A week and a half later Jeff got a letter from Professor Lasson to the effect that they had got in touch with him at Jeff’s suggestion and that now there were two laboratories aware that something was wrong with the sun.
In October one more laboratory had called upon Jeff for another kind of precision observing instrument and one laboratory had contacted Lasson directly.
In November Professor Lasson sent a carefully worded letter to most of the solar laboratories in the world, requesting that they observe Sol for instability and suggesting that silence be their keynote to forestall the chance of a worldwide panic.
By December most of them had answered and indicated they were puzzled but aware of the subtle change.
In December, early, Jeff left Chicago to take on a job in California, where a mining company wanted some equipment made to assay ore samples for metals. They kept Jeff dancing from one mining site to another for almost three weeks and he had no permanent address during that time. When he had finished it he felt that he was far behind in his own work with Professor Lasson. So, since he was in California, he went to see Lasson personally.
As he drove up the mountain he noted that he was being followed at a respectable distance by another car. He got out of his car at the observatory parking lot and waited for the other to park beside him.
“Bit brisk up here, isn’t it?” he asked.
“You bet. Connected here?”
“No, are you?”
“You’re Jeff Benson, the precision-instrument maker, aren’t you?”
“Yes, and you?”
“I’m Jerry Woods of the Chronicle
“Oh? Glad to see you. Something in the line of news up here?”
“I’m just beginning to smell it. Mind if I sniff harder?”
Jeff shrugged unhappily. Whatever Lasson had by now, no matter how certain, it was not the time to publicize it.
“I’m going in to see Professor Lasson,” said Woods.
“So am I.”
Woods fell into step beside Jeff and together they went into Lasson’s office. Immediately Jerry Woods came to the point.
“What’s up?”
“Up? What makes you think there’s anything up?”
Woods smiled. “A newspaperman, I’m told by my admiring friends, has the mind of a detective. He operates on disconnected clues and ties them together until he finds a connection. Unfortunately for eulogistic friends, both newspapermen and detectives are just plain nosy and get their news and their criminals because they’re being paid to go out and ask nosy questions of the right people.”
“So?”
“So I’ll tabulate. One, a certain celebrated celestial observer in Cincinnati was observed taking his leisure with his wife in a Cincy bistro at two ack-emma. It was a fine night out, but Ye Celeb Obs had little interest in the stars. Fact of the matter is, he was seen to yawn at two ack-emma—not usual practice for a man who’d worked for years at an all-night job.
“Two, a group of alleged astronomers were seen having a fine meal at eight p.m. This consisted of steak and potatoes instead of a nice breakfast of ham and eggs as might be expected of men who had just arisen to face the night’s work.
“Three, there was a squib, a filler in the local newspaper, that the Eastman Film Company had recently filled an order for low-sensitivity film and plate for an observatory in Maine.
“Four, Jeff Benson, one of the country’s best-known makers of precision instruments, has been busy as a dynamo, for some time, and in close touch with a well-known solar physicist.
“Five, I detect a note of dull-black silence on the part of astrophysicists who usually have the politeness to tell me that they’ve discovered nothing of note since the expanding universe.”
“So what does that add up to?”
“For a supposed sun-dodger the average astronomer is getting sunburned like mad.”
“Nonsense. Periodically we take an interest in the sun.”
“Uh-huh. So now we come to Number Six. Libraries and bookshops disclose a dearth of textbooks on solar matters. I assume that an observatory containing only a telescope for stellar observation might not be the best place in the world to find the latest facts. And when Lake Geneva’s Yerkes outfit starts to build a colostat on a tower as if they had to get it up in nothing flat, there’s something up.”
Lasson smiled. “Frankly, we’ve located a slight shift in the ionization potential of the solar photosphere. That’s all. It’s interesting. Everybody wants to get into the act.”
Jerry Woods smiled serenely.
“The, general public impression of a newspaper reporter is that he must be bold, smoke cigarettes incessantly type with two fingers, drink like an eel, and have no schooling beyond the third grade. He also uses ‘ain’t’ in his speech but not in his reporting because he was snapped at by a rewrite man who once studied grammar.
“About the only thing that’s right about me, apparently is that I’m given to wordiness. Because, gentlemen, I went through M.I.T. and decided to use what I had learned by being a roving science reporter for Associated News. So we have a change in the ionization potential of the atmosphere. Very interesting. That’s the symptom, isn’t it? The cause is a change in the solar energy level, isn’t it?”
“It could be.”
“Maybe someone is shoveling coal into Sol,” grunted Woods sarcastically.
“Why not wait until we’re sure of ourselves?”
“You mean you’re not?”
“Of course not. It’s hardly begun to change.”
Jerry Woods shook his head. “Fellows, I’d like one good news beat before we all go up in a nova.”
“Nova! Who said anything about a nova?”
“I did. Isn’t that what stellar instability ultimately means?”
“Not necessarily. There are variable stars, you know.”
“I know. But there isn’t a variable star in the group known as the Main Sequence. There isn’t an instable star there either. None but Sol. And Sol is right in the middle of the Main Sequence!”
