The World Game

by Allen Charles

  Sirs, I believe that the silver cloud we see is the creation interface of anti-matter replicating and absorbing energy from the surroundings, thus the lightning flashes. The anti-matter interface should be at extremely low temperature, possible close to absolute zero, as the energy is converted back into anti-matter.

  What puzzled me the most is why the creation front kept growing. Why didn’t it stop? It appears that the anti-matter is increasing and not staying constant. I have a theory about that based on statistical particle physics. There appears to be a sympathetic reaction between subatomic particles that defies our conventional idea of space time relationship. Experimenters over 20 years ago were able to strike a particle with a gamma particle and the particle pair in a remote location would emit a photon at exactly the same instant as the photon emission from the target particle.

  Based upon these real observations, I am postulating that the concentration of the AMD explosion has caused a nexus in our universe that attracts the sympathetic reaction of remote anti-matter destruction throughout the universe. We have attracted all the anti-matter in creation like a magnet attracts iron filings. Past this point there is no projection as to where things will go. That’s it Mr President.”

  The President took in a breath and looked at Shaw in astonishment. “Pardon me for asking, and I do not doubt you Mr Shaw, but how old are you?”

  “Eighteen sir.”

  “And how did you reach this level of knowledge and capability that people twice your age do not achieve?”

  “Sir, only because you ask, my assessed IQ is 195. The tests did not cater for my level of IQ and eidetic memory. I have a God given gift and I intend to use it. My associate Felicity Hannaford is not far behind me sir, and the rest of the cadets are all the top of their schools. We have no shortage of intelligence, just a lack of experience.”

  “Well Mr Shaw, I guess we are all in the same boat as to experience right now. I am grateful that we have you and your group as survivors. Maybe we have a chance.”

  “Thank you sir.”

  The President scratched his nose in thought for a moment. “Mr Shaw, I didn’t miss your comment of “thank God”. Did God do this to us?”

  “Mr President, we had a society based upon belief in God that had its roots stretching back thousands of years. We believed in the Bible and the stories of the Flood, the Exodus and all the miracles that accompanied this theology. Why should we stop believing now? This is as valid in human existence as were the Ten Plagues in Egypt or the splitting of the Red Sea.

  There are no half measures. One either believes or does not. I choose to believe that our situation is God’s will.”

  “All the population of Earth destroyed? God’s will?”

  “Sir, He made us, He can do as He wants with us. It remains to be seen if the population was destroyed or sent to a better place. Your questions reveal self doubt and internalization of this catastrophe. See I used a negative word, catastrophe. It is one from our perspective, but we are like fish in a goldfish bowl. We can’t even imagine what is outside the bowl. A net comes in and scoops up some fish. The others run away and wonder if those lost are cat food. In fact they are in a much larger tank with great freedom. Who knows? So I choose to follow the belief in God that is supported by a philosophy of non-interference unless absolutely necessary.”

  “And you don’t see this as necessary?”

  “I am not God Mr President. Neither are you sir.”

  “The President looked back at Shaw with a smile.”I hope I never have to run against you for President Mr Shaw. I wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  Shaw grinned and then turned suddenly at a cry of distress from behind. It was Amy Young who had been going around checking the presidential staff. She was clinging to the aisle seat frame next to the Secretary of State. “I need emergency care here. Oxygen and defibrillator. I do not have a pulse and my BioMeter is telling me thirty seconds to brain death.”

  “Amy!” Shaw cried out, “Do exactly as I tell you! Put your fingers in her mouth and pull her jaw open!”

  Amy clambered over the arm rests and secured herself precariously, taking precious seconds. “OK I’ve done that.” She called out.

  “Put your mouth over her mouth and pinch her nostrils closed, then blow into her mouth to inflate her lungs. Let the air come out naturally. Do this three times quickly.”

  Amy frantically applied the breath transfer while trying to fight the acceleration drag. “Done!”

  “Pull your youniform hood over her head and apply the breathing again. Felicity is heading your way with a HeartStart. What is the BioMeter saying now?”

  “We gained another thirty seconds. Wait. The youniform seems to be flowing over her and my buddy is working on her too. The BioMeter is saying there is blood flow and pulse but no heartbeat. The time to brain death has gone and she is showing as critical stable. Here’s Felicity.”

  Felicity crawled over the adjoining seat back and slipped the HeartStart cable under Beauvais’s clothing, allowing it to attach just below the sternum. It released chemicals into her blood stream and wire tendrils penetrated into her heart muscle. There was a beep noise and a spoken warning, “Stand Clear. Electric Shock.”

  Felicity cleared but Amy was still attached by the youniform and the buddy. She calmly said “Go ahead Felicity. Activate it manually. The youniform will protect me.” Then in a whisper “I hope...”

  There was no more time to lose. Felicity pressed the green button on the HeartStart and Beauvais’s body convulsed with the shock. Amy was driven clear of her hold on the seat and attached to Beauvais by the youniform, face to face like lovers kissing. Amy’s body came down hard across the seat back in front as acceleration took over and she blew out a gasp into Beauvais’s face as if punched hard in the stomach, which in fact was the case. The youniform had reacted to the impact and frozen to prevent major damage, but not before the intrusion of the seat back had doubled her over and cracked a couple of ribs.

