Gridlock and Other Stories Part 5

"I'm not sure I should," he replied. "I should check with Washington first."

"From what I hear, Professor, you have every reason to dislike the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."

He grimaced. "I can't deny it."

"Then you have no reason to protect them if they are at fault in this Marana accident. Why did you quit the NRC, Professor?"

"I had a technical disagreement with my bosses over a specific safety system for fusion power plants. I thought it was necessary, they did not. I'm out of a job..." He picked up the roll of negatives and waved it around. "These prove my ex-bosses soon will be."

"That's the spirit!" I said. "Tell us what happened and we'll spread those Washington bureaucrats over every front page in the country."

"You don't know how true that statement is," he muttered, almost to himself.

"Come on, Professor, give!"

"I had better check on something first," he said, going to the phone. He picked it up and dialed a 202 area code. I had telephoned the capital enough to recognize the code for Washington, DC. After a minute's wait, he got someone's secretary on the phone and had a brief argument with her. It seemed her boss was in conference and could not be disturbed. However, the Professor was not to be denied.

Within another minute, the unidentified boss was on the other end of the line. From that point on, all we heard was one-half the conversation. I would have given a year's pay to hear the other half.

Professor: "Is that you, Fred? ... Yeah, long time no see ... What happened to Marana, Fred?"

There was a longish pause while the buzzing sound of an angry voice on the other end of the line filtered out to my straining ears. I could not understand what was said, but the emotional content came through loud and clear.

Professor: "Never mind how I found out. Was it an implosion accident?"

Another longish pause. This time, though, there was silence on the other end and when the voice resumed, the waspish buzz seemed much more subdued.

Professor: "Never mind the excuses, Fred. What did the radiation detectors record? Uh huh, I thought so ... It was a point source, I a.s.sume. Okay, thanks for the info, Fred ... Yeah, I am sorry too.

Goodbye."

He replaced the telephone in its cradle and slumped into an easy chair. Where he had had the manner of a fighting bantam before the call, he suddenly looked like nothing more than a tired old man.

Something about the call had taken the will to fight right out of him.

"What is an implosion accident, Professor?" I asked as gently as I could.

He looked at me, pity in his eyes. "A theoretical resonance of the pressor field brought on by a phase shift in the generator's power source. It would tend to increase the energy level of the field toinconceivable levels for an instant before burning out the field generator. It would also overwhelm the stressfield stabilization system in that instant. That is what caused the explosion of the fusion sphere. The reaction force produced by the sudden surge in the pressor field literally tore the top off."

The Kid looked puzzled.

"What's the matter?' I asked.

"A resonance in the pressor field, Professor Conrad? I don't understand how that would be possible."

The Professor looked at him. "You've learned your lessons well, Roger. Calling it a resonance is a bit sloppy, but that is the most a.n.a.logous phenomenon I can think of. A sudden power spike builds up in the field as in any system in resonance. I warned those fools in Washington that it might happen someday. I told them we needed better phase control of the generator systems, but they would not listen. They just could not believe my figures were correct. Now they will have to believe me. I'll be vindicated for all the good it will do me."

"So we lose a fifty billion dollar power plant because the bigwigs at the NRC wouldn't listen to someone who knew about the problem years ago?" I asked. I felt a burst of exhilaration. It was a dynamite story, far more than I could ever have hoped for!

"We lose a lot more than that," the Professor said. "The resonance probably formed a Schwarzschild Discontinuity in the reaction chamber. That is why I asked about radiation. As the discontinuity pulls in additional matter, it emits very hard radiation. The automatic recorders detected a pattern of radiation nearly like that which I predicted would occur after such an accident."

"A Schwarzschild Discontinuity, Professor?" Roger asked, perplexed. "Do you mean a Black Hole?"

The Professor nodded.

Now I was confused. I was not a complete dunce when it came to technical matters. A Black Hole was something the astronomers talked about. If I remembered correctly, it was the nothingness left over when a giant star collapsed in upon itself, taking all its matter and light with it. How such a thing could be a.s.sociated with a terrestrial power plant was a bit unclear to me. I asked the Professor.

