Van Cott: Science fiction without characters. Non-fact articles.

Kearney: We’ve been hearing for the last couple of months about the means by which the President’s aliens will destroy the Earth. We’ve heard about things falling from the sky near the Philippines and in the Atlantic, passing into the Earth’s interior. Two such objects have been sighted so far. Last night I interviewed Jeremy Kemp himself. He says that we have evidence the objects are causing a ruckus inside the Earth, below the crust. Van Cott: From what I’ve heard, you should be interviewing Walter Samshow and David Sand. They saw one of the objects first. Kearney: They’re not available, apparently. (Van Cott shrugs)

Kearney (Leaning forward): What could these objects be? You’re a science fiction writer; perhaps you can speculate in ways scientists won’t, or can’t.

Van Cott: It’s a serious subject. I don’t think speculation is what we need right now. I’d prefer to wait and see what the experts think.

Kearney: Yes, but you have degrees in physics, mathematics… (Glances at his notes) I’d say you’re as much an expert as anyone, if we assume you’ve kept up on the reports. Have you?

Van Cott: I’ve read or listened to all that’s been made public.

Kearney: Out of professional interest? Van Cott: I’m always interested when reality catches up with me.

Kearney: Surely you have some theories. Van Cott (Silent for a moment, tamps his pipe with his finger, looks up at the overhead lights): All right. (Leans back, holding out the bowl of his pipe) If these objects are as heavy as we think, they should be very big. But when they hit the ocean, they didn’t make much of a splash. So they can’t be both heavy… (Clasps his hands together around the bowl of the pipe and shakes them, then withdraws them to arm’s length) and big. Heavy and small, that’ s something else. Not much energy transfer to the ocean or the sea bottom. Not much of an impact area. So we can draw some logical deductions. One, each object is very dense. Say they’re made of neutronium. That fits the bill. We may not need black holes. Neutronium is matter squeezed down to push electrons and protons together to make neutrons. Nothing but neutrons. Never mind where the aliens would get this neutronium. Don’t ask me. I don’t know for sure. I also don’t know how they keep a lump of neutronium squeezed together. The second one throws off a lot of sparks and causes radiation poisoning. Some people say the second one is making most of the noise, inside. (Pokes the pipe down at the floor) That speaks to me. That tells me something. Two objects, let’s assume one is neutronium, then the other might be made of antineutrons, antineutronium. Kearney: Neutrons are neutral particles, as I understand it. How can there be antineutrons if they’re neutral? (Music rises)

Van Cott (Sighing): That takes a while to explain. Why not break for a commercial, and then I’ll tell you. (Break)

Van Cott: Neutrons are electrically neutral, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have anti-particles. When two antiparticles meet, they annihilate each other completely. So now we have two objects, falling through the Earth. Neutronium is very dense compared with rock. The objects — let’s call them bullets — would orbit within the Earth, passing through the core as if it were very thin air. They would be very cold — neutronium, being dense, would absorb lots of heat. They would not slow much at all during each orbit.

The antineutronium bullet would interact with the Earth’s matter and create what’s called an ambiplasma, which would prevent the antineutronium from blowing up all at once. This bullet would slow down much more rapidly. So finally it comes to rest at the center of the Earth, spitting and sparking, making lots of noise. When the other bullet slows down enough to also come to rest, the two meet…and I’m not sure what would happen after that.

Kearney: Maybe this anti- or whatever-plasma would keep them separated. Van Cott (Nodding): Smart thinking. Maybe, and then again — maybe not. Maybe the pressure at the Earth’s core would hold them together long enough for them to fuse. Kearney: What would happen then? Van Cott: Complete or almost complete annihilation of a hundred or two hundred million tons of matter. (Holds his hands clenched in a double fist, spreads his fingers, and moves the hands slowly apart) Think of it as a kind of time-delay bomb with a fuse controlled by gravity.

Kearney (Considerably sobered): That…Mr. Van Cott, that is a very disturbing thought. Have you spoken about this to anybody else?

Van Cott: No, and I’ll probably be sorry I mentioned it here. It’s my private speculation. I don’t suppose it’s private anymore.

43

Walt Samshow and David Sand had been aboard the Glomar Discoverer for only an hour when they received an urgent phone call from Jeremy Kemp. Otto Lehrman, the Secretary of Defense, had released pictures from three Navy Kingfisher subtracker satellites just that morning. Why the pictures had been released was not explained; Kemp surmised it was part of a power struggle in Washington between the President and his decimated Cabinet and the military. Sand quickly hooked up a computer slate to the phone and Kemp transmitted the photos from California. There were more than a hundred.

An hour later, Samshow scrolled through the pictures on the slate screen while Sand asked Kemp about the details.

All of the pictures were of deep-ocean regions, taken from low-Earth-orbit submarine-tracking satellites. The satellites were equipped with laser spectrometers to detect oil and other detritus from submarine operations and ocean weapons testing.

The first fifteen pictures tracked the atmosphere and ocean surface above the deep trenches from south of the Philippines to the Kamchatka Peninsula, at approximately five-hundred-kilometer intervals, with little magnification. All were in false color to show concentrations of free oxygen in the near-ocean atmosphere. Within each picture were dozens of red dots against the general blue and green background.

The next group of ten showed waters off the western coast of Central America, with similar dots. In groups of two or three pictures, the ocean surfaces above all the world’s deep trenches were shown to be regions of high free-oxygen concentration. Several unenhanced color photographs of very high magnification focused on an area three hundred kilometers east of Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. They showed several square kilometers of ocean turned white with what appeared to be froth or spume. Then Samshow reminded himself of the scale: each tiny bubbling speck would have to be tens of meters across.

Here was the source of the atmosphere’s increase in oxygen. No natural phenomenon could be blamed for such a display.

“So much for that,” Kemp said. “Did you catch the Andrew Kearney Show last night?”

“No,” Sand said. “We’re not watching much TV here.”

“Have you ever met Lawrence Van Cott?”

Sand hadn’t.

“I have. He’s sharp. He said something on the Kearney Show that’s got Jonathan Post very excited. I haven’t heard the tape yet, but Post says Van Cott may be on to something. Not black holes. Neutronium pellets?”

“Still out of my league,” Sand said. He wanted to get back to the satellite data. Kemp passed on a few more items of information and then hung up. Sand reexamined the photographs on the slate as Samshow scrolled through them again.

“Why oxygen?” he asked. “Volcanic activity?”

“I don’t think so,” Samshow said. “Not in my experience. Something is definitely dissociating seawater into hydrogen and oxygen. But only the oxygen is showing up…”