“We will probably start seeing changes in the weather in three to four months after the encounter. Whereas before our pattern of summer and winter was pretty constant since Earth stays a fairly consistent distance from the sun, this will change dramatically. Let me explain. Winter for the Northern Hemisphere is now during the Earth’s closest approach to the sun in our nearly circular orbit. We know how cold it can get in winter now. Imagine if you will, a winter when the planet is twenty five percent further from the sun. At that point the Earth will be getting only about fifty percent of the sun’s heat and energy it does now during winter. Places as far south as say the Great Lakes will see temperatures like those seen in Antarctica during winter. At that greater distance from the sun, even the part of the planet that is having summer will see temperatures not much higher than a warm winter day in say in Florida….maybe the seventy’s if they are lucky. Then, during Earth’s perihelion the summer weather patterns would be more like those we are accustomed to. Our patterns of summer and winter will vary wildly. Some very cool summers and unbearably cold winters and some that are similar to what we are presently accustomed to.”
“This is going to play havoc with all the life on Earth that has evolved to the weather patterns we now experience. In addition, as a whole, the planet is going to cool because about half the time we are going to be further from the sun than we are now. Basically, we are probably going to enter a new Ice Age. An Ice Age that will last a long time, maybe forever. As the snow and ice collects at the higher latitudes it will become more reflective bouncing back even more of the sun’s heat back into space. I would hazard to guess that in fifteen to twenty years after this dwarf star passes us, most areas north of say Washington DC will be permanently under glacial ice. These changes will cause massive shifts in weather patterns that I would not even venture to guess about.” He shook his head as he sat down. “Now, might be a good time to move to Africa.”
David motioned to Doctor Desmond, the NASA geologist. Doctor Desmond stood reluctantly. “After that dire prediction I hate to even speak. Most of the geological effects can be a little easier to predict, although they will be equally unpleasant. As the Dwarf approaches Earth, as Dr. Nichols explained, we will have massive tides and flooding. The oceans are not the only thing affected by gravitational tides though. The gravity of the Dwarf will also be pulling and tugging on our planet’s crust.
Remember our crust is a relatively thin layer that floats on the molten core of our planet. Instead of having tides such as the ocean does, Earth’s crust shifts, sometimes quite violently. I expect for about three months we will enter a period of more frequent and more powerful earthquakes than we have ever seen. Most of the major fault lines will shift. Magnitude eight and greater earthquakes will probably be registered. A good portion of the dormant volcanoes will erupt, belching millions of tons of dust, ash, and gas into the atmosphere. This will compound the planetary cooling that Dr. Nicholson spoke of. In addition to the large tides, there will be tsunamis from the earthquakes and fault line shifts the likes of which have never been seen by humans. The areas around major fault lines, volcanoes, and the coasts are not going to be any place you would want to be for four to six months.” He sat down silently.
The President placed her face in her hands, and lowered her forehead to the table for about a minute. The room was deathly silent. Finally, she sat up. She spoke softly, in a quavering voice, “How many?” she asked. “How many are going to die?”
No one answered. “How many?” she demanded.
Dr. Nicholson looked around the room and spoke slowly, “If this was to happen tomorrow I would guess that thirty to forty percent of the world’s population would be dead in two to three months. Another forty percent of the survivors will starve or die of disease the first two years after that. Crops will fail; there will be massive die-offs of many animal species both on land and in the ocean. The tropical rain forests will start to die from the colder temperatures.”
General Preston spoke up. “So we have all of that, and then how many will die from the wars that will follow? People will be fighting for food and land along the equatorial regions such as Africa, Central America etc.”
David Honstein added his own dire prediction. “We are also going to be bombarded by all the asteroids and pieces of Jupiter’s and Saturn’s moons that are going to be thrown about by the Dwarf. In addition, there will be a rain of objects thrown toward the inner solar system from the Oort cloud. Without Jupiter’s gravity well to catch a large portion of these objects, they will make it to the inner solar system. Many of them will have a high probability to impact Earth. Many of those rocks will be big enough to cause extinction sized impact events.”
The President took a deep breath and gathered her resolve. “So you all are telling me that the human race is doomed, or at least is going to undergo a catastrophic collapse of civilization.”
“We are in for tough times,” agreed David. “But this is not going to happen tomorrow. We have twenty seven years to prepare. There are things that we can do. There are plans to make, and projects to get started. Some of us here will not be alive when these events unfold. But for the sake of those that come after us, our children, and their children, what we do in the next twenty seven years can make a huge difference to the world that they will have to live in.”
The President stood up. “Doctor Honstein is right. We can sit here and moan the sky is falling or we can make preparations to weather the coming storm as best we can. I will need your input as to how best to tell the people of this country and the rest of the world. We will hopefully have a little time to think on this. I want to expand this council to include a few other specialists and formulate a plan. Perhaps we will have several months to get our acts together.”
