Terminal Event

by Robert Vaughan

  Afterward, Vilna lay with her eyes closed for a long time. The music from the other room had stopped, and the sounds from outside began to penetrate.

  A sky vessel passed overhead, having just taken off from the Biskandal airpark. The last hour of Observance had passed and now there were sounds of horns, whistles, and fireworks, as the New Year was welcomed in.

  “It is the new year,” Vilna said.

  “Yes,” Zorlok answered from beside her in the dark. “And, because we have found each other, I believe it will be the happiest year of my life.”

  Vilna put her hand on her stomach and wondered if they had made a baby. It would break her heart to abort a baby she and Zorlok had made, but if she was pregnant, she would have no choice. There was no longer enough time for a baby to be born.

  19

  All of the useable missiles in the total inventory of Amalon and Korsra were in firing position, every anti-matter warhead in existence was attached, and the remaining missiles were fitted with nuclear warheads.

  Although it had been calculated that it would take one hundred thousand megatons of explosives to destroy the Plym Stel, it was hoped that seventy-five thousand megatons, if the explosions were properly timed, would do the trick.

  “We will need scores of data processors, precisely coordinated in order to have any chance at computing all the mathematical concepts required to bring this about,” Flag Officer Jaco, supreme commander of the Korsra army said. Jaco and Flag Officer Balik were in the Central Command Headquarters, just outside Biskandal. “And that’s going to be a major problem, because I don’t know if we will be able to bring them all on line in a way that is sufficient to our needs.”

  “One data processor is all we need,” Flag Officer Balik said.

  “One data processor? Impossible!” Jaco protested.

  “One will do it,” Balik repeated.

  “What single data processor would have the capability to perform such a function?”

  “I will show you.”

  Balik took Jaco to a door at the rear of the bunker. The door was shut, and a sign on the door read, ONLY THE ENTITLED MAY ENTER.

  Two armed guards stood outside the door and they came to attention as Balik and Jaco approached, then moved in such a way as to block the door.

  “Step aside,” Balik ordered.

  “Sir, the Korsran isn’t on the entitled entry list,” one of the guards said.

  “I have just granted him entitlement,” Balik replied.

  “Yes, sir!”

  Balik stared into a camera lens.

  “Balik, Flag Officer, authentication: W two two one four zero”

  The door opened and Balik led Flag Officer Jaco into the room. There was a quiet hum, and a slight odor of ozone. One entire wall was covered with electronic equipment and a uniformed member of the Amalon Ground Forces sat in front of a keyboard. A very large monitor was on the wall before him,

  “What is this? Jaco asked, looking at the array with confused curiosity.

  “This is a data processor,” Balik said.

  “I’ve never seen one like this.”

  Balik smiled, and shook his head. “No, I would not think that you have. This is the Advanced Calculating System, also known as the ACS. It is capable of a processing speed that is ten million times faster than any other data processor in existence.”

  “Ten million times, faster?” Jaco challenged. “Balik, are you telling me that Amalon has had such a data processor all this time, and you have kept it secret?”

  “There was no need to share the ACS with anyone else,” Balik insisted. “It is not a bomb. It was developed to help us with our space travel. This was why we succeeded in our mission to Mars.”

  “And no doubt why we failed in our space launch,” Jaco said. “You say it isn’t a bomb, but it can be used for military applications, can it not? And is not the entire purpose for arms control to prevent any one country from gaining so much power on another that they may, by conceit alone, plunge the world into war?”

  “Flag Officer Jaco, do you wish to turn this into a discussion of arms control? Or, would you prefer to work together to overcome the problem that faces us all with imminent destruction?”

  “You are right, Flag Officer,” Jaco said. “It is important that we are all united now.”

  The ACS was brought on line to compute the firing sequence, angle, and strike zone to produce a maximum effect explosion.

  Because of the speed of processing, Balik and Jaco, who held joint command over the missile launch mission, were able to run more than one thousand firing solution programs through the machine.

