Gravity Versus Gravity, page 32
“Why is he going back?” Paddy asked.
“He has seen how close the debris cloud is and understood that should he rescue us, no one stands a chance. The debris may start falling any second. The debris could have hit even while we were getting into the helicopter,” Humphrey replied.
“Run inside,” Nicholas screamed.
Everyone ran down to the basement. Just as the lid was shut, they heard the first objects falling to the earth. There was the sound of rain drops on the house. Then the sound became deafening. It was as if someone had opened a big hose over the house. In between, there were explosive sounds. Some near and some far away. Debris hit the house several times. The ordeal went on for several long minutes in what seemed like ages. And then it stopped suddenly.
“Is it safe to get out?” Cheryl said.
“Let’s wait for a few more minutes,” Humphrey replied.
They waited. There was no sound of anything falling on the house. There was, however, a sound of water flowing somewhere.
“Is there a river nearby?” Nicholas asked.
“I don’t think there is one,” Paddy said.
“But what is the sound?”
“Looks like another chopper coming to rescue us.”
“There is no way a chopper could come this quick.”
“Let us go out and explore. The falling of debris seems to be over.”
They came out one by one. The surroundings were unrecognizable. A roaring river had taken birth on the side of the hill. It was swelling further. The house’s roof was gone.
“Wow!” Paddy said. “This place looks like a war zone.”
“If we don’t get out of this place fast, the water will reach this place,” Humphrey said.
All of them ran up the hill on the other side. When they had reached the top, they surveyed the area. There was litter all over wherever it was dry. It was as if someone had sprayed garbage from the skies.
A helicopter was visible at the horizon. Humphrey took out his red cloth, and Nicholas took out his red T-shirt. They started waving. The helicopter swerved towards them.
It was soon hovering above them. A ladder was thrown down, and they got onto the helicopter one by one. As they passed over the house, they found that the river had swelled enough to swallow the house completely.
29
Ever since the zero-gravity area had hit River Thames, Al had questioned himself where he had gone wrong. After the debris had gone up in the air, he had tried to figure this out. The first time he had tried to do this, he had received a call from the DIMA Control Station in Gloustershire about the first debris which had slipped. The Control Station had wanted to know if Al could forecast the second fall.
“I’m not God,” he had shouted. “How can I know everything about the comets? If you can tell me which day the computers in your Control Station will stop working, I would be able to tell you where and when the next loose debris would fall down.”
Al had immediately felt bad about his outburst and tried to concentrate on rechecking his simulation. And then in about fifteen minutes, a second loose debris had gone down, and he had asked the same question by the DIMA Control Station in Salisburyshire. He had answered politely this time, “Sorry, we have neither done any study on this nor is it possible. Earth’s gravity may overcome that of the binary comet's gravity anytime and anywhere, and that is when the objects will fall.”
“What are the chances of all of them falling down before the impact area?”
“Well, I can assure you that it’s not going to happen. Except for a few pieces, all debris would fall in the impact area.”
“What a relief!” the person at the other end had said.
Al had been once interrupted when the debris had fallen on the cliff near Lake Hutton. Then again when the debris had started falling in the impact area.
Sandra had called to tell Al, “The impact has started. It’s exactly at the point as shown in your map. We have to see how far and for how much time will it go.”
“It will stop exactly three kilometers and eight hundred meters ahead after seventy-four minutes and the north to south diameter at it largest would be two kilometers and seven hundred meters.”
“Are you confident about this?”
“Yes. The physics of the falling down is simpler than the going up of debris. I have done my recalculations.”
“Okay. I was wondering if your earlier forecast of about forty minutes of fall event is still valid,” Sandra had replied. “It will be clear in about an hour and a half.”
Finally, Sandra had called Al to congratulate him.
“You were right,” she had said. “The impact area was exactly as your new map shows. You must be a happy man now. Your work is over.”
“Not yet,” Al had replied. “I’ll be done only after I find out where I went wrong with my calculations.”
“You can do that later. The binary comets are not going to be back for a century. Relax.”
Al had not responded, but he had gone back to his work after talking to Sandra.
Al did not notice how the next three hours passed. He would intermittently look at the screen to see the impact area and then go back to his work. The impact was over. All he could see in the area was water flowing in all directions. This went on for about thirty minutes. Then the water found three courses out of the area. The water outflow in all directions was replaced by water rumbling down in three directions in the form of three narrow but roaring rivers. In some areas where water had drained completely, craters could be seen. Many craters were covered in water and looked like small and muddy ponds.
Al went back to his work. Samantha came to his room twice - once to leave his dinner and then after an hour to check if he had finished. She observed that Al was in no mood of leaving his office. She had seen the beginning of the impact area. After five minutes, the scene had become too scary for her. She was tired from the adrenalin spike throughout the day. She went to her room and laid down on the sofa and fell asleep.
At three in the morning, Al had made some breakthrough. He had run his simulation with a tweak in three equations. The zero-gravity area reached under the Bridge and ended near the middle of the Bridge.
This is it, he thought. I’ll have to further refine only these two equations to find a complete match. He decided to carry on with the work next day.
Al looked at the clock. It was ten past three in the morning. He looked around to see if Samantha was in his room. He saw the dinner on the table. He had completely forgotten to eat it. Samantha’s dinner, too, lay untouched.
Poor soul, Al thought. She has gone through so much.
Al went to Samantha’s room and softly opened the door. She was still asleep on her sofa. The room was freezing. Al put his overcoat on her and went back to his room.
He looked at the screen. The three rivers had turned into rivulets with a sluggish flow of low water. He sat down on the sofa and closed his eyes. He fell asleep in a flash.
Al was awoken by a knock at the door. The door opened, and Dr. Wardle came inside. “Al, I’ve been looking for you in your house,” Dr. Wardle said.
