Aftermath

41

The President of the United States was not as Celine had imagined him. Saul Steinmetz was smaller, older, and too pale. He seemed almost unbelievably weary as they came into his office. But his eyes were warm and understanding, and when he smiled at you it lit up his face.

“Not quite the return that you deserved, or that I’d hoped you’d have,” he said. “No big parade down the Mall, no bands and medals and dinners and speeches. Well, we’ll get to that eventually. Welcome home.”

He waved to the sideboard by the wall of his office. “Something to drink?”

The next half minute of conversation left Celine confused. It was all small talk, about things like weather and Washington. The President made no mention of the worldwide devastation caused by the supernova, and he showed little interest in the Mars expedition itself.

So why were they here?

Saul Steinmetz made it clear at last, with a quiet, “Now, tell me about your return to Earth. Tell me in particular what you know about Pearl Lazenby and the Legion of Argos.”

In spite of his easy manner, he didn’t waste much time. Three people had been ushered out of his office as Celine and Wilmer came in. Half a dozen more waited stoically in the antechamber.

The woman general and the beautiful young aide who had brought them to the White House stayed. Celine knew that General Grace Mackay was the Secretary of Defense, but the aide’s name rang no bells. However, she sat down with the others without being invited. Yasmin Silvers was obviously an insider.

Celine gave her description of the failed reentry that had killed Zoe Nash, Ludwig Holter, and Alta Mclntosh-Mohammad. She emphasized that the data from the first orbiter had been key to the second or-biter’s survival. She caught the wag of the finger that Steinmetz gave to Yasmin Silvers, and realized that the aide was taking notes. Something would be done to memorialize the three dead crew members.

The President showed less interest in the story of the Clark’s successful reentry, until the orbiter made its emergency landing and the surviving crew members were met by followers of the Legion of Argos. Then he leaned forward and asked, “The head of the Legion — Pearl Lazenby. Did you meet her?”

“Several times.”

“I don’t know if you realize this, but she was sentenced to many centuries of judicial sleep for multiple terrorist actions. Her followers removed her from the syncope facility less than two weeks ago. What are your impressions of her?”

“Enormously dangerous.” Celine repeated Jenny Kopal’s estimate that the Legion of Argos had more than a hundred thousand followers armed and ready to act. “They’re her absolute slaves. Anything she tells them to do, they do. As soon as she gives the word, they’ll start a ’holy cleansing.’ If you’re not white, then you’ll be doomed.”

“Jews, too, for a bet. We’re on everybody’s hit list. When is this supposed to happen?”

“Any moment. That’s why we felt we had to escape and give a warning.”

“Do you think she believes what she tells her followers?”

“Absolutely. She sees visions. When that happens, she becomes the Eye of God and therefore infallible. When she’s not the Eye of God, you think you’re talking to a nice and persuasive lady. That’s one reason she’s so scary.”

“Anyone can say they see visions. Did you hear any of her prophecies?”

“That’s the other disturbing thing. She prophesied her own ’resurrection’ — her escape from the syncope facility.”

“Wishful thinking.”

“But it happened. And she predicted Supernova Alpha, or at least something you could easily interpret as that. Floods and fires and dust storms, freak weather and the collapse of technology.”

“Typical apocalyptic prophecies. Anything specific?”

“Yes. She claims to have predicted the date when it would happen.”

“Which puts her streets ahead of any of my advisers.” Saul Steinmetz turned to Wilmer, who was sitting eyeing the weather satellite displays on the wall opposite. “Did you meet her, too?”

“Yes.”

When that seemed to be the full extent of his answer, Celine added, “Dr. Oldfield spent much more time with Pearl Lazenby than I did.”

“Oh?” Saul turned his full attention to Wilmer. “Why was that?”

Wilmer frowned and rubbed the bald spot on the top of his head. “I dunno. I guess I got fed up with her prophecies, because it seemed like what she was telling us was a load of old cobblers. So I gave her a few prophecies of my own to chew on. She seemed to like ’em. She kept asking me back for more.”

“You do prophecies, too?” Saul spoke to Wilmer, but his eyes were on Grace Mackay and Yasmin Silvers. What sort of nut have you brought in here with you?

Wilmer grinned. “Nah. What I gave her was science.

Pearl Lazenby doesn’t know the difference. I told her about global disasters that are going to happen half a century from now. They aren’t predictions, they are guaranteed effects of Supernova Alpha. But she believes they are prophecies.”

“The supernova is going to have an effect on Earth, fifty years in the future?”

“Fifty years, give or take ten years. Depends on particle speeds. A huge effect. I told her that, too.”

“Why don’t you tell me — the whole thing.”

“You mean nobody’s briefed you on it before?”

Saul looked at General Mackay. She nodded. “Yes, sir, they have. Weeks ago, just after the gamma pulse. Dr. Vronsky. He did it twice.”

“And I suspect I didn’t understand a word he said.”

