Gravity Versus Gravity, page 29
It was so dark that Yates thought, it would have been easier for him to find his way out of a dark cave. The aircraft was moving along with the debris, but Yates could not feel it. He felt featherlike. When he tried to touch the buttons, he had to make considerable effort to reach them. He did not feel the seat underneath. Yates gave up. He sat quietly for a minute. It seemed like ages.
What an end! he thought. I would be crashing on the ground with all this debris.
He saw a flicker of light underneath. He guessed that he was somewhere near the lower end of the debris. With some effort, he could reach the steering. He got encouraged. He tried to incline the aircraft. Although he was not sure, he felt that he had succeeded. He pressed on. In the dark, he pressed the buttons by guessing their locations. And then it happened. The aircraft gave a jerk and was out of the debris.
“I’m free,” Yates shouted.
The aircraft was soaking wet. The windscreen was covered in dirt. What matters is that I’m free, he thought. Now I can safely land my aircraft.
Just as he had said this, he heard something crash onto the tail of the aircraft. He looked back. The tail was missing. The aircraft made a circle and started rotating fast. It zoomed towards the ground. Yates pulled his parachute and was out of the aircraft. He landed safely a kilometer from the place where his aircraft crashed on the ground.
Yates hooted loudly when his feet touched the ground. Freeing himself from the parachute, he told himself, Yates. You have a story that you can tell your grandchildren when you become a grandfather.
25
Buster Ingram was in his farm in Salisburyshire. He had a huge strawberry field, which he had been taking care of all by himself after his only assistant had extended his holidays by a month. The horses in the farm always seemed to want to go for a trot, and the pigs were always hungry. The hens created a mess before Buster had cleared them and the cows had more milk than Buster could milk.
Buster had never been so busy in last thirty years he had inherited the farm from his father. He had no time to read newspapers and no time to watch television. He would sometimes go to his house in Salisbury, check that everything was okay and then go back to his farm the very same day. As luck would have it, he was one of the few between London and Devon, who had no idea of the zero-gravity event.
On the thirteenth of September, he decided to mend the fence at the outer edge of the farm, which was nearly a kilometer away from the farmhouse. He unloaded the wires and posts from his tractor and started early in the morning. The sky was clear and the sun was not too bright. There was a light breeze. Buster felt very energetic.
If I go at this rate, I’m going to mend this part of the fence in a week, he thought, looking at the work that he had completed in three hours.
All of a sudden, it started getting dark. It looked strange since there seemed to be no clouds in the sky. Buster looked east and he saw a humongous piece of cloud approaching. He had not seen a darker cloud. It was nearly black. The shape was odd and the cloud looked very high. Buster had no place to hide. His tractor had no roof.
I won’t be able to reach the farmhouse even if I go on the tractor, he thought.
He went under a tree and waited for the rain to start and then pass. As the cloud came overhead, he was more surprised to see the shape. It was long. The edges could be seen on both sides. The cloud went on and on.
This must be several kilometers long, Buster thought. He was a little apprehensive. It had not rained a single drop. Looks like a cyclonic cloud. But strange that there is neither any wind nor any water.
There was silence and then a humming sound which increased in intensity slowly. The humming sound continued. Buster could not take his eyes off the cloud. He saw some solid shapes within the cloud. He wondered if he was having a dream. Then he saw something shoot out from the cloud. It looked like a small piece of paper. It became bigger and bigger within seconds and headed straight towards Buster. Buster embraced the tree and closed his eyes. Within seconds, a large boom followed the screeching sound.
The object had fallen on the tractor. Buster did not open his eyes for a few more minutes. And when he did, there was sunshine again. The tail of the cloud could be seen in the west. Buster looked at the tractor. Its wheel had been broken, and he could see the dents. A mass of mangled iron lay on top of the tractor.
Buster ran towards his tractor. A full adult bicycle had fallen from the sky. How could this have happened? Buster thought. How could a cloud have carried a full bicycle? I need to tell about this to the local reporters.
He went to his farmhouse and drove to Salisbury. The whole route was deserted. He met only two cars in the entire twenty-mile stretch to Salisbury. When he reached there, he found all streets deserted, all shops closed, and all doors and windows shut.
Have I missed something that everyone else knows? Buster thought and decided to go home before he went to the local television office.
When he switched on the television, there was talk only about the binary comets. He understood that what he had seen was not a cloud, indeed. However, it was surprising to him that an object had fallen before the debris had reached Devon.
He decided to tell the local television about it. When he reached the television station, the only person he found was the security guard. “Our television office is not working from here. Everyone has gone to Manchester from where they are carrying out today’s program,” the security guard said.
“I’ve an important piece of information,” Buster said.
“Is it more important than the binary comets?”
“It’s related to them.”
