by James Gunn
“As for catastrophes,” Smith-Ng said, “I predict all of them. But not for quotation."
“You certainly won't be quoted if you are no more precise than that,” Landis said and smiled.
“You heard my talk this morning,” Smith-Ng said, “I saw you in the audience. And that was for the record."
“You were talking in terms of centuries,” Landis said. “Can't your theory do better than that?"
“And you want to pin me down to hours? Ah, Landis!” He waggled a pudgy finger at him. “But if you insist, I would hazard a guess that the world will end promptly at midnight."
Lyle chuckled appreciatively.
“But how?” Landis persisted. “That's too quick for a new ice age or the hothouse effect. Meteor? Nova? Nuclear war? Can't you pinpoint it a little better than that?"
“By the Second Coming, of course,” Smith-Ng said and laughed. But he sounded as if he would be pleased if his theories were proved correct, no matter what happened to him or the rest of the world.
Lyle eyed him as if he were the end of Lyle's world.
10:15 p.m. The mathematician who titles himself a “catastrophist,” in a speech today to the fancifully named “Twenty-First Century Conference” at the Twenty-First building in New York City, called attention to what he termed “a sharp rise” of one-half degree in the world's average temperature over the past decade. The speaker, Dr. Murray Smith-Ng, noted that the rise in temperature is paralleled by a similar rise in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the same period. He called these increases “catastrophic changes” and an indication of what he called the beginning of the “greenhouse effect” that will turn Earth into an embalmed twin of Venus. Disagreement was registered from the floor, however, in particular from one expert in atmospheric phenomena who said that his measurements and calculations indicated the beginning of a new ice age instead.
10:30 p.m. Barbara Shepherd presided over a gathering of true believers on the roof top of the skyscraper. The weather was comparatively warm for December, but the stars, slightly distorted by the air currents rising past the sides of the building, glittered coldly overhead.
The terrace was protected from the gulfs of space by a waist-high wall. Tracks for the tower's movable window-washing machine ran along the edge of the wall. A turntable occupied each corner. Steam issued from chimney pots scattered here and there about the roof, as if there were a direct connection with the nether regions. In the middle of the roof was a turnip-shaped metal tower and a sixty-foot metal pole for microwave transmissions. The metal pole was studded with ten red beacons.
Shepherd stood on a platform draped in white linen facing the forty-odd chairs almost filled by her audience. She wore a flowing white gown with wide and diaphanous sleeves. When she raised her arms, they looked like gauzy wings. The platform had been placed close to the south wall of the terrace. Sometimes she looked as if she were about to soar above the audience like Gabriel.
Landis and Hays stood in the distant doorway by which they had reached the tower's top. “Has she really lost touch with reality?” Landis asked softly.
“She says that she's finally found it,” Hays replied.
“This is the time foretold,” Shepherd said, needing no amplification, her voice ringing as if it were the instrument of Gabriel itself. “This is the day of judgment. Scarcely more than an hour remains for the people of this world to repent their sinful ways and accept salvation. Ninety minutes from now the world will end, and everybody will be sent to their eternal homes. To heaven, to hell. It is our choice, each one of us."
She paused, as if gathering her thoughts, and then continued more quietly. “When I was a girl,” she said, “I thought that the purpose of life was to shape my body into a perfect instrument, so that it would do whatever I told it to do. And I worked hard, and I came as close as anyone."
“You can't get much close than Olympic gymnastics,” Landis whispered to Hays.
“And then I thought that the purpose of life was to understand the way the universe had been created and the laws by which it worked, and I went to school and learned everything I could."
“Can you imagine going from the Olympics to a Ph.D. in philosophy from Berkeley?"
“And then I thought that the purpose of life was to express my creativity, and I became an actress and lived other people's lives for the sake of audiences."
“She was a pretty good actress, too,” Hays said, “but she ran out of parts and maybe out of her range."
“Each of those things in turn proved to be folly, and I decided that the only purpose of life was to seek pleasure, and I lost myself in that."
“That was what she was really good at,” Hays murmured.
“And I nearly lost myself for all eternity,” Shepherd said, “but now I know that the only purpose of existence is to prepare us for the life to come.” Her voice lifted a fraction. “And that time is almost at hand. All we need is belief and faith."
“Where do you think all this is leading?” Hays asked.
“I don't know,” Landis said, looking at his watch, “but it's getting on toward eleven. Do you want to go join the revels—or perhaps find a quiet spot for some conversation?"
Hays shivered and he put his arm around her shoulders. “It's like a good play,” she said. “I've got to see the curtain go down. Anyway, what better place to greet the new millennium than the top of this mountain?"
10:45 p.m. The approaching end to the second millen-nium of the Christian era has produced a resurgence of religion, including increased attendance in formal church services and unscheduled outbreaks of what has been compared to the mania of the Middle Ages, such as speaking in tongues, fits, snake handling, and preaching on street corners. A kind of public resignation to the end of the world, however visualized, has been accompanied by an outbreak of militant fundamentalism in some Christian countries as well as Islamic nations in the Middle East, involving an increase in terrorism, a quest for martyrdom, and the threat (or promise, as some see it) of Armageddon. One of the most unusual public conversions has been that of O
lympic athlete, actress, playgirl Barbara Shepherd, who plans a prayer meeting for the top of the World Trade Center during an exclusive, invitation-only End-of-the-World Ball.
