ryan. The strange sight looked like something out of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. He remembered the comic group’s mantra: And now for something completely different.
“President Thurman told me that the Pope was going to send a delegation to Laki to pray. An attempt to get the volcanoes erupting around the world to shut down.”
“The Pope?” Like Ryan, Sam was having trouble making any kind of sense out of what she was seeing.
“Near as I understand it, religious leaders formed a secret organization that has been tracking events on Laki since the Second World War,” said Carlisle, his own disbelief evident. He stared at the red-robed men as they began to come down off the rim and approach them.
The man in front of the group had eyes that were fixed and humorless. He looked younger than the rest of his fellows. Indeed, the others appeared much too old to be wandering about the devastated landscape of Laki. When they reached the parking lot and the buses, the group stopped and their leader spoke to Carlisle.
“I’m Cardinal Wormer,” the man said. “We are here to help.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Oval Office
Washington, D. C.
President Thurman frowned at the uniformed figure standing before him. “Run that by me again, Admiral Crouse,” he said.
“Sir, we have lost touch with our destroyers in the area of the Southern Ocean where the thermonuclear blast was detected.”
“Lost touch. You mean the blast disrupted communications?”
“No, sir. We figured out long ago how to maintain proper communications during the magnetic disruptions caused by nuclear blasts. This is not a communications problem.”
“What is it then?”
“We cannot raise our ships by any means, radio, data links, radar, satellite . . . it’s as though they simply disappeared.”
Thurman swiveled his chair around and stared out the window. The lunatic fringe was out in force this morning. He could see signs bobbing up and down beyond the fence and was glad they were far enough away that he couldn’t read them.
Crouse fidgeted. “Sir, one of our AWACS planes is en route to the Southern Ocean. We expect their initial report momentarily. I took the liberty of ordering it delivered to your office the moment it comes through.”
“Could the ships have been destroyed by the tsunami?” asked Thurman.
“That far out to sea, it would seem unlikely, sir. The tsunami would be detectable only as a swell. I suppose there could be the possibility of a rogue wave. We’re in uncharted territory, Mr. President.”
The President’s personal secretary came in. She gave him a weak smile. “Sir, you have another call from the Pope,” she said.
“God, won’t the man give it a rest?” He swiveled back around to his desk and picked up the phone. Much as he would have liked to ignore the call, Catholics made up a large part of his constituency.
“Good morning, Your Holiness. I hope you have some good news for us. Has Vesuvius quieted down?”
He listened for a moment. “I see. Well, that is very good news, indeed. We’ll all be waiting to hear the results. Please inform me as soon as you know anything. Yes. Thank you, Your Holiness.”
He placed the phone gently in its cradle and shook his head.
“Some good news, sir?” asked the Admiral.
“Oh, very good news. The pontiff’s delegation is in Iceland and praying a mile a minute. All our problems should soon be over. His Holiness just thought I’d want to know.”
The Admiral smiled. “Good to have all the help we can get,” he said. He looked down as the beeper in his pocket went off. Almost at the same moment, the secretary came back in, followed by one of the Admiral’s aides.
The aide handed a piece of paper to the Admiral without saying a word, then stepped back. Crouse perused the document for a moment. His face turned white.
Thurman said, “What is it, Admiral?”
“I . . . I don’t know quite how to put this, Mr. President. The AWACS reports that the Southern Ocean is . . . disappearing.”
Thurman stood up. His hands gripped the edge of his desk, his knuckles turned bone white. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“According to the aircraft, as they approached the area where our ships were supposed to be, the ocean began to swirl in a sort of enormous whirlpool, hundreds of miles across. Near the center of the whirlpool, the ocean simply flows into a black hole and is . . . gone. The AWACS says coordinates from the destroyers before contact was lost suggest they may have been sucked into the vortex.”
The President sank slowly back into his chair. His secretary, Admiral Crouse, and the aide all stared at him, waiting for a reaction. But Thurman had no idea what to do with the information he’d just been given. The man he relied upon in such instances, his science advisor, was three thousand miles away in Iceland.
“Martha,” he said finally. “See if you can raise Prescott Carlisle for me.” His face darkened. “Maybe His Holiness is taking the right approach after
all.”