“You could try them over the phone,” the security guard said, handing Buster a piece of paper with a few names and telephone numbers scribbled on them.
Buster went into his car and called the first number. “Hi, this is Buster from Salisbury,” he said. “I’ve an interesting piece related to the binary comets. A bicycle fell in my farm.”
“You must be joking,” the voice at the other end said. “All debris is going to fall in Devon in about an hour.”
“Where else can a bicycle fall from the sky? There is no building nearby. I saw the debris cloud go past my farm in Salisburyshire.”
“All our cameras and crew are busy with covering the debris cloud and the zero-gravity event. We don’t have time for your story. In any case, I’ll let you know. Please leave your phone numbers with me.”
When Buster gave the number, he least expected anyone to turn up. However, he was mistaken. The information had landed up on Al’s desk ten minutes later. He had immediately relayed it to Robert Gales and David Solensky, who were following the debris in a DIMA plane along with three DIMA officials. They were near Salisbury and landed within minutes.
“Hi, Buster. I’m Robert from the Space Center. This is David, my colleague from the Center and these are our friends from DIMA,” Robert said when they met Buster at the farm. Buster was standing at the main gate of the farm.
“I had least expected you. Even the television crew did not have time for me. But I thought that what happened in my farm might not be usual,” Buster said.
“The television crew is not to be blamed. They are following what they have already been told. They might turn up at the farm after some time. The debris would start descending in Devon after a short period of time.”
“And all this while I had been unaware of all these things. I was happily tending my farm. I learnt about the zero-gravity event when I went out driving. Such a fool I’ve been!”
“In some ways, it’s good that you did not know. You would not have ventured out. You are a firsthand witness. This is important for our research. And now if you don’t mind, could you please take us to the site fast? We have a maximum of ten minutes. We need to follow the debris.”
Buster started his pickup truck, and everyone followed him. When they reached the site, they found that two television crew had already entered the farm from the other gate.
The tractor was badly broken.
“If you would have been in the tractor, you would have been beyond recognition,” David said.
“I’m still shivering thinking about it,” Buster said.
“Did you touch or move the bicycle?” Robert asked.
“No,” Buster said.
“Good,” Robert said. “That will give us an idea about the trajectory.”
Robert and David took some measurements.
“It’s surprising why this bicycle fell here when there were other heavier things in the debris at this point of time?” a DIMA official asked.
“The answer is simple. The bicycle was nearly at the end of the debris. The pull of the binary comets could not hold it,” Robert replied.
“Got it,” the DIMA official said.
“Thanks, Buster,” Robert said, taking leave of him. “Your discovery will be helpful in having a better understanding of gravitational forces of comets.”
On their way back to the airstrip, Robert got a call from the Somerset Center. All David could hear was yes or no. Robert kept nodding his head throughout the conversation.
“What is the matter?” David asked.
“The ground cameras are not able to get clear images of the debris. All they see is water. There might be something at the end that is about to fall, but they are not sure,” Robert replied.
“Let’s hurry,” David told the driver.
By the time they reached the airstrip, McDonald, the pilot and Thorpe, the co-pilot were ready to take off.
Robert and David got into the aircraft along with the DIMA officials. In two minutes, they were in the air and in another six minutes, they were only about three hundred meters from the tail of the debris.
“Zoom the camera,” Robert said.
“Don’t go any closer or we might be affected by the pull of the binary comets,” David told Thorpe.
“Focus the camera a little more,” Robert said.
“That is the maximum resolution possible,” David replied.
“Holy crap!” Robert blurted. “Even from this distance, it’s difficult to make out anything.”
David tried once again to decrease the resolution and increase it again. Again, there was no improvement. “We would have to take a risk,” he said.
All men looked surprisingly at Robert.
“We would have to go underneath the debris,” Robert said.
“Right now, you said that we could not go closer than three hundred meters,” Thorpe said.
“That is true. We would descend and then go below the debris.”
“How much should I descend?”
“About two hundred meters?”
“And do we go right under the debris?”
“Yes,” Robert said.
“But wouldn’t that be risky?”
“That is what I said. We are going to take a risk.”
“And what happens if we come in the pull zone?”
“I’m not sure.”
McDonald hesitated but descended. He knew that they did not have enough time. In about three minutes, they were under the tail of the debris. The sun was no more visible, and it looked as though they were flying underneath a mountain.
Robert focused the cameras under the tail. “I see it,” he exclaimed.
“What?” David asked.
“There are two pieces of pillars from the Westminster Bridge.”
“At the end?”
“Yes, nearly at the end. However, they have a lot of water underneath them.”
“Will they fall?”
“My estimate is that they should.”
“When?”
“In about ten minutes.”
“Where?” David asked.
“Satellite phone.”
“Where?” David asked again.
“Give me your satellite phone please.”