"You are right as far as you go, Mr. Tarkington. A Black Hole is formed when a star several times larger than the sun runs out of fuel. The star is no longer able to fight the pull of gravity and collapses in upon itself. The internal pressure rises so high that even the neutrons of the atomic nucleus are squeezed out of existence. The pull of gravity in such an object is so powerful that light itself cannot escape, and thus the hole is formed. However, a hole does not have to be created by the collapse of a ma.s.sive sun.

One will form anywhere the pressure exceeds the structural strength of a neutron.

"That is exactly what happened at Marana. The microscopic focus of the pressor field normally compresses heavy hydrogen fuel to a density where the protons and neutrons are crammed together and made to undergo fusion. The resonant condition raised that pressure at the focus considerably -- just for the barest nanosecond and that pressure collapsed the fuel atoms into a Black Hole."

"And this Black Hole thing is still inside the Marana reactor?" I asked.

"Oh, heavens no," the professor said, mopping droplets of sweat from his brow with a white handkerchief. "It has weight and it dropped onto the ground as soon as it formed. That is a bitinaccurate. It droppedinto the ground, consuming any matter that got in its way. At first, only single atoms or even chunks of nuclei were pulled in. However, as it consumes matter, it gets endlessly larger and better able to consume even more matter. I imagine the effect is exponential in its progress."

"You mean this thing is gobbling up chunks of ground even as we sit here? That it is getting bigger every pa.s.sing second?"

He nodded. I noticed Roger was getting green around the gills. Being technically trained, he must have already jumped to the same conclusion the Professor had.

"How do we get rid of this thing?" I asked. "It sounds dangerous."

"It is," the Professor replied. "And there's no getting rid of it. Whatever matter crosses the Schwarzschild radius -- that is the boundary around the hole where a body must exceed the speed of light to escape -- is gone forever. You can never get it back."

"I remember an article in Reader's Digest when I was ten or eleven," the Kid said. "It was all about Black Holes. I remember it saying that a hole that fell to Earth would consume the entire planet, leaving the Moon to circle around an empty spot in s.p.a.ce. Can you imagine the feelings of an astronaut on the Moon watching the Earth disappear a bit at a time? It gives me the creeps just thinking about it."

His creeps were nothing compared to the chill that ran down my back.

"Are you saying the Earth is going to be destroyed because of a Black Hole created in the Marana Power Plant explosion?" I asked, half-afraid of the answer I would get.

There was a long silence in which the Professor chewed on his lower lip and thought of a way to say it. Finally, he merely nodded. The mute gesture conveyed more meaning than any hour-long oration could ever have done.

What do you say in answer to a man who has just told you your world is going to be destroyed?

What emotions are you supposed to feel?

I gently probed my psyche. It was funny, but I did not feel anything at first. It was as if he had told me rain was predicted for tomorrow. Even my ulcer had stopped its fire dance for the moment. The news was just too much to comprehend in one gulp, I guess. Then I did feel an emotion taking hold of me. Surprisingly, it was not fear or anything akin to it. If anything, it came closest to excitement. This was the big break I had been waiting all my life to get. It was the biggest story in the history of the world, and it would have my byline on it.

It would be the scoop of all time!

Breathlessly, I pumped the professor for details. It was like pulling teeth. His answers were monotone and monosyllabic. I prodded him mercilessly for a layman's explanation of his theory. He responded reluctantly, wasting valuable time.

Eventually, I had enough of a sketch of what had happened to file my story. I looked at my watch.

It was nearly three thirty -- only half an hour left. At four o'clock sharp, the composing computer shot the paper out to the fax machines and a waiting world. My story had to be loaded into the computer at least two minutes before that happened.

I spent the next fourteen minutes typing feverishly. Every second that slipped past burned itself into my consciousness. Why is there never enough time? I should have had eight or ten hours to polish the story into a thing of beauty. Instead, I had fourteen minutes.I hurriedly dialed Greenwald's number when I had given it all the time I could afford. He picked up the telephone on the first ring, a sure sign that he had chewed his fingernails to the elbow. I talked fast and furiously. The power plant disaster story, which would have been my lead, would have to be relegated to the second page. I had something far bigger for page one. I did not have time for a long-winded argument, so I just gave him the bare facts.

Dead silence came out of the phone. Finally, a hoa.r.s.e whisper came on the line. "Are you sure?"

"Sure, I'm sure. I've got two experts here."

"You had better be."