***
Wormer joined the others as they all crammed into Carlisle’s little office space at the back of the bus. The rest of the cardinals remained outside, continuing their fervid prayer assault on Laki.
“Exactly how do you plan to help in this situation, Cardinal?” Carlisle asked.
Wormer sat back in the comfortable console chair that had been offered to him. He enjoyed being the center of attention. His initial fear of being in Iceland had given way to a more palatable scenario. If things went well, he’d begun to see a path to the papacy itself coming from all of this. The world would be eternally grateful if he defused the tense situation on Laki.
“My charge from His Holiness is to do whatever I deem necessary to help deal with this situation,” he said. “I represent a council of religious leaders from around the world who have been studying Laki for more than sixty years. No one knows more about this situation.”
Carlisle stared at him as though he were some sort of lunatic. “I take it then,” he said, “that you understand the scientific ramifications here. The bombardment of cosmic rays, the Higgs boson, the extra dimensions of space-time, strangelets . . .”
Wormer waved a hand. “The only ramifications that matter have to do with God and the power of prayer,” he said. “That is my charge from His Holiness, and I expect full cooperation from you.”
“Cooperation to do what?” asked Ryan with real curiosity.
“To get to the heart of the matter,” said Wormer. “We will take our prayer beneath Laki. I for one do not accept what many seem to believe, that we’re dealing with some sort of god. It is merely a natural phenomenon, perhaps gone out of control, but that is precisely what the power of prayer is meant to deal with.”
Dagursson said, “I’m sorry, Cardinal, but I can’t allow you to go underground. As police commissioner, I’m the one ultimately in charge here. You don’t seem to realize how dangerous Laki is. We’ve got earthquakes, tunnel collapses, poisonous gases, an enormous and unpredictable magma chamber . . ., or perhaps something even worse. Have you looked at the skies outside? Those boiling, black clouds, the tornadoes? Believe me, it’s ten times worse beneath the surface. I can’t be responsible for the deaths of a dozen cardinals. That’s the last thing we need.”
“I understand your predicament, Commissioner. I really do,” said Wormer. “But I answer to a higher authority. Do not underestimate the power of prayer.”
Dagursson considered the man in front of him. He was either a complete fool or a religious zealot. He wasn’t sure there was a difference.
“When it comes to Laki, Cardinal, I am the only higher authority that matters. I have the final word. Not only will I not allow you to go underground, but I have to insist that you and your fellow cardinals leave Laki at once. All of southern Iceland is currently off limits to civilians.”
Wormer gave him a withering look. “I am hardly a civilian,” he said.
“You are in my eyes. I assume you came here by helicopter?”
The cardinal nodded tightly.
Dagursson said, “Ryan, I’m putting you in charge of making sure the cardinals get safely away.”
“Are you deputizing me?”
“Not necessary. I have the authority to appoint anyone I want.” He stood up. “Cardinal, you will accompany Mr. Baldwin back to your chopper.”
A breathless young soldier suddenly burst into the room. “Sir,” he said, addressing Carlisle.
“Yes, what is it?”
“The two foreign nationals have escaped.”
“What?”
“The man named Rashid and his partner requested a meeting with you. Two of our men accompanied them and as best we can determine, that’s when it happened. The bodies of both soldiers have been found poorly hidden in a gully.”
“Goddamn it!” Carlisle looked apoplectic.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Ryan. “Where can they go?”
“Evidently they saw the cardinals’ chopper arrive,” said the soldier. “That probably gave them the idea. It took off moments after we found the bodies. Rashid and his partner must have forced the pilot to fly them out.”
Wormer stood up. “So. You see, Commissioner. The Lord works in mysterious ways. It appears you are stuck with us.” He nodded and exited the bus.
Dagursson and the others stood frozen in indecision.
“We might have used that chopper to get everyone evacuated,” said Ryan. “It would have taken eight or ten trips, but it was at least a chance.”
The commissioner went over to Carlisle’s communications man. “I’ll try to get the chopper intercepted,” he said, but as the radio officer began to work his dials, he suddenly raised his hand and motioned to Carlisle.
“Priority One,” the radio operator said. “President Thurman for you, sir. He says it’s urgent.”
Carlisle wondered what could possibly come next. He took the phone, stared at the others gathered around expectantly and told the radio operator to put it on speaker. They were all in this together. “Yes, Mr. President?”
