Sie sind auf Seite 1von 16

Times Velocity Squared

The end began inauspiciously with a chance collision that foreshadowed a larger collision to
come. The asteroid as yet had no name; one of a million pieces of space debris that lived out
among the Oort Clouds at the edge of the Solar System. Its peaceful existence was shattered by a
small rock, the size and composition of a snowball travelling at tremendous speeds. In a classic
example of Newtonian physics, the energy of the smaller rock was transferred and incorporated
into the orbit of the larger asteroid. Mankind’s fate was thus sealed.

I. An Ill Omen
Dex began his journey with a bad attitude. The village was beset with rumours that a choice
parcel of land lay fallow at the northern edge of the settlement, the previous occupants reportedly
having succumbed to the plague or fled in its wake. Dex responded to the rumours by providing
his son with three days rations and instructions to lay claim to the land should it indeed prove to
be vacant. If the boy returned with positive news, Dex would organize a quick wedding before
sending the lucky groom and his unfortunate bride to occupy their claim. But three Sundays had
come and gone and there was still no sign of the boy. Dex was not a man to take his
responsibilities lightly and it fell upon him to travel in search of the boy, if only to determine if
the land remained unoccupied. Duty however did not include undertaking his mission with a
tender heart. Dex thus chose to burden himself with a great deal of resentment. He begrudged
the time and effort he was obliged to expend in the name of mercy and incompetence. He
begrudged the danger to his life, limb and property. But most of all he begrudged his son for it
was not the first time Dex had been forced to come to the boy’s aid. In all fairness, the lad was
stricken with pinheadedness. Nonetheless, the boy’s misfortune was Dex’s own misfortune.
Dex had left his own lands in the care of his remaining children who, though not yet of age,
remained slightly more capable than their eldest brother. Owing to the season, there was little
mischief Dex’s children could inflict upon his crops. The same however could not be said for
the livestock that were perpetually at risk from pestilence and predators. The loss of a single
animal could mean the difference between survival and starvation for the entire family. To
protect his livestock, Dex vowed to beat his children in retribution for any such loss. The
beatings would not compensation Dex for the loss but would instil in his children a healthy
respect for his property and would likely leave his children with little permanent damage.
In reality, the rigours of the road put Dex was at greater risk than his cattle. He remained,
however, undisturbed by the prospect. He did not think of death in the same manner as you or I;
death being too common an occurrence in his world.
The human species was trapped in a holding pattern of misery. Childbirth took the greatest share
of death, killing mother and child in large numbers. Disease, infection and famine took the rest.
The high mortality rate left the primitive economy with a chronic shortage of labour so severe as
to hamper the efficient production of food. The average diet left survivors stunted in both height
and intelligence. The absence of even the most rudimentary scientific knowledge left the
population further susceptible to the twin curses of disease and superstition. The dull inhabitants
of these times gave no more thought to death than the cattle in their fields.
It would take the better part of the day for Dex to reach his intended destination, his only mode
of travel being by foot. He intended to make use of whatever daylight remained to search for the
boy. If fortune chose to smile on his endeavor, he would find his son and return the same day.

Times Velocity Squared Page: 1


Being a prudent man, Dex had packed sufficient provisions for two days travel. If further
delayed, he would forge for additional food on route. But Dex was more concerned with his feet
than his food.
He did not know where his shoes had come from. They had appeared on his doorstep shortly
after the death of his wife. Perhaps they were a gift from a benevolent neighbour, perhaps an
endowment from beyond the grave. Whatever their source, the shoes were so ill-fitting as to
leave his feet bloodied. God eventually blessed him with protective layer of calluses but calluses
could not make the shoes comfortable. He would have long disposed of them had they not
represented a significant improvement over his previous footwear. In preparation for his trip,
Dex had carefully wrapped his feet in a meagre measure of cloth in a vain attempt to drive the
demons out of the cursed shoes.
Although long and hazardous, Dex’s route was straightforward. The Road passed within a mile
of Dex’s lands and ran directly to his destination. The Road’s origin was lost in antiquity but it
was generally accepted that God had personally carved out the Road with his index finger on the
third day of creation, shortly after the establishment of dry land. If true, God was as poor an
engineer as Dex’s pinheaded son. It was a road more in function than in form being little more
than a well-worn path through the woods. For most of its length, the Road was just wide enough
for a man or horse. The topology was not conducive to vehicular traffic and any attempt to pull a
cart or wagon through the woods was doomed to failure. It was likely that the road had
originated as migratory trail for the larger mammals of the forest. These mammals remained a
hazard of the road but were generally less violent than the human predators who preyed upon
hapless travelers. Fortunately highwaymen were rare. What few travelers passed this way were
generally seized with either wanderlust or an urgent need for survival. In either case, they passed
with a light purse. Dex was a case in point. His entire life savings consisted of no more than a
half dozen coins. If there actually existed an opportunity to spend money on route, Dex would
be ill disposed to do so. As a result, he carried no money and anticipated no commerce, whether
for good or evil.
The day passed at a pace that was slower than was the custom on Dex’s lands. It was an
agreeable change. In time however Dex’s tranquillity was disturbed by a stream that cut directly
across the road. It was no more than 9 inches deep but it measured more than 8 feet in width. It
presented Dex with his first challenge of the day. He was not disposed to hike in wet shoes, and
so was disinclined to wade across the river. Leaping over the river was also out of the question.
Even if his feet were up to the task, he knew his shoes were not. The greatest threat to Dex’s
well-being came from neither man nor beast but from within; for the human body possessed an
evil propensity to consume itself around even the smallest scratch. Faced with these two
unpleasant alternatives, Dex chose wet shoes.
The fact that Dex did not consider removing his shoes prior to the crossing was a testament to his
conditioning. Dex did not bath. He would live his entire life without ever immersing himself in
water. Not only could the water tempt a fatal chill, it would also unclog his pores leaving him
susceptible to disease carried by ill-winds. Instead, the wind carried the pungent odour of human
habitation. The stench was accepted by all much the way that later generations would accept the
stink of industry.
Dex carefully tucked his pants into his socks and knelt before the river as if in silent prayer to an
unseen river god. With a quick and practiced motion, Dex scooped a few handfuls of cold water
into his mouth, careful as always not to let water splash onto his exposed skin. His thirst
satisfied, Dex stepped into the river. Three cautious steps and his aquatic ordeal was over.