  “Aaahhg!” Amy moaned, before the buddy could kick in and suppress the pain of the bruising cracked ribs.

  “Aahhg yourself.” came a whispered reply from Beauvais.

  “Oh thank God you are OK!” Gasped Amy with a grin, even around her now decreasing pain.

  Felicity moved herself into a position to support Amy and lower her into the now vacated seat in front of Beauvais. I need to get the BioMeter onto you now Amy. The HeartStart is taking care of Secretary Beauvais.

  Felicity put the BioMeter onto Amy’s arm and after a few seconds read the diagnostic screen. Two cracked ribs and bruising trauma to the diaphragm. No action to be taken other than rest and analgesics. The buddy was already taking care of that part of the pain management.

  Fuller had reached the group and in all only sixty seconds had passed since the first alarm.

  “Madam Secretary how are you doing?” He asked.

  “Colonel Fuller,” she answered in a small voice, “you’re cadets are quite amazing. I feel weak but fine now. I blacked out and then the next thing I remember is being attached face to face with this young lady who seems to be in some distress herself.”

  “Amy will be fine Madam Secretary. Her equipment protected her from major injury and she was able to save you under Shaw’s instructions. These are exceptional young people and are here because of their abilities. I think you should rest now and let the HeartStart do its job.”

  Beauvais looked up at Fuller gratefully and relaxed. Her eyelids dropped and she fell into a deep, curative sleep aided by the HeartStart.

  Fuller looked at the bio-stats on the HeartStart screen. Beauvais had been clinically dead for at least five full minutes prior to intervention. The warning to brain death should not have happened. Technically, the HeartStart should not have worked. Beauvais should be dead.

  He carefully looked around. Felicity was busy with Amy. He reached out and cancelled the read-out.

  Beauvais had an empty seat next to her, so he summoned another c
adet to make her way over and instructed her to watch Beauvais. She would be relieved in four hours. Fuller headed back to the flight deck, walking up chair frames like a ladder. He poked his head into the cabin, “Room for one more Commander?”

  Janine looked back over her shoulder, “Take a seat Colonel Fuller.” He could see the weariness in her eyes and the stress in her gaunt features. “We seem to be reaching an equilibrium velocity to outrun the fragments. How far ahead of the pack do you think we should position ourselves until we can calculate for evasion if it is possible? I could throttle back the acceleration and give some relief to the passengers, as well as save reaction mass.”

  “What does the math look like for the direct fragments?”

  “Since you guys blew away the main ones heading for us and slowed them down, there is a dimple in the expanding ball of fragments with the unaffected pieces moving faster than the dimple. That will put us into a one ended cone of fragments for some time. The problem is that we don’t know if there is an end to the fragment stream, although common sense says there must be. We are trapped inside this tunnel effect until the expansion of the fragment ball is sufficient for us to be able to navigate between the pieces safely and maybe get behind it. Because there are probably specks and dust size particles out there, we take a risk moving off this vector at any time. Your young genius Shaw may be able to shed some light on all this.”

  Fuller just sat silent for a moment, decompressing. “I wonder what happened to the other transports and the Space City shuttles?” he murmured.

  CHAPTER 35

  In the Iranian Fragment just before the fuel bomb impact.

  Arjmand had reached the final active lock, the third one, so there were two segments of safe corridor before the vacuum of space broached the bunker safety. He was full of self confidence now and acting without detailed instruction from Zardooz. He pulled out his small flashlight and muted the corridor illumination to see beyond the air lock window. It was black. Just black. He pressed the flashlight against the viewport and turned it on. At first he could not make out what he was looking at. Was it inches from the glass or feet away? The glow of the flashlight was completely refracted and diffused as it tried to penetrate the darkness.

  “What do you see?” came Zardooz across the intercom.

  “I - I’m not sure. It looks silvery and fluid but I can’t tell if it is on the other side of the glass or far away. It seems to suck up light and is the same in all directions. There is nothing to give it perspective. What is it Zardooz?”

  “The Great Satan used an Anti-Matter Device on our glorious Empire. We are seeing anti-matter as close as we ever want to see it I believe. There is nothing more for you to do there, start heading back.”

  Arjmand turned up the lights again and prepared to kick off back down the corridor. It was this braced position that saved him from injury and probable death as the fuel bomb water vapor precursor struck the fragment. Part of the vaporization reaction caused a slight jolt to the constant velocity vector. Zardooz, although not knowing precisely what was about to hit, screamed across the intercom “Arjmand hold tight!”

  There was no reply and fifteen seconds later the fuel hit and ignited, making the fragment stand still in the mass of fragments and blasting away the anti-matter coating around the fragment. The cloud of the blast coalesced as a trail behind the fragment, neutralizing the anti-matter coating of smaller pieces that slammed into the Iranian fragment like billiard balls. But the nett effect was that the main fragment had been slowed down relative to the remaining masses that formed the expanding shrapnel effect. Behind the main fragment front there was relative emptiness as the earth’s crust had blasted away and left the core in place as a coolly glowing planetoid coated with anti-matter. There were scattered pebbles and particles following the main masses and then a clean vacuum.