“Uh, excuse me Madam President,” interrupted David, “We will be lucky to have until tomorrow afternoon to announce this. Carlos Francisco from the ESA is on to us. As pissed as he was about us taking the Hubble away from him during his allotted time spot, he will not let this go. You are probably going to have to break this news tomorrow or we will be behind the eight ball when he goes public with the story himself.”
The President just stared at him. “Mr. Dewy.”
“Yes, Madam President.”
“We are going to need lots of coffee. Get my speech writer in here ASAP. It is going to be a very long night.” Elliot Dewey got up and headed out of the room. “The rest of you stay put,” the President said. “I am going to need your input for the biggest presidential speech of our generation.”
Chapter 16
April 26th, 2016
Maryland
It had been almost five weeks since they had been promised the world by Benjamin Greco. And true to his word, he was attempting to give it to them. Brett and Jessica had said they needed a certain sized lab, and within two days he had leased them almost twice the space they had requested in a Medical Research Park outside of Bethesda. They had given one of Mr. Greco’s assistants a list of equipment they needed and within days it started arriving at their new lab. They had been interviewing lab assistants for two weeks and had filled most of the eleven positions they had identified they needed. Clinical trials of their new vaccine were starting in two weeks for their HIV vaccine. Their research had been published and they were being lauded in numerous research centers. Benjamin Greco had even hired them a secretary to answer all the phones that were ringing off the hook with calls from various pharmaceutical companies and research teams. He had also contracted twenty four hour security guards at the door to give them some peace. Brett and Jessica were on top of the world.
Today they were unloading and setting up the last of the equipment in the new lab with the help of their staff. Loretta, their secretary, called on the lab intercom, “Doctor Brett and Doctor Jessica, you have a visitor.”
Brett frowned. It had been tasked to Loretta and the security guard to keep out all the desperate people who had decided that he and Jessica c
ould cure all the diseases of the world. People had had even brought children with horrible genetic defects to their door begging their help to cure them. It was much too depressing to speak to them all and heart breaking to turn them away. There was still too much basic research to do to even dream of curing some of the genetic defects that nature could produce. The sooner they could get the lab all set up, the sooner they could get back to their research. Then, maybe they could find some solutions to help some of these people. That was why he was so frustrated they were being interrupted again.
He could not find Jessica so he went up to the front office to see who this was demanding his time. He arrived to see Jessica hugging their benefactor, Benjamin Greco. He held out his hand and welcomed him. “Mr. Greco, a pleasure to see you again. Please, come and let us show you around the new lab.” Jessica and Brett took him on the grand tour, answering a few questions and introducing him to the rest of the staff. They ended up in the break room where a couple of staff were taking a quick lunch break and watching the midday news. Seeing their bosses and some important looking bigwig in a suit come in, they finished their sandwiches and headed back to the lab.
“Mr. Greco,” said Jessica. “I would…”
“Please,” Benjamin interrupted, “you two can just call me Benjamin. This is not some board meeting where the stock holders are kissing my ass.”
“Ok, Benjamin,” said Jessica. We just want to thank you. It is amazing that you were able to get all our equipment ordered and even more amazing that we got it delivered to a brand new lab facility on such short notice. This has been beyond our wildest dreams.”
Benjamin just laughed. “One of the benefits of being rich is the ability to wave a few dollar bills in the air and people fall all over themselves to do things for you.”
“You have spent probably close to thirty million dollars on equipment alone,” said Brett. “Then, there is the new staff, the building, and the mainframe computer. We never expected all this.”
Benjamin waved off their gratitude. “It is nothing. When do you think you will be up, running, and doing research again he asked?”
Well, we have installed our software in the computer and we will be able to start doing DNA profiling next week probably. We are waiting for the NIH and CDC to come out and give us accreditation for running a class three infectious disease lab. To study the heavy hitters, we will still have to go up to Boston to the level four labs to work. The bugs like Marburg, and Ebola, they do not like them out here in the suburbs too much,” he laughed.
“When can you start working on non-infectious DNA?” Benjamin asked.
“Probably in just a day or two,” replied Jessica.
Benjamin nodded. “In that case, I have something for you then.” He reached inside his coat and brought out a little silver box. He handed it to Jessica. “This is my most prized possession and I am entrusting it to your safe keeping.” He motioned for her to open it.
She un-did the tiny latch and opened the box. Inside was a tiny lock of hair tied with a silk ribbon. There was also a dried twig of some sort. She looked at him with a question on her lips.
“That is a lock of hair from my dead son. I saved it before he was buried. The dried tissue is his umbilical cord. The nurse I hired to care for him when his mother died in the hospital saved it when it dried up and fell off. I thought it rather silly at the time, but I thought maybe it might be useful when trying to get a sample of his DNA.”
