'Oh, for crying out loud!' The President returned and dropped back into his armchair, slopping brandy over the side of his snifter and onto the carpet. 'Honest to god, Howard, how am I supposed to run this country if things like this are going on behind my back.'
'Jim, this has been a complex and rapidly changing situation. We have only begun to appreciate the stakes in the last couple of weeks, to see how it all ties together. You've got to look at the signals,' Drefke implored. 'There are people over there trying to understand, trying to keep a lid on things. Sure, they're trying to get some advantage from it: they have to cover their own asses internally. But we still have to seek them out, appeal to the rational ones who see the common danger if we're going to keep the crazies in check. We need to pacify the Russians and figure out what to do with this damnable black hole, but we must tackle both problems together. We've got to open up and work with them on this thing. If we don't, they'll cram it all down our throats, the black hole, their laser, everything.'
Drefke stared at the familiar figure, unsure whether his arguments were effective.
Isaacs had scarcely breathed during the intense discussion. He appreciated Drefke's stout support and thought that the Director had established his moral motivation as well as possible. Still, his breach was massive. There were immutable political forces once such things came to the attention of the President. Without seeing the specifics, Isaacs numbly recognized that his career at the Agency was over.
The President got up and went to the serving cart. He put down the sticky glass and poured some more brandy into a fresh one. He sat and took a reflective sip. After a moment he said, 'Let's put aside the political factors for now. I need to get some feeling for the broader perspective.
'You say,' the President continued, looking at Drefke, 'that this black hole is consuming the earth, that the earth is falling into it, as you remarked previously. But apparently there is little directly noticeable effect now. How soon before we have an emergency on our hands? That is to say, a public emergency?'
'That's a difficult question to answer,' Drefke said, glancing quickly away from the President to Isaacs and Phillips and then back. 'The ultimate danger is apparently many generations away. But let me stress that although that is farther in the future than we are normally used to dealing, the threat is real and implacable.'
'But what is the future course of this flung?' the President asked. 'Professor Phillips, I haven't heard from you. What is your prognosis?'
Phillips set aside his brandy and clasped his fingers in his lap before replying.
'If it continues on its course,' Phillips said, 'there will be a phase of increasingly violent earthquakes. As the object grows bigger it will be able to trigger large earthquakes by releasing stress already stored along fault lines. At a somewhat later stage the tunnels themselves created by the passage of the object will be so large that their collapse will engender a continuing series of major earthquakes. As the hole grows even larger, the earth will begin to orbit it. The oceans will be sloshed from their basins by huge tides. The earthquakes will grow in magnitude until the whole earth is rent by them and totally uninhabitable. In the final stage, all the material of the earth will be consumed, and only the black hole grown to about this size will be left orbiting the sun.' He made an OK sign for illustration.
Silence filled the room as Phillips finished his description. The President stared into his glass. He gave his head a small shake and looked up towards Phillips. 'I must ask again how long it will be before this thing becomes overtly dangerous in the way you have just described? With the earthquakes and tidal waves?'
'Such a thing could happen now,' Phillips said, 'particularly in the Far East or along the coast of California where the orbital plane intersects regions of tectonic activity.'
'But when will such things begin to occur with regularity? ' the President inquired.
'Very difficult to answer,' Phillips shook his head, 'perhaps a hundred years, maybe as much as a thousand.'
'In a sense then, we have that long before we must cope with this thing directly,' the President asserted, 'that long before massive deaths begin to occur.'
Phillips thought for a moment. 'Yes, the hole will become a deadly menace at some point, but that may not be a measure of our grace period in terms of taking active steps against it.'
The President raised an eyebrow in question. Phillips unclasped his hands to draw an elliptical path in the air with his finger. 'As the hole follows its orbit, it is subject to drag forces as the inevitable adjunct of its consuming the matter of the earth. These drag forces will slowly cause the hole to spiral to the centre of the earth. After a certain period of time, the orbit of the hole will no longer carry it above the surface of the earth. After that it will be totally inaccessible to us and our fate will be truly sealed. Right now it is difficult to say whether the hole will disappear beneath the surface before or after the massive earthquakes begin. We will not have to rely on theoretical estimates for long, however. Observations currently under way will tell us directly how fast the settling is occurring even if we have no accurate way of predicting when regular extensive damage will begin.'
The President rested his forehead against his hand, leaning on the arm of the chair. He rotated his head from that position and once more inquired of Phillips, 'There remains one more major question then, doesn't there?' He looked straight into Phillips's eyes. 'What can we do about it?'
Phillips returned the President's gaze forthrightly.
'Mr President, on this issue I must be perfectly candid. So far none of our discussions have produced a glimmer of cause for optimism.'
Phillips glanced at the other two men and then returned his attention to the President. 'Understand that I do not mean that we must accept defeat. We have only just begun to study the problem, and it would be foolhardy to suggest that because a possible solution is not apparent now that one will not be forthcoming in the future, if enough ingenuity and manpower are brought to bear. But it would be equally foolhardy to minimize the magnitude of the problem. This object is so tiny and so massive that it cannot be moved except by the most titanic of forces. My colleagues and I are far from ready to give up on the problem, but we must all be prepared to concede at some point that there is no solution. It certainly is conceivable that the earth is doomed.'
The President absorbed the gloomy assessment. 'Well, we can't give up without a fight. You spoke of manpower and ingenuity, Professor. What can this office do to provide the resources necessary to find a solution to this problem, presuming one exists?'
'Just now the stress must be more on ingenuity than brute manpower,' replied Phillips. 'At the present stage we need an idea, or set of ideas, some hint of a useful programme. Then I imagine that a massive engineering programme such as the Manhattan Project or the Apollo programme would be called for.'
'From the scientific point of view,' the President rubbed a hand over tired eyes, 'can we proceed without the Russians?'
Phillips pondered his answer. 'I appreciate the dilemma you are in. You cannot lightly submit to coercion. We have many great scientists in this country, men and women who would gladly give up careers of research to work with you on this. Perhaps, no, we don't need the Russians in that sense. But you ask me as a scientist. I will tell you this. I do not know the depths of Korolev's political connections, although I have every reason to believe that he has great influence. But I do know that there is no brain on 'earth that I would rather have working on this problem than that of Viktor Korolev.'
The President nodded, then spoke. 'Gentlemen, I have much to think about. Please keep yourselves on call.'
They left the White House by a side exit and climbed into Drefke's waiting limousine which whisked them away through the quiet Washington streets.
Chapter 19
On the evening of January 5th, a taxi made its way from Logan Airport , skirting the Charles River along the edge of Boston. Eventually, it came to Newton and slowed on the tortuous suburban streets. The air was noticeably colder outside the city, and the snowflakes fell more thickly. The passengers huddled in the corners of the flat Checker seat listening to the wheels plough through the slush. The smaller figure tried to ignore the stream of frigid air which came from his window which would not quite close. He wore a topcoat, but shivered from lack of natural insulation. The man was in his early forties, of average height, thin to the point of frailness. His head was round in profile, but thin so his face was a flattened oval. His sparse hair was combed straight back; a trim Vandyke adorned