  They spent the entire day running the launch programs and examining the print outs. Finally, Balik read one that brought a smile to his face

  “Jaco, we may get through this thing yet. This one, Simdesco four-two-four offers better than a ninety-nine point seven percent chance of success,” he said, the tone of his voice expressing his relief. “The only thing we have to worry about is making certain that the launch sequence and the angles of approach are exactly as programmed.”

  Jaco made a quick perusal of the document. “You are right, my friend,” he said, speaking in friendship to a man who, before discovery of the Plym Stel had been his sworn enemy.

  “We will have to transmit the firing solutions to the field commanders, and they will have to be precisely coordinated,” Balik said.

  “Can we launch from here?” Jaco asked.

  Balik smiled. “Yes! Yes, that is a great suggestion! We can program the ACS to handle all the launches, but the field sites must relinquish control.”

  “I will order all Korsra field sites to surrender launch command,” Jaco said.

  “And I will do the same with the Amalon missiles.”

  “We must also tell First Director Lemil and First Director Kuloc of the likelihood of failure,” Jaco said.

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because if we launch and fail, First Director Kuloc will have me executed,” Jaco said.

  Balik howled in amusement.

  “Why do you laugh?”

  “If we fail, all existence will be terminated. Everyone will be executed. You just won’t have to be around to see it.”

  “Yes!” Jaco said. “Yes, that is so! If we fail, let Kuloc execute me, that lizard-faced shit dump. The joke will be on him!”

  20

  After running all their calculations through the Advanced Calculator System, Balik and Jaco began to plot the optimum locations for the missile launches.

  “It looks as if we are going to have to add at least fifty more missiles to what Kambye already has,” Jaco said. “I hate to do that. That will more than double their nuclear weapon arsenal.”

  “You saw the figures the same as I did,” Balik said. “We have to have that many launched from Kambye to achieve the approach angles we need to guarantee success. And anyway, after the missiles are launched, they won’t have any left.”

  “None of us will have any left,” Jaco said. “At least we aren’t giving them any anti-matter weapons.”

  “Ha! Could you see Mnotiboni with anti–matter weapons? He would erupt in his pants as if he had had a woman,” Balik said.

  Jaco and Balik both enjoyed a laugh, then they returned to their task of finding all the launch positions.

  Each time they assigned new launch positions, they re-ran their calculations through the ACS. After three days of running and rerunning their calculations, and dealing with the people in the field who would actually be charged with positioning the weapons for maximum effect, they came up with their final plan.

  Kambye would have one hundred nuclear-armed missiles to launch. Both Amalon and Korsra would have have two hundred twenty-five nuclear weapons, and twenty-five anti-matter weapons each to launch. The launch coordinates and trajectories would be fed into each missile’s launch ignition system.

  Balik and Jaco gave their report to First Director Lemil, of Amalon, First Director Kuloc,
of Korsra, and First Director Docomonoma of Kambye.

  “The Plym Stel is much too large to actually be destroyed by the combined mega-tonnage of explosives that we are positioning to fire at it, but we are quite sure that we have come up with a workable plan.”

  The three leaders listened to the entire report, and then they retired to Lemil’s private office. After a very short time, they reappeared.

  “We are all in agreement,” Lemil said. “Put the program into effect, and may Oma be with us all.”

  Shortly after Balik and Jaco informed the three leaders of the launch plan, the information was released to the imaging stations and information pages all over the word.

  LAUNCH TO TAKE PLACE IN ONE WEEK

  Can our civilization be saved?

  In an unprecedented show of cooperation, the three nations have united to put every missile, anti-matter, and nuclear weapon known to exist, into launch positions. It is the intention to initiate a controlled launch of these missiles with the goal of putting so much explosive force on the Plym Stellar-body, as to prevent it from striking our planet.

