Dark Nights

by Christopher A. Gray

  As the ramifications sunk in Doug shook his head and leaned back in his chair.

  “FLO has changed shape without the influence of the orbiting moon. From what I understand, quakes and tsunami surges only began ebbing while we were on our way here. It’s a mess. Species you wouldn’t think would be affected are going extinct, because they are tied to another affected species. Everything is so interconnected and synchronized with the daily changes and Moon phases. Take them away, and we have a worldwide environmental disaster, one that may doom civilization within a half generation.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Doug said sharply. “People will survive. People will adapt.”

  “Climate change and species extinction were already influenced by global warming, just as it is with your Earth today. Factor in the added shock of losing the Moon. We’re talking about a near extinction level event for my people. Mekhos has calculated that with the predicted famine and military conflicts over competition for resources, only eight percent of the world’s population will be alive in twenty years time. As species continue to die off, that’s how many my Earth can sustain, due to cascading failures.”

  “Only half a billion people, down from seven billion?” Doug replied quietly. “Can you reintroduce some species from our Earth, in hopes they adapt?”

  “Thousands of species are affected. Insects, plants, mammals, birds, even some species of bacteria. We wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “Nothing can be done?” Doug asked, frowning at her. “Then why are you here? Why is the Envoy here?”

  “There is a plan in place, Doug,” Cheryl said, after a pause in which only the turbulent water could be heard. “But in order to save our planet it must be implemented soon.”

  Doug waited for her to continue. She hesitated again, but then look directly into his eyes as she spoke.

  “Mekhos will use the same technological power that it put in place to keep our counter orbit stable. It is going to take your Moon and re-orbit it around FLO.”

  – 33 –

  Agent Bishop was speaking rapidly into his comm on a flat-out sprint to the security building just a little under half a mile across the base. It took him just over two minutes to cover the distance. He waited impatiently at the security door while his ID was scanned and his sidearm checked in. It took another minute to sprint to the observation and surveillance station room. He flung open the door. There were four agents present, two sitting in front of monitors and wearing headsets.

  “Did our surveillance pick that up?” Bishop said.

  The team commander wearing a headset nodded, holding up his hand for silence.

  Bishop stood tensely, impatiently, an unfocused anger beginning to build inside him. “What are the—?” he began, but the agent on comms glared at him.

  “The Director has been notified. We’re waiting for orders. Quiet please.” The agent listened intently to his headset.

  One agent checked his wristwatch. The team commander seemed to be gripping the edge of his desk so hard that his knuckles were white. Another agent was sitting bolt upright in his chair, trying to control his breathing. The fourth agent was now standing in front of his surveillance console, but just staring at it without actually noticing anything.

  “That’s it,” the commander said flatly after a moment. “Round them up! MPs are on the way. Put them all in separate holding cells. Nobody talks to them until an interrogation team arrives.”

  – 34 –

  “Why!” Doug had knelt down, plunged his right hand into the whirlpool and grabbed her submerged wrist, holding the Raim tightly in his fist. “Why can’t your Mekhos take a large body from the asteroid belt? Your leaders and your machine know full well that in saving your planet you’re murdering mine!”

  “Mekhos wants something of the exact same dimensions and mass that we lost, and as soon as possible if its plan is to work. Objects in the asteroid belt are too far away given the critical time factor. That leaves only one choice. We brought some devices with us that were launched from our ship and then deployed before we arrived. They are on your Moon now, positioned for activation.”

  Doug released his grip and slowly moved back, staring at the replica of the woman he had loved, the replica who just told him that his world would be almost completely destroyed within a generation.

  “You know you won’t be allowed back to your ship.”

  “I know. None of us wanted this. We came here out of reverence. We owed you that much, to tell you what was coming. To tell you that once the Moon is gone Mekhos will offer advice about how to manage your world in the time that is left to you. None of us expected to leave. We hoped our report back would convince Mekhos to change its plan, but it won’t.”

  She began to cry. Doug reacted, moved slightly toward her to offer comfort, but stopped himself. An old habit. His mind was reeling. He felt unsteady on his feet.

  Doug was in mild shock. He almost laughed at the absurd thought that Mekhos would offer advice to a planet which it had summarily sentenced to death.

  “Your damned Machine,” Doug finally said, not looking at the woman, “giving us a tiny morsel of pity. And advice!” He shouted the last word, then quietly, “A quantum of mercy, to help us die with dignity.”

  Bishop and one of the agents from the comms center burst into the room, separating the two scientists, handcuffed Cheryl and led her away.

  – 35 –

  George Stamouli had a night off and was observing the Moon through his home telescope. He had built a shed in his back yard expressly for his hobby, with a retractable roof, a computer-controlled tracking system, a comfortable chair, a sound system for music, and even a small refrigerator for drinks.

  Though his telescope was miniscule compared to the ones at the observatory, having his own equipment meant he could view whatever he wanted without having to schedule it far in advance. Plus, it was far less cumbersome when observing relatively close objects like the Moon. He never got tired of examining the limitless craters and valleys, and the various beautiful shades of grey. On cloudless nights like this the conditions were perfect.

