Chapters 2 & 3 of Lucifer's Fury

Chapter 2 of Lucifer's Fury – What’s in A Name?

“Researchers at Ohio State University published a study suggesting there may be more free-floating ‘rogue’ planets, – than stars (possibly more than 400 billion) in the Milky Way.” The Astronomical Journal, August 21, 2020

August 31, 2048—278 Days Until Impact (DUI)

 “Professor Mason,” the student’s hand had been raised for a while before she timidly drew her favorite professor’s attention with her voice.

Sam was focused on his lecture, and at the same time, was using the rest of his gifted mind attempting to solve the problem upon which he’d been working since his private meeting with President Johansson the day before. There wasn’t enough room left in his consciousness to permit awareness of the room full of students listening to his lecture. He had been completely unconscious of Amy Browder’s raised hand.

“I’m so sorry, Amy. Do you have a question?”

“Yes. I should probably know this, but I don’t understand where rogue planets come from. Are they really planets? How can they exist without orbiting a star? Are they just extra big asteroids or something?”

“Those are excellent questions, Amy. I shouldn’t have jumped into this subject today without precisely defining the object of our interest. I’ve been so focused on it in my research and work with the U.N. commission that I often find myself losing track of the realization that most people, even most university physics students, aren’t aware of this monster’s basic nature.”

Sam could see that every student in the class was nervously anticipating the response he was about to give Amy. He paused a moment to mentally compose his answer in a way, he hoped, wouldn’t increase their anxiety to any greater degree than already evident.

“I doubt most people had ever heard of these celestial objects before this one took aim at Earth. The first one was observed only 36 years ago in 2012, by the Kepler telescope. Even while public announcements have been made from time to time since then, that one or another of them was discovered light years away from us, only astronomers were really interested in the subject. Most people aren’t concerned about things that are only thousands of miles away. One light year is almost six trillion miles away. That first rogue planet was 100 light years away; so six hundred trillion miles away. Even astronomers are a little overwhelmed trying to conceptualize a distance of that magnitude. At any rate it doesn’t have much to do with paying the rent or cleaning the house, right?”

He scored a handful of thoughtful smiles with that observation.

“Until we discovered Abaddon, that 2012 sighting was still the closest rogue planet we’d observed. Unless you own an astronomical observatory, you’re probably not thinking of things that far away.”

Sam paused briefly as he mentally formed his comments. Several articles had been published in notable scientific journals, since the astounding development of the Tachyonic Telescope a few years earlier, that reported the discoveries of numerous other rogue planets, but Sam saw no point in mentioning that. As revolutionary as it was, none of them were heading anywhere near Earth, and again, other than astronomers and astrophysicists, few people even in the academic community were interested enough to follow the story.

He continued, “There are three unusual circumstances that make Abaddon a huge problem for all of us people of Earth. First, it’s moving incredibly fast. We estimate its rate of speed at one quarter that of the speed of light. Second, on the day our astronomers first observed Abaddon, it was only 1.5 Trillion miles from us. Third, it’s on a path that will intersect a point in Earth’s orbit at precisely the same place and time as Earth. That will happen a little over nine months from now.

“Of course, because of Abaddon, everyone now knows about rogue planets. They’re sometimes called by other names, such as planemos, planetary mass objects (PMOs), interstellar planets, starless planets, nomad planets, wandering planets, and several other names or phrases. But, as I said, prior to Abaddon, they really didn’t matter to most of us.

“Anyway, they’re definitely not asteroids or big rocks of some kind. They’re planet mass objects demonstrating defining characteristics similar to the eight planets in our system, yet also different in significant ways. They’re not part of any star system, they roam through space on their own, and they have other differences we can study later. We’ll cover several major theories of their origin later in this course, but the fact is, we’re not agreed on a single theory. We don’t know for sure how they develop and why there are so many of them. What we do agree on is that The Milky Way has hundreds of billions of them. Most of the ones we know about are much larger than Earth. Typically, they’re more along the size and mass of Jupiter. Of course, before the invention of the tachyonic telescope the largest ones were the only ones we’d been able to find. One reason it took us so long to see Abaddon is that it’s around the same size as Earth, while the typical PMO is 1,300 times the size of Earth, in other words, about the size of Jupiter.”

