Kate read the article and ran her eyes over the main parameters of the oncoming storm, then minimised the document and returned to the readings of the tracking instruments for the past 48 hours. Another “ten-thousand-year storm” (to use the terminology of the article) had taken place on the Sun and was now approaching Earth. According to the preliminary calculations of her observatory’s central computer, in thirty minutes its intensity would reach its peak and it would not die down till the end of next week. Good grief, it wasn’t just very strong, it was also of unusually long duration. If Kate had been writing the news, she might have described it as a “hundred-thousand-year storm”.
She took another truffle from the box and carefully placed it in her mouth, as if fearing it might collapse on its way there. Groping with her free hand, without taking her eyes off the monitor screen, she firmly closed the box and pushed it away from her, so as not to be tempted by the intensive aroma from these small pieces of cocoa-sprinkled art.
Apart from the typical inconveniences caused by the magnetic storms, flares of solar activity had recently become increasingly strongly correlated with the riots raging with unprecedented ferocity on every continent on Earth. The events in Cape Town during the last summit had coincided precisely with the peak of such a storm.
Her thoughts drifted back to Cape Town and her good-for-nothing boyfriend, who at that moment was no doubt lying somewhere on a South African beach with a cocktail in his hand, and Kate had to make an effort to push them away.
Here on Tenerife, there was no reason to fear large-scale riots, because there were no large towns on the island. All the same, these storms gave Kate a headache. Her observatory specialised in studying the Sun, so as soon as the next cosmic storm appeared on the horizon, her telephone rang constantly with calls from journalists from everywhere on the planet.
It wasn’t just that explanations to one interested party after another took up a lot of her time, they also kept on misquoting her. In search of a sensation, phrases she had used were taken out of context and given a panicked tone.
The news channels, whether by agreement or not, had played a dirty trick on her. All the reports about disturbances on the Sun were accompanied by her photograph, shamelessly taken from the observatory’s webpage. Not only that, it was probably the worst photo of her ever taken. She was now renowned throughout the world as “Miss Cosmic Storm”.
The first call was not long in coming as Kate compiled the preliminary analysis for predicting the basic parameters of the storm. Those were the rules. Their observatory had to warn spacecraft operators, power companies, ships, aircraft and everything else sensitive to cosmic bad weather. She could have just ignored the ringing, of course, but the boss had forbidden it. This sort of publicity aroused people’s interest, including those with money. After each interview, particularly one with a photo of the pretty astronomer, contributions flooded in (and for Kate, dinner invitations).
She looked at the phone and let it go on for several rings in the hope that the caller would lose patience and hang up, but in vain. She sighed and pressed the ‘Connect’ button.
“Observatorio del Teide, Reyes.”
“Good morning, miss. I am a journalist and would like to ask you a few questions about the forthcoming magnetic storm warning,” replied a voice in quite good but rather slow Spanish, with a strong English accent.
“Hello,” replied Kate in English to speed up the conversation. Studying at Oxford had polished her English to the extent that she could speak it as fluently as her native language. “Fine, if it won’t take too long.”
“Thank you!” The caller’s voice immediately switched to English, enabling them to converse much more quickly. “First question. Is it true that a gigantic magnetic storm is moving towards us?”
“Well, gigantic is not quite the correct description, but you are basically right. The ejection of solar material was really strong,” replied Kate. Unlike her colleagues, she had taught herself to speak to non-specialists in language they could understand, using incomprehensible terms only sparingly.
“Your colleagues from another observatory think that this time the storm will be so strong that serious cataclysms can be expected.”
“As far as I know, this is the first time we have experienced such a storm...”
“So the rumours about a mega-storm are not an exaggeration?”
“I don’t know what these rumours you refer to are, but the storm is a strong one. We are conducting observations of such phenomena as the ejection of solar material, which has been causing magnetic storms here on Earth for a relatively short period in cosmic terms, only for about two hundred years. Over this time, we have not really observed a storm on this scale before. However, that does not mean this is the first time mankind has been faced with such a cosmic phenomenon, just that we did not have any electronic apparatus to record it or be affected by it so they passed us by unnoticed.”
“What effect does it have on people?”
“It does have some effect. You may get a headache, feel out of sorts, but that will probably be all, even this time. Humans are not creatures who react strongly to changes in the magnetic field.”
“So our lives are not threatened by this storm?”
“If you are expecting the sky to fall down or for us all to be struck by lightning, then no.”
“Maybe it will not have a huge effect on the body, but it is thought that the storm will have some effect on the mind.”
“I can’t say anything about that, it isn’t my specialty. It seems to me that you know more about this question than I do. I and my colleagues here at the observatory only study the astronomical consequences of solar activity. You’d do better to ask a doctor about how the storms make people feel.”
“Tell me, how much does the intensity of this storm exceed the norm? Maybe from that we could draw some sort of conclusions about what awaits us?”
“Do you mean its effect on people or on machines?”
“More on people. Yes, I’m more interested in people’s health.”
“You can hardly expect a reliable answer from me, I’m not a doctor. But on the whole, small storms pass by unnoticed, while others of only slightly greater intensity can suddenly bring a whole host of problems. In a certain sense, their effect is nonlinear, to put it in scientific language, therefore it is difficult to predict.”
“You mean no forecasts are possible?”
“Not scientific ones, no. Purely speculative forecasts are always possible, but we do not make them. We deal in science.”
-Click here to get “The Storm Episode One” for FREE-
Albert Sartison, 2016
Fundamental Force Episode Two Page 10
