Before 24 Billion and Counting

Chapter 2 Part 2 Jacob's family. A nuclear ICBM explodes

Looking like toys in his hands, Jacob handled the steering wheel and gearshift of the pick-up expertly as we wound down the mountain to the treeline. "I see you've sorted the pool and the patio." I said as we turned towards the delicately-lit frontage of the two storey house built into a south facing rock face. 

"Got there eventually," he grinned, "but I had to get to know something about explosives. It was quite exciting whilst I was learning. The mistakes were spectacular." 

We entered the house through a conservatory to where Jean and their two children and three dogs were comfortably sprawling in the living room. Pandemonium reigned whilst the various animals and humans exchanged greetings. Jacob handed me a glass of whisky and water, and said, "Take it to your room, get freshened up and join us soon." 

Tom, his elder son carried the bag, and I asked him to hang on whilst I unpacked a few gifts and added them to a duty-free bag. "The bottles are for Mum and Dad, and the others are marked - I'll see you later." 

After a shower and a change and the drink I came downstairs. The youngsters were pleased with their gifts and said so, and Jean was presumably in the kitchen. Jacob was watching the TV, which showed a mushroom shaped cloud as from an atom bomb although the stem was unusually tall He said, "There's the earth tremor." 

"What is that?" 

"A sixty year old ICBM exploded in an underground silo in Kazakstan - probably corrosion or vermin in the control circuitry." 

"I thought they were all de-commissioned." 

Jacob thought for a bit and then said, "Rather depends on how you do it. You could just untarget the missile, and guard it, or you could do the job properly and dismantle it, or anything in between. Who's to say what happened in the late nineties. Everyone said they'd decommissioned their nuclear armaments but there was little or no ground inspection by expert neutrals." 

"Have they got any facts on the strength of the explosion or the likely fallout." 

"No, it's too early but I've asked the news agency to E-mail all news on it here and at the observatory. Let's leave it for now - there's bugger all we can do about it anyway." he said, with a flash of anger, as he filled three glasses of ice with a pale dry sherry, passed one to me and put two on the coffee table in front of the sofa. 

Jean came in with a tray of things to nibble, and sat down on the sofa. She was very much of a contrast to Jacob being not so tall, slim and athletically built. She had blonde hair and grey eyes, a high-cheekboned Scandinavian face with humour crinkles at the eye corners. Highly intelligent, and well-versed in the ways of the human animal, she radiated a calm, which in her chosen profession of teaching carried out in a nearby school, subdued the unruly and disruptive, and at home kept Jacob's highs from becoming manic, and tranquillity in her family. 

The excesses of human behaviour never disturbed her inner peace - although she would intervene on the side of the just or oppressed wherever the opportunity arose. She was generous in her love for her husband and children, and her warmth had supported me in the time I had been enfolded in that family after the death of my wife. Her love for Jacob was tempered with realism. She treated the cosmos and its component parts, which were his passion, as just so many more of his toys like his pick up truck or personal computer. It was not that she didn't understand the concepts, but more that their relevance to what she held important was remote, except in the limited context of helping to provide the family with a livelihood. 

I often found myself trying to argue a middle course between them in long evenings of quiet discussion, but really could shift neither. Jacob felt that mankind had coincidentally arisen as an impotent and not very bright observer of the real and fascinating drama that was unfolding its own unknown purpose, whilst Jean felt that the universe was an over complicated mechanism, probably conceived by a male, that had produced an environment and people with many design faults; that we had to make the best of it, and as we didn't have the power to improve the design then best forget about trying to find out how it worked. 

My own argument was that at some time we would travel outside the limits of the solar system and beyond, and accordingly not only was it right to try to survive and improve what we did on earth, but also to find out as much about everything, as preparation for a time of further exploration. Neither of my two friends would move a centimeter towards my view - Jacob would argue cogently from a base of mathematics about energy and time, that it couldn't happen, whilst Jean would maintain that unless we 

could get it right on Earth there was little point in contaminating some other part of the universe with our incompetence. 

The three cornered debate had gone on for several years and would no doubt continue, as we grew older and brought more experience to the table. However I doubted that any of us would move very far from our current thinking. 

But this evening was not for such a discussion - the youngsters claimed our attention with videos of their most recent exploits, what they were doing at school, and a visit to their menagerie and the latest acquisitions including an aquarium. By the time we had completed a supper and a nightcap it was time for bed, and as was usual in that house full of kindness I was asleep almost as soon as I lay down. 

I awoke in brilliant sunshine at about seven, for without an alarm I was a poor morning riser. Ablutions completed, I found the family, breakfasting at the poolside without Jacob who had made a prompt start. As we enjoyed the tropical fruit that formed the backbone of the meal, Jean told me that Jacob had set up a meeting for eleven at the observatory, and I could borrow the cross country tri-wheeler to get there. 

I scrolled through the news agency's offerings on the ICBM explosion. The warhead had been a single hydrogen fusion bomb, and less radioactive fallout than that from a multiple head fission system was to be expected. The worst news was that although the site was dispersed, with some eight kilometers between missiles, four adjacent silos had been structurally damaged, and the condition of the missiles inside was not known. Fallout also rendered a further four silos inaccessible to manned examination in the short term, although instruments had detected no damage. The cause of the detonation was, as Jacob had predicted, a total systems failure of an untargeted but otherwise complete missile. 

Jean leant on my shoulder as I was reading the screen and said, "It looks bad." 

"I know, and it's not only the eight missiles that have been affected by the accident that worry me - how many others are in a like condition to the one that blew up?" 

Reaction to the news seemed muted. Some minor countries governments were asking questions like those in our minds, and were demanding international inspection, but the United Nations_Assembly, the European Assembly, the White House, and the Russian parliament were all silent. I hoped that this might be guilt for a failure to secure a proper regieme of care, but believed it more likely that political excuses and media positions were being prepared.  

I said to Jean, "Something like this drains the joy out of life. I should be excited at the prospect of the ride up the mountain and an interesting discussion with people I respect on a fascinating topic. As it is I wonder whether any of us are going to survive long enough to make the trip worthwhile." 

"Go. Whilst we live and think, some one of us may discover a remedy, and if what we do seems of no consequence now it at least keeps the brain in good trim." As usual the strength flowing from her inner calm produced wisdom. 

"You're right, you're right. Lead me to this new -fangled machine." 

Jean smiled, "I'll send Sarah with you, it's more the kids' toy than mine." 

The triwheeler proved to be three 40 centimeter diameter fat tyres, handlebars steering the single front wheel, one foot pedal. which through a chip controlled a regenerativelY braked electric drive, and a saddle, all held together by a carbon fiber frame.

Instrumentation was sparse. An estimated kilometers of charge left, and a speedometer with odometer. As I suspected, it was child's play to drive. Sarah mounted it after detaching the charge lead, and pirouetted the machine on two wheels round the patio and then did a wheelie to land in front of me. As she jumped off I said, "I'll leave the gynmkhana performances to you - see you later." 

Almost silent, and with a top speed uphill of about 40 kph, the triwheeler was an exhilarating way to travel up the winding mountain trail to the observatory. The big tyres softly inflated and the sprung saddle were comfortable, and the open-air travel was ideally suited to that ride. I met only three vehicles on the road, ' all of them coming down from the observatory, kicking up dust in their wake, and that was the only and trifling drawback to the journey. I parked the triwheeler, and entered the observatory.