David handed over the phone and started looking at the image of the debris. It looked frightening. “What if the whole thing were to fall right now? It would rip our plane into two.”
Robert was talking over the phone.
“I’m not able to move the plane downward,” McDonald said.
“Heavens!” one DIMA official exclaimed. “Our worst fears seem to be coming true.”
Robert was not listening. He continued talking over the phone.
“Robert,” David said. “Listen to what McDonald is saying.”
“Let me get over with this first,” Robert said and continued talking over the phone.
Three minutes after he was done, he asked, “What is the matter?”
“McDonald cannot move the plane down,” David said.
“Seems we are in the pull zone.”
“What are we to do now?” David asked.
“Can you make the aircraft go backward?” Robert asked Thorpe.
“Are you joking? This is not a fighter plane,” Thorpe replied.
“Okay. In that case, go forward.”
“What?” McDonald said with surprise, “We may get into a worse zone.”
“We would not. Near the center, the pull is at its lowest because the largest amount of debris is in the center.”
McDonald moved forward. Every few seconds he would try to maneuver down. And as Robert had said, just when they were near the center of the gravity, the aircraft came down with ease.
“Hurrah,” David said. “We are free.”
The aircraft went down, took a turn, and started its journey back to the airstrip.
“Did you send any message to the ground station?” David asked.
“Yes,” Robert said. “And to DIMA, too.”
“About the descent of the pillars?”
“Yes,” Robert said. “They’ll rip off from the debris anytime and fall in the village of Herst.”
“How do you know that this is the village?”
“I had the coordinates, and when I gave it to DIMA, they said there was indeed a habitable place in the coordinate.”
“What a pity. The UK is so full of towns, villages, and cities that there is hardly one inch of uninhabitable place. If this zero-gravity event had taken place in Alaska, everything would have been over without any damage. We would not have had to spend too much energy?”
“And what if the Tunguska meteor of 1908 had fallen in the UK?”
“Yes, that way it’s good that we had the right kind of swap.”
“Can we now have some rest?” David asked.
“Rest?” Robert said, looking at David. “Forget it for another day or two.”
“But why?”
“Because right now we have to coordinate with the ground station.”
“Have you not told the coordinates to them?”
“Yes, I have done that. But I want to tell them the exact location.”
Perfectionist! David thought. This is the influence of working closely with Al for six months.
Robert passed on the details over the satellite phone.
“The entire village has been cleared,” Robert said after he had spoken to the ground station two minutes later.
“That was quite fast,” David said.
“Well, that is what they think they have. They have only a dozen houses. They have not checked every house. The siren was switched on. The villagers have left in their cars.”
In seven minutes, Robert looked at the camera and said, “Both the pillars are going loose now. They’ll surely hit the village of Herst.”
Robert focused the second camera on Herst. The camera captured the pillars coming down. David noted the readings. As the pillar went down, the back door of a large house in Herst burst open. A dog ran out. And then a man followed. The exit was timely.
Just as they had reached the gate, both the pillars crashed right on top of the house. The impact was as though an excavator had been thrown on top. Debris from the house flew in all directions. The team in the plane could see on the high-resolution camera screen how one piece of wood went flying above the dog. Another hit the man on his thigh, and he came down screaming. The man had a gash on his thigh and blood was streaming out.
“I can see the ambulance rushing towards the man,” David said.
“If the ambulance had not been so near, anything could have happened. The man seems to be seriously injured,” a DIMA official said.
“He is a lucky fellow to have first escaped the pillars and got timely help for his injury.”
The team could see that the man was smiling. The dog which was lying next to him seemed happy for his master.
Robert looked at David and said, “So now you know now that if we don’t rest, we save lives.”
“True,” David said. “Let’s get back to work. The debris will start descending in Devon in a short while.”
26
Five Ground Control Stations in Devon were tracking the movement of the debris on its onward journey from London. Four of these analyzed data and sent it to the fifth station, which put them together to produce accurate information. The four stations collected data through a satellite from four portions of the debris. The data included volume and mass of each portion and the number of objects in each portion. Individual data about the debris was also collected, through which it was possible to have an idea about the sizes of the objects. The data was converted into graphical images for easy and rapid comprehension for the municipal authorities.
Gavin Morley was the person in charge of the fifth station. He was a native of Devon but lived in the USA. He had come on a vacation to his native place when he happened to pay a visit to his childhood friend, Isaiah Potts.
While Gavin had increased his wealth as an IT specialist in the USA, Isaiah had risen politically. At less than thirty years, Gavin was already a millionaire. At about the same age, Isaiah had become the Mayor of East Devon, the youngest ever. Their friendship had continued despite the passage of time and geographical distance.
When Gavin had walked into Isaiah’s office, he had been amazed at how Isaiah had changed in the three months since they had last met.
“I thought you are enjoying your role as the Mayor,” he had told Isaiah.