"Clear the computer," I yelled. The telephone was cradled on my shoulder while I used both hands to plug in my notebook PC. The labored breathing on the other end of the line finally emitted a single word: "Cleared."

I punched for transmission and watched the text scroll up the screen: ACCIDENT DOOMS PLANET! The headline said. I would set it for a six-centimeter headline...

CASA GRANDE -- An accident at the Arizona Consolidated Power Company's Marana generating station has doomed the Earth to extinction it was learned today. Professor Joseph Conrad of the Arizona State University engineering staff stated that the accident that destroyed the power plant (story and pictures on page 2) created a Black Hole that will expand to devour the entire Earth in time. Professor Conrad, a former NRC scientist, bases his opinion on...

Suddenly, I was through. The last character flashed through the computer's communications buffer, and the paper's distant composing computer sent its acknowledgment that everything had been received.

I let my arms drop to my sides. Relieved of their duty, they began to shake uncontrollably. The Kid picked up the telephone and talked to Greenwald. I did not hear what was said. I was too emotionally and physically drained to take an interest. I had just written the story of my life. I had won the Boston Marathon, climbed Mount Everest, and made love to a dozen screen G.o.ddesses all at once.

I had turned out the greatest story any newsman has ever written.

I was fulfilled at last.

I do not know how long a time went by before my eyes refocused. I didn't really care. The feeling of accomplishment washed me in languor. A gentle la.s.situde similar to what the womb must have felt like held me in its grip. I sat unseeing and enjoyed the feeling for a few precious seconds or minutes.

However, all good things must come to and end and life must go on.

For a while, anyway.

I wondered if I still had time to get back to Phoenix in time for the basketball game. It would be nice to see Beth one last time. Maybe getting married again was not such a bad idea after all. Even Irene, my ex, and I had had our good moments. I wondered if there would be time for spring to come again before the dark maw below my feet ended everything. The thought jarred me back to reality.I cursed myself royally. The excitement of the story must have hypnotized me like a mouse before a snake. The sheer immensity of it all must have affected me far more than I had thought. Here I was contemplating the possibility of winning the last Pulitzer Prize and I had pulled the dumbest cub reporter trick in the book. Of the five bigW's of reporting, I had completely forgotten theWhen! Nowhere in my story had I mentioned how long the world had to live.

"Say, Professor, how long has the world got before the Black Hole eats it?" I asked. I wondered if I had time to amend my story before the paper went out on the wire.

The Professor looked off into s.p.a.ce for a minute and shook his head. "I'm not sure. The problem is a difficult one."

"How so?"

"Well, not knowing how big the hole was to start with, or the density of the strata through which it has dropped, or the pressure forcing matter across the Schwarzschild radius. No, there are too many unknowns. In addition, there is the problem of how much of the Earth must be consumed before the catastrophic earthquakes come. It shouldn't be very long, I fear."

"Couldn't we make some worst case a.s.sumptions?" the Kid asked. "a.s.sume the hole has attained a ma.s.s of a hundred million metric tons in the two days since it was formed and that it has dropped to the very center of the Earth. Then a.s.sume a linear rate of ma.s.s increase with time, or possibly a rate that increases with the square root of two exponentially."

The Professor nodded. "It ought to give us a ballpark estimate I would think. The ma.s.s will give us the Schwarzschild radius and thus the surface area. We can treat the hole as a three dimensional orifice and use Bernoulli's fluid flow equation to find the ma.s.s gain."

He sat down at the desk in the corner and began to tap on the computer console lying on top of the dark mahogany. He quickly worked his fingers across the keys, setting up the problem. Roger was kept busy looking up physical parameters in the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics that the Professor kept on a bookshelf over the desk.

I occupied myself with looking at my watch and praying they would hurry it up. Four o'clock was nearly upon us.

The professor tapped one last key and the answer was displayed on the computer screen. He frowned and began tapping again. This time the answer took a little longer to appear.

The frown was etched deeper into his face. I looked at my watch and began to wonder if I even had time to finish a cup of coffee before the end came. The professor worked the problem a third time.

As the third answer flashed onto the screen, he turned around to face me. There was a strange look in his eyes.

I searched my brain for an instant before finding a label to put on the look. I decided it was a combination of sheepishness and relief.

"Well?" both Roger and I echoed.

