Nicraan moved forward from the assembled crew, running his hands through his tousled mane. The crew were all due for some grooming, a marooned life on an uncivilized planet left little room for social niceties such as regularly scheduled hair-cuts, Capel reminded himself, watching the pilot forming his reply mentally. Eventually, the pilot said, "Well, the obvious is moving up the launch."
"Can it be done?" Dara asked genuinely. She looked up from where she sat, her expression grim. "Besides, we don't know what the real side effects are from this Class-M star going supernova. It's over eight million mets from us. As far as the flooding of the entire flatlands, we can't be certain..."
Moela glanced down at her, saying, "Siress, when that red supergiant goes, it will take most of this solar group with it ... including this planet and its sun. For the past cycle and a half, we all have witnessed the side effects the red supergiant has had on this planet's star. Now we know why there has been such radical sunspot and prominence activity, even why the inhabitants that once reigned over this world built the planetary shield. That red giant has been building up for this moment for at least a million cycles."
Dara stopped grasping at spider-silk hopes that dissolved in the air as quickly as she said them.
"There's more," Moela said, punching in commands on the holographic controls. The three-D orb of the planet focused into view, but this time it showed an enlarged area of the northern hemisphere. There appeared to be odd shading in a circular manner just below the arctic circle. The 3-D graphics display simulated the ellipsoid formation of the ozone hole atop a rather precise outline of the planet's northern pole -- a computer image signaling a world of unchecked chemical waves and eddies, gigantic trenches of heterogeneous gas. She had written the program to define instability in the upper atmosphere, a tsunami of turbulence around which swirled a shadow of numeric coefficients. Would the shadow come south toward the crashsite's continent? Yet, even as Moela examined the data just in front of her and the others, she saw that her calculations had proved to be correct. "What you're seeing here is a hole in the planet's ozone. And," she added, coding in several library files close up shots including those of the dead marine mammals she had discovered on the beach, "here are some of its results."
Aerial shots showed the ocean clogged with coho, perch, largemouth fish, and desiccated kelps, burned sea grasses, upended and lifeless squid. It was a trail of gangrene, rotting flesh for mets -- in a mid-rotate setting, a luminescence unlike any the ocean had probably known for literally billions of cycles, a reflection like that off scintillating steel. Hell.
Everyone stared in horror.
"What in The Mystics' name did that to them?" Dara inquired.
"The suns, Siress. The suns. I spent rotates examining cultures under an electron microscope. The fish and marine life died of an oncogenic viral infection, triggered in whole populations of cells by the ultraviolet light. Genetic recombinations were occurring at a massive and rapid rate. All along the beachfront, thousands of fish from bream to halibut are vying to get out of the ocean, throwing themselves on the sand from wind-swept waters." Moela paused to clear her throat, and then went on, "I've known about the ozone hole over the Arctic for some time now. A hole that's bigger than this entire continent we're stranded on. It moves. Parts of it have covered the tip of the Northern Continent. It spins off into little minibubbles."
"I never heard of that --”
Moela cut her siress off, saying, "It throws off smaller replicas of itself, and we've got a big problem here in this valley. What we've got is a hole on its way. I figure ninety -- maybe a hundred, hundred-fifty kilomets across, fifty, sixty thousand mets up. One of those minibubbles, those replicas. And it's coming, coming in fast."
"What's a worst-case scenario when it does get here?" Nicraan asked.
"Skin cancer," Moela replied.
"Try the equivalent," Dara interjected, the global representation was back on the plinth and she was looking intently at the data scrolling alongside the holograph, "within ten macronodes, of an all-out nuclear exchange -- but without any of the noise or smoke, or obvious damage. Try overnight skin cancers, fatal melanomas, blindness, the destruction of all plant life, the interruption of all animal and plant and insect behavior." The doctor tabbed hologram controls and got some of the animal pictorials to insert along with the globe. "I've seen every kind of optic ulcer, ophthalmia, keratitis, massive overnight pinguecula, destroyed conjunctiva, excruciating corneal ulcers that can blind a patient. Yet, these pictures..."
