by Barry Klemm
“We really don’t need this,” Lorna said, looking at Brian as if it was all his fault.
“The evolution of the new humanity of the future does not lie in the future. That’s happening now. We see it, here and now, before our very eyes, in ourselves. Evolution occurs not gradually but in sudden leaps and in the Shastri Effect, we see the latest leap of evolution. The link of the subconscious mind—the power of collective intelligence. The next short but vital step along the road to our destiny.”
“This bit is his own idea,” Brian said, as if washing his hands of it.
Lorna just hissed in reply.
“We have been given a new birthright. For this brief moment, we have been placed face to face with our destiny. Do we hang onto this gift of unity of minds with which we have been fortuitously provided? Or do we go back to where we were by accepting the cure, and so-called normality.
“This is what they are asking of us. Go back to Africa. Return to you primate origins. Take a backward step in evolution. Ignore the benefits of the Shastri Effect. Come here and be made primitive again.”
“You have to admit it’s a pretty persuasive argument,” Brian said lamely.
“And disaster for us,” Lorna replied bitterly.
“The next step along the road of evolution has been taken. It is against nature now to turn back. Let us take this gift of greater intelligence and unity and go forward. Do not go to Africa. Stay here and be a part of the future of humanity.
“The Shastri Effect is ours. Don’t let them take it away from us.”
*
Harley Thyssen was removed from intensive care on the tenth day after his collapse and, being something of a celebrity guest, was placed in a ward on the top floor of the hospital. He found no reason to protest. There Lorna found him when she made a rushed trip to Hawaii.
Lorna had come to shoot some scenes for a television film that would, plainly and simply, explain the whole situation to the world. She prepared the program wisely, offering a full history of the project and the Shastri Effect in a documentary that she hosted and narrated herself. For greater impact, she said, the top and tail was filmed in Hawaii, where within days proof of Thyssen’s theory would take place. “All that you see around me will be destroyed,” she was able to say. No one suggested she had an ulterior motive for being there.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Thyssen grumped at her. “You have far too much to do to allow this sort of dalliance.”
“I’ve come to rescue you,” Lorna said, kissing him firmly on his bloodless lips.
“And take me where?” Thyssen asked sceptically.
“There are plenty of other hospitals.”
“I belong here, Lorna. And you know it.”
“I’m taking you somewhere safe.”
“Nowhere is safe anymore.”
“You know what will happen here.”
“Yes. And I’ll have the best seat in the house.”
“You bloody vulcanologists and your death wishes. Wasn’t Jami’s suicide enough?”
That was going too far. A tear appeared in Thyssen’s eye but he managed to keep his voice level. “Lorna. The young and fit and healthy people are having enough trouble getting off the island. I’m staying.”
“I’ve arranged everything.”
“Un-arrange it. I’m not the sort of man to accept privileges—you know that. It’s hard enough staying alive in my present condition without having to live with the guilt that I took someone else’s place on an aeroplane and they got left here and died. It just wouldn’t be any good. And with all this medical junk that would have to come with me, you could fit a dozen skinny people in my place.”
“Harley, we need you.”
“No you don’t. It’s just like joining the dots from here.”
“Oh yes, the great Harley Thyssen master-plan. Everything will just fall into place.”
“Anything that happens from here won’t happen any better or worse because I’m there.”
“Harley, you just don’t know…”
But he put his fingers over her lips. “Didn’t the nurses tell you that you aren’t allow to get me excited by arguing with me?”
Lorna sighed. She backed off immediately, knowing that was true. Obviously she would have to come in on a more subtle tack.
“You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you?”
“Which of my many wise or foolish predictions are you referring to now?”
“The heart attack. That was why you arranged for all of us to be able to take over without you.”
“No, I didn’t. I knew I had health problems and it was a reasonable assumption that the stress would get to me in the end. That’s all.”
“You can’t fool me, Harley. I remember that little experiment of yours when I was the guinea pig. You expected me to die.”
“No I didn’t. I didn’t know what would happen.”
“And you kept me on the fringe, as close to the edge of the zone that you could manage.”
“The experiment would have been rendered useless if a tree fell on you.”
“But you knew that the pilgrims would have to be in the middle of the zone if they are going to kill the black hole. And as many of them at that point as possible. And that, if they succeeded, they would probably all die—not from the depletion of the Shastri Effect but from the effects of the impact.”
“I knew that was possible.”
“And you’ve carried this devastating knowledge alone, all along.”
“I didn’t know any of it for sure. I still don’t.”
“Oh Harley, you could at least have shared it with me.”
“Oh sure, and have two of us worry themselves to death.”
“I’m stronger than you.”
“Why? Because you’re younger? Because you’re a woman? You just don’t grasp how unbearable it was…”
“It was my right to be a part of it.”
