his mind, he hadn’t noticed how close he was to it now.
His dry mouth fell open. This can’t be real…
It wasn’t a boulder at all. It was a skull — gigantic, and bleached by a million sunshines. Just behind it, the tops of waist-thick bones stuck out of the ground for a good forty feet before they gradually sunk below the sand. Huge ribs, Arn thought.
He ran his hand along the skull, perhaps to see if it was real. It was warm and rough to his touch, and tilted slightly onto its side. He could see inside the mouth that it still had a few sharp teeth.
A dinosaur? No. A whale, maybe.
And that’ll be you soon, if you don’t find water.
Arn remembered why he came to the skull, and climbed up onto it. Still facing into the breeze, he squinted. In the distance, something gleamed.
Chapter 6
That’s Not Supposed to Happen
The room had been cleared and Harper and his senior scientist huddled around one of the screens. Takada tapped the glass with his knuckle.
‘I think we’ve got a topological paradox.’ He folded his arms and peered at the blurred area on the screen.
‘A wormhole?’ Harper whispered, and ran his hands up through his thinning hair. ‘Maybe; after all, we knew it was theoretically possible. But one that stays open — that’s not supposed to happen… even on paper.’
‘Well, the visual evidence sure points to something being there that wasn’t there before. Or rather I should say, something not being there, that was before.’
Harper blinked a few times at the oily distortion. ‘And the boy and our diamond fell through it, or were pulled through?’
‘I know, I know, it’s all crazy. But it could have all been a lot worse: if the collision had generated a black hole, even a miniature one, and it failed to evaporate in nanoseconds, it could have given off enough gamma radiation to fry the planet. So we should be thankful for that at least.’
Harper grunted. ‘So, you think it’s safe to go down there?’
Takada shrugged. ‘None of the instruments are registering lethal gamma or X-rays anymore. The anomaly gave off just enough rads to cause the blast doors to activate, but not enough to harm anyone.’
‘Yet.’ Harper raised his eyebrows.
‘And that’s the problem, isn’t it? The non-mass is somehow causing our systems to be drained of power, and refuse their shutdown orders on the collider. We somehow opened a wormhole, and now something is causing it to be wedged open. It’s drawing ever more power, and I don’t now what’ll happen when it reaches a tipping point.’
Harper leaned on his fists and looked hard at the screen, which had now been recalibrated to focus on the small area of blurred disturbance next to the collision point.
‘Give me some options, people.’
Takeda sat forward. ‘The collider is moving at a speed that has surpassed light. That’s pretty cool.’
Harper turned to glare at him, and he swallowed and went on.
‘But the fact is, the particles we have created are still accelerating. Don’t know why, but each rotation in the chamber means more power is drawn, more speed is achieved, and more fragility enters the system. So…’ He shrugged. ‘We need to slow them down. We need a brake.’
Harper’s eyebrows went up.
Takeda nodded as he spoke. ‘We need to refire the laser. Derail or slow those particles down, and remove the paradox’s energy source.’
‘Perfect. Now if only we had a red diamond we could calibrate. Anyone got a year and ten million bucks?’ Harper rubbed his forehead and sighed. ‘Okay, so, we need to do something — at least get in to take a look at it. Before it reaches this unknown tipping point.’ He leaned back. ‘You know, it still may close by itself.’
Takada nodded. ‘That’s right; it may evaporate any second, or…’
‘Or?’
‘Or it could swell and absorb more of the facility, or all of the facility. Or maybe generate a nuclear meltdown, causing a chain reaction that could irradiate the rest of the planet.’ Takada wiped his brow. ‘Or it could do something else we can’t even imagine.’ His voice was rising. ‘We’ve got to get in there.’
‘Okay, that’s enough,’ Harper said. ‘We’re going in — as for what happens then, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’
Takada sucked in a deep breath, and visibly calmed himself. ‘We’re scientists; we’ll do what we’re supposed to — observe.’
‘Observe,’ Harper repeated, and then thought gloomily, Perhaps observe the end of the world.
Chapter 7
The Garden of Eden
There was rain on his face, and he opened his mouth to let some of the drops fall onto his tongue. Memories floated back slowly: he remembered walking towards the shining object in the distance, and then seeing the mirage — a forest of tall trees, almost like it was fringing some unseen border.
He must have dozed again, for when he finally opened his eyes the rain had long stopped, and his clothes were dry. Arn groaned as he sat up, blinking to try to clear his vision.
The Garden of Eden, he thought. Every muscle ached, and he still felt dehydrated, but he couldn’t help smiling. He had first woken in some dank cave of horrors deep below the earth, had crossed a sterile desert, and now he found himself on a green hillside dotted with trees that towered above him.
Where am I? he wondered. It looked a little bit like California… Maybe the Sequoia Forest. He looked up at the sky — it was a darkish blue tending to purple in the west as the sun was about to set. Above him, a tree that could have been a black oak spread its huge limbs in an enormous umbrella-shaped canopy.
A giant nut, like an acorn the size of a football, dangled heavily over his head. He saw that there were many more of them on most of the lower branches. As he examined them, the closest one wiggled.
Arn stood slowly, shaking off a moment of dizziness, and reached out to touch it. Just as his fingers brushed against the glossy brown casing, the head of a worm burst from somewhere underneath and lashed out at his hand. The finger-thick grub had a ring of fangs like daggers, and only Arn’s fear gave him the speed to avoid it. Missing his hand by inches, it bit deeply, digging furrows along the side of its own shell. He grimaced in disgust and backed away, wiping his hand and looking over his shoulder to examine his surroundings.
He breathed deeply, calming himself. The air tasted strange… Everything was slightly strange. He stood quietly; except for the hum of hidden insects, there was no sound. The hill he stood upon gave him a view over a shallow valley that ended in a small stream ringed by thick forests. Many of the trees were so thick and tall they resembled mighty redwoods, except their canopies spread more like oaks.
Arn turned slowly in a circle. Through the trees to the east he could make out the dry sands he had just trekked across. He shook his head in amazement at how far he had managed to walk into the forest without even realising it… Without even being fully awake, he thought. To the north, the land became more raised, and in the very far distance he could see snow-capped mountains pushing up like ragged purple teeth against the darkening sky.
Arn sucked in another breath. No pollution, he thought… and no car exhausts, factory smells, asphalt warming in the afternoon sun, perfumes, cooking odours… nothing. Now he knew: that was what he had found strange — the air was pure.
He felt his face, his chest, and looked down at his feet and legs — dusty sneakers, jeans ripped at the knees;