"In Contemporary," Pereszsire waged, combating the harried informant.
"I'm sorry. The eyes are burnt up in these animals. Just look," she said, indicating the milky pupils and the shriveled irises indicated in the animal headshots. "And from this data, it's only the beginning. There are new viruses showing up, perhaps spread by the dead animals all over the area. These creatures have got systemic lupus erythematosus, skin eruptions, and renal failure … rampant herpes on the genitals, face, tongue, and in the throat. They had to contend with infectious hepatitis, more parasites than it looks like you could analyze, Moela. Serious skin cancer, throat cancer, nasty bacterial-like meningococcus and streptococcus. Here, look at this." The doctor called up more specific data and pointed to several captions underlying the grotesque close-ups. "Tabes dorsalis," Dara stated.
"What is it?" Moela inquired.
"Syphilis of the nervous system. Destroys the whole host. Some of those poor beasts must have had internal temperatures of a hundred five. What you've discovered, Moela, is not an epidemic -- it's multiple epidemics. Immune systems seem to be cracking."
"The real hell-and-brimstone stuff..." Retho sighed.
"And, what do we have to attribute this ozone bubble too?" Capel inquired. "Was it the fire storm?"
Moela shook her head, saying, "More like the global shield. That and the volcanic activity. It seems that the upper gray-blue stratosphere is getting a steady gaseous stream from the eruptions and an unprecedented burden of chlorine compounds has spread out over the far north."
"Chlorine?" Nicraan’s memory was stirring, even if he wasn't getting it.
"Yes, the high-altitude atom is the purest expression of the life force," Moela replied. "Coaxed into being by elemental processes forged during the creation of the Universe, brought to fruition in the thin cirrus surrounding this planet, these uncountable trillions of particles exited in a realm akin to spirit."
Capel nodded, the picture formed crystal clear in his calculating mind. The computer's monitoring of chlorine monoxide and dioxide registered so mammoth a molecular cannibalism was taking place as to wipe any existing ozone off the map. Moreover, the depletion was occurring in both the troposphere and stratosphere. The commander knew the data was correct. He realized, though could not quite imagine, what it meant: catastrophic ultraviolet, fatal exposure. "Sixty, seventy, eight thousand retems above the planet, chlorine attacks the ozone molecule. There is chemical lust at work in this reaction, which results in a so-called mating syndrome and the depletion of ozone. The volcanoes have thrown up a massive amount of chlorine."
"That means real trouble," Retho said, his eyes shining -- not because of enthusiasm, yet realization. "Sunshine now can kill us -- good Ancients! Is that for real?" He was looking at the three-D printout of data before him.
"UV levels are all over the place," Moela stated. "In some sections of the upper atmosphere just north of here I read no ozone. I've also read a wavelength of 250 nanoretems."
"That's into the UV-C band!" Nicraan gasped. "That's not possible." He cleared his throat of fear.
"Well it's true. Just don't look at the suns during take-off," Moela said, pointing a finger at a specific section of the holographic printout.
Nicraan Matasire had known since Astrophysics 101 that biologically active ultraviolet radiation reached a planet in the 290-to-320-nanoretem band. It was called UV-B and it could cause extreme damage if unmitigated. That is to say, if sentient beings didn
't wear protective sun screens, visors, or have proper shielding in their spacecraft's hulls and viewports. To most, UV-B was simply UV, ultraviolet radiation. The B part was an esoteric add-on banded about by ancient experts. The simple fact was that UV was biologically active, harmful, was what made of an alleged ozone crisis from the very beginning of its discovery.
There were wavelengths longer than the 290-nanoretem band that were used in every rotate activities -- even as a backup for showering facilities. These were controlled and harmless to a sentient being. UV-B was bad. Like Dara had reported, it could induce skin cancers, eye cataracts, and other ills. And even Nicraan knew that nucleic acids -- the basic material not only of terran gene, but the genes of all living organisms -- had no chance whatsoever against ultraviolet radiation in wavelengths even lower than UV-B, against the suns' intensities as they would have shone on the planet's surface some four billion cycles ago, before the evolution of an ozone layer to block it out.
