End of Days (23 page)

“That sounds encouraging,” one of the scientists said.

Sheppard and half the people around the table looked at him incredulously. He was a rocket fuel specialist, and he did not have enough background to know how much devastation a fragment that size would create—information that seemed painfully obvious to everybody else.

“We’re going to be okay … aren’t we?” he persisted.

Sheppard looked at their chief climatologist. “Please, could you provide an answer?”

“That many fragments hitting the planet is unprecedented,” he said. “We estimate that the asteroid that hit approximately sixty-five million years ago, the one that is believed to have led to the extinction of the dinosaurs and almost all
land-based life forms along with over 95 percent of aquatic life, was only three times as large as that,” he said.

“So this won’t be so bad,” the rocket scientist said. “Right?”

“That was only
one
asteroid strike,” the climatology chief answered. “We estimate that the total energy released from all of the fragments that impact Earth will be up to two
hundred
times greater than the calamity that led to that mass extinction.”

It was as if the air had been let out of the room, and people visibly sagged around the table. Sheppard slumped down and supported his head with his hands.

Finally he spoke. “Your degree of certainty for your report?”

“More than 98 percent that this is the result.”

“And in that 2 percent margin of error, is there any question that you are
so
wrong that none of these fragments will hit, or that they will be so small that they will not significantly impact human life on the planet?” Sheppard asked.

He shook his head. “There is no chance that we have miscalculated to that extent. Earth will be hit by multiple fragments. It could be two hundred instead of three hundred, but it could just as easily be four hundred. They could be only two hundred metres in diameter, but they could also be larger, four or even five hundred metres across.”

“I see. And are there any more efforts, any steps we can take to try to avert these impacts?” Sheppard asked of the people around the room.

Everybody looked down at the table and nobody answered—which was an answer in itself.

Sheppard suddenly laughed, catching everybody by surprise.

“Sorry, I was just thinking about a joke,” he said. “A woman is waiting outside the operating room for the surgeon to emerge and tell her how the operation on her husband went. The doctor says to her that the surgery was successful. She is overjoyed, thanks him, and asks when her husband can come home. He says, ‘You don’t understand. Your husband is dead.’ Confused, she says, ‘But you told me the operation was a success,’ and he replies, ‘Yes, the operation was a success, but the patient still died.’ ”

Nobody else seemed to find Sheppard’s joke funny, and he realized it really wasn’t that funny after all.

“I’m going to ask that the information we have discussed today, these conclusions, not, at this time, be shared with anybody outside the room,” Sheppard said. “There’s no point in producing any internal mass panic … this information shall be kept from the general public … at least for now.”

“Is he in his office?” Billy asked Joshua Fitchett’s secretary.

“He’s there but he’s busy, and I don’t think he can—”

The door to Fitchett’s office opened and he came out in full flight and rushed away.

“Joshua!” Billy yelled. “Can we talk?”

“I was just coming to find you,” he replied. “Come, we’ll walk and talk and I’ll show you something, all at the same time.”

Fitchett hurried down the hall, not waiting for a response, and Billy ran after him, falling into step.

“I haven’t seen you for almost two weeks,” Billy said.

“I haven’t been here for two weeks. I’ve been out there,” he said with a wave of his hands, “taking care of problems and seeing to all the last-minute details.”

“There must be lots to do.”

“The most important elements seem to be falling into
place, finally. Today I’ve arranged a meeting—an important meeting—and I want you to be part of it.”

“Me?”

“Yes, it’s at the heart of our mission, and I believe you should be there.”

Billy found himself struggling to keep up to Fitchett. His height and stride seemed to more than compensate for his age.

“What’s it about?” Billy asked.

“It’s all tied in to what I want to show you today. Always better to show.”

“Could I ask you another question?” Billy asked.

“You can ask me anything, you know that.”

“I was going over the information about the Ark, the DNA samples, and I noticed that with each animal, fish, or bird, each insect, each form of plant life, you provided either one hundred samples or fifty breeding pairs—fifty male and fifty female.”

“That is the number that allows sufficient genetic diversity to more or less guarantee the viability of the species.”

“But there aren’t one hundred kids, there are
two
hundred … one hundred males and one hundred females … 
one hundred
breeding pairs. Why would you think that there should be twice as many to create diversity among humans? Why should we be different from all the other life forms on the planet?”

“That’s a very good question,” Fitchett replied.

“And are you going to give me a good answer?” Billy asked.

“I certainly could, but it would be better if you gave
me
an answer. Why do you think that has been done?”

Billy had thought about this quite a bit over the past weeks, so he didn’t have to struggle for an answer.

“You don’t do anything without a backup plan,” Billy said.

“I try not to.”

“So if there are twice as many of us as is needed for genetic viability, then you have a backup plan that involves all of us as well.”

Fitchett’s face creased into a smile. “I’m not surprised you posed this question. None of the other young people have even asked. I’m not sure if that’s because they haven’t noticed or because they’re too polite to ask.”

“I think they’re a little afraid of you … and a lot in awe of you,” Billy said.

“I imagine that makes sense. After all, I
am
their father … not biologically, of course, but
psychologically.”
He paused. “But you’ve never been afraid of me, have you?”

“You’re not my father. So do you have a backup plan?”

“Of course I do. I haven’t mentioned it because I was afraid that, due to circumstances, it might not be possible.”

“And now it is?”

“Now there is a much stronger possibility. That’s what this meeting is about. Your role as a leader makes your participation important.”

“It’s hard for me to lead when I don’t even know what’s happening or where I’m leading us to.”

Fitchett skidded to a stop and spun around to face Billy. “You’re right. You are definitely right. I
should
have
told you everything sooner, including the difficulty. Will you please accept my sincere apology and forgive me?” He held out his hand.