Jessica nodded with excitement. The cord will have dried blood in it as well as old stem cells. Other than living tissue this is probably the best source of tissue you could have given us. We should not need the hair at all.”
The relief and hope was evident on his face. “I promised that this would not interfere with your research, but please understand it is very important to me.”
Jessica looked over at Brett. “We do understand. We will let you know as soon as we are successful in isolating and storing the DNA structure. We …”
Brett was holding up his hand to hush her and turning up the TV volume on the break room TV.
There was a red blinking special report banner at the bottom of the CNN newscast. A newscaster broke in and said, “We are interrupting this broadcast for a special address from the President of the United States of America. We are broadcasting now live from the Oval Office.”
The view shifted to the President of the United States sitting at her desk in the Oval Office. Even though some heavy makeup had been applied to her face, it could not hide the exhaustion made evident by the dark circles beneath her eyes.
“My fellow Americans, and the other citizens of our world,” she began. I come before you to announce an amazing discovery.”
Jessica’s mind was racing. “Is she talking about us?” she asked Brett.
“Approximately four weeks ago a young astrophysics student in California made a momentous discovery. This is a discovery that will ultimately change many of our lives, and one that will most definitely have an effect on the lives of our children and their children yet to come. Some of the specifics of this discovery are rather complicated and I will try to be simple in my explanation and let the specialists in these areas try and explain them in more detail.”
Jessica sagged with disappointment. It was not their discovery.
“While doing research for his Doctorate degree, this young man discovered a Brown Dwarf Star very near our solar system. A Brown Dwarf is a very small star that did not quite become big enough to start burning like our own sun does. Of major significance, he discovered that this Brown Dwarf is approaching our solar system. At the time of his discovery, we had very little information to estimate how close it would pass us. Using the Hubble Space Telescope and a couple of other very specialized satellites, we have accumulated a great deal more knowledge about this strange object.”
“I know it is going to alarm you when I say that we now know that this Brown Dwarf is going to pass very near our planet as it passes through our solar system. I know you are all feeling the same way at this moment that I felt when I first learned of this. I want to make something very clear. This Brown Dwarf is not going to hit our planet. As a matter of fact, it will never get much closer than about fifty million miles away. That is hundreds of times farther than the moon. So do not panic and do not despair.”
“I do have to tell you that we will have some unpleasant effects from this Brown Dwarf’s passage. We will probably experience some very large ocean tides, some coastal flooding, and possibly even some large earth quakes as it passes us. But again, please do not panic. This will not happen for another twenty seven years and we will have plenty of time to prepare for these things. There will be other things that will happen. Due to the Brown Dwarf pulling on our planet as it passes it will change the orbit of our world around the sun somewhat. Our winters will be quite a bit colder, and the summers cooler. I can say that we probably will no longer have to concern ourselves greatly with global warming in the future. This Brown Dwarf will also affect our night skies, as it will have major effects on at least two other planets in our solar system. The information we have at hand now indicates that the planet Jupiter will be torn from our sun’s gravity and will fly off into space. In addition to Jupiter leaving us, it is expected that the planet Saturn will either be destroyed or will merge with this Brown Dwarf as it passes by it. Thus, we are going to lose two friends that have always been bright in our night skies.”
“There is another, more probable danger though, and I have been told that this is the one that threatens our safety here on Earth. Luckily, this is also the one that we can do the most about in the twenty seven years we have to prepare. As the Brown Dwarf passes though the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and then as it passes through the outer asteroid belt, or the Oort cloud, it will disturb the orbits of the asteroids and comets that lie there. Many of those objects will be thrown toward the inner solar system and pose a danger to our planet. There is also the possibility that
many of Jupiter’s or Saturn’s moons could be torn apart and those fragments could pose an additional risk to our planet as they orbit the sun. Some of those pieces of moons could possibly collide with our planet. Rest assured that starting immediately, this administration and the ones that follow mine will be working diligently to develop methods to deflect or destroy any of these space rocks that may come our way.”
“I will be meeting in the next few days with Congress to request substantially increased funding for our space program so that we can get started on these defenses for our planet. In addition, a committee of all the top organizations in both our government and private industry will be formed to make plans on how to protect our population from the flooding and any earthquakes that may happen as this object passes us. Our country has seen many troubled times. It has always persevered and we shall weather this storm also. I want you all to go about your business and daily lives as normal. This is not the end of the world. I will keep you informed to the best of my ability as we obtain more facts and let you know of plans being made to get us through the event that we still have twenty seven years to prepare for.”
“To the citizens of other counties that may be watching this, be assured that we will be sending all of the information that we have obtained to the scientists and leaders of your countries. We hope to work hand in hand with all of them as we make preparations for the arrival of this Brown Dwarf. Thank you all for your time and attention. God Bless you all.”
Dark Star Rising Second Edition (Pebbles in The Sky) Page 13
