The British physicist nodded. “Don’t forget, pressures at the base of the mantle exceed ten thousand newtons per square centimeter. And then there’s a delightful coincidence one of my colleagues noticed only recently. The bottommost mineral state, before mantle gives way to metallic core, seems to consist of various oxides pressed into a perovskite structure—”
“Per… ovskite?”
“A particularly dense oxide arrangement that forms readily under pressure.”
“I still don’t get it,” she said, frowning.
He spread his hands. “Relatives of these same perovskites happen to be among the best industrial superconductors! This coincidence led us to consider a weird notion… that there are places, thousands of kilometers below us, where electric current flows completely free of resistance.”
The very idea made Teresa close her eyes. Once upon a time, superconductivity had been associated only with utter cold, near absolute zero. Only in recent decades had “room temperature” superconductors joined a few other breakthroughs to help salvage the hard-pressed world economy. Now she envisioned loops and titanic circuits, flowing in perfect, resistance-free fire. It was a startling notion. “These superconducting domains… they’re the excited zones you tap with the gravity resonator?”
“We think so. Energy levels drop each time, but are quickly pumped up again by convection.”
Silence held. When Manella spoke again, he shook his head. “So many wonderful discoveries… all made under the shadow of an angel of death. Okay, Lustig, you’ve had your fun. Now tell us what we need to know.”
“Know for what?”
Pedro pounded the tabletop. “For revenge! Who released this thing? And when? Where do we find them?”
From the other man’s countenance, Teresa guessed this wasn’t the first time he had heard that request. “I don’t know the answer yet,” he replied. “It’s hard to trace its trajectory back, taking into account friction and accretion and inhomogeneities in the core…”
“You can’t even begin to guess?”
The physicist shrugged. “By my calculations the thing shouldn’t even exist.”
“Of course it shouldn’t exist! But somebody made it, obviously. You said you understood the basic principles.”
“Oh, I do… or thought I did. But I’m having trouble seeing how anyone could make such a large knot with any energy source available on Earth today.”
“Wasn’t it smaller when it fell?”
“Surely. But remember, practical cavitronics is only about eight years old. When I extrapolate that far back from Beta’s present size and growth rate, it’s still too bloody heavy. No structure on Earth could have supported it.”
Manella glowered. “Obviously you’ve made some mistake.”
Teresa saw something flash briefly in Alex Lustig’s eyes — an anger that quenched as quickly as it came. With surprising mildness, he nodded. “Obviously. Perhaps it is eating faster than my theory predicts. This isn’t an area anyone has much experience in.”
At that moment Teresa felt the weight of the cave around her, as if all the tons overhead were pressing on her chest. Partly to overcome faintness, she spoke the critical question.
“How…” She swallowed. “How much time do we have?”
He blew a sigh. “Actually, that part’s fairly easy. However rapidly it grew in the past, the asymptotic threshold remains the same. If it continues sucking in matter, faster and faster… I’d say we have about two years until major earthquakes begin. Another year before volcanic activity chokes the atmosphere.
“Then of course, things accelerate rapidly as the singularity’s growth feeds on itself. Ninety-five percent of the Earth won’t be swallowed till the last hour. Ninety percent in the final minute or so.”
Teresa and Pedro shared a bleak look. “My God,” she said.
“That, of course, is what will happen if it continues along the path now marked out for it.” Alex Lustig spread his hands again. “I don’t know about you lot. But personally, I’d rather not leave the thing to do its job unmolested.”
Teresa turned and stared at the physicist. He glanced back with raised eyebrows.
“Do you mean .-…?” she began, and was unable to speak.
He answered with a shrug. “Surely you don’t imagine I agreed to meet with you two just to satisfy my arch nemesis and his craving for headlines, do you? We’ll need your help, if we’re to stand a chance of getting rid of the damned thing.”
Manella panted. “You… have a way?”
“A way, yes, though it doesn’t offer very good odds. And it’s going to take more resources than I or my friends have at hand.”
He looked back and forth between his two stunned visitors.
“Oh now, don’t take it like that. Look at it this way, Pedro. If we pull this off, you and my friend George can spend many fine years, forever if necessary, arguing how to find and punish the brainy bastards responsible for this thing.”
His expression then turned darker and he looked down. “That is, if this works.”
PART VI
PLANET
World Ocean rolled, stroked by driving winds and tugged by barren Sister Moon.
For millions of years, twin tidal humps of churning water swept round and round, meeting little resistance but the sea floor itself. Only here and there did some lone, steaming volcano thrust high enough to reach open sky, daring to split the driving waves.
Eventually more islands sweated out, then more still. As the crust heaved and shifted, many of those mafic barges collided and merged until newborn continents towered over the waters. Onto those sere platforms ceaseless rains fell, nurturing nothing.
Only sheltered below the waves did life wage its continuing struggle to improve or die. One-celled creatures divided prodigiously, without planning or intent, experimenting with new ways of living.
One lucky family line chanced onto the trick of using sunlight to split water and make carbohydrates. That green patrimony took off, filling half the world’s niches.
The day’s length altered imperceptibly as Earth exchanged momentum with her moon. Eon by eon, the seas grew saltier and then stabilized. The sun brightened, also gradually. Sometimes the rolling waters changed color as some innovative microbe gained a sudden temporary advantage, burgeoned, outstripped its food supply, and died back again.
Then one tiny organism consumed another, but failed to devour its prey. Instead, the two coexisted and a deal was struck. An accidental sharing of responsibilities. A symbiosis.
One from many, and metazoa — multicellular life — was born.
That innovation, cooperation, changed everything.
□ Worldwide Long Range Solutions Special Interest Group [□ SIG AeR.WLRS 253787890.546] special notice to our members.
See this morning’s major news release by the Los Alamos Peace Laboratory [O Alert K12-AP-9.23.38:11:00 S.pr56765.0] for the latest test results from their solenoidal fusion test reactor. They report achieving a confinement-temperature product more than five times better than before, with almost none of those pesky stray neutrons that caused the Princeton disaster of 2021.
This may be it! After so many false leads over so many years. According to LAPL’s chief of engineering, “… clean, efficient, and virtually limitless fusion power may now be only twenty or twenty-five years away…”
Those wanting technical details or to see the raw data from yesterday’s experiment, just press [□ Tech.PDi 23642399 4234.0975 aq], or voice-link “solenoid-fusion five” now.