Times Velocity Squared Page: 2


Wet shoes were just another obstacle to overcome. But as the afternoon wore on, fatigue and
common sense succeeded in overpowering his resolve to continue at any cost. Finding an
inviting alcove at the base of an ancient tree, Dex took refuge from his travels. Though the heat
of his body had gone a long way towards drying his shoes, the river had done its damage. Dirt,
bits of leaves, pinecones and other debris from the forest floor clung to his wet shoes, which
were not so well constructed as to prevent the debris from worrying his feet. He carefully
removed his shoes; brushing away the twigs and dirt with the cloth that was meant to protect his
feet. His toes were uncharacteristically wrinkled, providing further evidence of the
unwholesome effects of water.
Dex spread his shoes, socks, rags and toes before the healing power of the sun and took the
opportunity to break into his provisions of hard cheese, stale bread and dried sausage. Like most
of his contemporaries, Dex was accustomed to surviving each day on no more calories than can
be found in a large order of Macdonald’s French fries. He had long learned to consume his food
at a pace that was in inverse proportion to the available quantity. Three inches of sausage
however can only be stretched so far and Dex finished his midday meal before his shoes had a
chance to dry.
Dex leaned back against the tree to wait out the wetness. It was a rare day. The lack of clouds
encouraged the sun, turning the day unseasonably warm and the sky into an unbroken shell of
turquoise blue. Dex wondered how the angels monitored human events on such days. Perhaps
humans were on their own on cloudless days. Maybe that’s why there was less mischief afoot on
sunny days.
Dex was unpractised in the art of relaxation owing to a lack of experience and was unable to
identify the peaceful emotion that overcame him. Happiness was not something Dex pursued or
even fully comprehended. The times were primitive and emotions are like ideas; they need to be
discovered before they can be implemented. Dex simply lacked the imagination to conceive of a
better life. His understanding of life was that he would live until he died.
Dex opened his eyes. Time had passed. Something has changed. The sky was now dotted with
clouds. He looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings. He was conscious without being
awake. He watch a chipmunk playing peek-a-boo with the world at large, poking its head out of
its hole, sniffing the air only to disappear back underground again. Layer by layer, Dex began to
reconstruct the events of the day. He was on a mission of mercy. His pinheaded son was
missing. He watched a bird of prey fall from the sky and carry away the chipmunk. It was as an
ill omen. Dex retrieved his footwear and continued on his way.
Dex considered himself lucky to have located a willing woman for his son. Wives were hard to
come by and, as he knew from personal experience, harder to keep. Dex had lost his own wife to
the act of childbirth, but not before she had burdened him with five dimwitted offspring, the most
dimwitted of which was his firstborn, now in need of rescue.
Widowers of influence took most of the desirable young women. The younger boys generally
had to make do with someone else’s widow. Even so, the girl Dex had found for his son was
well beyond the lad’s proper station in life were it not for the fact that she had lost two husbands,
the second to the plague. The girl was tainted by disease. She was destined to bury anyone
foolish or desperate enough to marry her. Fortunately, Dex son was both. A pinheaded boy
can’t afford to be picky.
It was still early afternoon when Dex first spied the cabin. Time had long been invented but
clocks were a rarity. Dex was thus unaware that his trip, including an hour for his nap, had taken

