A Ruby Beam of Light

by Tom DeMarco

  Tómas ran a full Emergency Medical Technician training sequence for the eight children of his deceased sister. Each of the lessons began the same. Tómas would say, “No matter what happens, never turn away.” No matter how gruesome the wounds, he would explain, you must never turn your eyes away, because if you do, that assures that you can’t act to help. He would describe the most grisly accident victims, faces abraded, eyes out of sockets and arteries gushing—he even had a book full of awful accident photos. Loren could remember the book being opened and placed on the floor, then being led forward by Asunción to confront god knows what horror. His older sisters and Tómas would surround him in a circle as he knelt over the book, his simulated victim. “Never turn away,” they would chant, “Never turn away. What do you do, Loren? What’s first? How are you going to help this guy? Never turn away!” Gradually he had mastered his fear. After that first accident run with Sierpa, he had returned home with his clothing covered with blood. Tómas had met him at the door with a bear hug and the others had cheered.

  Loren and his younger sister Chlotide traveled together to Burgos by bus for their Emergency Medical Technician exams. They did the written test first, then participated as a team in the practicals. A perfect score was 400. At the end of the practicals, they had not yet lost a point. Both had perfect written tests, and six perfect scores on the six practical stations. The oral at the end counted for 100 points. They answered questions peppered at them by the two judges. Finally, with 398 points, the senior judge shook his head in wonder at these two who knew it all. He smiled at them and said that he had never seen such a performance. The last question, he explained was the easiest one of all, it was there so that everyone could finish well. “Tell me please, what is the motto of the Emergency Medical Technician?”

  “Never turn away,” they replied in unison.

  “What?” He looked astounded.

  “Never turn your eyes away,” said Loren. “Or you won’t be able to help. You have to steel yourself…”

  “Yes,” said the judge, “that’s true, of course, but that’s not the motto.”

  “It’s not?” Chlotide was shaken.

  “No. I can’t believe you have missed the last question, the only easy question in the entire exam. And the answer is right in front of your noses.” He gestured up to the ornate seal displayed on the wall behind him. It showed the familiar serpent and staff, the Hippocratic symbol of medical practitioners down through the ages. The motto was written around the periphery of the seal. They both read it then for the first time. It said Do No Harm.

  “Do no harm,” the judge read out loud. “Whatever you do, you must endeavor most of all not to do harm. You must understand your own limits. When you don’t know what action to take, you must be brave enough to take no action at all. That is the motto.”

  “Oh,” they said.

  Loren went into Homer’s deserted office to sit beside the wreck of the Andronescu’s maser generator, the world’s first Effector. Do no harm, he thought. Do no harm, but never turn away from what you have to do. Where did that leave them now? Would it be an act of bravery and responsible behavior to refuse to turn on the Effector? Or would it simply be turning away?

  By mid-morning, Edward had combined his findings with those of Kelly and Sonia. The others assembled around the display to hear his assessment.

  “The initial consequences of a Layton Effect world are horrible to consider,” he said. “But not nearly as horrible as the alternative. We can project a very bad period during the first few months. The cities are particularly hard hit, since they depend most of all on the transportation infrastructure. Transportation is the key. The ability of a society to move its resources will determine its survivability. Now this is going to sound strange when you first hear it, but we’ve convinced ourselves that it’s true: Even without planes and trucks and cars, and with almost no horses in the developed world, there is still plenty of transportation capacity, much more than enough to support the population. The population itself supplies the capacity. Sonia computed how much total energy it takes to move a day’s worth of food from its source to its average consumer. It’s a lot, but still a tiny fraction of the energy that person can supply by working an eight hour day.”

