Impact!

by Laurence Dahners

  Stell looked up at Warren and smiled. “Now Warren had no idea I was going to embarrass him in front of y’all. He didn’t know that I sent his mother a ticket so he could come to this concert. He didn’t know that she told me that he’d never even looked at a picture of me because he wanted the first time he saw my face to be in person.” Warren saw Stell’s eyes well with tears. Her voice broke, but she swallowed and then continued, “And he most certainly didn’t know I was going to drag him up onto the stage and ask him to sing. But I’ve heard him sing and he’s good, so I’m hoping you’ll give him a little welcome round of applause to encourage him to sing the choruses with me.”

  Applause broke out and a man tapped Warren’s hand with a microphone. He took it, noticing that the guitarist had just about cycled the chord progression back to the beginning of the chorus.

  Stell started to sing.

  Warren cleared his throat, lifted the microphone and harmonized his rich baritone—like he had so many times before while listening to her sing that song.

  There was a moment of stunned silence, then applause thundered over them…

  ***

  Shan walked into the kitchen and found Ell eating her cereal. “Morning.”

  Ell mumbled something in response, but Shan didn’t really understand it. He looked at her more closely. “Why the big frown?”

  She looked up at him, “I think I told you that I was trying to measure distances in the fifth dimension and see how they correlated to the world we live in?”

  “Uh huh,” Shan said reaching into the refrigerator for the milk.

  Ell snorted, “Well it’s been incredibly frustrating. The distance ratio is either infinite, which I can’t believe, or it’s so big that millimeters there equate to hundreds of thousands of light-years here… Well, ‘there’ and ‘here’ aren’t accurate terms, but you know what I mean.”

  Behind her, Shan dropped his bowl. It hit the floor, shattering into small pieces.

  Ell snorted, “Ha, and I used to think you were well coordinated!” Shan thumped down into the chair next to hers. “Hey,” she asked, “you going to clean up that mess ‘fore somebody cuts their feet?

  Shan held out a hand palm outward, “Wait…”

  Ell looked at him. Though his eyes were pointed at the top of one of the cabinets, she could tell they were focused on infinity. She desperately wanted to give him some grief about his clumsiness, but forbore. After a minute he got up and, still staring off into space, made his way out of the kitchen and into the living room. More accurately, he staggered in there.

  A bemused expression on her face, Ell got up and followed him. The big screen in the living room was lit up with some of his graphic mathematical displays. She remembered seeing the one in the upper left corner several times in the past and wondering what it represented “Shan?”

  He put up a halting hand again, “Please… wait…”

  Ell watched him. He spoke to his AI once, twice… a third time…” He sagged back on the couch like someone had suddenly deflated him. After a minute he roused like someone coming up from a deep sleep, looked around as if dazed, then focused his eyes on Ell.

  A smile blossomed on his face.

  “What?” Ell asked.

  “What you just said! Millimeters, to a 100,000 light-years…”

  “That’s not exactly what I said.”

  “No,” Shan grinned, “but it’s close enough. What objects are in the range of 100,000 light-years across?”

  “Galaxies.”

  “Exactly. And it’s at galactic dimensions that gravity fades out a little faster than it should, leading to the galactic rotation paradox that had everyone postulating dark matter.” He grinned at her a moment, then stood up and threw his arms around her. “I’ve been trying to figure out why gravity fades for months… well, years now.” Shan pushed her back out to arm’s length and looked her in the eyes. “What if… what if gravity works through the fifth dimension? Could that be why it works over such enormous distances compared to the other forces? Is that why nothing can interfere with it? Is that why it only fades when you get up to galactic distances? His eyes turned to his screens, “tossing some rough fudge factors up there, so far it works!”

  Ell turned to his screens and her eyes went glassy. A moment later she fell into the chair beside him like someone had cut her strings. Shan watched her anxiously.

  After a minute she roused and turned her eyes to look at him. A smile broke out over her face, “I think that’s going to turn out to be a pretty big stroke of genius!”

  Then she frowned, “You’ve still got to clean up that mess you made in the kitchen though…”

  Epilogue

  Pinehurst, North Carolina—the golf world is atwitter over the fact that Ell Donsaii has qualified to play at the U.S. Open.

  Reactions are mixed, with some excited about the attention her celebrity is bringing the sport. Others are offended that a spot in the tournament has been offered to a woman when, as they point out, only a few women have ever played in it and none have done well. It should be recognized however, that while many call it the “Men’s” U.S. Open, it is actually titled the “U.S. Open” essentially a tournament to determine the best golfer, no matter their sex.