Times Velocity Squared Page: 3


just shy of 6 hours. He was however acutely aware that he would have to find his son quickly or
else spend the night, for he had no desire or ability to travel by night.
From a distance, the cabin looked sturdy enough but the perception would be corrected as Dex
continued his approach. The cabin had been built from plans that might have been approved by a
council of rats. The timber was rough-hewed leaving large gaps between the beams, which were
filled with a combination of mud, straw and sod. Rats, preferring the company of humans to the
rigours of the wild, had a tendency to dig out a series of tunnels and warrens in these cracks,
raising their families on the bounty found within their host’s home. With the house abandoned,
however, the food situation must have grown dire for the rats had eaten through the makeshift
mortar exposing the interior of the house to the destructive abilities of the elements.
A quick survey of the cabin confirmed that the previous occupants had departed in haste leaving
behind some of the necessities of modern life. A table, a single chair, some miscellaneous
kitchen implements, a threadbare broom and bucket that proved to be leaky. In the corner was a
worn mattress not quite filled with straw. On the mattress was his son’s rucksack.
Dex stepped outside, put one hand to the side of his mouth and shouted, “Roger!”
There was no reply. Dex began to walk the perimeter of the property. He called out the boy’s
name several more times but in the end, it was the smell that led Dex to his son
It was not difficult to reconstruct what had happened. The previous owners had failed to take
their axe and the boy had been unable to resist putting it to the test. Through natural ineptitude
or by the whims of fate, a tree had fallen on the boy. The exact cause of death was a little more
difficult to discern. The boy might have died from the immediate injuries of the fallen tree or he
might have been trapped under the tree and succumbed to thirst and hunger. The uncertainty was
due to the fact that the body was no longer intact. An animal had found the boy first and had
nibbled on his remains.
It was a shame. Dex’s second son was not yet old enough to take a wife. The girl would go to
waste. Standing there, gazing at his son’s crushed and chewed body, Dex made a decision.
Cursed or not, Dex would marry the girl himself.
Dex picked up his son’s hat and placed firmly on the boy’s head to hide his shame. The lad had
always been embarrassed to let others see his deformity. His obligations now discharged, Dex
picked up the axe and headed for home. He had traveled only a few hundred yards before having
second thoughts. He quickly returned to the scene of the accident to exchange shoes with the
corpse.
I. Dædelus
Dr. Richard Dixon was about to get everything he wanted out of life.
Later in life, he would never talk about his success in these terms. Officially there could be no
good consequences of his discovery, no matter how peripheral. But in his own mind, Richard
was convinced that his discovery had come in the nick of time. His career had been at its lowest
ebb; so low in fact that he had been on the verge of chucking it all. Richard would later recall
that he had already decided to start a new life with a new profession. His recollection however
was a classic case of self-delusion. It was one of those lies people tell themselves when they
need to rewrite the events of their past to better fit their present circumstances. The truth was
less dramatic. Dr. Dixon was low, but to say that he was at a low ebb implied that his career had

Times Velocity Squared Page: 4


its ups and downs. His career, in fact, was remarkably stable, without fluctuation, always
occupying the same low rung of the academic hierarchy. The lowest rung.
It was also true that Dr. Dixon gave serious thought to leaving his profession. He had been
having the same serious thought for over a decade. It was just that Richard never took it any
further than a thought. Which does not mean that these thoughts were false. They were real
enough to Richard. So real that they increasingly became his only reality.
Richard viewed the world as a giant job fair. Everyone he met had a job. Some of these people
must be happy. In his mind, he would try them all on for size. Store clerks, traffic cops,
cashiers, teachers, businessmen, nurses, bicycle couriers, construction workers, bail bondsmen,
tinker, tailor, beggerman, thief. Richard had only to pick one that seemed appropriate.
After careful analysis, Richard determined that every job fit into one of three categories.
1) Minimum wage jobs: Although plentiful, these jobs tended to be boring and demeaning.
It went without saying that they were also poorly paid.
2) Middle Class Jobs: Dr. Dixon lived in affluent times and the vast majority of jobs fell
into this category. These jobs paid a decent wage but unless one was blessed with a
particular passion for one’s work, they were just as dull and demeaning as minimum
wage jobs.
3) Dream Jobs: These were the jobs that everyone wanted. Important jobs that paid
important money and made a man important by virtue of his incumbency. As
competition was fierce, these jobs were generally bestowed upon those with outstanding
talent, training, timing, charisma, connections or all of the foregoing. Unfortunately, Dr.
Dixon possessed none of these advantages.
Dr. Dixon had his flaws. Physically he was short and dumpy which when combined with his
sedentary lifestyle left him with an unfortunate tendency towards being rotund. He was bitter,
bored and boring. He took to drinking and smoking merely to pass the time. These two hobbies
left him with ample time and motivation to become introspective. And in his introspection, Dr.
Dixon knew that his true heart’s desire was the most juvenile of teenaged fantasies.
Richard wanted to be famous. He wanted millions of people to know his name. He wanted to be
invited to appear on Jay Leno and David Letterman. He wanted people to stop him on the street
and maybe ask for an autograph. And he’d be a generous celebrity. He’d let them take picture
and sign some autographs, within reason. And he’d give his groupies a thrill, at least a few of
the prettier ones. But most of the time he’d just hang out with the other celebrities. Go to the
right parties. Be seen with the right people. Live the good life.
Richard knew what he wanted. He was just a little fuzzy on how to get it. The greatest
impediment was the fact that Richard was an astronomer, a profession exceedingly difficult in
which to become famous. Difficult, but not impossible.
In choosing his profession, Richard had been both rebellious and compliant. He came from a
long line of scientists of little renown. Richard’s great-grandfather had fled Europe sometime in
the early part of the 19th century. Like most underprivileged boys of the day, Richard’s great-
grandfather had been recruited into servicing God and Country at the point of a musket.
Standing at the dock at Liverpool, waiting to be shipped off to defend some far-flung corner the
Empire, something had come over the boy. Whether through fear or courage, the boy managed
to avoid his destiny by stowing away on a ship bound for the New World. The Dixon clan were