  “You have to think of society formed into a kind of continental bucket brigade,” Sonia picked up. “If it can be made to happen, the capacity is enormous. The food and food transportation economy will require only a twelfth of that capacity. So it doesn’t have to be terribly efficient at the beginning. That’s important, because, of course, it won’t be. As long as it can work at all in its initial inefficient state, we think that people will be encouraged to take part and help it become more inefficient. Eventually, a twelfth of the working population will be sufficient to move basic necessities, even to the extremities of the U.S. That assumes a no-technology solution, people moving goods by pulling wagons with their own bodies. But there is technology that can help after the transition period, sail power and steam powered trains and hydro-electric where there is a source. The undeveloped world has a much easier time of it. Kelly has the figures for Africa, for example.”

  “Yes. Even in the transition period, Africa doesn’t look too awful. That is, it looks awful, but not much worse than standard awful for Africa. Which is awful.” Kelly shook her head. “The prospects for the average African getting through the year alive were already so grim that he or she hardly notices the additional hardship we would cause.” She flipped through some pages of notes. “We thought about some other things too: For non-human species, the Layton Effect is a boon, particularly compared to even the most limited nuclear use. The Physicians for Social Responsibility report projected a quarter of all species becoming extinct in the first year after a limited nuclear incident, while we predict no extinctions at all from the Layton Effect. Um, what else? Island economies like the Philippines: we figured that…”

  When there was nothing more to say, Homer called for a vote: “So we come to our first hard decision, my friends. The decision is shall we build a Persistent Effector and keep it in readiness?” He raised his hand. “I am going to vote Yes.”

  Loren raised his hand without delay: Never turn away. Kelly and Edward had their hands up as well. Sonia looked around at the others and then nodded. Her face was gray. Homer asked Loren and Edward to build the device in time to take it to Florida. Their flight was to leave in the afternoon. “Oh, by the way, don’t test it,” he said. Loren and Ed nodded soberly.

  Homer got to his feet. “Albert thinks that they’re going to move within a week. A week from now…maybe this is too obvious to say, but shortly after that, whether we decide to turn on the Effector or not, we could all be dead.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Thinking about dying has the effect of making you think about living. For me it does. If I am likely to be dead so soon, then I have some living to do right now. This morning. Something I have put off for too long.” He picked up his rain coat and hat and headed out.

  Loren and Sonia walked back across the bridge to her cottage. Sonia spoke only one sentence: she said, “I am feeling like a zombie.” He had only a vague sense of what the word meant, but her mood was clear enough. They both moved mechanically, locking the door behind them, setting the alarm, and settling down on Sonia’s bed for a few hours rest before their departure.

  Loren took her in his arms. “Did you understand what Homer meant about ‘some living to do’? Do you know about him and Dean Sawyer?”

  “Oh, please. Don’t say anything more.”

  “But Sonia, we could be dead soon too…” There was no expression on her face at all, but tears were welling up in her eyes. He put a finger onto her cheek to intercept the first tear. “You are thinking of other people’s death, Sonia, but not of your own. It is the strain of all those lives you’re feeling.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s not that. I’m just so dreadfully unhappy.”

  She put her face down into the crook of Loren’s neck. I
n that position she cried herself to sleep.

  12

  WAITING WITH THE NORTHWEST WIND

  A long convoy of cabs pulled up under the ornate glass and iron marquee of Fort Lauderdale’s Grand Marina Hotel. The first two cabs contained the members of Homer’s immediate party and the third its baggage, mostly Claymore’s baggage. He had brought along half a dozen suitcases, two duffel bags and a steamer trunk. It seemed excessive for a four-day stay, but then that was Claymore.

  Senator Hopkins and his family and Williams arrived directly behind, and following them were additional cabs of Cornell faculty and Day Hall brass. The whole group had come down on the same flight. The Senator had decided to make as much fuss as possible over Homer’s award to maximize the good publicity for Cornell. To this end, the press had been alerted; there would be video footage of Homer being applauded by members of the Serious Intellectual Community, many of them, Cornelians.