  A very large number of people are expected to approach the launch sites and, from the closest allowable position, witness the ascent of the missiles. For those who are less adventurous, the launch of the missiles will be imaged, and transmitted to Image Screens to all three continents.

  As this will be our last hope for survival the veneration centers of every faith will be holding reverent watches, with appeals to Ono.

  l

  In addition to the information pages, news of the upcoming launch was being broadcast on all the image networks.

  Zorlok was watching one such broadcast. On screen, Mynra Dorfan, the distinguished news anchor for the Amalon Image Combine, was introducing her guest.

  “Ran Cuquindahl is the Senior Professor of Matter and Energy at the Salcedo Institute of Technology.”

  Zorlok smiled, thinking of how the students at the Lyceum, indeed how he, as a student, had referred to Salcedo as: Salcedo High Institute of Technolgy. And the resulting cheer that amused him to this day: “Go team! Go Salcedo High Institute of Technology! Go S.H.I.T.!”

  “Professor Cuquindahl, I believe you are on record as saying that you believe we are making a mistake by launching missiles at the Plym Stellar-body?”

  “No,” Cuquindahl replied. “I don’t think it is a mistake to launch the missiles; after all, we must at least try. But I do think it is a mistake to tell the rest of the world about the intention to do so.”

  “And why is that?” Mynra asked.

  “Because I believe there is a limited chance of success, and that is if the launch goes off without a mistake. If there is so much as one miscalculation, then the chance for success decreases exponentially. I think it wrong to get everyone’s hopes up when failure is such a possibility.”

  “But, sir, isn’t hope all we have now? Would you deny we sentients this last kernel of hope?” Mynra asked.

  “I just think that false hope is worse than no hope at all,” Cuquindahl replied.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Mynra said, then she turned toward the camera.

  “As those of you who have been following the transmissions of the Amalon Image Combine over the years, you have no doubt noticed that many of our regulars here at AIC have resigned their positions. They have done so in order that they may spend what may be the last days of the race of sentient beings with their families.

  “Others, like me, feel that you, our viewers, are our family. And we have chosen to remain on the job until the last syllable of recorded time.

  “We will be here on the day of the launch, and I invite all of you to watch with us and with the world, one week from today.”

  Zorlok turned the image screen off, then looked down at Tuke, who was staring up at him.

  “Yes, I know,” Zorlok said. “You want to go outside, don’t you?”

  Tuke barked once, then spun around, wagging his tail excitedly.

  “You know, Tuke, I wish I could trade places with you. You are blissfully unaware of what lies before us. Come on, let’s go.”

  Tuke ran to the back door where he waited patiently for Zorlok to catch up with him.

  As Zorlok watched Tuke run around in the enclosed posterior glade, he removed the enunciator from his pocket and called Vilna.

  Her face popped up on the small image screen.

  “Vilna,” he said.

  Vilna smiled. “Hello, Zorlok, I was just thinking about you.”

  “I’m wounded that you are just now thinking about me, when I think about you all the time,” Zorlok said.

  Vilna laughed. “Then I shall think of you more often.”

  “What time will you be here?”

  “I was just about to leave.”

  It began to rain as Zorlok waited for Vilna. It was the kind of long, lingering rain that drums against the windowpanes and spills over the edges of gutters, now filled with the same leaves that had been so colorful last autumn. He reflected on how much he loved the four seasons, something he had perhaps taken for granted for too much of his life.

  Zorlok stood out on the front porch, watching the rain slash down onto the roofs of Biskandal. Between his house and the next, a cat had found shelter beneath a piece of corrugated tin. A bicyclist, leaning over his handlebars and pumping furiously, moved quickly up the rain-slick street, his wheels throwing out little rooster-tails of water.

  Zorlok liked the rain. He liked the way it blanketed all sight and sound and formed a curtain behind which he could exist in absolute solitude. The solitude was particularly welcome now as he thought about what lay before him – before all sentient beings such as himself.