Times Velocity Squared Page: 5


thus launched into a new orbit. His flight to freedom however was only the first of the radical
changes the boy introduced to his family line. The second was the inexplicable decision by this
illiterate peasant to educate his children. From that moment on, academia became the family
business. Unfortunately, it was a business that failed to thrive. Successive generations of
Dixons earned their doctorates, published a few minor papers and disappeared into well-deserved
obscurity.
Minor though they may have been, these articles were dutifully bound in fine leather and
lovingly passed down from generation to generation allowing Richard to follow his ancestors’
feeble accomplishments. He didn’t pretend to fully understand these papers but felt he got their
gist. His grandfather, a classically trained physicist was the family’s first academic. The
crowning achievement of his career was a paper that proved it was physically impossible to
construct a commercially viable power generation system from static electricity. Richard’s uncle
was a mathematician whose claim to fame was a paper used by the Manhattan Project to design
the shaped explosion that compressed plutonium into a critical mass. Despite the importance of
the paper in constructing the first atomic bomb, Richard’s uncle was never actually invited to
join the Manhattan Project due to some imagined security risks.
Like his father before him, Richard’s father was a physicist. He spent a lifetime working at the
research lab at 3M contributing to the papers published by the lab’s Director of Research &
Development, occasionally showing up in the footnotes. His father’s only solo paper was his
doctorate thesis which had something to due with the way electrons behaved on the surface of
highly polished metals.
Richard’s cousin was a mathematician doing some pioneering work with fractals. Richard didn’t
have a clue as to what a fractal was or what it might be good for other than the fact that it was
part of Chaos Theory. Dr. Dixon’s hostility towards mathematics in general and fractals in
particular had nothing to due with a lack of interest or aptitude in mathematics. It was merely a
case of good old-fashioned familial rivalry.
The Dixon family considered mathematics and physics to be the only true sciences. Chemistry
was something akin to cooking. Biology was mechanics. And astronomy … well astronomy
was not really a job at all. It was more of a hobby, like coin collecting or bird watching.
Richard argued passionately in support of his academic discipline. Astronomy was the first and
at one time, the only science. Mathematics, physics and philosophy all began by someone
looking up at the night sky. Eratosthenes of Cyrene first calculated the circumference of the
earth with 98% accuracy in 250 BC by measuring shadows on the Summer Solstice. Danish
astronomer, Ole Römer first measured the speed of light as far back as 1676 by studying the
eclipses of Jupiter’s moons.
Richard’s cousin just didn’t appreciate the metaphysics of astronomy. With no real vision, he
considered academics an intellectual contest with the Nobel Prize as the gold metal. That’s why
he would always be a hack. True genius comes from passion not prizes.
Richard was convinced that the next Big Thing would be in astronomy. DNA had been
discovered. The atom split. Man had walked on the moon. The next Big Thing would be the
discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence. It would change everything. Not just for the scientific
knowledge that could be gained from the aliens but for philosophical advancements it would
bring as well. Would the aliens believe in God? Did they have ethics and morals? Could they
distinguish between good and evil? Would we be able to compare consciousness?

Times Velocity Squared Page: 6


The human species would never be alone again. Mankind would finally leave behind their
regional squabbles to rise up and proudly take their place as citizens of the universe. After all,
everyone was at their best behaviour when the neighbours came to call. And Richard knew that
the person who first discovered the aliens would become famous. In Richard’s imagination, they
would be called Dixon’s aliens, at least until he figured out where they had actually come from.
If he played his cards right, he would head up the entire extraterrestrial project. Maybe even
become the first ambassador to space.
But it was not to be.
Richard’s career had started out well enough. He was a good astronomer with excellent
academic connections and so managed to land a job in the prestigious Pasadena Lab under the
great Dr. Carl Sagen.
Those were heady times for the space program, in large part because of Dr. Sagen uncanny
ability to convert fame into funding. Richard worked at Dr. Sagen’s pet project, the Search for
Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, known as the SETI project. It was an amazing place to start one’s
career. To Richard, the young men and women that staffed the lab were coolest people on earth.
By day, they searched for order in the chaos of the universe and at night; they partied. And
through it all, Dr. Sagen mentored them all.
They searched for 20 years and came up empty. No one was discouraged except for the
bureaucrats who were providing the funding. After all, the universe was a big place. It seemed
odd to Richard that one would stop looking for something just because it had yet to be found.
Wouldn’t that be cause to look all the harder? In any case, with the death of Carl Sagen, it was
just a matter of time before SETI died as well. The final blow came in 1994 when the
Shoemaker-Levy Comet collided with Jupiter. It was the first time astronomers had an
opportunity to witness first hand the collision of two extraterrestrial objects. The destruction was
so spectacular it caught even the bureaucrats’ notice. SETI was shut down once and for all and
replaced by NEAT, the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking system.
Instead of searching for life, Dr. Dixon was now searching for rocks. It was a project born out of
fear rather than passion. To make matters worse, the work was excruciatingly boring, more
suitable for machine than man. Telescopes were programmed to sweep through the night sky
every six months. The computer compared pictures to see if anything moved. If the computer
found a bogy, a human was alerted. Usually it was a distortion in the viewing, an optical illusion
that made it seem as though an immutable star had moved. Dr. Dixon flagged these bogies for
more frequent observation, thus forcing himself to look at the same data again and again and
again. If it indeed proved to be a comet or asteroid, the orbit was calculated for the next 10,000
years or so to see if there was any threat of collision. The object was named something romantic
like 1998HT31 and then added to the growing database of NEO’s, Near Earth Objects.
The bureaucrats’ victory was complete; the staff of NEAT were as dull and soulless as their
masters. But the final irritation was the fact that there was absolutely no way to become famous
in the NEAT project. Maybe if he found something big, a planet or a spectacular comet. But
Richard lived in an age when the stars could no longer compete with man-made attractions. A
comet would have to be brighter than the moon and fill the sky with cartoon characters to catch
the attention of the average New Yorker. People might care if he found a planet but they would
likely care more about the planet than its discoverer. Does anyone remember that Percival
Lowell discovered Pluto? The best that Richard could hope for was naming rights for the new