“It didn’t matter at the time, sir. You had more urgent priorities.”

“I’m not sure that’s true.” Saul turned again to Wilmer. “Go ahead. Keep it simple.”

“It is simple,” Wilmer said. Celine jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. “All right. Simple. Alpha Centauri goes supernova. It shoots out a lot of stuff, visible radiation and gamma rays and particles. And I mean a lot of stuff. Enough to fry any planets it might have. We’re lucky enough to be far away, we survive. We get the visible light, then a few weeks later the gas shell around the star ruptures and we get the gamma pulse. If Earth had been lucky the gammas would have squirted out in some other direction and missed us. But they didn’t. They zapped Earth and the EMP wiped out most of the electronics.”

“Fifty years,” Saul prompted.

“I’m getting there. Everything that hit us so far was traveling at the speed of light. Gamma rays, visible light, neutrinos. But that’s only a small fraction of the energy that a supernova releases. A lot more energy comes out as high-energy particles. And a particle can’t travel as fast as light.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I’m talking about a particle with mass. A zero mass particle, like a neutrino, travels at the same speed as light. In fact, it has to. But when an ordinary particle is accelerated to a high velocity, up close to light speed, relativity takes over. The amount of energy that you need to accelerate a particle relativistically becomes—”

“Dr. Oldfield, I hate to interrupt. Blame it on a defective education, but when two particular words appear in a briefing, I know that from that point on I’m not going to understand a thing. One of them is relativity. The other is entropy. I concede it, a particle can’t travel as fast as light. What then?”

“Well, it travels slower than light. In the case of particles blown out of a supernova, the actual speed falls into a range. The peak of the velocity distribution, as I calculate it, falls right about eight and a half percent of light speed. Which gives the result that I mentioned.”

He paused, gave the top of his head a last rub, and sat back.

“Finish it, Wilmer,” Celine said grimly. “I’ve told you a hundred times. Dot the i’s and cross the t’s.”

“What? Oh.” Wilmer turned back to Saul. “The Alpha Centauri system is one and a third parsecs away from Earth. That’s four point thirty-four light-years. So a particle that travels at eight and a half percent of light speed will take a little more than fifty-one years to get here. There’s slop in the calculation, so half a century is about as good an estimate as you can get.”

“Do you know what the effects will be, when the particles hit us?”

“No. I don’t think anybody does. But I’ll put it in energy terms. Earth — and the whole solar system — will be hit with at least ten times as much energy as we received from the visible and gamma radiation.”

“ ’In the long run, we are all dead.’ That takes on a new meaning. Could it wipe out life on Earth?”

“Oh, I very much doubt that. Single-celled and oceanic forms will presumably survive. But it might make life impossible for humans.”

“Actually, that tends to be my primary concern. Sponges and oysters will have to look after them-

selves.” Saul turned to Grace Mackay. “See if you can find Dr. Vronsky, would you, and ask him to join us. And, Yasmin, tell the people waiting for me that I have to cancel.”

“They include the French Ambassador, sir. You know what he’s like. He will not be pleased.”

“Life is tough all over. Give him a bottle of California wine, that should silence him one way or another. Dr. Oldfield, you paint a bleak picture. Is there anything at all that can be done to prepare ourselves for what’s coming?”

“Many things. And fortunately, we have plenty of time. If you are interested only in human survival, dirt and rock provide excellent protection. It’s not much of an answer, but we could follow Pearl Lazenby’s example and move underground.”

“Triumph of the Mole People. ’Then will I headlong run into the earth.’ I don’t like that answer at all, it didn’t work for Faust. What else?”

“I don’t like it, either. The best solution is to stop the particle storm from hitting us.”

“How would you propose to do that? Move the Earth?”

“No. Build a shield. Out in space.”

“Wait a minute, Wilmer.” Celine could see he was getting fired up, and the President’s eyes were popping. Another man, a heavily built stranger with prominent brow ridges, had entered the room with General Mackay, but it was not the time to stop for introductions. She went on, “You never talked about this to any of us.".

“That’s because nobody ever asked me what we might be able to do.” Wilmer turned again to Saul. “It sounds impossible at first, because the shield would have to be so big — about ten thousand miles across, and placed right between Earth and Alpha Centauri. But it’s not nearly as bad as it sounds. You wouldn’t make a solid shield. The good thing about the particles on their way here is that almost all of them are ionized — they carry charges. So you can divert them with an electromagnetic field. The shield I’m talking about can be a mesh of superconducting wires, thin as gossamer but carrying currents. Shape it correctly, and the rain of particles slide right around the lines of force. They don’t hit the shield, and they don’t hit the Earth.”

The man by the door said, “What about momentum transfer?”

Wilmer nodded. “A valid question. I don’t know the answer, but maybe we could balance it against gravitational forces.”

“I think the forces would sum rather than cancel. Maybe use solar radiation pressure?”

“Dr. Vronsky,” Saul interrupted. “Are you saying that this idea is technically feasible?”