11 p.m. The pace of the evening accelerated as the hands of the invisible clock passed eleven in their inexorable progression toward midnight. Food and drink of all kinds was constantly replenished in all the bars and buffets. Drugs were almost as openly available as alcohol, and only slightly less in evidence than the food and drink; in some of the bars, they were laid out to be smoked, inhaled, or ingested, or, even, with the aid of neatly clad nurses and sterile syringes, injected.
But this was not a junky's paradise. These were the world's leading citizens, and the drugs were available, like the food, only to enhance their enjoyment of this moment that would not come around again for another thousand years. To be sure, a few, out of boredom or terror, or loss of self-control, over-indulged themselves in drugs as some did in food or drink, and rendered themselves insensible to the approach of the millennium's end, collapsed in a corner or nodding in a chair or over a table like any common drunk. One died of an overdose, and another of a cocaine seizure. If the world survived this millennium, the Twenty-First Corporation would be tied up in courts throughout the century from which it took its name.
Some sought their surcease in other ways. Sexual couplings that earlier in the evening had been consummated discreetly in staircases and rooms made available in the floors immediately below, began to overflow into more public areas and to be joined by third and fourth participants as the evening proceeded. In some places the floor became a sea of writhing bodies, as if the protoplasm that had evolved into the shape of humanity was returning, in the space of a few hours, to the amoebalike stuff from which it had come.
“There is more to this of panic than of passion,” Gentry said, looking on from the periphery.
Krebs
took a deep breath. “I'm beginning to feel a bit of that myself."
Gentry smiled, lifting his eyebrows at the same time. “The panic or the passion? Are you ready to take me up on my offer?"
“And join the anonymous heaps of flesh?"
“I was thinking of something a little more private."
“I thought you were in favor of groups,” she said.
“Even primitive societies approved the privacy of some functions."
Suddenly she pointed to the ballroom them. “Isn't that—?"
“I believe it is,” Gentry said, tracing her finger to the shape of a tall, lean person in the sepulchral costume of Death itself. “It's the President, all right. It would be difficult to hide that figure and that way of moving."
“By why is he here?” Krebs asked.
“Isn't everybody?” Gentry responded.
“Even you and me, yes,” she said distractedly. She spoke into the microphone pinned inconspicuously to her lapel. “Bob,” she said, “get a camera on that figure of Death dancing with the willowy lady in green. That's got to be the President, and that's not the first lady. Lloyd can do what he wants with it, but we're going to feed it to him."
11:10 p.m. The New Genes Laboratory in California has announced the development of a hybrid wheat that resists drouth and heat and most, if not all, diseases, including mosaic, but most important fixes its own nitrogen fertilizer with the aid of symbiotic bacteria. The National Disease Control Center in Atlanta has issued a general warning to physicians about a new viral infection, popularly called the Moscow flu, that is affecting large centers of population and particularly schoolchildren. Its victims display many of the symptoms of influenza but the disease has produced early mortality rates higher than pneumonia, AIDS, and what was once called Legionnaires Disease. A consumer watchdog group blames the new disease on genetic experimentation, and a spokesman for the Preservation of Democracy, on Soviet bacteriological warfare.
11:20 p.m. Smith-Ng had progressed to the meat buffet and loaded his plate with rare roast beef. He still was followed by the two young men. “Isn't that the President?” Lyle asked suddenly.
“Of course,” Smith-Ng said, swallowing. “You can tell by the men in dark suits around the edges of the crowds."
“What do you make of that?” the other young man asked.
“Either he thinks he won't be recognized, or he doesn't care,” Smith-Ng said.
“Why wouldn't he care?” the other asked. “When the activities at this place get reported, nobody present will be able to get elected garbage collector."
“Maybe the news that he wasn't here would be worse politically,” Lyle said. “As if he wasn't invited."
“Now you're beginning to think like a catastrophist,” Smith-Ng said. “But not enough like one."
“What do you mean?” Lyle asked.
“What if a catastrophe occurs?” the other young man said. “Then it wouldn't matter, and he might as well enjoy himself.” He gestured at the displays of flesh and folly. “Like everybody else."
“And?” Smith-Ng prompted in his best Socratic manner.
“And what, sir?” Lyle asked.
“And what if he knows it?” Smith-Ng concluded with gluttonous satisfaction.
Lyle looked at the figures on the ballroom floor as if he had just begun to consider the possibility that catastrophe theory might turn into reality.