“We can’t predict a nova, We don’t know what causes a nova.”
“Instability.”
“We don’t know what causes instability.”
Jerry Woods laughed. “I got out of school before neutrinos were a popular subject for discussion. Ergo, I am not as hip as I might be, and a certain still small voice tells me that I shall be courting the ubiquitous neutrino with curiosity and alacrity as soon as I leave here.
“However, I gress—if digress is the negative for a lost positive—and I’ll make my point: I’m told that all atoms contain neutrinos because the silent, undetectable little imps are necessary to maintain stability in the nucleus.
“But neutrinos are spewed forth in all atomic reactions and, because they have neither charge nor appreciable mass, they go whistling right through matter and on and on and on, ad infinitum. Whither, I dinna ken.
“But Sol is a vast nuclear furnace and the necessary neutrinos have been hurled forth for a couple of thousand million years at the present sitting. This is a lot of time and a lot of neutrinos, my friends.
“Now, dammit, I don’t recall whether the neutrino lives in the nucleus to glue it together or to keep it from collapsing of its own dead weight. Mayhap it is that uncertain something that sees to it that the coulombic repulsion between protons is maintained at a value less than the nuclear-particle attraction—or it may be directly responsible for this attraction.
“But to close this after-dinner harangue, I’ve heard a theory that it was an unbalance in the neutrino-count that caused novas.”
Professor Lasson was about to correct Woods by telling him the real theory but Jeff Benson interrupted. “Frankly,” he said, “for some time I’ve had a theory that neutrinos do not exist.”
“Despite Fermi?” chuckled Woods. “Fermi and radio-phosphorus?”
“I’ve got statistical evidence that some discrepancy exists in the conservation of energy. This i
s in chemical, mechanical, and electrical conversions of energy. The neutrino explains the discrepancy only in certain nuclear reactions and is not applicable to physical conversions.”
“You’ve got—what?”
“I’ve discovered and am seeking quantitative proof that every time energy is transferred from one medium to another, some of that energy is lost. A very small percentage.” Woods whistled. “Tell me what kind of place is this mythical country where the energy migrates to.”
Jeff shrugged. “I’ve postulated a sub-space.”
“And the mass-tons of energy converted by Sol must deposit its loss in this sub-space energy bank? Tell me, Benson, who makes the withdrawal—and when?”
“Suppose we postulate two side-by-side continuums. One is increasing in matter and energy as the other converts. This makes one build up while the other is running down. Then—vice versa. This may have happened at that inconceivable time, two thousand millions of years ago, when it is believed that our universe was started.”
“Uh-huh.” Jerry Woods nodded thoughtfully. “And more likely, if your sub-space exists, it is a warped thing, brought into existence by this forcing of the lost-energy proportion into it. Then, when it can no longer stand the strain, it bursts. Then, gentlemen, we have a nova!”
“That’s what I’d been considering,” said Jeff.
“That’s what I thought. And there is the basis for your instability.”
“Could be.”
“Well, gentlemen, I thank you for a good story.”
It came to them with a sudden thrust. Jerry Woods was
primarily a newspaper reporter. His glib talk in their own selected field, his ability to follow them in every detail and at times to anticipate them, his lack of the appearance of the average conception of a newshawk—these had eased the two scientists into talking too much.
“You can’t print that,” said Jeff.
“It’s news, isn’t it?”
“Its an opinion only. Frankly, we’re none too pleased with our results. We’re only fairly sure that instability exists, and we are most definitely not sure that some instability of this nature does not exist all the time.
“Were even less partially convinced that this may ever get to the point where it can be measurable without high-precision instruments, let alone rising to the proportions of a cosmic calamity.”
At that moment Jerry Woods might have been convinced. He had seen a few calculations and a couple of curves on Professor Lasson’s desk, and he was scientist—and knew scientists—enough to know that when they have something positive to point to, they seldom spend their time poring over the sort of minutiae that Lasson had apparently been working on.
He also knew that if you poke a scientist with an idea, valid or invalid, he is often inclined to postulate and hypothesize and dream on and on toward the imaginative theme of what might obtain if—if the entirely false premise were true.
Ask a scientist what would happen if silicon could take the place of carbon and you are more than likely to get in reply an entire plenum geared to the exigencies of silicon life-forms from amoeba to plant to animal, including Homo sapiens siliconis.
Jerry Woods was aware of the imaginative qualities of the scientific mind, and might have accepted their explanation about solar instability and any possible nova as sheer imaginative fancy had not Professor Lasson’s ambitious and enthusiastic aide, Harry Welton, taken that moment to come running in, almost breathless.
“Professor Lasson,” he cried, “this is it! Harvard just confirmed us. They’ve had it on the electronic sigma curve extrapolator and predictor—and the answer comes out nova!”
Jerry Woods nodded quietly. “It’s been nice knowing you, gentlemen. If ESCEAP says nova, I believe it.”
