I'm a louse! I think I knew that all along, even as I
tried to convince myself otherwise, pretending there was nobility attached to
what I did. My name is Gilbert Carter, and I write this knowing I must hasten
to get it done or my poor Nicole will never come to know how I felt as disaster
closed in on us. But then, maybe that would be some kind of justice, the gods
saying I don’t deserve either understanding or relief.
God, how
quickly things can change! As little as
one year ago, I had everything going for me. I had just graduated with a degree
in aeronautical engineering and was ready to set the world on fire—not the best
way to put that as you’ll soon see. I had the woman of my dreams, soul mates
she and I, a pretty dark-haired thing about five inches below my six feet.
Nicole and I lived together for all of our college years with the idea that we
would marry as soon as I landed a job. We swore unending mutual fidelity, even
imaging ourselves dying in each other’s arms in some kind of elderly-lovers’
suicide pact.
When the
surprise explosion happened, Nicole and I regarded it as spectacular, a cosmic
event that we knew would occur some day, even as we expected it to be in
someone else’s lifetime. On a moonless night, the
sky suddenly radiated a flash of light from horizon to horizon, leaving in its
wake a brilliant star about a quarter the size of our moon. Surprised and just
a little apprehensive, the two of us watched with fascination, the event a
once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Our
apprehension soon faded as a panel of scientists appeared on TV and explained
to the world that what we were seeing was the huge star Betelgeuse going
supernova. The excitement they radiated was contagious, even as much of what
they said went over our heads. Betelgeuse, they told us, was huge, reaching
100,000 times the size of our sun. Earth was but a pimple on its butt in normal
times, but now, with the explosion pushing that giant star well out into the
cosmos, we would be to it as an atom is to the moon. They said Betelgeuse had actually
gone supernova some 640 light years ago, that it took all that time for the
light of the explosion to reach us. 640 light years is considered by those in
the know to be close to Earth, but not dangerously close, thus the citizens of
the world could regard it as nothing worse than an unusually bright light in
the heavens.
Nicole and I
joined the rest of the world in fixating on the sky, even during daylight hours
and even while crossing busy streets—accidents were common during this time.
Betelgeuse was a magnet that drew everyone’s
attention no matter where on the planet they were. No one had ever seen a star
so bright, so...close! TV screens became
filled with romantic (and often exaggerated) descriptions and pictures, what it
was, how long the effect would last, when it would go back to being just
another star. Nicole and I ate it all up and asked for more.
It was Nicole
who first noticed a shift in the way the “experts” were covering the
phenomenon. The confident faces we viewed earlier began to fade toward the side
of uncertainty. At first we considered that these scientists were tiring of the
subject, but when uncertainty turned to something bordering on fear, I joined
Nicole in doubt. Looking back, I count that as the moment when we both awakened
to the possibility that our future might not be entirely ours to decide. It was
just a feeling, but I could see in her eyes that it was shared. It was as if we
could no longer be sure of anything.
No explanation
was given other than that the scientists at NASA and at Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, were seeing anomalies and needed time to interpret them. Hardly
reassuring, at least not to Nicole and me, and it did not help to see a
mirroring of fear on the faces of TV anchors. Their words turned hesitant and cautious
and often ended in a question mark. Clearly something had gone wrong. And
contributing to our growing unease was the fact that no one was willing to say
what that something was.
We divided our
time between the TV and the sky, the latter only adding to Nicole’s anxiety. To
her Betelgeuse seemed still to be growing, and if true, it would mean it was
coming our way, maybe heading for a collusion with Earth. I reminded her that
the experts claimed that to be impossible, but there was a notable lack of conviction
in my voice as I said it.
We continued
this pattern of confusion laced with worry, each passing day seeing our
imaginations outrace our eyes in a willingness to see an approaching
apocalypse, an end of time slowly but inexorably working its way toward us.
Events proved that many, if not most, of the world’s 12 billion souls were as
caught up in this as we. Already some had gone beyond fear to panic. Not
knowing where to go or what to do, people were beginning to protest, sometimes
allowing this to lead to riot. Few doubted that things would get worse unless
somebody finally told us what the hell was going on!