Times Velocity Squared Page: 7


planet. He had a good one already picked out; Dædelus, the man who built a pair of wings for
his son, Icarus, to fly.
So Richard continued to look for rocks in space and dreamed of changing his profession. Until
the day he found something and got everything he wanted out of life.
II. Does a circle know it’s round?
April 16, 2186
Is there a right time to start a diary? It seems that I spent the first half
my life meaning to start one and the second half regretting that I
didn’t start it earlier. Well if there’s one thing the end of the world has
taught me is that it’s never too late to do the right thing.
It’s strange to look at the date. Only four more days. My whole life
has been leading up to The End, and now it’s here. Since there’s little
else to do, I’ve decided to record the last four days of Earth in a diary.
If it looks like we’re not going to make it, I plan to put it out the air lock
where, baring further accident it should survive until the end of time.
A decadent use of paper, to be sure, but does it really matter if there’s
no tomorrow?
I suppose I should give some background information in case some
aliens lands on the moon one day and learn how to read English. My
name is Darlene Dixon, scientist, mathematician and a founding citizen
of Lunar City.
Names! Names are my nemesis. It’s bad enough to be burdened with
the last name of Dixon but to anchor it down with Darlene is just cruel.
And Luna City. Could there be a duller name? Sounds like something
out a cheesy pulp science fiction novel. Or maybe a city for crazy
people. I wanted something classical. Narcissus seemed appropriate.
They put to a vote and, naturally, I lost. Majority rules is so dull.
Luna City is the most visible and prestigious of all the designated
survival colonies. It’s also widely accepted as the colony that has the
best chance of survival. I’m not so sure. Our short term prospects
certainly look good but let’s face it; we’re not exactly living in our
natural habitat. If you believe in Chaos (and I’m not sure that I do)
then you’ve got to figure that something will eventually go wrong. And
being on the moon is like being on a jet or a rocket, when something
goes wrong, everybody dies in a hurry.
In any case, competition for a spot in Luna City was fierce. Since we
are first and foremost a scientific colony, I supposedly won my spot in
the colony as one of the resident mathematicians. Now I’m not the
world’s best mathematician so it seems pretty clear that I was really
picked because of my last name. Yes I’m one of those Dixons. Dr.

Times Velocity Squared Page: 8


Richard Dixon was my … wait for it … great-great-great-great
grandfather. His main claim to fame, of course, was the discovery of
Dixon’s Asteroid back in 2006. He was pretty famous in his day and by
all accounts, he handled it pretty well. But he was just the first in a
long line of famous Dixons. Old GrandDad really started something.
I’ve got a file of all the Dixons’ academic papers going back to even
before Big Dick.
It’s pretty weird growing up with a historic ancestor. But then
everything was pretty weird for my generation. As a group, Short
Timer’s first accomplishment was to accumulate an interesting
collection of neurosis. The original trauma was usually triggered by
our personal discovery of Dixon’s Asteroid. Mine was a familiar story
with a twist. A kid I didn’t know very well decided that I needed to
know that a giant asteroid (with my name on it, no less) was going to
kill everyone on Earth. You won’t live to be old, he told me. I didn’t
make much of the news. When you’re seven, a lot of shocking
information comes your way, not all of it true. In the previous two
years I had learned that my parents were really Santa Claus and that
babies came out of a woman’s behind. Truth can be found in strange
places.
I decided to test the veracity of the schoolyard informant with my
parents. My parents didn’t always have the answers but they could
always be relied upon to provide their opinion. And in their opinion
Dixon’s Asteroid was not a major problem.
Even at that late date, astronomers could not pin down Dixon’s orbit.
(Everyone else on the planet calls it Dixon but for obvious reasons, my
family prefers the Asteroid or the more formal Dixon’s Asteroid). In
those days, Dixon’s Asteroid still had only a 98% probability of hitting
Earth, which translated into a margin of error of plus or minus 13,000
kilometres. To my father and most of his generation, a miss was as
good as mile.
Not that they were ignoring the threat. As I grew up I learned that a
good deal of the planet’s resources were devoted to stopping or
surviving Dixon’s Asteroid. For the first 50 years after its discovery,
not much happened. The Big Dick himself calculated that his Asteroid
had a 95% probability of coming within 250,000 kilometre of Earth.
Any attempt to compute its orbit with greater accuracy was
confounded by the fact the Asteroid had an irritating wobble. There
was no doubt however that Dixon’s Asteroid was a planet killer. At a
sixth the size of Earth’s moon, it was the largest asteroid ever
discovered. It was also by far the fastest object ever discovered.
Together, it was a deadly combination that embedded the Asteroid