Sam had been well into his lecture on introductory astrophysics, as it related to his specialty, Quantum Mechanics, when Amy interrupted him. He actually appreciated the distraction. The joint effort of giving a lecture, outside of his major focus, combined with his arduous mental concentration on the portal idea he planned to suggest to the CSE, had triggered a fierce tension headache.

In addition, not fully concentrating on his students as he lectured didn’t meet up to his personal standards as a teacher. Since the Abaddon event had them as rattled as anybody else on Earth, they were already tense about the whole subject. Sam realized that most of them were continuously toying with the idea of dropping out of school altogether as so many of their peers had already done. He felt more responsibility than ever to encourage his remaining students regarding their inner calling to find meaning, even in the face of certain death, by delving more fully into their love of knowledge and their inborn desire to understand the mysterious fabric of reality. The portal project could wait until after this class.

Sam continued, “According to modern astronomy, the universe has a very large number of rogue planets. Astronomers estimate there are very likely more rogue planets in our galaxy than there are stars, or planets that orbit stars. Rogue planets don’t orbit. They’re not attached to any star system. They move through space like free birds until their luck runs out, and they slam into something else as big or bigger than them.

“You may or may not remember this from the books I’ve encouraged you to read for this course, but it’s the widely accepted theory that the moon orbiting Earth is the result of a rogue planet that smashed into Earth billions of years ago, in a glancing blow. It pulverized a portion of the material that originally made up Earth, and created our natural, orbiting satellite.”

Sam instantly realized he had just complicated his goal of calming his students’ anxieties by introducing a frightening picture into already worried minds. It was difficult to say anything about Abaddon that didn’t remind everyone, including him, how dire their situation was. For years he had used that same example to describe rogue planets to all of his astrophysics classes prior to Abaddon’s discovery, as a means of, at least briefly, coaxing those students who were less focused, out of their slumber. It’s a terrifying, albeit, exciting idea to think of another planet slamming into Earth. But always, before the last month, it was relegated to the realm of interesting, but unlikely science fiction types of ideas. Now it was more akin to unnecessary torture to bring up the subject.

A deep shudder ran through Sam as he unconsciously stopped lecturing again, and simply stared at his notes. Suddenly, the only thought his mind could generate was, more an adolescent fantasy than an adult idea, to call Emmie and tell her he loved her; to tell her they should both quit their jobs and stay home making love all day, every day, until they died in each other’s arms. When they had no more energy for the physical act itself, they could simply hold each other, and feel each other’s heartbeats, and warmth, only leaving their embrace to give in to those necessities that living human bodies demand.

He finally remembered to look up again. He saw his students staring back at him with wide eyes, gaping lips, nervous energy all about them, and exuding his same sense of desperation that maybe they should be somewhere else, doing something else.

Sam apologized to them again. He took a deep breath, took off his glasses, ran his hand through his thick mane of light brown hair, and concentrated on where their minds were at that moment. “I’m sorry. This very minor detail of astrophysics and cosmology has recently become the single most relevant detail in the (not-so-orderly after all) clockwork universe in which Sir Isaac Newton lived and even more so in our lives.”

He paused, attempted a smile, and continued, “But, nevertheless, as upsetting as it is to bring it up, as horrifying as it is to think about, as heart stopping as it is to imagine our final moments as a species, as we face this monster that looms toward us, you and I have agreed to spend the time we have left to live up to the human race’s most noble attribute."

Sam had their full attention, and he wanted to use it at maximum advantage to tell them the purest truth he knew at that moment. "Of all the millions of students who typically pursued a university education prior to Abaddon, you are of the most valuable variety. You are the type of student that has existed since before there were schools in which to obtain formal educations. You are the kind of students that came to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle for their opportunity to better understand what life is all about. You are like Einstein, who only persisted in obtaining a PhD in order to have the opportunity to spend his life discovering the secrets of matter and energy and the very fabric of reality. You are among the tiny percentage that were not in college just for a better paying job or a more meaningful career. That's why you are still in class while most of the students in the world have dropped out of formal education, because they saw no point in it any more. Out of all life forms of which we are aware, ours alone, on this planet, is able to contemplate what’s about to happen. If we’re, indeed destined to die in a final, merciless act of nature, we have the ability to face our executioner, and do what we can to survive it, and perhaps triumph over it . . . in spirit if not in body. That's why you're here, and that's why I respect you so much.”