The newcomer frowned. “Technically feasible? Assuredly. Admittedly, there are a thousand details to be worked out, but. the technical problems are not the difficult ones. Engineering is another matter. A shield of this kind would require a space construction effort many thousands of times greater than has ever before been attempted.”

“And thousands of times more expensive.”

“Assuredly. It would call for global cooperation, and global resources.”

“That’s my department. I’d like you and Dr. Oldfield to begin at once with the ’engineering details.’” Saul stood up. He held out his hand to Wilmer, and then to Celine. “You’ve not had much of a welcome to Washington. If it’s any consolation, no one in my whole life has ever given me as much to think about in so short a meeting. I will feel honored if you can have dinner with me at the White House tomorrow.”

It was a dismissal, no matter how cordial. Somehow Celine was outside the door, with Wilmer at her side.

He said, “I didn’t get the chance to tell him about the other possible ways you could protect from the supernova particle storm.”

“No, you didn’t. And I’ll tell you another thing, you’re not going to talk about them tomorrow night.

How often do you get a chance for dinner with the President?”

“And the other thing, about Supernova Alpha.”

“The fact that it’s impossible, according to current theories? I don’t think you’ll get far with him on that one. You don’t get far with me.”

“You don’t understand. It’s not just close to impossible or marginally impossible. It’s flat-out, throw-away-all-of-physics impossible.”

“So what are you suggesting?”

“That it wasn’t a natural event. That something gave Alpha Centauri a helping hand.”

“Wilmer.” Celine sighed. “Let’s put our problems in a stack. First priority: try and get the world here back to normal. Second priority: worry about what will happen fifty years from now. And you know what? There’s only room in my stack for two problems at a time.”

“If somebody or something could cause a star to go supernova—”

“Not today, sweetheart. Not with me, at least. Try it on Dr. Vronsky.” Celine went to the window. “As for me, I’m going outside there. Want to come with me?”

“Sure. But the President told us — I mean, Dr. Vronsky is probably keen to begin work. I mean—”

“That’s all right.” Celine stretched up to give him a kiss on the cheek. “I was just checking, to see if you were back to normal. You are. You go play games with Dr. Vronsky.”

“But what about you?”

“I’ll be fine. I’m going to walk in the sunshine, and I’m going to daydream that I’m safe home on Earth, and I’m going to imagine that all my responsibilities are over. And then I’m going back to being the same insecure, nervous worrier that I always wanted to be.”

Yasmin hung back when the others left. Saul gave her an odd look, but he didn’t tell her to leave. Since the night at Indian Head they had yet to redefine their relationship.

“I suppose it’s none of my business, sir. But I wondered what you did with the information about Tricia Goldsmith.”

“Do you honestly believe that it’s none of your business?”

“I suppose I don’t. Or I wouldn’t dare ask you.”

“In that case, I’ll tell you. I haven’t done a thing — not even run a check on why Crossley and Himmelfarb went out of business. But I’ve thought about it more than you would believe.” He stared at her steadily. “You’re smart, and hardworking, and ambitious, Yasmin. You may have what it takes to go all the way in politics. Would you like to find out if you do?”

“Yes, sir. Unless I have to do something, well, you know—”

“Nothing illegal — though in politics it wouldn’t be a first. You told me you’d like to learn all I know. I’m going to give you that chance. There will be a meeting here tomorrow afternoon. It’s probably going to be the most difficult session in my life.”

“Do you want me to attend it?”

“You can’t. That would be an absolute impossibility. I want you to watch and listen, and we’ll talk about it afterward. I’ll have a secret camera here in this office.”

“Won’t whoever you meet with expect that?”

“I’m sure they will. It won’t make any difference. I’ll be the one making the pitch, they’ll mostly be listening.”

“Very good, sir. Is that all?”

“Send Auden in. I need to have a word with him, too.”

“Yes, sir.” Yasmin began to walk out, but she hesitated at the door. “You know, if there’s any way that I can help you to deal with Tricia, I’ll do it gladly.”

“Don’t tempt me.” He smiled. “Not yet, at any rate. There’s too much going on.”

“It’s an open offer.” Yasmin walked through to the outer office. Auden Travis stood by his desk with a distressed expression on his face. He was holding a telcom receiver. She said, “Are you all right, Auden?”

“No, I’m not. I was, until half a minute ago. I just got a call. The President’s mother died twenty minutes ago. I’ll have to tell him.”

“He wants to see you anyway. Shall I tell the crew at Andrews to prepare Air Force One?”

“Better do that. Say, for a takeoff in half an hour.”

Yasmin looked after Auden as he left. She was upset by the news, as he was, but her first shameful reaction had been a different one. I hope Saul gets back by tomorrow afternoon, so I can be in on that special private meeting.

Is that what it takes to go all the way in politics? Ambition first, everything else back in the pack?

And if it is, would any sane human want to have what it takes?