  Dr. Donsaii has only recently established a handicap, however that handicap is a plus four and certainly made her a legitimate entry into the qualifying rounds. She shot a sixty-seven in her local qualifying round and a pair of sixty-sixes in the sectional qualifying stage.

  Some expect her admittedly good game to collapse under the pressure of the actual tournament. They acknowledge that she has done well so far, but point out that many other golfers have had brief “in the zone” spurts where they played extremely well, however those spurts were unsustained.

  The other camp points out that she has already beaten men in the Olympic sprints. Over the next few days, we’ll find out which group is correct.

  “Okay Dale, here we are on Pinehurst #2, beginning our coverage of the U.S. Open. As everyone knows, the big story is the fact that Ell Donsaii, a well-known celebrity who is totally unknown in the world of golf has entered, qualified, and appeared here to play. The pundits are mixed, with some calling her qualification a ridiculous travesty and others waiting anxiously to see what the ‘world’s greatest athlete’ can do in our sport. Where do you fall on the spectrum?”

  “Well, Nigel, I’m afraid I’m a bit of a doubter. Like other skeptics, I admit that she played surprisingly well in the qualification rounds and that she is certainly a good player. But many’s the amateur who’s strung together a few good rounds to qualify, but couldn’t sustain it when the pressure mounted.”

  “But Dale, she built herself a +4 handicap! Surely that tells you that she’s not just a good player. She’s an excellent golfer! I’m not saying I think she’ll dominate this tournament, but one would certainly expect her to compete at a high level!”

  “Yeah, yeah. We’ll see, won’t we? Personally, I doubt that the Donsaii aficionados are going to be cheering at the end of the day, much less at the end of the entire tournament.”

  “Well we won’t have long to wait. As someone who went through local qualifying etcetera, she’s going to be teeing off in this second foursome that’s approaching the tee box now. Do you want to tell us about this first hole?”

  “Sure. At 402 yards it’s a healthy par four. It’s defended by a couple of traps just short of the green and another one lies along the green’s left border. It isn’t considered to be a terribly difficult hole and we can expect quite a few birdies today by these tournament-quality players.”

  “Well, what do you think? Is Ell Donsaii going to be one of those people who gets a birdie here today?”

  “If she’s going to get a birdie, this would be the hole to do it. I’m more concerned that it will be her first bogey when reality comes home to roost.”

  “Well, reality has certainly come home to roost for Jamie Hixson, the first player in t
hat foursome, his drive tailed off to the left and wound up in that fairway bunker. It looks like Donsaii is next. She’s teeing up. Does she look nervous to you Dale?”

  “Well I can’t tell if she’s nervous, but I’ll bet her heart’s going pitter patter Nigel. Look at this! She’s addressing the ball without even taking a practice swing! I heard she didn’t hit any balls on the range this morning either. That’s a pretty cavalier attitude. Here she goes…”

  “Oh my God! Dale, she absolutely crushed that ball. It sounded like she fired a shotgun when she hit it! I wonder if she’s got some kind of strange club that to make that sound.”

  Dale quietly said, “Our cameramen have lost the ball, but it appeared to have started down the center of the fairway.”

  The producer had cut the video feed to show the two sports announcers while he waited for one of the cameramen to pick up the ball. Dale said, “Ho, apparently some joker in the gallery has thrown a ball out onto the…” Dale put a finger up to his ear and tilted his head as if listening, “No! Really?” He looked back and spoke solemnly to the camera. “Ladies and gentlemen, it appears that Ell Donsaii has just driven the green on this 402 yard par four.” The video feed cut to a camera focused on the green which showed a ball rolling to a halt approximately eight feet from the pin. “Some of the big hitting tour pros are well known to be able to hit it this far, but they don’t because they know accuracy is more important. I’ll admit, I never dreamed a woman could hit it this far, but, given that she did it, she had to have hit it with everything she has. Hitting it that hard was foolish and actually getting it on the green was very, very lucky.”

  Nigel cleared his throat, “I don’t know Dale. What if she can do it routinely? That’s a pretty easy putt for an eagle!”

  The End

  Hope you liked the book!

  If so, please give it a positive review on Amazon.

  Try the next in the series, to be published someday.

  Author’s Afterword

  This is a comment on the “science” in this science fiction novel. I have always been partial to science fiction that posed a “what if” question. Not everything in the story has to be scientifically plausible, but you suspend your disbelief regarding one or two things that aren’t thought to be possible. Essentially you ask, “what if” something (such as faster than light travel) were possible, how might that change our world? Each of the Ell Donsaii stories asks at least one such question.