Sam's emotions suddenly caught him off guard. With his last words still hanging in the air, he realized that tears were streaming down his face. He had revealed his innermost being and felt that his soul stood bare before an auditorium full of students. As he stood silent, trying to regain control of himself, he looked out at all those young faces and loved them. He knew that he and they were of the closest kinship. He saw that all of their faces were either wet with tears or smiling with absolute agreement with Sam's words. It was a spiritual bonding he had never experienced with an entire class in all his years as a student or a teacher.

Sam looked at his class deeply, as though the auditorium of nearly 200 students had one set of eyes and one mind. He loved them for spending their last season of life fulfilling the glory that’s human—doing their best to learn who we are, where we came from, why we’re here, and where we’re going. That had been his driving motivation all of his life, and he felt most at home with people who shared that hunger for knowledge and understanding of things that truly matter. His faith informed him that what we learn during our physical lives goes on with us into that which is beyond physical death. While many of his scientific colleagues eschewed spiritual matters and religion, Sam felt that sort of closed mindedness, in itself, was unscientific.

When he'd recovered enough to speak clearly again, he closed his lecture by saying, “Don’t overlook that sometimes things that appear to be outright curses, turn out to be our best blessings, and things that seem to be hopeless eventually reveal a solution for salvation. It may not give you comfort to think about this, under our current dilemma, but we’re here, alive and gloriously human today, because of just such a terrible experience. That rogue planet that nearly destroyed Earth and created our moon, some four billion years ago, actually led to Earth’s success as a planet and our success as a species. The moon is a stabilizing force for Earth. It affects the ebb and flow of our tides in a way that encourages life and the proliferation of all species on the planet. Its orbit balances Earth’s orbit making our planet far more stable than it would be without it. And, of course, most importantly, it gives lovers something really romantic to look at as they park at scenic places, to . . .  you know . . . talk.”

Having elicited some pleasant smiles and soft laughter from most of them at that thought, he dismissed the class and headed back to his office. That concept-egg, has he liked to think of it, was still trying to hatch in his mind despite his efforts to focus on the task at hand of completing the lecture. He kept thinking of the most recent meeting of the U.N. Commission to Save Earth (CSE). The CSE was formed by the United Nations, immediately after President Johansson and other world leaders revealed the horrible news of our impending doom. It was set up as a think tank of scientists, engineers, philosophers, psychologists, and other scholars. Their major task was to brainstorm ideas for what we might do, if anything, to save the human race. No ideas were off limits. No one’s input was ignored. While individuals were invited to become part of the commission based on their accomplishments and skills, membership was open to anyone who wished to take part in the process or merely to listen to the geniuses, grasping for any hope they might hear from them.

There was a local CSE in each country that met daily to work towards a solution. Different countries handled the local structure in whatever way worked best for them. America had local CSE units in every major city, a state level group that met in each state capital, a regional group in each region, and a national group that met in various cities located mid-country. Most other countries followed a similar model. Each local CSE sent delegates to the general CSE that met in the UN building on a monthly basis. The general meeting at the UN was teleconferenced to every site around the world that had a local group. No expenses were spared, and no efforts were ignored. It was an intense and elaborate project, but after all, humanity was doomed if they could not develop a plan to survive.

Sam was one of the first physicists invited into membership in his local state group in Boston. As a professor in the physics department at MIT he was an obvious choice. Even at the early age of 27, he had published a dozen significant papers in the general area of quantum physics and specifically in relation to the nature of time. He was a promising star in the physics world well before he earned his PhD from Caltech shortly after his 22nd birthday. Some magazine articles even tossed around the idea that he was the Albert Einstein or Niels Bohr for the Twenty-First Century.