"Gentlemen, I seem to have overlooked something. A hole on a sub-stellar scale is an extremely tiny object. In fact, one ma.s.sing a hundred million tons would have a diameter only one hundredth that of an electron. And such a tiny hole is so small that it would take virtually forever to force even a single additional pound of matter across the Schwarzschild radius.""What are you saying, Professor?" I asked, a sick feeling welling up in the pit of my stomach.

"From my calculation, Mr. Tarkington, I must conclude that the Marana Black Hole is considerably smaller than a hundred million metric tons. In fact, I would be surprised if it weighed much more than a single kilogram -- if it exists at all."

"If it exists at all?" I screamed.

"We are talking about a scale of between 10-16 and 10-18 angstroms. I am not at all sure that Mendez's Theorem holds true on the scale where quantum mechanics is operative. I will have to give the idea some serious thought."

"But the hole must exist," I said. "They detected radiation coming from it ... didn't they?"

He shrugged. "It must have been coming from another source. If a hole did form in Marana, it is still trying to gobble up its first atom. Its tidal effect might be felt on the scale of the hydrogen nucleus, but it can hardly be big enough to cause the radiation burst that was detected."

What do you say when you find out the world isn't going to be destroyed after all? What emotions are you supposed to feel? Joy? Thankfulness? Love for your fellow creatures that have been miraculously saved? My emotions came nowhere near any of these. My feelings could be summarized by a single word: Panic!

The Earth would die of old age after all and I had just filed a story that said it was doomed. I had used a headline six centimeters high to say it. Worst of all, it was due to hit the cable any minute now.

I punched Greenwald's number frantically into the telephone.

I had to kill that story before it went out. I would be the laughing stock of every reporter in town ...

h.e.l.l, in the whole country, if it ever saw print.

Somewhere in the house, a clock started to chime. It struck four times as I listened to Greenwald's telephone ring in my ear. A few seconds later another sound began at my elbow.

It was a sound I knew well. The fax machine in the corner had begun churning out the afternoon paper.

Author's note forScoop :

When I first became a writer, I wrote stories about places that are far away and glamorous to me, places like New York and Boston. For some reason, however, the editors who lived in those fabled cities do not view them as I do. Consequently, my stories did not sell. And in this, I learned a valuable lesson. Since it is the editors who buy a writer's work, you need to write about places that they consider glamorous and mysterious, not the ones you find that way.

Therefore, I started to write about Arizona, the state in which I was born and where I have lived most of my life. I do not consider the Sonoran Desert or the various naturalwonders of Arizona to be mysterious. I have seen them too many times. They are just the mundane sights of home. However, other people do consider them far off and glamorous.

A writer must write for his audience and not himself.

Shortly after I began writing stories about Arizona, I began selling fiction to the SF magazines. Scoop is actually the story I wrote beforeDuty, Honor, Planet . The idea for it came from reading one too many "black hole eats Earth" stories. As I mention in the story, any black hole we might produce (and theoretically, we could indeed create one if we could generate a large enough pressure) would still be so microscopic that it would have trouble interacting with normal matter. It is an interesting question. What would happen to an electron that encountered a black hole 1/1000th its own size? Would you drill a hole in the electron, would the whole thing be gobbled up, or would it pa.s.s right through without affecting the electron at all?

The idea of treating a hole as a three dimensional orifice is my own. I had been a pneumatics engineer for some six years when I wrote this story, and orifices are what we pneumatics engineers care most about in the entire world. (I know, it sounds boring; but at least one orifice problem caused us to shoot the tail off a helicopter. It got exciting that day, I can tell you!) Scoopwas also written years before either Three Mile Island or Chern.o.byl. I found when re-reading it for the first time in 20 years that it echoed some of the events of those two latter day crises of the modern age. I also discovered something else. The computer equipment in the story was so outdated that it sounded like something from out of the 1950s. The story you just read has been updated in self-defense. That is one of the most interesting things of all. That a story written in 1978 would sound so ancient when read in 1996 proves that though we do not usually notice progress from day to day, modern life is whizzing along at least at Mach 1, and accelerating!

After finishing the ma.n.u.script, I offered it to Ben Bova at a.n.a.log. He rejected it, stating that he had been a reporter and my rendition did not seem true to him. After several rewrites, I published it in the June 1979, issue of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.