  Since he was footing the bill for so many senior faculty and admin personnel to be here, Senator Hopkins had decided to put them to work for one morning of their stay. They would all get together and sketch out a policy to assure Cornell’s greatness for a century to come. Historians would remember it as a milestone in far-sighted strategic planning, the Fort Lauderdale Accords, or some other glitzy name. He had no doubt of how their accounts would look back on the meeting: “If a single event can be said to have determined the course of the entire twenty-first century, it was undoubtedly Chandler Hopkins’ incisive and courageous convoking of the Serious Intellectual Community in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, leading to the historic Cornell Fort Lauderdale Accords.” Or something like that. As to what the Accords might contain, he had no idea. That would be the work of his brain trust. They would all be there by tomorrow morning: the university Chancellor, the Provost, three deans, the Proctor and four department heads. He would also press into service Homer Layton and his bright young PhDs, all of them, after all, on Cornell’s payroll. With minds like that at his disposal, he planned to make short work of the twenty-first century.

  Loren entered the lobby, keeping track of Kelly’s little brother, Curtis. The place was a palace. The vaulted lobby rose from his vantage point several stories to its wide glass canopy. Underneath were trees and bubbling fountains and vases of fresh flowers on simply every surface. He found himself gaping up at the interiors like a Spanish country yokel, un paleto. The carpets and walls were a pale aqua in color, accented in deep mauve. He could feel the thick luxury of the hotel beginning to work its immediate effect on him. Then he lowered his eyes. Standing in front of him was Albert Tomkis.

  Albert didn’t look just worried for a change; he looked sick. Loren had recently learned the phrase, ‘green around the gills,’ and while he was not sure what gills were, he was sure that Tomkis qualified, as he looked green everywhere.

  “Is Homer here? I need to talk to him.”

  “Sure. Right behind me.” Loren gestured back to the entryway, where Homer was being greeted by the hotel manager and members of her staff.

  “I need to talk to all of you. Jesus.”

  He had a hand on Loren’s jacket, gripping him almost in the way of a drowning man. “Jesus,” he said again.

  This is not the way it will happen, Loren thought. This is too obvious. It wouldn’t be like this. Albert was acting as if the attack on the Cuban nerve gas plant was a fait accompli. Loren turned away from Tomkis, deliberately orienting himself outward, trying to regain the sense of well-being that had begun to envelop him only a moment before. The graceful color tones of the lobby were fading slowly to gray in his eyes. He pulled Albert’s hand loose from his lapel.

  Tomkis paced while the hotel people made a ritual fuss over their guest of honor. Homer was receiving an award for his book about the years of research leading up to the discovery of Luminous and Dark Matter in the 1980s. It is doubtful that any of the hotel staff had an interest in or even the most cursory understanding of the two opposed forms of matter that make up the universe. What they did understand, though, was 150 rooms let to Academy officers and their guests. They understood 200 plus chicken dinners at $52.50, and an open bar at $1,900 per hour. Homer was, by definition, an important man. They cooed over him.

  At last, the manager led her guest and his party toward the elevators to go up to the top-floor suite that the Society had taken for Homer. Rooms for the others were all on the same floor. They had been checked in in advance. It took the better part of half an hour before they were free of the hotel people. Tomkis fumed beside Loren for the whole time. Finally, he managed to isolate Homer, Edward, Sonia, Kelly and Loren in the suite living room. Maria was unpacking in one of the connected bedrooms and Claymore was in the other. Tomkis closed each of the two connecting room doors.

  “They’ve done it,” he said. “They’ve begun. A submarine landed parties last night on the Cuban coast. They’re ready to blow up the plant. They’ve manufactured some evidence of a planned North Korean missile attack on Japan, a deliberate act of aggression. The story has already been leaked. This is it. Cuba, then Gloria Verde’s response, then our launch on Cuba and North Korea and Iran, then more, much more.”

  “The President isn’t even back yet,” said Homer.

  “His plane landed an hour ago. I got confirmation over the StratCom channel.” Tomkis had a StratCom transceiver that gave him access to the secure military satellite network. “The plan is Go.”