Many proposed solutions had been hashed about since the world received the horrible news. Whether referring to an individual or a whole planet, it’s fascinating how completely a death sentence reprioritizes all previous plans and needs. NASA cancelled all their usual, vital mission projects and ideas and went all in on ideas to build a fleet of cruise ship size space ships to send a selection of the best and the brightest Earthlings in search of a new home in another solar system. The Alpha Centauri system, a solar system with three stars, each demonstrating a high likelihood of at least one Earth-like planet, was chosen as the best option, in part because it’s the closest star system to Earth. Each ship would carry thousands of passengers. This would only save a tiny fraction of humanity, but if it worked, our species would not become extinct.

There were several serious downsides to this plan. Even though, since 2037, the technology had existed that enabled small ships to travel up to half the speed of light, constant budget limitations had prevented NASA and the private space industry from developing ships that could carry more than a crew of twenty. Space exploration was expensive. Even at half-light speed it would take a star ship nine or more years to travel the 4.4 light years to Alpha Centauri. Thousands of people travelling for that long would require enormous resources within the ship. By the time they arrived on extra-terrestrial soil all their hopes for survival would depend on that planet being equipped to provide human beings with all of their food, water, shelter, and other needs. Time was a factor as well. Even with the ability to divert all the funds that would never be needed in an Earth future that would not be continuing, building and equipping spaceships to carry thousands of people was more than likely impossible over the course of eleven months.

A somewhat similar plan would be to send those thousands of people to the small International Research Colony established on Mars since 2029. Their present population included 6,000 souls. They had made some progress in the beginning stages of terraforming the planet. Again, with the freed up resources that could be employed in an emergency survival escape from Earth, it had its selling points. With Mars and Earth from 55 million to 236 million miles apart (depending on their orbits), slower, less exotic, far larger ships could be built that travelled fast enough to make the trip in a much shorter time than to Alpha Centauri. At the closest juncture, travelling at one hundredth the speed of light they could make the trip in less than nine hours. At the maximum distance it would take up to 38 hours. Each trip would provide sufficient supplies and workers to build facilities that would support thousands of people. Every advanced country on Earth could build their own ships, send their own supplies and crews to Mars, and build facilities for their own people. Once the ships were built, repeat trips could add a tremendous amount of progress that accumulated with time. Each trip would bring new pioneers that would remain permanently. As the facilities were built new people would fill them with increasing numbers of workers to continue building Earth’s new home. The supplies needed to increase the rate of terraforming the planet could also be brought. Many more people could be saved.

This plan had its own drawbacks. Aside from all the normal dangers of living on a planet that is starkly different from the planet on which we evolved, there was an extreme additional danger. No one knew what damage the solar system would endure from the total destruction of two colliding planets. With Mars right next door to Earth, a cataclysm of that size, producing planetary shrapnel in the form of new asteroids and other large objects probably falling frequently through Mars’ thin atmosphere might destroy the new colony on Mars as well. The huge swings of interplanetary gravitational pull produced by the new planet as it raced through our solar system, and the sudden transformation of Earth from a planet into a pile of space debris would cause unpredictable amounts of damage.

There were a few other creative suggestions, that ranged from desperately hopeful to even less likely to succeed than building a fleet of starships in less than a year. One was to come up with a means of deflecting the rogue planet. Deflecting a large asteroid is problematic. Deflecting a planetary-mass-object the size of Earth is impossible using the technology available to humankind in 2049. Another suggestion was to aim every kind of transmitter we had and any new types we could invent at the heavens and broadcast an emergency signal to anyone listening. The hope was that a civilization far in advance of us would hear the SOS, mercifully come to the rescue, at ‘Warp 12’ or whatever, and either blast the planet into space dust or transport us to a nice new world even better than Earth. Everyone agreed that would be a wonderful thing, but that it smacked of a ‘pie in the sky’ unrealistic dream solution.

The philosophers all agreed that the best option was to accept our fate and find peace in our existential situation. The majority of clergy, social workers and other humanitarian types agreed with them as well, but added something else. They felt the best thing to do was to accept our fate and spend the last year of Earthly life providing everyone on Earth with food, medicine, shelter, comfort, and even luxury. Rev. John Mason summed up their general opinion in these words: “The world is going to be destroyed in less than a year. No one will survive. Why not divide all the material things on Earth with everyone, so that in this closing, brief age of humankind, we will finally treat each other as brothers and sisters?” It was surprising to everyone that nearly every person who heard this option was ready to vote for it. It seemed that, given the certainty of death in such a short time, the vast majority of people wanted to share the blessings that had always been available on our planet with all of our neighbors.