“You had, and have, more important things to do. And how could I share what I was never sure of. I’ve bullshitted my way through this all alone, Lorna. I’ve never at any time been sure I was right. If someone comes up with a better theory, I’ll jump on their bandwagon and dump mine immediately.”
“But no one has because no one has, because you’re the best, Harley.”
“No, Lorna. I didn’t get it right because I was a good scientist, but because I was such a very bad one. I guessed. I can’t prove a thing. I have no choice but to agree with all those colleagues that call me a fake and a charlatan. I’m full of shit and I always was. I got out there and bullied people, bluffed my way through. I never did good science.”
“Once this comes off, Harley, no one is ever going to believe that.”
“But I’m so frightened, Lorna. I may be killing millions, just to prop up my own ego.”
“The millions will die anyway. But you give millions more the chance to live.”
“If I’m right.”
“You don’t need to be right, Harley. All we needed was a chance. All we wanted was some hope. What was unbearable was the helplessness. We were up against forces that were so enormous, too huge to fight. You cut it down to size so we could see it and get a handle on it. We needed to have at least the illusion that we could fight back. And you have given us that. And all humanity, every your worst opponents, thank you deeply for that.”
“You’re very kind to say so. I wonder if history will be so kind.”
“Without you, there won’t be any history.”
“Still, it would all have been easier to face if I was dead.”
Lorna hesitated. She really didn’t want to push him, things being the way they were, but she was desperate to persuade him.
“Will there be enough of them?” she asked quietly.
“Enough what?”
“Pilgrims. At Lake Chad. Enough to kill the singularity?”
“I have no idea, really. The figures are too approximate.”
“They always were, Harley
. But you always made them work. And that’s why we need you.”
“I’m afraid that sum is so simple, even you could do it, if you tried. 2.2 million pilgrims deflected the singularity in Brazil, but they also diminished its impact by 20%. 5 times 2.2 is 11 million pilgrims needed to complete the job, in theory. There are 13 million available—if we can get them all there it ought to be enough. But there are so many imponderables, variables, unknowns, approximations and downright guesses to tie into those numbers that no one could seriously suggest it’s in any way accurate. But they are all the figures and pilgrims available so we have to go with it and be damned.”
“And if you’re right and it’s enough?”
“We have no knowledge at all as to what will occur when a black hole is eliminated. If there aren’t enough pilgrims, there will be a massive earthquake at the site and they will all die. But if there are enough and the plan works, there still might be an even greater explosion. There has never been a time in human experience when something was totally annihilated. Maybe nothing will happen, or maybe it will take the whole planet, or even our very existence, with it. There’s no way of knowing.”
“But surely, my love,” Lorna said, having found the bit of that that she wanted to latch onto, “if something goes out of existence, then it just ceases to exist. Nothing else happens. Not with a bang, but a whimper.”
Thyssen laughed. It seemed to give him some pain, but he did it anyway. “Lorna, you sweet child, you really shouldn’t take quotations out of context like that. In the circumstances, it’s very inappropriate. But anyhow, it’s me whose going out with a whimper. As you see, now the sums have become really simple, the theories are all theorised, the guesses have all been made, it’s all done and I’m not needed anymore.”
That did it. Suddenly Lorna decided to do what she had promised herself she would not do. All the way to Hawaii and even as she came through the doors of the hospital, she kept telling herself not to trouble him with the day-to-day problems that the project was experiencing. But now she knew it was the only way forward. She said. “But you are needed now, Harley. I’m afraid your little ol’ master-plan is going off the rails.”
“They all do.”
“Wagner’s gone completely whack-o. He’s telling the pilgrims that they are the next great stage of evolution and they should avoid the cure and the focal point.”
“I know. I’ve seen it on the news. How many are swallowing it?”
“Hard to say. In California and Brazil, about half. Less in other places. I’m working my butt off trying to win them back.”
“Yes. And that’s what you should be doing now, instead of worrying about an old fogey like me.”
“And Andromeda wants to take her flock to Sierra Leone instead of Lake Chad.”
“It can’t be done.”
“She’s the goddess Gaia. She can do anything she likes.”
Thyssen nodded ruefully. “When you elevate someone to a position like that, you must expect delusions of grandeur.”
“Is that all you’ve got to say about it?”
“What makes you think I have some power to persuade her otherwise.”
“You invented her.”
“And now we reap what we have sown, Lorna. You’ve got to get her to go the right way. You’d have to do so, whether I was around or not.”
“And the Yanks are holding back.”
“But at least they’re involved now.”
“Sure, the Seventh fleet and a huge flotilla of ships is standing by waiting to see what happens here.”
“Very wise of them.”
“But if they wait too long…”
“I get it. You want to have a heart attack too to put us back on an even footing.”
“This isn’t a joke, Harley.”
“Lorna, just do what you can. Give it your best shot and see how it goes. No one ever expected more of anyone than that.”
“And meanwhile you stay here and get blown away.”
“For me, it all hangs on what happens here, Lorna. There isn’t any place else I should be.”