  Everyone dies. From the time one is born, they are under a death sentence; it is just a matter of time. And taking that in perspective, Zorlok was not terrified of his own impending demise.

  What made facing this death different from anyone else who had died before was that everyone would be dying at the same time. And that – the thought that it would be the end of all life, was what made the impending death so difficult to deal with.

  What Zorlok regretted most was that he would have no future, and in, particular, he would have no future with Vilna. He had known her for two years, and had known that he had feelings for her, for at least a year. That is a year they could have shared. Why had he wasted so much time?

  Zorlok’s contemplative mood was interrupted when he saw the self-driven service-transporter stop in front of his house. Though the windows of the vehicle were made partially opaque by the raindrops, he could see Vilna leaning forward to touch her credit ring to the fare meter.

  “Vilna, come in, come in quickly from the rain!" Zorlok called.

  Vilna hurried from the street to the porch where Zorlok was waiting. He escorted her into the house.

  “You hasten me through the rain, but you were standing out in the downpour?” Vilna asked.

  "Yeah," Zorlok replied, sheepishly. "It is rather foolish of me, I guess, but I like the rain and – "

  "No!" Vilna interrupted, reaching out to lay her fingers on his arm. "Don't spoil it with an explanation. If you are the kind who will get wet standing in the rain just because you want to, I love you all the more for it."

  "You want a towel?" Zorlok asked. "You're a little damp yourself."

  "Yes, thank you. I tried to hurry from the service-transporter but it's raining really hard."

  As Zorlok left to retrieve the towel, Tuke, his beloved canine pet and nearly constant companion, came over to sit nearby, looking up at Vilna.

  “Hello, Tuke,” Vilna said, and when she bent down, Tuke hurried over to be petted.

  Zorlok returned with a towel. "Let me just put on some dry clothes. I'll be right back out."

  "Take your time."

  When Zorlok returned wearing dry clothes a moment later, Vilna was sitting on the sofa, gently rubbing Tuke, who had jumped up beside her and turned onto his back to present his belly to he
r.

  “You will watch the launch with me next week?” Zorlok asked.

  “Of course I will. It is suggested that the launch not be watched alone, that it be shared with loved ones.” She smiled at him. “And since you are my loved one, my only loved one,” she added, “who else would I watch it with?”

  Outside, the rain continued to fall. The cocoon became tighter and the idea of being inside that cocoon with Vilna was a sensual one.

  "Would you like a beer? A glass of wine?"

  "A glass of wine would be nice," Vilna said.

  Taking the wine back to the living room, Zorlok filled both glasses then gave her one. Then, lifting the lid on a glass container that sat on the end table, he pulled out a treat and gave it to Tuke who took it eagerly.

  Vilna remained on the sofa, kicked her shoes off, and pulled her legs up under her. She took a sip from her glass. Capturing a beam of light from the lamp on the end table, the red wine fired brilliantly.

  "So, what have you been doing all day, besides standing out in the rain?" Vilna asked, smiling brightly.

  “Vilna, I have an idea,” Zorlok said. “I don’t know if I can sell it or not, I don’t even know if it is possible.”

  “Sell it to who?”

  “To everyone,” Zorlok said. “I know this. It will be hard to sell, and even harder to implement.”

  "Good ideas are often very difficult to sell,” Vilna said. “Why don’t you tell me what the idea is, and I’ll help you sell it.”

  “I will, after.” Zorlok said.

  “After what?

  Zorlok put his glass down moved closer to her, and smiled. “After I have put you in the proper, receptive mood.”

  His left arm was behind her, on the back of the sofa. With his right hand, he brushed her hair back again, then he put his thumb and forefinger at the tip of her chin and leaned toward her. She came to him with her lips already parted.

  Zorlok led her into the bedroom, then started to close the window.

  "No," Vilna protested. "Leave it open, please. I like to hear the rain."