When the vote was taken by each CSE at every level, in all the cities and countries around the world, and finally in the governing body at the U.N., it was nearly unanimously approved as the option we would pursue, regardless of what additional efforts we made to save humanity from the rogue planet. Finally, there would be an age of brotherhood and peace on planet Earth even if it only lasted for a year.

Some found it truly ironic that humanity had finally adopted a general policy and worldview of peace, mercy and goodwill toward all souls, due to the influence of a heavenly body someone named ‘Abaddon.’ Some found it ridiculously funny. But in general, they understood the larger truth behind this momentous jump in human consciousness. For all of human history, since Cain killed Able, human beings have been at war with each other. Whether the war was simple competition between individuals to determine who would win the desired mate, land, or job, or a war where one country attempts to defeat and own another country, we have never been of a mind to actually follow the Golden Rule.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” was easy to say, but seemingly impossible to consistently do. But now, for the first time in the evolution of humankind, we were lifted beyond the arena of them against us, and us against them. We were transformed by a clear truth. Something bigger than ourselves was coming to destroy us. It had as good as absolute power, it was devoid of mercy or conscience, it was coming on schedule, and there was no way to stop it. That absolute truth transformed us from human against human to a new stage of humankind—a stage defined by the finally assimilated idea that we’re all in this together. We’re all of one race—the human race—and of one family—the family of humankind—and of one nation—the nation whose citizens are the populace of Planet Earth.

People experienced a universal sense of one obvious question: “Why didn’t we ever realize this was always true? We’ve always had more in common with each other than we should have had dividing us. We’ve always known there was enough on this planet for everyone. We should’ve always understood that peace by working and sharing together was far superior to the strife by humans’ inhumanity to humans that dominated our relations with each other for all the millennia recorded in our books.

It seemed to sweep the world in a day. It was as if someone had transformed the consciousness of humanity in some sort of universal transplant. Peace, harmony and goodwill reigned on Earth. Almost everyone realized there was no longer any need to hoard money or goods. Those who had empty houses for sale or rent gave them to people who were homeless. People who had car lots of cars to sell or rent provided them to people who didn’t have safe transportation.

People knew they didn’t have to fight over property or steal someone else’s property. Everyone knew there was no point in holding on to their property to sell it to the highest bidder. Whose would any of these things be after the death angel swooped in to take everyone’s life at once? And everyone kept thinking the same question: “Why didn’t we understand this truth before? All of us knew we only had a short number of years to live under normal circumstances—a moment in time by universal standards. And yet we scrapped like junkyard dogs over the turf we thought we controlled.”

Why didn’t we understand that we’ve always been in this position? We’ve always only had less than a century, as individuals, to live in a 14 Billion-year-old universe. Each one of us was always going to die like everyone before us. Why did we need this common enemy from space, coming to kill us all at once, in order to realize life could be so good for all of us if we simply treated each other like beloved family, or at least with mercy?

Sam felt the same sense of satisfaction with this answer as everyone else. He felt cleansed inside of the stain of sin that he and his brother, John, had often discussed; that sin the New Testament speaks of as inherited from Adam and Eve as a result of their disobedience to God. It’s a different thing altogether from our physical actions and our personal weaknesses or unhealthy appetites. This stain of sin that Genesis speaks of and that the New Testament clarifies to some extent is a brokenness within us; brokenness that the Apostle Paul taught had generalized to the physical universe itself. It’s, as the word stain implies, a marring of something that we sense should be pure within us—something that was innocent that became guilty.

Creative writers and ordinary people conversing with friends in coffee shops and parks everywhere expressed the overwhelming sense that a stain upon their souls was being removed. People felt that they were being repaired inside; not just them personally, but that humankind was being repaired. It was like there was an evolutionary leap of consciousness universally experienced within the human race.