11:30 p.m. The Orbital Observatory adds some new concerns as the western world approaches the end of the second millennium of the so-called Christian era: sunspot activity has picked up after the relative quiet of the past decade, an indication, say some authorities, of possible solar instability that might result in a solar flare or even an explosion that could wipe out all life on earth. Nonsense, say other experts; that hot ball of gases in the sky is good for another eight billion years yet. An increase or decrease in its output of a few per cent could be fatal to life on earth, however. The Observatory also is watching a possible explosion at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy that might reach us any day now; or a massive black hole ejected from galactic center could be upon us before we know it. Meanwhile, work is pressing toward completion of the world's pioneer space habitat, which some proponents say is the first step toward insuring humanity's survival, perhaps even its immortality. The good news, at least for some, is that the Observatory now has discovered a second star, other than earth, with planets, and confidence is growing among some cosmologists that the formation of planets, around some kinds of suns, at least, is a normal process.
11:35 p.m. On the highest terrace, Barbara Shepherd's voice had grown more intense as midnight grew closer, as if, indeed, some truth was struggling for expression, some message was demanding to be heard. Members of the informal congregation had shifted uneasily from smiles to frowns, from chuckles and comments to uncomfortable glances at their neighbors, and some had left for more enjoyable pastimes. Others, as if hearing about what was occurring on the terrace, had arrived to take the empty places, and almost every chair was filled.
“This is the millennium described in Revelations. For a thousand years Satan has been bound and cast in the bottomless pit. Now that millennium has expired and Satan has been loosed to deceive the nations of the earth and to gather them together to battle. Is this not the world we see about us? Deceived by Satan? Gathered to do battle?"
Hays studied the people seated in the chairs. “Are all these people believers, do you suppose?"
“I think they're here for the same reason we are,” Landis said.
“And why is that?” Hays asked.
“To see how far she's going to go."
Shepherd raised her wings. “Can we doubt the predictions in Revelations? That fire will come down from God out of heaven and devour us all? Some of you think that when the fire comes down from the sky that it will be missiles and hydrogen bombs raining down upon us, that we will be destroying ourselves, but it will be God's fire and His triumph—and our triumph, too. Because the devil who deceived us will be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, and we will all be judged.
“If you think that I am afraid to be judged, you are right. I have sinned."
“That's certainly true,” Landis whispered.
“I have fornicated, and I have committed adultery,” Shepherd said. “I have profaned the temple of my body with drugs. I have born false witness and denied my God. I have broken all of the commandments and discovered others to break that would have been commandments if the ancient Hebrews had known about them. But fearful or not, I welcome judgment as the beginning of the eternal glory to come."
She had been a beautiful woman and she was beautiful now, filled with a passion as real as any she had experienced in the arms of a man. It shook her body as she spoke and made her voice tremble. “In that day of all days, we will stand before the throne of God, we the dead, small and great, and we will be judged by the works written in the book of life.
“The sea will give up its dead, and death and hell will deliver up their dead, and every person will be judged according to their works. And whosoever is not found written in the book of life will be cast into the lake of fire. And so it is up to you. Will you repent before it is too late? Will you write your name in the book of life? Will you join me in life everlasting? Or spend eternity with Satan in the fires of hell?
“Because if you do not believe me, if you do not believe that Satan walks the earth, if you do not believe that the fire of God will rain down on the earth this very night, if you do not believe that this is the day of judgment and that this begins our eternal lives in heaven or in hell, look yonder!” She stretched out one gauzy arm toward the space near the door.
“There stands Satan with his paramour!"
In spite of themselves, the audience turned to look at the figures of Landis and Hays watching the scene with detached fascination. “She recognized you,” Hays muttered.
“And you,” Landis said.
11:40 p.m. The World Energy C
ouncil announced today that the price of oil, which began its present climb in 1997, has reached $l50 a barrel. For all except special or emergency needs, oil no longer is classified as a fuel. After the panicky hiatus of the 1980s and 1990s, the United States has resumed building nuclear generating plants. The rest of the world, which now boasts 90 per cent of nuclear-generating capacity, never stopped. Generating plants that once burned oil have been abandoned or converted to coal, sometimes in a liquefied form, in spite of the cost in human life and acid rain. Synthetic fuels once more are being pursued. Meanwhile research presses forward into the elusive thermonuclear process for fusing hydrogen. Laboratory operations have demonstrated that the theory works by getting back more energy than is consumed, but so far efforts to scale up the methods to commercial size have proven too expensive. The search goes on, however, since success would solve the energy problems, now pressing hard on the arteries of the world, for the next thousand years.
11:43 p.m. The ballroom floor was crowded now that the magic hour had almost arrived, as if the assembled guests were seeking the protection of numbers or the sacrament of ceremony. The filmed scenes flickered from screen to screen around the walls in dizzying procession until they blurred into a continuous panorama of motion uniting all the places of the world into one frantic montage of anticipation.
Here and there fights broke out between men and between women, and even between men and women, over drunken insults or sexual privileges. Women were raped, sometimes by groups of men, and occasionally a man was attacked by a group of women. Weapons carried for show were put to ancient uses; men and women, injured, staggered away for aid, or dead, lay where they had fallen. Blood seeped into sticky puddles, and vomit and excretions dried upon the floors. Uniformed attendants who had worked diligently at keeping the tables filled and the complex clear of refuse had stripped away their emblems and joined the melee struggling desperately to forget the desperate hour. Here two thousand years of civilization disintegrated into barbarism.
