“It’s pretty bad Sir. The problem is that once the dust-storms start, they’re quite hard to stop. Each storm pulverizes the ground into smaller and smaller particles that are smoothed off by abrasion as they are carried by the wind. That means they are easier to lift by the wind and they stay up longer once lifted. So, once the first storm has formed, it makes things progressively easier for other storms to follow.
“Now, as to the longer-term effects, these storms are bad news. They’ll hit agricultural production that’s already been hammered by the weather attacks we’ve been suffering for over a year now. The Oklahoma panhandle is technically semi-arid and its productivity isn’t high so losses there won’t be too bad. It’s the overflow of dust into richer ground that’s the real problem. We were just getting on top of the food supply problem as well and were able to increase the rations. Now, it looks like we’ll have to reverse the increase at the very least.”
Obama’s mouth twisted in distaste for that idea. “That’ll be a hard one to sell. We should never have passed that ration increase. Better to have kept things as they were and stored the extra.”
“With hindsight, yes Sir. But, people need a lift. This long stalemate is wearing the people down. Anyway, back to the dust storms. The real problem was people caught outside by the leading edge of the storm. That contained a very high proportion of Helldust. Helldust is mostly powdered pumice and breathing it is extremely dangerous for first-life humans. We can expect a lot of those people to develop severe silicosis very soon. Since it is our opinion these storms will continue for some time now their formation cycle has been jump-started, we’d better start distributing breathing masks and goggles as well as tinfoil hats. Fortunately, we already have very good masks and goggles in production for the armed forces.”
There was a long pause as the people at the meeting made ‘action-it” notes. “Doctor Surlethe, have you and your teams got any additional information for us?”
“We’re still hunting for a way into Heaven Sir. The information we got from monitoring Michael’s jumps proved to be a bust. I’m afraid we got overconfident with the way we walked all over Satan and his forces; Michael-Lan appears to be a really bright boy. What we are beginning to learn is that there appear to be an almost infinite number of bubble-worlds in Universe-Two. We could start jumping around in them at random but we’re reluctant to do that. We don’t know what we would run into and another war is something we really don’t need right now.”
“We do have one bit of good news Sir. If you like rice that is. ASEAN, the Association of South East Asian Nations, have offered to put 20 percent of their rice production into a common pool to help out countries whose own food production is inadequate.” The Secretary for Agriculture paused and thought quickly. “I don’t say we should call on their generosity now, but it’s a start. And, of course, paddy fields won’t get wiped out by dust-storms.”
“They got hit by the Third Bowl though.” Doctor Surlethe was also considering the implications of the proposed food bank. “But that’s a thing of the past now. We dealt with it. This is the Fifth Bowl, no doubt about that. Just two more to go and Heaven’s pretty much shot its bolt. If we can ride them out, we’ll be in a much better position.”
“What are the next two bowls? Can we prepare for them?”
“The next one is a bit odd. It seems to be just the river Euphrates drying up. Of course, back in the day, the Tigris and Euphrates pretty much marked the known world for those who were writing the fables. So, one or both drying up would be a real disaster. Now, losing one would be more of an annoyance. The Seventh is a bit more worrying. It speaks of massive earthquakes and boulders falling from the skies. The Russians are looking at the last part of that, they have nuclear-tipped surface-to-air missiles that may provide a defense against boulders dropping in on us. What worries us are the Beasts. We nailed the Leopard Beast and saw off the Scarlet Beast. There’s the Lamb Beast and the Dragon to come. Given the way the severity of the threats is escalating, they’re likely to be a real problem. Then, there’s that Israeli rogue sub out there somewhere. We want her dead and dead fast. So does the Israeli government.
“Our guess is that when the Bowls of Wrath and the Beasts have run their course, that’s when we get invaded by the Angelic host. One way or the other, Mister President, I’d say we’re getting close to the end-game on this.”
Chapter Forty Eight
Control Room, INS Tekuma, Mediterranean
“Just why the blue blazes are we heading out towards the Atlantic?” Captain Alex Ben-Shoshan had a thousand spirits sitting on his shoulders, telling him there was something seriously wrong. His Tekuma had killed the Scarlet Beast with her nuclear missiles. So why had he not heard anything from the operations center in Tel Aviv? He would have expected at least something, even if it was only a terse acknowledgment that his missile strike had been successful.
There was something else that was worrying him. After firing his missiles he had gone deep, cleared datum and then evaded. That was standard doctrine after firing any kind of missiles for by doing so he had given away his position more surely than a glowing neon pointed would have done. Evading the hunt that would surely follow his launch had been drilled into him ever since he had been selected to take command of this submarine. But times were different now, humanity was fighting on the same side, more or less. So, they shouldn’t have been hunting him. Why were they?
It wasn’t just one nation either. Since he had started evading, he had picked up a mass of different sonars lashing the water in an effort to locate him. American SQS-53s, Russian Platinas, British Type 2050s. Others that were a lot less distinctive in their transmission characteristics.
Lieutenant Midyan Yitzchak looked over from the communications station at the rear of the command compartment. He had supplied Ben-Shoshan with the forged messages that had authorized the missile launch and then set the Tekuma on course for the Straits of Gibraltar but after that, the supply was ended and future actions were left vague. He hadn’t received any more visions from his Angelic leader either. In fact, Yitzchak noted, he’d never received any such messages while he was on the submarine. Only when he had been ashore.
“Sir, perhaps there will be messages for us from the command center in Gibraltar?”
Ben-Shoshan nodded thoughtfully. Then he asked the one question every diesel-electric submarine driver had engrained in his soul. “Battery status?”
“Twenty percent charge Sir. Clearing Datum cost us heavily.” The Engineering Officer was seriously worried. It wasn’t good to run the batteries below seventy percent charge and a fifty percent charge level was regarded as critical. He’d never seen a charge meter drop to twenty percent before.
“Come up to periscope depth. Prepare to snort.” The spirits sitting on ben Shoshan’s shoulder were screaming warnings again but without charged batteries, his submarine was completely helpless. “Navigation, set course for Gibraltar and maximum snorting speed. Engines, run the diesels as soon as the snort is up and get those batteries charged. Communications, get through to Tel Aviv, find out what is going on and why.”
Yitzchak looked down at his knees in an effort to hide the grin on his face. Getting a message through to Tel Aviv would be a useful trick. The place was a smoking hole in the ground. “Very good Sir.”
The Forum of Indefatigable Exaltation, Eternal City, Heaven.
Markets were something that the higher-class angels never really bothered much with. They had the Ishim and Cherubim to look after such mundane things for them. And the Ishim and Cherubim had their human servants to carry out the routine drudgery of going to a market. At most, the Cherubim made sure the Ishim weren’t skulking off when they were supposed to be working and the Ishim did the same for the humans. It was a nice system, like everything else in Heaven it was set up so the humans did all the real work and the Angels got all the benefits. Rank really did have its privileges.