  In the corridor Arjmand was being flung about like a rag doll, his arm hooked under the grab bar by the air lock at Zardooz’s warning. The pain was excruciating as his shoulder was dislocated in one direction and then popped back in by the follow up impacts. Blood flowed from his broken nose and one ankle was twisted at an unnatural angle. During the impacts the lighting had flickered and gone out, but it came back on again as the violence ceased. Arjmand was still conscious but in terrible agony.

  “Arjmand?” came Zardooz. “Are you there? Are you all right?” Zardooz could feel a sensation of weight against his chair.

  “Ooooohhh. I’m hurt so bad. Help me.” he whimpered. “Please? I’m dying.”

  “Arjmand! Get hold of yourself. Where are you hurt?”

  Arjmand groggily lifted his head and looked at his ankle. He screamed from the pain in his shoulder as he tried to take his arm from under the bar. He felt like he was pinned to the wall and was no longer in free fall. He panted for breath and gasped “I have a broken ankle and I think my shoulder too. My nose is broken and I’m bleeding everywhere. Please come get me.”

  “Can you see outside from where you are?”

  “I can’t move at all Zardooz. Come get me for the love of Allah!”

  “Answer my question. Can you see outside? Then I will come get you.”

  Arjmand slowly twisted his head around. He was almost hard against the viewport and the bloody smear on the glass attested to where he had smashed his nose. He looked past the mess and blinked his eyes in disbelief. He looked again.

  “Zardooz, are you there?”

  “Yes, what do you see?”

  “I can see stars, and the moon off to one side. All slowly moving. Now please come get me.”

  “I’m coming.” Zardooz grabbed a first aid kit and threw in a syringe and a couple of ampoules of morphine. He took one more look around the control center and then bounced out against the tiny gravitational force. In the outer room the bodies of the two female attendants had drifted and settled against the far wall, broken and bloody from the frightful impact injuries received. Zardooz shook his head. “Such a waste.” he whispered. The safety harness in the control seat had engaged automatically at the first impact and saved him from any injury. “Just me and that swine Arjmand now.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Aboard the Space City Shuttles and remaining Transports.

  The pilots were frantically putting reaction mass data and relative velocities of ships, fragments and moon to try to outrun the fragment swarm and hide behind the moon. The Space City shuttles would have no problem making the distance, however the two remaining lower altitude transports did not stand a chance. The fragments would overtake them half way. There was just not enough reaction mass to complete the equation successfully.

  The other three transports X1, X2 and X3, could not run to the moon, but would take their chances shielding behind the bulk of space city. They were gambling that the missile that Skyhook terminus had become would miss Space City and leave it as a shield of sorts.

  “X6 come in, this is X4. Over” the pilots were reduced to simple radio communications ship to ship, now that all infrastructure was dust.

  “X6 here. What do you have in mind Corcoran? Over”

  “If we do nothing we have no chance at all. I was thinking about what Carver did, picking up the Air Force One reaction mass. I think we should rendezvous and take on all your passengers and transfer your reaction mass to this transport. That would give us a fighting chance to either get behind Space City or run for the moon. If any of the other transports have reaction mass to spare they could leave it at pre arranged coordinates for us. We have to make contact with them and tell them what we are doing. Two of them could do the same and definitely have excess reaction mass. We lose the resources of a ship but what’s that compared to immediate lives saved? Over”

  “I agree Corcoran. We maintain this escape vector to keep running ahead of the fragments and we rendezvous in ... say thirty minutes. We will be ready to transfer to you lock to lock. None of my passengers have youniforms or buddies and I have a full house here, so it is going to get a bit cr
amped. Over”

  “What’s your reaction mass status Martin? Over”

  “Fifty-five percent. Can you take that on board Corcoran? Over.”

  “We run parallel until we are both under fifty percent then transfer. We cannot waste a drop. Over.”

  “We need to crunch the numbers to see if we can run for the moon with the extra passenger mass aboard and then let the other transports know how much reaction mass we will need to finish the run. Corcoran, do you know the location of reaction mass depots on the moon for an unguided landing? Have to be on the dark side and we would need to move fast if the anti-matter spreads on the moon like it did on earth. We could fuel up and haul off a load of reaction mass so we don’t get stranded. We can pick up six times the mass we could haul off earth. Might get all the transports out of trouble later. Over.”

  “Nice idea Martin. We need to tell the others to do that as soon as they reach their way points behind the moon. Do we have a depot chart on the on board system? Over.”

  “I do not believe so Corcoran. That is the problem. We need to contact the Space City shuttles and see if any of their people know the location by dead reckoning coordinates. Over.”

  “How do we contact anyone with these dinky little radios? We need to get past the Skyhook tube between them and us and Solar interference. Over.”

  “Corcoran, do you have any laser equipment aboard? Over.”

  “It was quite a mess throwing everything in sight aboard when we left so I’m not sure. I think I saw a corporate logo for Lasmine equipment on a couple of the boxes. What do you have in mind? Over.”

  “We do not have direct line of sight with any other craft that we know of. If you look back what do you see? Over.”