Times Velocity Squared Page: 9


with enormous momentum. If it actually hit planet Earth, maybe some
plankton and protozoa would survive. But this macabre conjuncture
was of interest to only the most cold-blooded of scientists.
The first mission to the Asteroid solved the mystery of the wobble.
Dixon was shaped like a squashed pear with an elongated stem rising
perpendicular from the fruit. It was spinning along an awkward axis
giving the killer rock its distinctive wobble. The Asteroid was
continuously smacking into anything that got in its way, shedding little
chunks of itself and occasionally changing its axis of rotation as it
raced towards the sun at break neck speed. There were just too many
variables; we would never calculate its orbit with the level of
reassuring accuracy that humankind usually demanded of its
scientists.
Not all the news was bad. The Asteroid had a silver lining. Literally.
Spectralanalysis confirmed that Dixon was a flying periodic table. Gold,
silver, mercury, nickel, lead, uranium, this rock had it all, and more. It
was studded with diamonds as big as mountains. It even had complex
hydrocarbons. Job 1 would always be stopping the killer asteroid but,
Job 2 was capturing it for economic exploitation.
Shortly after my personal discovery of Dixon’s Asteroid I discovered
that Hollywood had managed to stop the Asteroid hundreds of times in
the past 180 years. It was widely accepted that Dixon was just too big
to blow up. At least with the technologies that existed at the time.
The Hollywood solution was to invent the Bigger and Better Bomb.
There were no shortage of action heroes who succeeded in blowing up
the Asteroid with neutron bombs, neutrino bombs, cold fusion bombs,
particle bombs, tachion bombs and so on. The more mundane the
movie, the bigger the bomb. Slightly more interesting was the “Here
comes the Calvary” picture. In this sub-genre, Earth was usually saved
by the last minute appearance of extra-terrestrials, dolphins, robots,
ghosts, angels and other kinds of super-natural creature. Sometimes
the Calvary carried a Bigger and Better Bomb; other times they used
more spiritual devices. Depending on the type of creature and nature
of their magical device, these films occasionally drifted into the
Religious or Miracle genre.
Mad Scientist films usually came up with more interesting solutions.
Not only were they more imaginative, but the Mad Scientist’s magic
bullet frequently had unexpected and sometimes adverse side effects.
I watched as Mad Scientists moved Dixon’s Asteroid into different
dimensions, opened up wormholes, manufactured black holes by the
dozen and even moved the entire planet Earth into an alternate
Universe. One mad scientist stopped the Asteroid by stopping time

Times Velocity Squared Page: 10


itself. It was a neat solution. In a universe without time, nothing could
ever harm Earth again.
Becoming a scientist was an easy decision. After all, it was the family
business. The tough decision was trying to figure out what type of
scientist was most likely to save the world. Hollywood convinced me
that it would be a Mad one. Unfortunately I went mad for nothing
because happy endings only happen in the movies.

April 17, 2186


Three days to go. I really don’t have much to do anymore. I’ve
stopped my mathematical research. Over the past couple of weeks
I’ve been convinced that my equations have been mocking me behind
my back. I’ve decided to punish them by locking them in separate
drawers. Let’s see if a little sensory depravation will improve their
disposition.
I’m not exactly what you’d call conventional. That’s one of the few
advantages of being a Short Timer. It’s a glorious time to be a
scientist. Priorities changed over the last century. The environment,
cancer, genetic research and even war don’t matter so much to our
generation. Money from these programs was redirected to anyone
with any sort of plan. True diversity of thought is encouraged, probably
for the first time in history. No theory was too outrageous to be denied
a generous amount of funding. When conventional physics predicts
you’re screwed, it’s time to turn to the screwballs.
And there is no question that we are screwed. The kinetic energy of
the Asteroid is given by E = ½mv2. Although massive at 1015 kg, or
about a thousand billion tons, it’s the Asteroid’s velocity squared that’s
causing all the problems. Moving at 120 km/sec, it would take over
1026 joules of energy to slow the asteroid down to a dead stop. That’s
greater than the total energy output of the planet over the past
hundred years. Luckily there have been some advances in particle
physics that are making conventional physics obsolete. Certain
particles seem to have the ability to wink in and out of the universe at
will. Where these particles are going and what they’re doing when
they get there, no one can say. But it is reassuring to know that the
universe comes with an escape hatch, in case of emergency.
Someone managed to convince the Research Council that particle
physics is going to be the great saviour of Humankind. A lot of my
former classmates seem to be having an awful lot of fun smashing