It was another
anxiety-filled day and a half before that earlier group of scientists again
came together, this time to put out a brief opinion, one that came across as so
hesitant and so ambiguous that it made matters worse! One after the other, they preached to the
world that we were over-reacting to a natural phenomena, that we should calm
down until more is known.
Their
expressions and rhetoric, however, said they did not believe a word they were
saying. Their red-lined eyes and poorly-shaved faces told us they had had
little sleep since the event began, and throughout the conference no one
offered anything even closely resembling a smile. Nicole and I nearly flipped
when they added in their closing statement, an insincere expression on the
speaker’s face, “So you see, there is nothing to worry about—at the
moment.”
Nicole put our
thinking to words, “At the moment”?!
The riots
worsened, bringing with them injuries and an occasional death. We who were out
of the loop, which included just about everyone on Earth, were frightened and
we needed answers! Now!
Nailed down and
intimidated enough to start spouting truth, the panel of scientists again
reassembled, this time to admit what at first offered more confusion than
relief. “When a star as large as Betelgeuse explodes,” they said, “the
resulting release of energy often includes a powerful gamma ray burst that
would be fatal to anything in its path. All life on any planet in the way of
this burst would be exterminated.”
This was not
news to Nicole and me, but since the axis of this giant sun was pointed away
from Earth, we supposedly had nothing to fear from its gamma ray burst. “So
what’s the big deal?” we asked. “Why the gloomy faces? Why put us through all this anxiety?” “Well,” they said,
“Betelgeuse went into supernova, as expected, but its remnants were not acting
as expected.”
The damn thing
was wobbling!
We shrugged our
shoulders and again asked, “Okay, so what?”
Maybe a disappointment to scientists but of little consequences to those
of us who simply admire the night sky. It was not until one of the more astute
reporters in the room asked what effect that “wobble”
would have on the cosmic burst, that we got another of those answers offered
without either a smile or a hint of sincerity. “Not to worry,” they said.
“There is almost no chance that it will affect us.”
“Almost?”
The poignant
stares and obvious hesitation of panel members told us more than their words,
and when they again began to speak, not in one voice but many, they sought to
assure everyone that, though the remnants of Betelgeuse could be considered
close to Earth, its axis was still pointed away from us. The deadly gamma ray
bursts, which admittedly were sure to follow, were not likely to come our way.
“Not
“likely”?! What the hell did that
mean? And what would we do if “not
likely” began inching toward “likely”?
The panel of “experts” did not seem to realize that they were only
making matters worse in their attempts to explain the Betelgeuse wobble.
The cries of “apocalypse” grew louder, with many claiming “the
vengeance of God was soon to be upon us!”
Not sure where
the “vengeance of God” people were coming from, other than to put words to what
many had been fearing for some time. Our planet, as mentioned previously, now
housed some 12 billion souls, which was getting to be more than Earth could
handle. We all knew something had to change, though we were realistic enough
(pessimistic is more honest) to accept that nothing would, that humanity being
what it is, we were unlikely to agree on any solution that failed to take into
account the highly divergent views of all 12 billion of us. Some, and that
included Nicole and me, feared we were nearing the point where we had no
choice, that if we did not in some way cull ourselves, nature would do it for
us. Already our air was bordering on dangerous, our water was risky at best,
and food, even synthetic food, was becoming more and more difficult to produce
(not to mention its increasingly poor taste). Worse, the 12 billion showed no
sign of being a final number. Few doubted it would soon be 13 billion, and so
on.
So it was hard
to argue down those who saw a message in Betelgeuse and its wobble. To them,
God saw a problem and decided to maneuver that wobble into a tool to “cure”
Earth’s overpopulation. Only problem was they could not explain
how this would do humanity any good.
As we feared,
things got worse.
It took a while
for scientists and those employed to reveal the best and worst of a cosmic
event to admit that Betelgeuse’s wobble was
proving to be unstable, that it would continue to swing its deadly gamma ray
emissions toward Earth, that Earth’s population
was not to be culled, but exterminated. Not only we overpopulating humans, but
every living thing on the planet. In a flash, we went from “don’t worry” to “get your affairs in
order!” ……….