“Prescott, I have more bad news, I’m afraid,” came Thurman’s voice.
“Only kind we seem to have, sir. What is it?”
“It appears some sort of hole or vortex has opened up in the Southern Ocean. We believe it has swallowed several of our destroyers and according to the AWACS we have on site, it appears to be growing, swallowing a thousand square miles of ocean so far.”
Carlisle’s face registered shock. “Do you know the coordinates for this vortex?” he asked.
“I suspect you’ve guessed, Prescott. It appears to be centered where the nuclear blast took place. You have any idea what’s going on?”
Carlisle seemed unable to speak for a moment. Finally, he said, “The worst scenario, Mr. President, is that some sort of black hole has been opened up by the nuclear blast combined with the space-time distortion that apparently caused it to be transported to the Southern Ocean.”
There was a momentary pause from the speakerphone. “I don’t have a damn clue what that means, Prescott. I want to know what the bloody hell we can do about it.”
“I’m sorry to say, Mr. President, that I believe the answer is nothing. Scientists have speculated about this sort of possibility for years. It was debated fiercely when the Hadron Collider went online. Some thought such a thing might happen. No one knew if it could, but one thing everyone agreed upon was that if it did, there’d be no way to stop it from continuing to its natural conclusion.”
A heavy pause emanated from the phone. Finally, Thurman said, “And what would be its natural conclusion?”
“That the hole would continue to absorb the Earth until it was completely gone.”
***
Sam and Ryan sat outside the bus and watched the tumultuous skies above the volcano’s rim. Even though it was mid-day, it was dark from thick, boiling clouds being tossed around by thermals rising off the numerous streams of lava.
Most of the others had drifted away following Carlisle’s talk with the President. To see the President’s science advisor so completely discouraged seemed to drain the energy out of all of them.
They had coffee and microwaved sandwiches from the tiny closet on the bus that served as mess hall. It had been turning out a steady stream of Meals Ready to Eat, Laki style, for the assembled scientists and military personnel.
Ryan looked at Sam with concern. She appeared tired. “How are you holding up?” he asked.
She smiled weakly and held up her sandwich. “Sitting up and taking nourishment.” She took a bite and chewed disconsolately. “What do you think it all means? Do you really think it’s the end of the world? Of our species?”
“I don’t know. Humans never seem to believe they’ll come up against something for which there is no answer . . . no solution. But that sure sounded like what Carlisle was suggesting. How the hell can we do anything to stop a black hole from consuming the planet? We don’t even really know what
a black hole is, much less how to deal with it. Maybe . . .”
“What?”
“Maybe, Wormer’s course is the only one left to us. Prayer.”
“He said he didn’t believe Laki was a god. So who’s he praying to, for Christ’s sake?”
“His own god, I would presume.”
“Maybe a prayer to Laki would be more appropriate. Look, we both saw what was in that hole. I don’t have any more idea what we were looking at than you do, but it couldn’t be any more inexplicable than a black hole eating the damn Southern Ocean. Two inexplicable things like that have to be related. Amma told me what she believed, that Laki is God. Well, you’re looking at one atheist who’s come around. No way is Laki simply some natural phenomenon, like Wormer said.”
“I guess I agree with you. But I don’t know what good it does us.”
“Only this. We know we can communicate with Laki through Amma. Maybe it . . . he . . . doesn’t realize what he’s doing. Why don’t we tell him? Ask for his help.”
“If Laki is God, then he knows what he’s doing, by definition,” said Ryan. “What you’re really saying is let’s go pray to him—just like Wormer.”
She blinked, said nothing.
“Sorry to interrupt,” a man’s voice interrupted.
They looked at Cardinal Wormer.
“I’m taking my people underground,” he said. “I wanted you to know. I don’t really see any way that you and Dagursson can stop us. What are you going to do, beat up a dozen elderly cardinals? That would probably go over even worse in the press than our getting killed.”
Ryan nodded. “I’ve been coming around to your way of thinking, Cardinal. I’ll talk to Dagursson. Then, maybe we can all go down together. A full frontal prayer assault.” He shrugged. “For what it’s worth.”
“You will see,” said Wormer. “Sometimes prayer can be worth a great deal.”