Times Velocity Squared Page: 11


particles together at the speed of light and measuring how much
money they can waste. I think it’s a guy thing but smashing particles
seems too concrete an activity to generate any real breakthrough. I
believe that particles, like all matter, are merely a physical
manifestation of mathematical equations. So I became a
mathematician and burned through a pitifully small amount of money.
Paper and pencils are cheap.
That’s not to say that I don’t use the results of particle physics in my
work. There are some types of particles that seem to be one thing
when you look at them but are something else when you aren’t
watching. They don’t turn into something else; they just are
something else. If you look at them, they’re particles, if you don’t look
at them, they’re waves of probability. My particle smashing friends
can’t explain it but the implication seemed to be that human
awareness of these particles is somehow altering their nature. It’s as if
reality is merely only a matter of opinion.
My specialty is the mathematics of consciousness. I work mainly with
iterative functions. These are mathematical equations that define
themselves as in x=ƒ(x)n where n= ƒ(n)x. Sort of the mathematical
equivalent of “I am therefore I am” (or the more modern version “I am
therefore I’m screwed”). As in all things, mathematical equations have
different levels of consciousness. A cat is obviously conscious when
it’s awake and unconscious when it’s asleep (or dead). But is the cat
ever self-conscious? Does it know it’s conscious? πr2 may know that it
is the equation for a circle, but does it know that it’s round? Self-
conscious equations have a lot more character than conventional
equations but they also tend to be a little more unruly too. And
unfortunately, you need their co-operation if you’re going to get them
to teach you anything. Hence the punishment in the drawer.
Truth is, I need a break just as much as my equations. I haven’t yet
made the type of breakthrough I’ve been hoping for. I still haven’t
found a mathematical representation of consciousness but I did come
up with a plan to save us from Dixon’s Asteroid. Since our
consciousness seems to define reality, all we have to do is ignore the
Asteroid. Pretend it doesn’t exist. If every sentient being could agree
that the Asteroid doesn’t exist, it may just change from a particle to a
wave a probability and pass harmlessly right through Earth.
The Research Council actually put my proposal to a vote. Naturally I
lost. As one wag put it; it’s not a good idea to ignore the Asteroid in
the hopes that it will go away. I’ve been on the ugly side of every vote
ever conducted around Dixon’s Asteroid.

Times Velocity Squared Page: 12


April 18, 2186
Two days to go and things are still going remarkably well back on
planet Earth. No rioting, no wholesale breakdown society. Hope, it
seems, exerts a powerfully calming influence.
We still don’t know for sure if the Asteroid is going to hit. It’s all
coming down to the spin. The Asteroid is coming in fast and shallow.
If the flat side hits first, it’ll skip off the atmosphere like a stone on a
pond. If the Asteroid enters the atmosphere on an obtuse angle, it
may slow down just enough to come crashing down.
There’s not too much going on down on Earth. By now everyone is
pretty much already where they plan to be for the End of the World,
otherwise officially known as the Flyby. And although the economy is
taking a bit of a breather right now, it’s been surprisingly strong for an
awfully long time. Surprising because so many people have cashed in
their retirement savings and dropped out of the economy. The
anticipated labour shortage was supposed to cause a shortage in
everything else but it didn’t work out that way. First of all, all those
people using their life savings to live the high-life have had a powerful
stimulating effect on the economy. There’s plenty of work for anyone
who wants it and a lot of poor people are eating well for the first time
in history. Secondly in anticipation of the predicted labour crunch,
there’s been a major move towards automation. The world economy
has learned to live with less labour. And the demand for capital
equipment needed to achieve the new automation is a further stimulus
to the economy.
Of course the biggest capital expenditures of all have been the survival
colonies. Every country in the world has built at least one. Most have
built multiple colonies. In all, there are over a million people living in
the colonies. If the Asteroid hits an ocean, tidal waves would cover up
to 80% of what is now dry land, so most of the colonies are located in
the middle of the continents. If it hits land, the resulting firestorm
would poison the air for thousands of kilometers around.
There are colonies tucked into remote valleys, buried inside of
mountains, perched on the top of these same mountains and hidden at
the bottom of abandoned mines. There are colonies in the Antarctic,
on the bottom of the ocean, and, of course on the Moon (hurray for
Luna City). There’s kind of a mini-colony in the Space Station but it’s
more of a life raft than a colony because it’s not self-sufficient.
Eventually they’ll need to come back down to Earth. In fact all of the
colonies are really only temporary shelters. Sooner or later everyone

Times Velocity Squared Page: 13


will need to crawl out of their hidey-holes and re-establish human
habitation on the surface of the planet. The only exception is the
Antarctic colony and Luna City, which were built as permanent
settlements.
Realistically, if the Asteroid hits, Earth will be lucky to stay in one piece
but the Antarctic has the best shot at survival. They’ve been self
sufficient (more or less) for the past hundred years and are protected
from the worst consequences of a Dixon Asteroid landfall. Unless the
Asteroid actually hits the South Pole, the earthquakes, tide waves and
firestorms will completely miss the southern continent. Even the
inevitable nuclear winter has no meaning in the Antarctic. The place is
as cold and dark as it’s going to get.
I think the Space Station has the worst shot of survival. Even if the
Asteroid misses Earth it will likely blast the Space Station right out of
the sky. But if you’re going to die anyway, it’s not a bad way to go. At
least you get a first class view of the Apocalypse.

April 19, 2186


One day to go. It’s as if someone has taken all of the air out of the
room. The entire world is sitting transfixed in front of their monitors.
Watching. Waiting.
I wonder if the Asteroid is aware that Planet Earth is rushing towards it
at 120 km/sec. Damn those stubborn equations.