  At first George had been envious of Doug being called in by the White House on such a world-shaking project. The man had discovered a new planet for goodness sake, and was rubbing shoulders with the President. Meanwhile, George was doing his usual job with its usual responsibilities. Still, he treasured these quiet evenings alone in his back yard, and was thankful he wasn’t undergoing the stress Doug was no doubt experiencing.

  His phone beeped, indicating a text message. It was from Doug:

  Dorsa Smirnov lower. Urgent.

  Doug knew about George’s fondness for studying the moon’s features. Dorsa Smirnov was an unremarkable ridge system. George had briefly studied it when he was an undergrad. He entered the coordinates into his laptop and the telescope moved slightly. He zoomed in and examined the area through the eyepiece. Nothing unusual. His phone beeped again.

  It was another text from Doug containing more detailed coordinates near Dorsa Smirnov, down to three decimal places. It narrowed the area to about twenty square kilometers. George entered the new data and the telescope adjusted again.

  Why would Doug want him to look at this particular ridge? There was nothing special about it. Unless it had something to do with FLO. George was a detail man, but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary – at least not right away. What do have we here? he said to himself. A very small black spot, roughly square shaped. It looked like a shadow, but there didn’t appear to be anything casting it.

  Even though his telescope was top of the line for an amateur setup, at moon distances its resolution was not fine enough to see anything much smaller than a football stadium. But what it could easily see were long shadows cast by smaller objects.

  He examined the shadow for a few minutes, trying to find any feature beside it that might be responsible, but couldn’t discern anything. Too small to be resolved.

  Was the shado
w getting larger? George thought as he concentrated on the spot, sweat beginning to coat his brow. He was tense from remaining so still and focused. There! The shadow was definitely getting longer, as if the object casting it was moving. He took note of where the shadow ended. After getting longer for a few more seconds, it began reducing, as if something was travelling up and down a hill. Something artificial was on the Moon’s surface, and it was moving.

  George continued to maintain his focus on the shadow as he reached for his mobile phone. He stopped when he saw the image begin to vibrate and felt his chair shake. He sat back. The entire shed was shaking. It was a minor earthquake, enough to rattle the drinks in his fridge and throw his telescope off the coordinates.

  After a couple of minutes George became worried. The tremor wasn’t severe, but it kept a steady intensity, and wasn’t stopping. Earthquakes in the area rarely lasted more than a few seconds. He decided to leave the shed. As he stepped onto the grass the ground continued to shake. He had not forgotten Doug’s text. Even though he could not see the shadow without his telescope, he glanced back up at the moon.

  George Stamouli thought the moon looked different. After a moment, he realized why. He suddenly felt flushed and unsteady. He could feel his pulse pounding in his ears. All he could do was stare in shock. The moon was smaller in the sky. It was moving away from the Earth.

  PART 2: REVENGE

  In Nagoya, Japan, Mrs. Tanaka was in the middle of teaching her 3rd grade class when the tremor started. Japan was no stranger to earthquakes and other natural disasters, so the children knew what to do and within seconds they were all crouched under their desks. Most of the children were scared, but two of them giggled as a large stuffed mascot tumbled off a shelf onto the floor.

  Mrs. Tanaka expected the quake to stop after a minute, but it continued. The building’s foundation had been built with earthquakes in mind but it was an older design that still moved alarmingly, and so as the tremor went on their fright intensified. Some of the children began to cry, including the ones that had been laughing a minute before. Despite her attempt to be brave for the children, Mrs. Tanaka could feel her own panic rising. Hasn’t Japan been though enough? We are cursed, she thought, as the walls creaked and shook.

  Mrs. Tanaka didn’t know it, but the earthquake was worldwide. As the Moon was pulled away, its gravitational influence on the Earth was reduced. When one spherical body orbits another the mutual gravitational effect warps the spheres into ovals. Normally as the Earth rotates, the oceans and even the solid crust are pulled towards the Sun and Moon, though the tidal effect exerted by the Moon is much greater due to its closer proximity.

  As the Moon was pulled out of its orbit, the Earth’s slight oval shape began to move back into a near perfect sphere. The north and south poles increased their distance from each other, while the circumference of the Earth at the equator constricted. The Earth would remain slightly oval due to the centrifugal force of its own rotation, but as the Moon’s gravitational influence waned, the Earth changed back to a shape it had not been since before the Moon had formed over four billion years earlier.

  Had the phenomenon been slower there would not have been a continuous tremor. But the Moon was moving rapidly away, getting noticeably smaller in the sky with each passing hour. In a few days it would appear to the unaided eye as no more than a moving pinpoint of reflected light. The rapid reduction of the Moon’s gravitational influence meant that in some areas of the globe the planetary crust was subjected to forces it had not endured since it was formed. In the first hours it was felt by everyone on Earth, even in areas not prone to earthquakes. People in their homes and apartments were frightened as dust fell from the ceilings, walls cracked, and dishes clattered noisily in cabinets. The shaking continued for hours, and was most violent closer to the equator. In most areas of the world the panic did not come from the intensity of the tremors as it did from their relentless duration. Hours passed without relief.