"How do you know this bubble isn't already here?" the pilot inquired.
"I don't, for sure. But everything I know about it theoretically indicates you couldn't go outside. We would all die. Everything would die."
"How fast is it moving toward us then?"
"I don't know. Ten macronodes. A node. A rotate. You have to understand, I've been working on a computer program, not on the prairie."
"Is there anything we can do to stop or slow down the progress of this ozone bubble?" Dara asked.
"Well there is the old cloud-seeding idea," Capel voiced.
"How does that work?"
"Jettison a cloud-seeding missile into the center of the hole, loaded with oxides of nitrogen. The idea is to disperse large masses of the stuff in concentrated gaseous form at both low and high altitudes to trigger a conversion of the ozone-depleting chlorine monoxide into the relatively benign chlorine nitrate molecule," the commander quickly explained.
"Sounds great," Nicraan said. “But do we have the time or even the inclination to try? After all, this planet isn't going to be here in the next few rotates. I vote we pack up our woes and head for the stars."
"I agree. The launch will have to be moved up," Retho countered. "We've no other choice. Either we drown when the deluge comes or fry in the ozone hole or are vaporized when the red star goes supernova. Even the indigenous animal life forms have migrated from here. The area is totally without animal habitation. If we need a hint as to how catastrophic this is going to be, I'd say there's one for us."
Moela nodded in compliance with her sibling. "The figures and facts do not lie. A deluge with the magnitude of all the water-falls on this planet flowing continuously for over a hundred nodes can't even come close to what will commence within one rotate from now. I don't think I have to give you any more hints on what this planet is going to be like after that red star explodes." She put her hands on the back of Dara's chair. Nicraan observed the trembling of her hands before she clenched her fingers and regained her control. "The studies and all the tests have been run through Main Computer and confirmed. This planet and its star group are locked into a process that has been going on for millions of cycles. We have no other alternative ... we must launch before then!"
Retho cleared his throat and it served its purpose of getting everyone’s attention. “Have you even considered a more immediate problem that endangers us?”
“Such as?” Moela asked, an eyebrow poised.
Retho moved to the central desk’s holographic controls built into the slab’s top. After sequencing a few commands into its processors, the main display coalesced into a new image. It was one of mountain ranges and smoking capped volcanoes.
“What is this?” Capel inquired.
“The perimeter that besets our crash site,” Retho commented.
“Why show us this?” Moela probed.
Retho smiled ironically, saying, “Volcanoes are not randomly distributed over this planet’s surface. Most are concentrated on the edges of continents, along island chains, or beneath the sea forming long mountain ranges. More than half of this world’s active volcanoes above sea level encircle our crash site.”
“This isn’t sounding too good,” Dara commented, shifting her weight nervously as she listened intently.
“This planet’s surface is made up of a patchwork of about a dozen large plates that move relative to one another at speeds of less than one centiretem to about ten centiretems per cycle,” Retho went on as he tabbed in additional commands to the holographic display systems.
“Sounds about the same rate at which fingernails grow,” Dara mused.
Retho nodded and then continued to narrate the drama unfolding holographically before them all. A series of rigid plates were before all their curious eyes. “These plates, whose average thickness is about eighty kiloretems, are spreading apart, sliding past each other, or colliding with each other in slow motion on top of this planet’s hot, pliable interior. Volcanoes tend to form where plates collide or spread apart, but they can also grow in the middle of a plate, as for example some of this continent’s central cones.”
Capel leaned forward and studied the three-dimensional diorama, paying particular attention to the running captions of data offered up as subtitles to the swirl of force fields and energy that solidified to form Retho’s presentation. “The volcanoes that surround us stretch two thousand, five hundred kiloretems across the north of this continent and become progressively older to the northwest.”