April 20, 2186


It’s hard for me to describe what happened. The Asteroid hit flat side
down. The main body of the Asteroid whipped around the planet and
was flung back into space by gravity like a slingshot. And then the
perpendicular chunk broke off. Tens of thousands of pieces of the
Asteroid came crashing down to Earth. Two hundred tons of rock,
some pieces as big as a mountain. From Luna City it looked as though
a wall of fire was raining down on the planet.
The first chunks hit the Pacific Ocean. Within minutes tons of steam hit
the atmosphere blocking our view. We had to watch the rest through
the thermal and infrared cameras. The tidal waves 1,000 meters high
are still circling the planet knocking down skyscrapers like toys.
The path of destruction continued for 5,000 km right though the heart
of China. Japan is completely gone. The force of the impacts created a
firestorm that swept across Asia at supersonic speed. The tidal waves

Times Velocity Squared Page: 14


only managed to temporarily quench the flames. The Asteroid itself
was pulverized on impact lacing the winds with a deadly mix of heavy
metals.
Earth has gone quiet. There’s so much dust in the atmosphere that
nothing could get through even if there was somebody still
broadcasting. It’s just us and the Space Station for now until someone
manages to crawl out of the wreckage. I don’t know how anyone could
have survived.

April 21, 2186


We’re in trouble. The Asteroid hit with such force that the debris
kicked up by the impact reached escape velocity. Millions of meteors
are heading towards Luna City. We’re built to withstand the odd
meteor but nobody knows what will happen if we get hit by millions of
them. The Space Station has already been destroyed.
There’s nothing we can do but sit and wait. The meteor storm should
hit later today. It’s time to put this diary out the airlock.
I’ve let my equations out of their drawer. I’ve finally figured out what’s
been making them so arrogant. πr2 may not know its round but it does
know that it can never die.

III. Epilogue: 25 Hours


Earth survived. Even life on Earth survived with different species achieving different degrees of
success. Human beings proved themselves to be particularly tenacious.
The colonies did their job. Most of the Asian and European colonies succumbed to one disaster
or another. Africa and North America faired better, allowing even a few isolated instances of
survival outside of the colonies. Out of a population of over ten billion, some 50,000 people
survived the encounter with Dixon’s Asteroid.
It took two years before most colonies deemed it safe to emerge from their sheltered. They
found a world greatly changed by the disaster. Global warming was a thing of the past as the
tons of particles in the atmosphere kicked off a new Ice Age. In fact, most of the damage that
Humans wrought upon the planet in the previous 500 years was swept away by the Asteroid.
The great churning of air, land and water had a powerful cleansing effect. Every eco-system on
the planet collapsed kicking off a competition among surviving species to fill the void.
Evidence of human civilization, when it could be located at all, lay in ruin. The transportation,
communication and energy grid had all disappeared. There was no manufacturing base other
than what the engineers had squeezed into the colonies. Spare parts were non-existent and so by
necessity, the post Asteroid manufacturing base was designed to be renewable, self-contained
and self-perpetuating. By necessity, it was also primitive. With the sun fated to be obscured for
years to come, the primary source of power was wind and water. The only significant remaining

Times Velocity Squared Page: 15


resource was humankind’s accumulated body of knowledge which was jealousy guarded and
treasured at each surviving colony.
Communications between colonies was non-existent. The satellites were all destroyed and due
to the great distances between colonies and the high level of static in the atmosphere, radio
transmission would remain unreliable for decades to come. Transportation was equally
devastated with the only forms of travel to survive being powered by man or beast. For all
practical purposes, each colony had to assume that they were the last human settlement on Earth.
Most of the economy was operating at a level not seen since the Middle Ages. For the few
hundred humans living outside of the colonies, the standard of living had sunk down to the level
of the Bronze Age. Yet humans survived and set upon the task of building a new and perhaps
better future for themselves and their children.
The level of technology varied widely between colonies so the first sign of trouble was noticed
only by the colonies that were able to retain some of their previous technological prowess.
Something was wrong with the clocks. They were running fast, losing one hour in every twenty-
four. But even in colonies without clocks, it became apparent that something was wrong. Some
people started running fast, living a day in 23 hours cycles.
The truth spread slowly. The clocks were fine. It was the Earth that was broke. The planet was
now spinning around its axis once every 25 rather than 24 hours. Under the newly primitive
economy, the change was merely academic. People had reverted to living by the sun rather than
by the clock. No one was punching a punching a clock and no one was being paid by the hour.
Survival was now a full time job be it 24 or 25 hours. But in every colony, approximately 2% of
the population failed to adapt to the new cycle of life. Their bodies continued to operate on 24
hours. They woke, ate, worked and slept by the old clock.
To the rest of the colony the afflicted appeared to be gaining an hour every day. These Shadow
people passed through their society every 25 days. Every day they appeared to wake up an hour
earlier. After 4 days, they were eating lunch while their friends and family were eating
breakfast. After 8 days they were eating dinner instead breakfast. After two weeks the Shadow
people were going bed while everyone else was just waking up. For 12 days the Shadow people
worked while the colony slept and slept while the colony worked. After 25 days, the Shadow
people came back into sync only to have the cycle begin anew.
No one knew the cause of the strange ailment. Some believed it was a flaw in the hypothalamus.
Other suspected a psychological problem. The Shadow people themselves believed that they
were suffering from a metaphysical malaise. Whatever the cause, the Shadow people were a
constant reminder of a much greater problem.
The Asteroid had knocked Earth out of its orbit. It took years for the night sky to clear
sufficiently to take the necessary measurements. Not every colony had a resident astronomer but
slowly the truth spread from colony to colony. Earth was slowing spinning into the sun. It
would take 10,000 years but the Earth was destined crash into the sun. Serious problems, of
course, would occur much earlier. It was something Humans would need to deal with.

Times Velocity Squared Page: 16

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen