Intelligent Design: Revelations to Apocalypse (20 page)

“Shall I conclude that you possess telepathy in your array of skill-based competencies?” she asked. Her tone lacked sarcasm, but it was not playful like Athena’s, the younger woman who stood silently beside her. They were similarly attired in robes and possessed the same physical features: pale, hairless, bluish-tone skin, and large eyes. These gave them both the appearance of being the same. Only their sex organs and height distinguished between the male and female of their species. Janus stood two meters while the females stood at one and a half.

“Your heavy breathing implies that you are fatigued of my repeating this experiment,” Janus said. He shifted his viewpoint by moving closer to a much smaller model of their home, Mars.

“We have been here for hours, and it is time to prepare meals,” Athena said. Her voice was clearly younger and stronger than her older companion’s.

“By all means, leave. I am used to doing this alone,” Janus said.

“And therein lies the issue,” a deeper female voice said from above. The master computer, once responsible for the welfare of millions of citizens—millions of years ago—spoke to Janus as if he were an old friend.

“Oh, Master Keeper, please intervene here. He won’t listen to us,” Olympia complained.

“He never listens to us,” Athena added.

Janus responded quickly in the hopes of preempting the Keeper’s well-practiced monologue.

“Before you start again, Keeper, about the propagation of our species and the future of our world, it won’t matter much—not if my predictions about Jupiter’s imminent ignition are accurate,” Janus said. As he spoke, the Jovian planet at first collapsed on itself to a dark pinpoint and then burst into a bright, burning sun. While it was smaller than the original solar system’s sun, its light touched all the planets in its line of sight and caused a nearly imperceptible wobbling of the other planets’ axes, which were given a numerical rating above each planet. More red numbers, formulas, and equations multiplied throughout the entire holographic representation. He looked at the numbers above Mars, Terra, and Earth at first, and then he pulled out an old-style tablet.

“The community’s custom is to prepare food together. With a mere fraction of the original population remaining, the more time spent interacting, the more social the species becomes. This will increase the probability of prosocial development of future offspring,” the Keeper said. Janus nodded absently, which must have tacitly given the master computer the cue to continue her conversation. “Would it not be nice to spend time with your companions?”

Janus stopped what he was doing and looked up, as if there were a monitor he could address his next questions to. Not seeing one, he then looked at Olympia. She interpreted his expression—and the unasked question.

“The Master Keeper is your colleague, not mine. She would never take a suggestion from me or Athena about pulling you away from your work. She would not take any suggestion at all from us. Looks like you have three women suggesting you stop and eat.”

Janus narrowed his eyes at Olympia. Her expression was classic. She knew she was right; the corners of her mouth turned upward and her purple eyes sparkled as they arched upward on her slender, pale head. Athena’s expression was similar, though she looked at the floor for fear of bursting out laughing. Reducing visual stimulation was an effective tactic for keeping her from overtly expressing her joy. Amused by his female companions’ divergent responses, he smiled. He continued with his data entry and addressed his sapient computer as he wrote.

“So, Master Keeper, you would have me stop my work, divert my energies from finding a solution to a catastrophic situation just to ‘have a nice time’ with my companions? It doesn’t seem logical,” Janus said. He was genuinely curious where his computer was going to go with its argument. Its artificial intelligence had grown exponentially, as had its character. Further, it had made some very difficult decisions over the course of sixty-five million years and, with that, developed its own independent thinking and decision-making strategies. Janus was simply thrilled that his master computer was not only self-aware, but that it had its own personality, ideas, and life. Janus waited patiently, working his numbers, truly wondering what the Keeper, which he thought of as his friend, was going to say next. He suspected she would start out with logic—by pointing out the Martians’ own limited resources for survival—and end with a rhetorical question.

“Please forgive me if I overstate the obvious,” the Keeper began, “but in the last five cycles you have repeated the same experiments with just minor modifications in the timing, locations of the planets, and the intensity of the magnetic field when Jupiter ignites several hundred times. The results have remained the same,” the deep, calm voice said.