Any annoyance or anger that Billy had been feeling faded away. He knew that Fitchett meant what he said. The two shook.

“Come.”

Fitchett darted off then, and Billy hurried after him.

“As you deduced, there are going to be two groups, two plans. One you are very familiar with. Before the impact, two thousand people will be brought below ground and the outside blast doors will be sealed.”

“And one hundred of those people will be kids.”

“One hundred of the specialized children. There will also be the children of those who have worked on this project, so in total about two hundred and thirty children under the age of sixteen will be below ground.”

“What about the rest? Where are they going?”

“They’re going with you.”

“I’m not going to be here at the complex?” Billy was stunned. “But where am I going? Is there another complex, another underground facility?”

Fitchett shook his head. “There’s only one.”

“But we can’t survive on the surface … it’s not possible … we’ll all die.”

“Of course you would die if you were on the surface. The surface will not support life for at least a decade, maybe two, possibly never.”

“Then what’s going to happen to us?” Billy demanded.

“You’ll be completely safe. By the time the fragments hit you’ll all be gone.”

“Gone where?”

Fitchett pointed to the ceiling. “You’ll all be in space.”

Billy and Fitchett stood in an enormous launching bay, looking up at five rockets that towered hundreds of metres over their heads, tethered to several towers. The launching bay and the towers were alive with activity as technicians put the final touches on the ships, preparing them for their launches.

“I’m seeing it, but I still don’t believe it,” Billy said as he looked upward.

“I told you that I used to use this facility to launch private satellites,” Fitchett said. “I made a great deal of money here. I just didn’t realize that it would become so important one day.”

“And you expect us—
me
—to get in those rockets?”

“There will be twenty of you in each ship.”

“It will just be us … the kids?”

“Yes. It is prohibitively expensive to launch and maintain any individual in space for long. Only the most valuable among us can be offered those spots. We can always add a few people, or even a few
hundred
, to our deep-earth facilities, but spots in space are far too valuable to waste on adults who will never return to the surface. They are simply not necessary. Among the one hundred kids, you will have the specialization necessary not only to reproduce man’s greatest skills and attributes but to live in space and maintain the space station.”

“Wait … you’re also going to launch a space station?” Billy asked.

“It was launched over three decades ago as a joint venture of a number of governments. It was used extensively and then ultimately abandoned as all scientific research was directed toward destroying the asteroid. I was able to get control of it. I have placed the space station into synchronistic orbit around Earth, in such a position that the planet will shield it from collision with any fragments,” Fitchett explained. “It still has an atmosphere, and any modifications or repairs needed will be completed when you arrive.”

“I’m not arriving anywhere,” Billy said. “I’m not going into space.”

“I know this is all very hard to digest,” Fitchett said.

“It’s hard to digest because it’s crazy! Is that why you didn’t tell me about this before now, because it’s crazy?”

“My plan was to inform you immediately, but there was a problem. We didn’t have the rocket fuel to send the ships into space.”

“So you’re telling me that you built five spaceships, did all the planning, but
forgot
to get fuel for them?” Billy said. “That’s not the way you operate. I know that. You plan everything to the last detail.”

“I didn’t plan on all our fuel sources being destroyed by Judgment Day five months ago. I now have a plan to secure fuel.”

“So you
still
don’t have the fuel, but you have a plan to get some? Is that what you expect me to believe?”

“That is the focus of this meeting.”

“And if you still can’t get the fuel? What then?” Billy asked.

“Everybody will come below ground with us here.”

“Then we could
still
do that, right?” Billy had dreaded the thought of spending years underground, but now that seemed like an inviting option compared to being stranded in space.

“There is room for everyone, but if we did that we would be risking everything.”

“How would that risk everything?” Billy demanded. “The only thing you’re risking with this plan is our lives—
my
life!”

Fitchett placed a hand on his shoulder and Billy had to fight the urge to brush it away.

“Do you trust me?” Fitchett asked.

“I
did
trust you, until you told me you want to blast me into space as some sort of stupid backup plan!”

“Billy, that’s where you’re completely wrong. You’re not the
backup
plan. You
are
the plan. Everything else, everything that you’ve seen and been shown before this, has been done simply to allow this plan to take place. This always was
the
plan.”

“I don’t understand,” Billy said. He felt as though his head was spinning.

“The underground facility was built so that I could offer a sanctuary for those who have been working on the plan to send you into space. I needed to offer them something to get them to work on the
real
plan. Everything we’ve constructed below—the living facilities for those workers and their
families, all of the resources that have been assembled—will be for your use when you return from space. That is why all of this was done.”

“I don’t … I don’t understand,” Billy stammered. “You don’t think the people below can survive? This was all just a lie?”

“Not a lie. I think they
can
survive … well, assuming that the facility is not hit directly by a large fragment.”

“What?”

“If a large fragment hits this location directly, it won’t matter how deeply we’re buried beneath the surface. Everybody is going to die.”

Billy couldn’t believe his ears.

“Of course that’s highly unlikely, statistically speaking. I assume they’ll survive—I’m betting my life on it. Let me try to explain. When the fragments hit the planet we
know
that all life forms on the surface will be destroyed, either immediately or due to the effects of the cloud cover, which will block the sun for years and prevent all photosynthesis and thus plant life. The only life that will survive will be either deep below ground, possibly in the very depths of the ocean, and, in your case, in space.”

“But why can’t we all just go below ground, either here or someplace else?”

“It’s not a true backup plan if you do the same thing twice,” Fitchett said. “That way you are only leaving yourself vulnerable to the possibility of failing twice. We don’t know exactly what is going to happen once those fragments hit. Have I ever talked to you about chaos theory?”