“But-‘
“I’m a newsman, remember? And now that Harvard has this on their mind it is only a matter of time before the world knows it, anyway. Let me break it—and quick—before anybody else does!”
“But—” began Professor Lasson. Then he shook his head and smiled sourly. “Oh, well,” he said. “If this is nova for Sol what difference does it make what we do?”
Jerry Woods nodded quietly and, instead of leaving the office, picked up Professor Lassons telephone and dialed the number of the Chronicle.
CHAPTER X
The next few weeks were utterly chaotic. Nothing made sense and no one cared much whether it made sense or not. It is impossible to describe the feelings of the people in any but a general sense, but there were definite trends that can be recounted. Any individual caught up in the maelstrom of outraged humanity exhibited the same feelings, whether he was inclined emotionally to be more violent or more conservative than the normal.
First came disbelief and scoffing. Men watched the traveling electric sign around the Times Building, which indicated tersely that, Scientists Say Sun Is Entering Unstable Period, against the screaming headlines of one of the Times’ competitors which was more noted for its lurid pictures and sensational captions:
WORLD’S END
SAYS SUN
The scoffing came partly because Sol had been shining quietly for as long as man could remember and many times that long before, no doubt, and partly because that same newspaper previously had cried wolf far too often.
But it was true, and disbelief could not cry down the cold-blooded statements made by scientists whose word carried weight. They all agreed, save a few who felt that it might gain them fame, fortune and publicity if the rest of the scientists were wrong. If they were right, it would make little difference.
Then came apathy. Men went in to their bosses completely tired of their jobs. They went in to tell their bosses where they could put their jobs, only to discover that their bosses were telling their supervisors where they could put their jobs.
Not a few men told their wives where they could go, and as many told their wives where they could be found if needed. The reverse added to as high a figure. Jobs were left unfinished, money left the banks, food left the stores, and business and finance came to a grinding halt.
Some sought solace in God. Some who had no god, sought solace in whatever they revered or worshipped. Men whose lives had been their work scorned those who left their jobs— men who left their jobs spat upon the diehards who proudly tried to work when nothing meant anything anymore.
And nothing really meant anything anymore. Man’s life is spent in preparing for tomorrow. There is the eternal hope that tomorrow may be better, that beyond the next hill, over the following crest, there will be something finer. But when tomorrow will not come, why bother?
“Why plan?”
The Scriptures were quoted, and from them it was told that God intended to destroy the earth by fire because of its wickedness. People jammed places of worship, imploring and praying for salvation.
Other people stood in groups, hushed and almost breathless, watching Sol through smoke-covered bits of glass. Hour upon hour they stood, waiting for calamity to strike.
Crime and viciousness were rife, and from this epidemic of violence came the turn of the apathetic tide.
Men realized that Sol might blow up at any time—tomorrow, next year or the following century. Exactly when was not too well determined for no one knew just yet the two salient facts of how swiftly the instability was rising, and just what level of instability would mark the critical point. But they realized that until it did snuff them all out in a grand cosmic explosion they either had to live, or commit suicide. There was nothing else.
Suicides were many but those who did not die by their own hands, preferred to live to the last ditch, some to eke out life to its final savor, and others because they feared and hated the oblivion of death.
So those who lived armed themselves and took vengeance against the unruly and the vicious.
Then, as the days wore into weeks and nothing seemed changed with Sol, men drifted back to their jobs, some because they were hungry and some because they were just bored with n
othing to do. Some went back because only by hard work could they forget the impending doom that shone down out of the sky upon them.
Then came contempt.
A nova, said the scientists. So be it. But astrophysicists have been in the way of thinking in terms of a few million years at a clip, of measuring distances in light years, of talking about the fact that only twenty-five thousand years ago, Polaris was not the pole star.
A nova, said the scientists. So be it. But could they tell whether it was to happen during this lifetime, or ten thousand years from now?
Sol had been shining for countless generations and no change had been seen in it during all that time.
Comedians made jokes of it and Hollywood continued to call them stars or starlets, depending upon their popularity —but the topnotch actors quickly became novas.
Hollywood ignored the learned, who pointed out that a nova was supposed to come up from the unnoticeable stage, pass through a short period of brilliance far exceeding its neighbors and then die into obscurity to be seen no more. One studio ignored this to the point of heralding its gala production for the year as “A Glittering Galaxy of Novas!”
Man had run the gamut from abject fear to superior scorn. The pendulum had swung. Then it turned back and people knew that the astrophysicists were right, that sooner or later they were doomed.
Dull-minded and fear-sodden, they went about their work with an inner gnawing terror. They did only that which they felt necessary and subtle humor was lost. Men either worked sullenly and doggedly or laughed and played loudly and roughly in the hope of forgetting for a few minutes the certain doom that hung over them.
The astronomers were busy men during those weeks. The curious and the fearful came to them and looked through their solar telescopes and went away unsatisfied because they could see nothing unusual. The scientists answered millions and millions of’ questions and half of these produced the simple answer that nothing whatever could be done.
Fire in the Heavens (1958) Page 8
