Angry Moon

Chapter 15b

     The COBRA committee was named after the room in which the meetings took place. Committee Office Briefing Room A. It was much smaller than Samantha had expected. Barely large enough for the large wooden table and the twenty chairs that stood around it. The walls were wood panelled, except for one of the small walls that was covered with eight large monitor screens.

     At the moment, all eight were showing telescope images of the moon. One showed the whole of the moon, now looking like Venus with its covering of dense clouds. Another showed a close up of the eastern hemisphere, and Samantha was fascinated to see the clouds roiling with convection cells as it was heated from beneath. A third screen showed a real time infra red image the same part of the moon. It showed patches of heat. A large one right on the limb itself with smaller ones around it. Large lakes of lava heating the clouds above, joining up with each other as they grew. Even as she watched, a small island of cold blue shrank and disappeared as a piece of lunar crust was swallowed up by the molten rock that melted it from all sides.

     A secretary had taken a still sleeping Lily from her arms as she entered the building. “We'll take good care of her,” she promised. “You're not the first person to bring a small child. We've got a room at the back outfitted as a nursery, with armed guards who all have children of their own and know how to look after her if she wakes up. She'll be waiting for you safe and sound when you’re ready to leave.”

     Samantha had thanked her, and then watched with some anxiety as the woman took her daughter through a door into another room. Then an aide had shown her through into the committee room.

     The Prime Minister, Richard Garrison, was already there, waiting for her, along with a dozen other men and women. “Thank you for coming,” he said, standing. “I'm sorry we weren't able to give you enough notice to make proper arrangements for your daughter...”

     “Not at all,” replied Samantha. “I'm pleased and relieved that you understand the urgency of the situation.”

     Richard Garrison nodded, and then made introductions. In addition to himself, there were three other members of the cabinet present. David Lemmons, the Home Secretary, Thomas Chesterfield, the Secretary of State for Health and Social care, and Rebecca Bingley, the Secretary of State for the Environment and Rural Affairs. The Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor, Leonard Green, was also there, as was the President of the Royal Astronomical Society, Lewis Morgan. “I’m a big fan of your work,” he said, rising from his seat to offer his hand.

     She shook it with a grateful smile. She was feeling a bit intimidated, and a familiar face went a long way to making her feel better.

     “I read your paper on helium three," Morgan said. "The plans to go up to the moon and mine it.”

     “I'm pretty sure that plan's a dead duck now,” said Samantha ruefully. She quickly told them what Neil Arndale had told her on the helicopter.

     Morgan nodded. "We got the same news just a few minutes ago," he said. "Incredible!"

     "And as the moon melts, all that helium three the moon’s been collecting for billions of years is now being boiled off into space," Samantha added. "What a waste!"

     “Could have been just the thing to finally get fusion off the ground,” agreed the other astronomer.

     The Prime Minister waited patiently for the exchange to end before introducing the other members of the council, all of whom were civil servants, senior police officers and high ranking army officers. The he directed her to the chair that had been set aside for her. “So,” he said. “These two science chappies have been filling my head with all kinds of doom and gloom disaster stories. Floods, earthquakes, that sort of thing.”