Sam had been driving home, thinking of these things so deeply that he didn’t remember a single moment of the drive itself. He was still mentally occupied in that part of his brain Emmie patiently referred to as his MPL—his Mental Physics Lab. In spite of the worldwide acceptance of the plan to accept the reality of what was coming, and to adopt this attitude and life that many spiritual leaders over the ages had died trying to lead people to adopt, and Sam’s acceptance and appreciation of this universal decision, something was bugging him in his MPL. Something was trying to hatch. Something was coming together that would solve the portal problem, but he couldn’t yet comprehend what it was. He consciously dismissed it again as he hugged his beautiful Emmie who met him at the door of their home.

“I have your favorite dish for supper, Honey.”

“My favorite dish is you,” he said.

He kissed her and held her seductively. Their passion for each other was palpable.

“That’s dessert, silly. It’s my turn, tonight, to cook the kind of food we actually eat, and I made your favorite—fried chicken, rice and gravy, vegetables, and homemade biscuits.”

“That sounds delicious, my love. Your recipe repertoire is one of the major reasons I’m glad I married a girl from South Carolina, but I still like kissing you better than eating.”

“And that’s why I love you so much,” she purred.

They decided to have ‘dessert’ first, and supper afterwards.

Chapter 3 of Lucifer's Fury - The Portal

“Events that have passed must still be around. Events that will be must exist like new scenes around blind corners on the roads of life. And if both the future and the past exist, then, quantum physics implies, devices must be feasible that can enable us to tune in on the future and resonate with the past.”

Fred Alan Wolfe, PhD

September 1, 2048—277 Days Until Impact (DUI)

Sam awoke with a start at 2:00 A.M. He had been dreaming that he was walking along with millions, perhaps billions of people. They were walking into a giant old fashioned radio. The huge warehouse sized radio had a doorway built into the front of it, positioned to the right of the tuner dial. Above them was PMO Abaddon, taking up a fourth of the sky. It was scarlet and pulsating. There was the sense that it was moving toward the rendezvous with Earth at an incredible speed. Everyone was nervous, but seemed to be excited to be moving toward the giant radio which was playing the old Led Zeppelin hit, Stairway to Heaven.

There were officials in scientific looking garments (wearing white lab coats), outside of the radio, standing on scaffolding that was placed in a position that, as they stood on it, they were working together to turn the huge tuner dial. Sam could see what appeared to be an uncountable number of decimal figures around the dial, and the officials were attempting to turn the dial very carefully to particular frequencies. 

Suddenly, in the dream, Sam was able to see the back of the radio at the same time as he continued to watch the people entering the doorway in the front. He noticed there was a lush forest on the backside of the radio, and there were villages and primitive human beings scattered about engaged in various tasks.

Then a voice spoke in the air from no one in particular. It had a sound similar to a voiceover in a TV commercial. It said in a rich and deep voice, “Once the correct frequency is chosen, you must all walk through. Everything will change once you’ve crossed over.”

After the announcement, the giant radio suddenly changed into a radio station with twin antennas, one on each side of it. The voiceover said very clearly, “9337612.578.” Then Sam awoke instantly.

As he became conscious, he sat bolt upright in the bed. He whispered, “That’s it.”

He said it louder, “That’s it!”

Then he began shouting it over and over. He nearly scared Emmie to death. She thought someone had broken into the house. He grabbed the pen and notebook he always kept on his bed side table and wrote down 9337612.578.

“Sam, what’s wrong?”

“I’ve figured it out. I know how to do it.”

“Figured what out?”

“I’ve figured it out,” he said again.

Without another word, he kissed Emmie, dressed as fast as he could, and drove back to MIT.

On his way out of the door Emmie said, “But . . . Sam . . . it’s two-fifteen in the morning!”

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: These chapters from my soon to be published novel, Lucifer's Fury, are posted here to allow potential readers the opportunity to see what it's about. My previous articles on Linked In are the PROLOGUE and Chapter 1 of the novel. The next article I post will be Chapter 4 of Lucifer's Fury. Let me know if you find the novel interesting or if you have any comments, criticisms, or suggestions. The manuscript is being edited and otherwise prepared for publication in the near future. This is an experiment to see if giving potential readers the opportunity to try out copyrighted material of an upcoming book (actual sequential articles) produces more interest in buying it on publication. My previous, science fiction novel, The Hiroshima Agenda is available in paperback at www.amazon.com/dp/1520113501 and in E-Book form at www.amazon.com/dp/B00XXCVODO My author's page is available on both of those sites.