*
A tall man in a cape of many coloured feathers and with a small cap on his bald black head, stood before a group of his fellows on the tarmac. Behind the heat haze made the mountains shimmered. This place was exactly on the equator, and Wagner sweated freely.
They met in open country—a broad plain with trees seen only distantly. The lake was so near you could see the silver mirage rippling. Wagner’s three helicopters stood shimmering in the heat haze. His twenty men and the twenty Barak had brought with him stood facing each other with mutual suspicion and weapons levelled. Both groups were in military fatigues and the only real difference was that Wagner’s men had M16s and the Fulani soldiers AK47s.
The man of many feathers was tall and black and graceful, wearing a floral frock-like garment with the feathers attached everywhere, but mostly in his hair. The outfit was ceremonial, formal, and meant he was ready to talk.
The man was a Fulani, an emir in fact, and Islamic in the most fundamental way. His greeting to Wagner was to spit at his feet. Wagner spat back.
“I degrade myself to speak to you, American,” he said bitterly, but in fine English.
“I don’t seek your friendship,” Wagner said boldly. “I bring a warning.”
“That you Americans are here is a warning to all peace-loving men.”
“I do not speak for America. I speak for peace.”
“You are American. To you, peace means American dominance.”
“Yes. And I warn you that the Americans are coming.”
“Are they not already here?”
“As I say, I do not speak for them. But they have done a deal with your enemies, the Hausa, and are coming to occupy this place.”
“Why would the Americans wish to occupy this place?”
“For the mineral wealth of the land by the lake.”
“Many have come and sought the wealth. None have found it.”
“Americans have satellites that can see through the surface of the earth, and they have seen, and like what they saw. And now they will come and join forces with your enemy the Hausa and drive you into the lake.”
“There has been peace between the Hausa and the Fulani for fifty years.”
“You have heard my warning. Ignore it if you chose.”
“What do you want of us?”
“Only that you watch the skies and prepare for war.”
“But why do you, who speaks with an American voice, betray America’s plans to us.”
“I was once an American. Now I have a higher allegiance.”
“Are you a son of Allah?”
“No. But I am a friend of his.”
*
There was a young nurse who was there every day—she seemed to have made Thyssen her personal responsibility. She was only twenty maybe, with blonde tied back and a face full of freckles, but she had the most delightful smile and wasn’t afraid to use it, no matter how badly he behaved. She stood now by the window on this topmost floor of the hospital. The view was fantastic but the nurse seemed to forget that she had other patients.
“You ought to be able to see it all from here,” she smiled. Plainly she knew exactly who he was.
“It is a fine view, thank you,” he said.
He could see all the way from Kono Head to the mountains west of Pearl. Yep, the best view to be had in all Honolulu.
“Is the world really going to end, Professor?”
“I don’t know. But I reckon this place will get a big shake-up. Have you made arrangements to leave?”
“No. We had a meeting. All the staff agreed to stay on. They’ve evacuated as many people as they could but half the population is still here. They may need us.”
“Yes. It’s very brave of you.”
“I don’t think that’s what I wanted to hear. What will happen, Professor?”
“Everything that can erupt will. There’ll be a tsunami,
maybe the biggest ever, but that will hit the north side of the island. It’s hard to say just how extensive the damage will be here.”
“And everyone here who survives will be one of your… sleepers. Is that what they’re called?”
“Yes. We ought to be inside the zone.”
“Then we all get to go to Nigeria and kill the monster, isn’t that right?”
“Is that what they told you?”
“Well, sort of… The ant-matter or singularity or whatever it is. Anyhow, I volunteered. So did all the other girls.”
“Really? It’s a terrible risk.”
“Sure. But it’s my big chance to save the world, Professor. And I don’t want to miss it.”
“Amazing.”
“It’s not just me, Professor. All the planes and ships evacuating people to the mainland are coming back full of volunteers wanting to be in on it too.”
“Crazy bastards. What if I’m wrong?”
“Then nothing will happen here. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes. That’s so.”
“But we all believe in you, Professor. So it will happen.”
“Yes. I think it will.”
“So, they wanted me to ask you, where will the safest places be?”
“No place is guaranteed. But the tsunami will loop around the island and there will probably be a secondary wave here. So stay out of basements, and get above ground level. And make sure there’s something very solid over your head.”
“The usual procedure, huh?”
“Yes. The usual.”
When the time came, she returned and he found he welcomed it. He had no regrets when they had been forced to drag Lorna away and send her off to her duties. Plainly she had been convinced that she would never see him again. Maybe she would not.
The nurse sat with him, trying not to make a countdown of it.
“Help me over to the window,” Thyssen asked.
“You really aren’t allow out of bed yet, Professor.”
“What’s your name?”
“Debbie.”
“Debbie, it hardly matters at this stage. Get this thing out of my arm and help me or I’ll do it myself.”
