Mikhail said, I have tried to explain to Eugene that no fault is attached to this. Eugenes is the single most brilliant mind I have ever worked with, and without his insights
We would never have seen the storm coming, would never have got the shield builtwould never have saved all those lives. Bud sighed. You mustnt feel bad, Eugene. And we need your help now, more than ever.
We dont have much time, Mikhail said. Its moving a lot more quickly than a normal mass ejection.
But this isnt a normal day, right? How long?
We have an hour, Mikhail said. Maybe less.
The answer was ridiculous; Bud could barely believe it. What could he do about this in an hour? So what comes first?
An advance shock wave, Eugene said. More or less harmlessit will give us a lot of radio noise.
And then?
The bulk of the cloud will hit, Mikhail said. A fog bank as wide as the sun itself, more than a million kilometers across, heading right for Earth. Unusually, it is quite shallow, a kind of lens. Its shape is an artifact of its unusual formation, we think. It is made up of relativistic particlesmostly protons and electrons.
Relativistic, meaning moving close to the speed of light?
Yes. And very energetic. Very. Colonel, a proton cant outrun light, but in getting closer to that final limit it can take on board an awful lot of kinetic energy
And those energetic particles will do the damage, Eugene said. Colonel, it will be a particle storm.
Bud didnt like the sound of that.
On June 9, 2037, a similar cloud of fast-moving particles had hurled itself against Earth. Most had been trapped by Earths magnetic field. The bulk of the damage done that day had been caused by fluctuations in the Earths field, which had induced electrical currents in the ground.
This time it will be different, Mikhail said. The ground will be directly engaged.
Bud snapped, What does that mean? Stick to English, damn it.
Eugene replied, These solar particles are so energetic that most of them will cut through the magnetosphere, and atmosphere, as if they arent there
Like bullets through paper, Mikhail said.
A lethal hail of radiation and heavy particles would slam onto land and sea. For an unshielded human, it would be like a trillion tiny explosions going off inside her cells; her delicate biomolecules, the proteins that built her and the genetic material that governed her structure and growth, would be smashed apart. Many people would die immediately. For those who lived, the suffering was only postponed. Even unborn children would suffer mutations that could kill them on their emergence from the womb.
Every living thing on Earth, every one of them reliant on proteins and DNA, would be similarly affected. Even where individuals survived, ecologies everywhere would be devastated.
Eugene kept talking, pitilessly, about long-term problems. After the cloud has passed the air will be full of carbon-14, because of neutron capture by nitrogen nuclei. Very radioactive. And even when the farms start working again all that stuff is bound to get into the food chain. Ocean stocks would be least affected, until the die-off in the seas cuts in
Bud got the message. The disaster would continue to unfold, as far ahead as could be seen. Shit, he thought. And it was going to start in an hour, just an hour.
Impulsively Bud tapped his softscreen, and flicked at random through images of Earth.
Here were the last forests of South America, so doggedly preserved, and the soybean fields that had crowded them out, burning together. Here were the almost clichйd landmarks of the human world collapsing in flames: the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Here were great ports laid waste by the monstrous storms, spaceplanes crushed like moths, the bridges of Japan and Gibraltar and across the English Channel left smashed and twisted by massive lightning strikes. Even so, everybody thought the worst was over; everywhere people toiled in the rubble of their homes seeking survivors, sifting debris, already trying to make a new start. And now, this. And what about the shield? With no protection at all, surely it would be destroyed, a leaf in a gale.
After all they had been through it seemed unfair, as if some grown-up was changing the rules of the game, just when they had been about to win. But maybe, Bud thought uneasily, if that nutty soldier from Britain was right about her Firstborn, that was exactly what had happened.
Suddenly he longed to be with Siobhan. If she were here with him it wouldnt seem so bad, he thought. But that was a selfish thing to wish for; on Earth, wherever she was, she was safer than she would be up here.
He faced the softscreens, Mikhails grave face. He was aware of his people watching him; even now he had to think about morale. So, he said. What options do we have?
Mikhail only shook his head. Eugene, his eyes flickering nervously, looked away.
Unexpectedly, Athena spoke up. I have one.
Bud looked up, bemused. On the softscreen, Mikhails jaw had dropped.
Dont worry, Bud. I felt just as bad about this when I first figured it out. But well get through this, youll see.
Bud snapped, What are you talking about, Athena? How will we get through this?
Ive already taken the liberty of warning the authorities, Athena said evenly. I have made contact with the offices of the Presidents of Eurasia and America, and the leadership units in China. I began this process when the sunstorm was still under way. Bud, I didnt want to disturb you. You were rather busy.
Bud said, Athena
Just a minute, Mikhail said. Athena, let me get this straight. You sent your warning messages before we came online. So you figured all this out before Eugene and I reported our observations of the mass ejection to Colonel Tooke.
Oh, yes, Athena said brightly. I didnt make my warnings on the basis of your observations. They just confirmed my theoretical predictions.
Eugene said, What theoretical predictions?
Bud growled, Mikhail, tell me whats going on here.
She seems to have figured out the particle storm, Mikhail said, wondering. Athena evidently ran her own modelsand they were better than oursand she saw the particle storm coming, where we couldnt. That was how she was able to make her warnings to the authorities even while we were still struggling with the sunstorm itself.
I am rather bright, you know, Athena said without a trace of irony. Remember that I am the most densely interconnected and processor-rich entity in the solar system. The failure of Eugenes model, pushed to its extremes, was quite predictable. Not that any blame accrues. You did your best.
Eugene bridled visibly.
But my modeling
Bud said, Athena. No bullshit. How long before us did you figure this out?
Oh, Ive known since January.
Bud thought back. Which was when you were switched on.
I didnt work it out immediately. It took me a while to process the data you had stored in me, and to come to a conclusion. But the implications were clear.
How long did it take?No, dont answer that. For an entity as smart as Athena it was quite possible that the answer would be mere microseconds after boot-up. So, he said heavily, if you knew about this danger back thenwhy didnt you tell us about it?
Athena sighed, as if he was being silly. Why, Budwhat good would it have done?
The newborn Athena, suddenly knowing far more about the future than the humans who had created her, had immediately been faced with a dilemma.
In January the shield was already all but completed, she said. And its design had been, rightly, focused on protecting Earth from the visible light peak energy of the sunstorm. To protect against the particle storm as well would have required a totally different design. There simply wouldnt have been time to make the changes. And if I had told you that youd got it all wrong, there was a danger you would give up altogether on the shield, which really would have been disastrous.