  “Impact” asks what value besides exploration might come from an expedition to Mars?

  It asks, “What might it actually be like if a one kilometer diameter comet or asteroid hit fairly close to you?” If you would like to explore this further you might look at the “Impact:earth!” website (http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/) which has a calculator that will let you choose the size, speed and distance of your asteroid or comet impact. Then it will output a surprisingly large amount of information regarding the local effects such an impact will have.

  It asks, “What if obesity really is a communicable disease ‘epidemic’?” If you google “obesity maps” of the world it looks like this epidemic started in North America. It isn’t necessarily a disease of the affluent, Mexico has recently taken the title for “number one” in obesity from the United States (though strangely some pacific islands are over 40% obese!). If you look at this “by county” map of the U.S. (http://www.maxmasnick.com/2011/11/15/obesity_by_county/) it looks like the epidemic started on the Mississippi-Alabama border. Certainly there is some significant evidence for the role of microorganisms in obesity. Check the Wikipedia entry for Human adenovirus-36 to learn about possible viral causes. You can read about Firmicutes/Bacterioides imbalance in the intestines of the obese at http://www.nature.com/ajgsup/journal/v1/n1/full/ajgsup20125a.html. Firmicutes species have enzymes that break down indigestible polysaccharides (fiber) in your gut, providing you with more calories from whatever food you do eat.

  This story continues to explore the (to me) fascinating possibility that other life bearing worlds may have enormously different atmospheric pressures than Earth. In most science fiction, other living worlds are colder, or hotter, or heavier, or lighter, or have a (to us) unbreathable atmosphere due to a lack of oxygen or the presence of toxic gases. But, even if we had a breathable mix and a reasonable temperature, the pressure might be markedly different and make it impossible for us to live on those worlds. If we just look at the range of atmospheric pressures in the second, third and fourth planets of our own solar system we can see a huge range of variability (Mars = 0.6% of earth’s pressure; Venus = 90X earth’s pressure – neither pressure even close to livable for humans or other earth animals even if they had the right gas mix). But animals can live at high pressures, witness the depths of our oceans, so aliens might evolve to thrive at high pressures at least. Also consider the “dinosaur paradox” which is the fact that the dinosaurs were so massive (square-cube law) that walking would have been very difficult (Brachiosaurus), their heads were too high for them to be able to plump blood to their brains (Brachiosaurus), or that they were too massive to fly (Quetzalcoatlus, a pterodactyloid). One of my favorite SF authors Robert J. Sawyer addressed this paradox in a book (“End of an Era”) in which he imagined that aliens used gravity control to allow earth’s animals to evolve to such enormous sizes and still function. Without assuming alien intervention, there are a number of people who believe that they can explain the obvious fact that Brachiosaurus did walk and Quetzalcoatlus did fly, by positing that the atmosphere was much denser and/or had more oxygen in it during the Cretaceous. If you google “dinosaur paradox” you can find extensive arguments on this subject, but personally I think it highly likely that the atmosphere was indeed much denser back then.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to acknowledge the editing and advice of Gail Gilman, Nora Dahners, Elene Trull, Allen Dietz, Hamilton Elliot, Kat Lind, and Abiola Streete each of whom significantly improved this story.

  If you’d like another story while you’re waiting for the next Ell Donsaii story, you might try…

  Telekinetic (a Hyllis family story #1)

  “Telekinetic” is the first of a series of stories featuring the Hyllis family who tend to inherit telekinetic “talents.” The story is set after a plague induced apocalypse. The resulting collapse of civilization has reduced mankind back to iron and horsepower.

  Tarc Hyllis’ mother (and his grandfather before her) could “feel” things with their talent. They became healers because they can feel inside their patients, which frequently lets them diagnose the underlying causes of an illness. Having made a diagnosis, unfortunately, there is often little they can do to treat the problem.

  Tarc’s father can “push” objects with his mind, but because he can’t feel inside of anything, he doesn’t know where to exert force in order to help to treat his wife’s patients.

  Tarc is just gaining the ability to do both of these things. The combination of these two powers will let him both diagnose a physical problem such as bleeding and then stop that bleeding by applying pressure inside the patient. This is a very exciting development for his mother, who too often has had to watch her patients die for lack of an effective treatment.

  Then some strangers show up to scout the town where the Hyllises live. They plan and initiate a violent takeover. Could Tarc’s powers, weak as they are, play a role in resisting this invasion?