And one of the image streams came from another set of escapees at L2. The Earth’s second Lagrangian point was on the Earth—sun line, but at the midnight point, on the opposite side of the planet from the shield’s station. So while the shield at L1 was in perpetual sunlight, L2, in Earth’s shadow, was in eternal night. Right now L2 was over the meridian that ran through Southeast Asia.
And there at L2 a big, secretive offworld refuge had been built, stuffed full of trillionaires, dictators, and other rich and powerful types—including, rumor had it, half of Britain’s royals. The only contact Siobhan had on L2 was Phillippa Duflot, formerly a mere PA to the Mayor of London, but with a much better-connected family than Siobhan had anticipated. It was Phillippa who had ensured that the data feed from L2 to London remained unbroken—and she dropped hints about what was going on up there. Some of the more decadent of the station’s inhabitants were throwing parties, fiddling while Earth burned. One secretive cabal was even talking over plans for what would follow the sunstorm, when this elite group returned to Earth to take command: “Adam and Eve in Gucci shoes,” Toby Pitt had said dismissively.
As for Earth itself, framed in these patiently assembled images, the planet looked like Venus, Siobhan thought, a ragged, smoke-laced Venus.
Trillions of tonnes of water had been pumped into clouds that now stretched from pole to pole. The clouds were shredded by immense storm systems, and lightning crackled across the face of the world. At the higher latitudes all that water was still being dumped out in numbing storms of rain and snow. But in the middle latitudes the main problem was fire. As the sun’s heat continued to pour into the atmosphere and oceans, despite the raging of continent-sized storm systems, firestorms were starting, immense self-fueling conflagrations that were consuming cities and forests alike.
The world’s treasures, natural and human, were being drowned, or put to the torch. And people were dying, even those huddled in underground cellars and caverns and mines, where the rainwater flooded, or fires sucked out the very air.
It seemed to Siobhan that the survival of humankind itself was still on a knife-edge. After more than fourteen hours of the storm the news from the shield was not good, with the unanticipated lethality of the gamma-ray strike bringing down the crew up there too quickly. And here on Earth, the domes and other protective systems were beginning to fail. If things continued to deteriorate the Strangelove dreams of the selfish cowards at L2, and even a few hundred gravity-starved returnees from the Moon, would make no difference to the future of humanity.
She tried to make herself feel this, to understand emotionally what she was watching. But she couldn’t even feel the death of her own daughter, let alone comprehend the agonizing end of her species. She wondered if she would live long enough for this numbness to wear off.
Aristotle spoke unexpectedly. “I’m afraid I have an announcement.” The graceful, grave voice sounded throughout the ops center, and everywhere people looked up. “I continue to lose systems across the planet,” Aristotle said. “The interconnectedness on which I rely is breaking down. This is an extinction event for machines too …”
Siobhan whispered, “How does it feel?”
In her ear he replied, “Very strange, Siobhan. I am being cut away, bit by bit. But I have reached a point where I am forgetting what I have lost.”
To the group he said, “I have therefore decided to put into action the fallback plan agreed with Prime Minister Voykov of Eurasia, President Alvarez of America, and other world leaders.”
New, confident voices sounded. “We are Thales, on the Moon.” “And Athena, on the shield.” Thales went on, “Our systems are better protected than Aristotle’s.” Athena said, “We will now assume his responsibilities for running the systems of the Earth.”
Toby Pitt grimaced at Siobhan. “So this is his Plan B. Let’s hope it works.”
Aristotle said gravely, “I regret leaving you. I’m sorry.”
There were murmurs. Don’t be sorry. Goodbye, old friend.
A breathless pause followed. The lights flickered, and Siobhan thought she heard a hiccup in the whirring pumps that kept the room supplied with cool air.
This contingency had been planned for, but it was a tricky handover involving three planet-sized AI systems, two of them so far away that lightspeed lags were significant; it had been impossible to rehearse. Nobody was quite sure what was going to happen—the worst case being if Thales and Athena crashed too, in which case everything was lost.
At last Thales spoke: “All is well.”
The simple words were greeted with a burst of applause across the ops room. At this point of the day, this small triumph, any triumph, was a relief.
Then the floor shook, like the stirring of a huge slumbering animal.
Siobhan turned to the window. That crack in the sky was wider, and the river of fire beneath was growing brighter.
1855 (London Time)
The slam on the door was urgent. “Get out! Get out! …” Then running footsteps, and the visitor was gone.
Bisesa forced herself to sit up. Was it a little cooler? But the air, even half a meter above the floor, was stifling and moist.
Bisesa had long lost track of time, even though the old carriage clock had kept ticking patiently all through the crisis. It had been about five o’clock when she had felt the first tremor. How long ago was that? An hour, two? The heat had turned her thinking to mush.
But now the floor shuddered again. They had to get out of here: that thought forced itself into her heat-addled brain. At a time like this, if somebody had risked his life to come tell them to move, she ought to pay attention.
Myra still lay on her back, but she was breathing steadily. Rather than near comatose, as she had appeared before, now she seemed to be just asleep. Bisesa shook her. “Come on, love. You have to wake up.” Myra stirred, grumbling querulously.
Bisesa pushed herself to her knees, then to her feet. She stumbled to the kitchen and found an unopened bottle of water. She cracked it and drank; it was hot as hell, but it seemed to revive her. She brought the water back to the living room for Myra, and then went in search of clothes.
They made for the stairs. In pitch-dark broken only by Bisesa’s precariously carried candle they stumbled down the several flights to ground level. The stairwell was empty, but there was scattered rubbish on the steps: toys, bits of clothing, a smashed torch, stuff dropped by overloaded people in a hurry.
They emerged at street level, into a murky red glow. Under the Dome, after hours of the sunstorm, the air was thick and full of smoke. People pushed past, all heading west down the road. They were making for the Fulham Gate, Bisesa realized dimly, a way out of the Dome.
And the Dome itself was cracked. A stupendous fiery scar reached from its top all the way to ground level, off somewhere to the north. Huge chunks of the structure, burning, broke off and fell in a steady rain. It was this curtain of fire that illuminated the scene around Bisesa.
The ground shuddered again. Much more of this and the whole Dome might come down around them. The crowd’s wisdom was right: better to take their chances outside the Dome. Bisesa pulled Myra along the road, heading for the Gate.
Myra, still half asleep, mewled at being dragged along. “What’s with the earthquake? Do you think it’s bombs?”
“Bombs? No.” Bisesa was sure the refugees and protesters who had gathered for their minor war outside the Gates of London would have been driven away by the storms by now—or more probably, she admitted to herself grimly, they were dead. “I think it really is a quake.”
“But London doesn’t get earthquakes.”