  Houses and buildings which had for decades or longer easily withstood a thousand small, brief tremors, cracked and shuddered themselves to the point of collapse, killing or maiming whoever was caught inside that hadn’t run out into the streets. The old rule about finding a structural archway didn’t save anyone when the entire building came down on them

  At the poles glaciers cracked and calved off while undersea tremors triggered tsunamis, flooding costal areas. Hawaii was hit hard.

  Kainoa Pahia had just retired from thirty years as a postal worker and was on Keawa'ula beach with his wife Kate when he heard the tsunami warning sirens. Kate had been swimming several hundred meters out. Kainoa stood up from his beach chair and frantically scanned the water for her.

  The surf began to recede. At first Kate was pulled out with it, but then her feet found the sand beneath her and she was able to stop her momentum outward. As she stood the water level went to her waist, then to her knees, then to her feet. She did not know what was happening and looked towards the beach to Kainoa. She spotted him waving frantically at her. She could easily see his wild agitation and that instantly panicked her. She glanced back towards the ocean. Her eyes followed the retreat of the water, and as her gaze arced outward and up she saw it. A wall of water rising above the horizon. She saw a boat captured in the tsunami, tumbling over until it disappeared. She was frozen in place, her throat constricted in panic. Kainoa’s shouts reached her finally in the eerie silence. Adrenalin kicked in and she spun towards the beach running as fast as she could in the exposed, wet ocean floor.

  Kainoa saw his wife wheel towards him and start running. He shouted encouragement, his voice becoming a frantic scream as he realized what he was seeing. Part of him knew they could not escape. He was standing rooted to his spot on the beach as his wife ran to him. Kate reached him, grabbed his hand to continue sprinting away from the mountain of water rising behind, but Kainoa was unable to take his eyes off the approaching monster. Kate saw his stare and turned again to face the enormous surge that was closing so fast.

  “Kainoa please we must run!”

  He didn’t move.

  “KAINOA!” She shouted. “We have to run!”

  He pulled her close in a tight embrace while not taking his eyes from the wall of water. A shiver went through him, but then he felt a surprising sense of calm. She stared at him and understood. They would not escape, no matter how fast they ran. She began to cry, not out of fear, but because of the moments they would no longer have together.

  They closed their eyes and held each other tightly. An instant later they and hundreds of other beachgoers were drowned. The tsunami smashed into the beachside resort, crashing through huts, tables, chairs, palm trees, and finally the row of hotels. Buildings were ripped from their foundations and carried inland. The relentless surge destroyed everything in its path, pushing the massed wreckage and death inland.

  At coastlines around the globe, sea levels rose at some locations and lowered in others. Inland, buildings shook and pavement cracked. Bridges collapsed, gridlocking roadways to a standstill. Damage levels varied widely. Built along fault lines, cities such as San Francisco and Istanbul experienced severe damage. It was the big one so many had feared for so long, but even worse due to the tremor duration. Gas lines broke and caught fire. Widespread power, mobile phone and land line outages meant people were isolated and emergency responders couldn’t be directed effectively.

  It was the same everywhere in the world. Millions were dying and hundreds of millions more were being left homeless.

  Areas in and around Paris and Moscow experienced only moderate damage at first, but as the tremors continued window frames shook loose, foundations cracked and many buildings once thought to be solid and safe neared the point of collapse. The fact the quaking lasted for several hours drove many people to the streets in hysterics, some believing the world was ending. Very few understood what was happening, unless they got a glimpse of the Moon. Then their panic and unease grew to outright terror. Some thought it was
the Earth that was moving, being cast into the Sun or into oblivion.

  After several agonizing hours the earthquakes slowly abated as the Moon’s gravitational influence subsided and the Earth’s changing shape began to stabilize. Frequent aftershocks would occur for months as the crust settled. Tidal ebb and flow, now suddenly influenced by the sun alone, were reduced to a small fraction of what they’d been for billions of years. Groups of people who expected or depended on tides gathered along river mouths, tidal basins and shorelines, waiting for tides that never came.

  – 37 –

  The Envoy turned out to be more of a crisis management team, offering assistance in dealing with the environmental devastation they knew would be coming.

  Emergency meetings were called among world leaders and the scientific community, discussing the possible short and long-term effects. The Envoy warned that without the Moon’s light, monthly phases and daily tidal influences, countless insect, plant and animal species would be affected. Those that depended on the Moon for their life cycles and migration patterns would quickly become extinct. Other plants and animals that depended on the first group would also perish. Some scientists believed the ecosystem would adapt, but the Envoy presented some hard facts that said otherwise. The cascading failure of the ecosystem would devastate the world’s food supply, just as it was affecting that of FLO.