Janus continued to smile as he looked up from his tablet. He watched Olympia’s expression—it was clear that she, too, was waiting expectantly for the computer’s response. She shook her long, smooth head. Athena passed the time by rubbing the bridge of her relatively wide nose.

“Depending on specific locations, Earth’s axis, which presently holds at twenty-three point five degrees, is predicted to shift to twenty-two point one degrees abruptly. While this shift falls within its preexisting viable zone, the sudden shift will create tectonic movements that will produce fissures in the planet’s crust. This in turn will cause devastating land quakes and massive tidal waves that will affect inhabited coastlines. Sadly, we only have limited data provided by Atlantis Keeper on Earth, but we calculate that the planet’s ocean currents, which have recently been recycling warm surface water, will be replaced with cold water from the oceans’ sea floors. This will adversely correspond with the lack of predicted sunspot activity. The culmination of altered magnetic fields, ocean current temperatures, and the sudden axial tilt will launch a rapid planetary freeze above and below Earth’s equatorial line. The following cool summers and warm winters will launch a new ice age that will eradicate potentially eighty-eight percent of its population.”

Janus stopped working at his equations. He felt the enormity of the words, as did Olympia, who sighed deeply. It took him a moment to readjust his thoughts, directing them away from emotional responses and toward clinical observations. For what might have been the hundredth time, he requested a visual depiction.

“Keeper? Please create an animated version of most likely results based on Jupiter’s ignition,” he asked. Even before he had the last words out, the computer had anticipated his request, based on prior history.

The expanded Sol System star field shifted to show a Jovian planet, large, reddish-brown, with swirling gases and prominent brown spots subtly flickering and then slowly but surely darkening as it began to spin faster and shrink in size. While slow at the beginning, the rate of collapse and darkness increased quickly until the giant planet fell into itself—mass and light—and became a mere fraction of its original size. A barely visible pinpoint of absolute darkness was perceptible for only a second—then it erupted into a brilliant flash. At the end of the eruption, a small, fiery red-yellow sun filled the space that had been occupied by the gas giant Jupiter. The holographic, three-dimensional imaging then shifted perspective to reveal an asteroid field that sat between the new sun and Mars—where remnants of the collision of the Gemini dwarf planets and other celestial debris sixty-seven billion years ago collected. Initially, the only evident effects were these scattered rocks, now bathed in light from the new sun. Underneath various sections of this orbital debris, the computer highlighted measurements and formulas that explained gravitational fluctuations and orbital decays. Within the time lapse of just a third of one Martian annual revolution, varying sizes of asteroids could be seen hurtling in all directions, some out into deep space—and many more inbound, toward the now dual-sun solar system.

Mars—a small, red planet—enlarged for the viewers. Its reddish color, deep valleys, massive plains, and thin white polar caps looked desolate and empty, a far cry from the once-bustling, thriving agrarian and educational society it once was. At first there were small, flickering flashes of impact explosions on the surface, but these were soon replaced by a much more intense bombardment.

Janus flinched at the range and degree of the impact explosions. They reminded him of the visuals of the devastation that had wiped out his history, culture, and world of eons past. He looked down for a moment to let the worst of the destruction pass, unable to witness another assault on his home world. Sharp intakes of air from his companions indicated they were having similar feelings. Far from feeling worried about his own existence, he looked back up to see his planet shrouded in dust and water vapor released from the surface and polar ice caps. With the permafrost disrupted and the caps smashed, trapped water hung in the thin atmosphere. Massive volcanic activity followed next, ignited by the bombardments far to the north and south of their location. For the first time during the animated projection, the master computer spoke.

“The resulting meteor impacts start a chain reaction of biochemical events that might be beneficial for our world’s future development of life,” it said. There was just a hint of reassurance in its tone, indicating sapience again.

The hologram’s point of view shifted to reveal the beautiful blue-white planet known as Earth. Half of the planet was captured in bright daylight, from its regular sun; softer light from the second sun, which illuminated the side of the planet that should have been in night—a term that, if the animation was correct, would eventually lose its meaning with the planet’s occupants. For the moment, the planet’s massive conglomerations of city lights artificially illuminating the dark half and indicating an advanced, surface-dwelling civilization still shone faintly.