“Yes, Sire. They were formed initially above a relatively stationary hot spot in this planet’s interior, each volcano was rafted away from the hot spot as this continental plate moved northwestward at about nine centiretems per cycle,” Retho confirmed.
Moela’s patience was wearing thin. “I don’t mean to be rude. But why this lesson in planetary tectonics? How does this put this ship and its crew in danger?”
Retho grinned and winsomely rubbed a hand across an obviously stressed neck as he considered his sibling’s statement. “The great majority of this world’s earthquakes and active volcanoes occur near the boundaries of this planet’s shifting plates; or, lithosphere. Most volcanoes are products of lithosphere-plate motions.”
“Retho, you are taking in riddles,” Dara remarked. “Please be more direct.”
The young scientist pressed the patience envelope a little more as he primly tabbed more computer commands across the holographic control membrane. This time, a closer view of the crash site’s immediate volcanoes danced into reality. “Some of this planet’s grandest mountains are composite volcanoes – sometimes called stratovolcanoes. They are typically steep-sided, symmetrical cones of large dimension built of alternating layers of lava flows, volcanic ash, cinders, blocks, and bombs and may rise as much as eight thousand retems above their bases.”
“Looks like the volcanoes that are only a few kiloretems from here,” Nicraan observed.
“Very observant of you,” Retho nodded.
“Retho, what are you trying to tell us?” Capel asked urgently.
“The largest and most explosive volcanic eruptions eject tens to hundreds of cubic kiloretems of magma onto this planet’s surface. When such a large volume of magma is removed from beneath a volcano, the ground subsides or collapses into the emptied space, to form a huge depression called a caldera. Some calderas are more than twenty-five kiloretems in diameter and several kiloretems deep.”
“You’ve just described the depression of which the Pioneer crashed into,” Moela said.
“Calderas are among the most spectacular and active volcanic features on a planet’s surface. Earthquakes, ground cracks, uplift or subsidence of the ground, and thermal activity such as hot springs, geysers, and boiling mud pots are common at many calderas,” Retho went on.
“Wow!” Nicraan breathed. “Talk about an accurate topographic narration. We are smack in the middle of a caldera, aren’t we?”
“Yes.” Retho replied. His face went dark and his expression suddenly serious. “The danger
I spoke of is this ring of volcanoes that chain around this caldera we are buried in.” With his arms crossed over his chest, he went on, saying, “During many volcanic eruptions, fragments of lava or rock are blasted into the air by explosions or carried upward by a convectioning column of hot gases. These fragments fall back to earth on and downwind from their source vent to form a pyroclastic-fall or ash deposit. Pyroclastic-fall deposits, referred to as tephra, consist of combinations of pumice, scoria, dense-rock material, and crystals, which range in size from ash through lapilli to blocks. Eruptions that produce tephra range from short-lived weak ones that eject debris only a few retems into the air which we have seen periodically since we crash here, to cataclysmic explosions that throw debris to heights of several tens of kiloretems which will occur as the planet begins to break apart.”
“And this is what endangers us?” Dara asked. “This tephra?”
“Explosive eruptions that produce voluminous tephra deposits also commonly produce pyroclastic flows.”
Moela nodded, as she finally understood. “And if we are in the direct line of one of those, this ship will never see Space again.” With defeat, she placed her weary head into her hands and almost wept.
“Close to an erupting vent, the main hazards to the ship posed by eruptions of tephra include high temperatures, burial, and impact of falling fragments; large falling blocks can kill or injure.”
“What is our safety margin?” Capel asked.
“Even five centiretems of ash will stop the movement of most vehicles and disrupt transportation, communication, and utility systems,” Retho said heavily. “An explosive eruption blasts molten and solid rock fragments into the air with tremendous force, Sire. The largest fragments fall back to the ground near the vent, usually within two kiloretems. The smallest rock fragments continue rising into the air, forming a huge, billowing eruption column. Volcanic ash is composed of fragments of rock, minerals, and glass that are less the two milliretems in diameter.”
Sidereal Quest Page 16