  “But you said they were waiting.”

  “Yes, but not for long.” Tomkis looked greener than ever.

  “But the fact they are waiting implies that they may still not have committed. Otherwise, why wait?” Homer seemed annoyed that Albert hadn’t thought of this himself.

  “This is no threat, Homer. This is attack. This is Pearl Harbor after the planes have been launched but before they’ve arrived. They’re going to provoke attack to demonstrate to the world that we have the Shield.”

  “But why are they waiting, then? The fact that they are waiting proves that it isn’t irrevocable.”

  Albert fairly wailed his answer: “They’re waiting for the wind, Homer. The wind is out of its slot. It’s blowing from the northwest, due to a weather system. As soon as the prevailing wind comes back, they hit. They don’t even have radios to receive an abort message.”

  Homer sagged visibly in the flood of words. He turned away toward the window. There was a view out over the marina with its crowd of boats and yachts, and of the ocean beyond. Loren had been staring out the same window as Tomkis spoke.

  Across the room, Edward was looking down at the ornate wooden box he had carried all the way from Ithaca. Once it had housed a simple compass, and now it was the world’s first persistent effector. The outside of the box had been inlaid beautifully by some long forgotten craftsman. And the inside… Kelly was beside him, no one had yet sat down. He put his arm around her and hugged. She leaned her head into his shoulder.

  Suddenly Homer swung around from the window, gesturing expansively. “Did you know this?” he said. “Did you know that a northwest wind always blows for three days? That’s a fact. Always. Almost always. Three days, no kidding. It’s the lore of the sea. Sailors would beat down the coast in square-rigged ships and wait above Hatteras for the first day of a northwest wind. Because when it began, it would always blow for three days, and that would be enough to get past the Cape. This is crucial, don’t you see? We have as much as three days to act, to avert this stupidity. We could undo the damage before it ever happened. In three days, submarines could go back and pick up those people and their explosives. It was ‘just practice’ we could tell them. Now everybody goes back to normal and sensible, and we don’t do anything silly. I have a feeling that we can make people see reason before the wind changes. We have to do that. We have to succeed, because our other option is too awful. We have to make them understand.

  “You and I are going to go to Washington, Albert. We’re going to see the President. You have to talk on your talkbox and
get the Secretary to come with us tomorrow morning to see the President. We’ll fly back to DC tonight. Tomorrow will be the chance for reason and logic and persuasiveness and common sense. Those are powerful tools. We’ll make the President listen. And he will act. I think we will be able to convince him. And then, our little wooden box and its awful secret will come back with us to Cornell and get stored in my office under something and will never be used. I think that’s what’s going to happen.”

  “We don’t even know when the northwest wind began to blow,” said Albert. But he did look a trifle more composed.

  “Nope. We don’t. It might have been 2.9 days ago. But even then, we have options. We can tell the President about St. Louis. We can tell him that the Shield won’t work. We can convince him that the best thing is to take the body blow of St. Louis, and not respond. Cuba for St. Louis with not too many casualties. We can convince him that that is not a bad trade. We win Cuba, if you can call that winning, and they win St. Louis and Texaco. We sacrifice a pawn and a knight for a bishop and good position. All we have to do is convince him not to escalate further.”

  “There is a 9PM flight to Washington Reagan Airport,” Kelly said. She was consulting airline schedules on her smartphone. “I’ll get you two reservations.”

  Homer nodded. “Good girl. A first act to right the wrong. We’re going to be OK.”

  He turned back to Edward. “You four are going to stay here. You have to cover for my absence. Chandler is expecting us to be present for some meetings tomorrow morning. You go and say that I’m not too well. Don’t let on what’s happening, don’t tell anyone anything. Don’t give it away. Telling anyone is the same as telling everyone. Nobody could keep such a secret.” He smiled his lopsided smile. “Hoo, what a secret!”