“Sadly, the effects on Earth will not be as beneficial,” the master computer warned.

Similar to Mars, Earth was soon hit with a series of smaller meteors. Fortunately, many of them flashed and flickered in the planet’s atmosphere as its blanket of air and its magnetic field neutralized the smaller-sized multiple meteors that would have crashed into the planet. Further calculations displayed underneath various parts of the holographic image indicated a shift in the planet’s axis not visible to the naked eye, however, caused by five large-impact explosions that plumed on the surface. Whole sections of the planet’s daylight side filled with dust while the dark side’s city lights flickered and then faltered into darkness in successive waves. Just a moment later, the dark side began to exhibit small dots of dark red, fiery points that quickly expanded to cover larger sections of the planet. Further calculations indicated Earth’s atmosphere was now filled with dust from the impacts as well as ash from erupting volcanic activity and forest fires. Janus watched the numbers and the formulas on the hologram translate into the same results he had predicted on his tablet—dust and ash levels would reduce the suns’ rays, creating cooler summers and warmer winters. While tidal waves from the impacts would devastate seacoasts, the reduction of sunlight, change in planetary axis, and lack of sunspot activity from the main sun would initiate a rapid, devastating ice age that would engulf the planet’s northern and southern hemispheres. Unlike prior ice ages, this one appeared to grip the majority of the planet—almost down to the equator. What was once a crystal-blue-and-white planet spinning peacefully in its own orbit became a near-white planet of cold and ice. As it turned on its axis, its darker side glowed in a soft dusk and its bright side reflected nearly all the suns’ light and heat spaceward.

“There is a fifteen percent probability that Earth’s moon’s orbit will erode faster than anticipated; this will allow it to achieve escape velocity faster than expected. I am still working on the calculations. Fortunately, it will not be planet-bound, but it might pose a danger to exterior planets, including our own. I will have those results in several cycles,” the computer said.

Janus looked on quietly at rapid-animation depictions of Earth’s moon flying out of its orbit. He was still struck by how the white planet had replaced the blue, brown, green, and white planet so recently filled with swirling clouds, oceans of waters, and prominent land masses.

“Such loss,” he said quietly.

“The horror,” he heard Olympia say.

“Yes. Earth’s excessive carbon dioxide production has also exaggerated the speed and balance of climate change,” the computer added.

“Probabilities of survival? Any hope?” Athena asked. Her voice, young and strong, also expressed fear and sadness. The master computer responded.

“Biosphere’s range of life will be reduced to three point two five percent of current inhabitants. The eradication of night on the planet will impair nocturnal species’ ability to survive—algae, plant, and animal—while the meteor impacts’ initial blast fronts will devastate higher orders of species, such as the hominids. Their cities and establishments will fail quickly. While high-ground land masses will withstand the tidal wave destruction, the following warm winters and cool summers will usher in a near-immediate ice age unprecedented in the planet’s history. The closest example is what occurred about seventy-five Earth cycles ago. However, that was a mere fraction of what this mass extinction event will be. Agriculture will not return for at least two hundred Earth cycles.”

“Minimum requirements for survival and repopulation?” Janus asked.

“A minimum of seventy-four males and one hundred twenty-five females for procreation. Underground environs to survive the initial destruction and to provide future shelter. This will allow for geothermal heating and cooling. And possible groundwater access and hydroponic farming. A full list of minimum required materials and circumstances will be forthcoming. Possible repopulation of Earth planet—14,792 Earth cycles around its sun to reach two point one billion, well below its six point seven billion at this moment.”

Janus watched the now-white spinning orb slowly begin to gain color as the animated snow and ice receded back to the poles of the planet. Ample room for a more temperate, hospitable living zone for life reemerged. Janus looked over to see both Athena and Olympia still intently watching the holographic simulation. All was silent. After a moment, he cleared his throat. While his own thoughts of his once-lush, well-planned-out civilization of millions of years ago haunted him, witnessing another planet’s destruction made him feel just as bad. His mind shifted to Terra, a planet with occupants safe from the harsh, violent environment underground, and where the chances of massive destruction on a global biosphere scale were low due to its lack of weather and thanks to its underground protection.