“Is it already five?”
“It’s six,” Dr. Wardle replied. “The helicopter has been waiting for you.”
“Is it just the three of us going?” Al asked.
“Yes,” Dr. Wardle replied. “Two DIMA officials who were to come with us left early in the morning.”
“Good. That means we have not held up anyone.”
Al looked at the screen. The impact areas had craters all over the place, several of the bigger ones filled with water.
“That is not really directly related to our work, but we have to go,” Dr. Wardle said.
“The pattern will help me in my other research area regarding asteroid impacts. But I agree that we need to visit even if it doesn’t concern us directly. If we don’t see the impact area, it will be like watching a movie and leaving ten minutes before the movie gets over.”
“Is Samantha coming along with us? Or shall we let her rest?”
“She’ll be upset if we don’t take her. She has been with me throughout the journey and she, too, should see the end.”
Al went to Samantha’s room. “Time to leave for Devon,” he said, lightly shaking her.
The three of them were soon up in the air.
“We’ll trace the route of the zero-gravity area, then the path of debris and finally we’ll reach Devon,” Dr. Wardle said.
The helicopter reached Mayfair, the northern most point of the zero-gravity area, in about ten minutes. The place still looked deserted.
“Have the people been allowed to come back?” Al asked.
“Yes, the restrictions got lifted from midnight today. But it’s too early for people to start coming back. Some may also be playing it safe and may want to return later,” Dr. Wardle replied.
“The event started at this place,” Al said, pointing to a multi-colored building.
“How do you know?” Dr. Wardle said.
“Firstly, this is where my calculations showed that the event would begin. Secondly, you can see the broken panes in some of the windows.”
“Oh, yes, I can see them,” Dr. Wardle said, putting on the binoculars.
“But only loose objects were to go up.”
“The gravitational pull of the binary comets was not uniform. It did have bursts of high pull. This building is one of them. The panes, especially the looser ones, would not have been able to withstand the pull.”
As the helicopter moved forward, more buildings impacted by the event became visible. On one building, entire windows had been ripped off. On another, the outer scale had come off. Yet another was without the roof. A few bicycles were hanging from a few trees. Some trees had broken branches. A wheel barrow had gone up in the air and dropped mid-air crashing onto a rooftop.
“The area is diagonal shaped just as you had predicted,” Dr. Wardle said.
“Yes, that is how it should have been. The area reached the Thames. So, we can say that the shape is like that of a kite with the upper half of the diagonal smaller than the lower one. Plus, you can add a little tail, too.”
“Is that the Serpentine?”
“Yes,” Al replied.
After some time, Dr. Wardle asked, “Is that the St. James’s Lake?”
“Yes, it is.”
“They look so ugly and scary without the water.”
“We are here at the wrong time. By next time, the water would have been replenished.”
“I see several vehicles in the Mall and in Piccadilly.”
“Those are the brave ones.”
The cover on the Buckingham Palace was being removed. At least fifty people were working on the rooftop.
“The Palace is huge,” Samantha said.
“It was one of the eight heritage buildings secured in this fashion. I don’t see coverings on any other buildings,” Al said.
“The buildings were smaller. Maybe, the coverings have been removed,” Dr. Wardle said.
“Or maybe gone up in the air,” Samantha said.
“That would be surprising since the coverings were secured with chains,” Dr. Wardle replied.
“Look,” Samantha said, pointing towards one building.
The building was one of the eight. The iron chains lay on the ground. Pieces of black cloth were attached at the ends.
“I can’t believe it,” Al said. “I had thought the bursts of gravitational pull would be small and few.”
Dr. Wardle found two more buildings which had chains on the ground with pieces of cloth at the ends. Al looked for other buildings, but he could not see the chains.
“Three of the eight buildings may have suffered considerable damage. At least in two of the buildings, the windows and window panes are severely damaged,” Al said.
“Would things from inside have also gone up?” Samantha asked.
“I would think so since these buildings had bursts of gravitational pull,” Al replied. He looked at Dr. Wardle and continued, “More work for me. Would DIMA have taken photos of the entire area?”
“Yes, they had said in one of the briefings that they would get the area covered by three aerial teams,” Samantha said.
“I was part of two aerial teams,” Thorpe said. “You’ll be able to get a lot of photos from them.”
“Good, which means they would have also video recorded everything. I’ll also request for the photos and videos before the event,” Al said.
The helicopter hovered over the Parliament Square.
“This is where the water from the Thames caused a flood,” Al said.
“I can see the damage. The rooftop of the Underground entrance is broken,” Dr. Wardle said.
“The damage would have been more if the water had not got drained into the Underground station. And, there, you can see the most unusual and unexpected damage of the zero-gravity event,” Dr. Wardle said, pointing towards the Bridge. The Bridge’s end was visible.
“I dread to see what would be there,” Samantha said.
“Or not there,” Dr. Wardle said.
The helicopter moved towards the Bridge. The River still had plenty of debris floating on the surface. The two ends of the Bridge stood precariously. The road leading to the Bridge had wide cracks caused by the weight of the end of the Bridge.
“This may fall at any moment,” Samantha said.
The boats on the banks had been damaged. Two of them had overturned. The helicopter moved over where the Bridge stood earlier. The other side presented the same scenery. Water had drained from the other side, too. However, the flow was much less.
“I want to see the other end again,” Al said.
McDonald quickly turned the helicopter towards the other side. Al surveyed the area again.
“Do you see something underneath?” Al asked Samantha.
“Nothing at all,” Samantha replied.
“That means that most of the Bridge went up in the air. If more would have fallen underneath than gone up, we would have been able to see some evidence.”
“But how could big chunks of concrete and huge chains go up?”
“The force of water. It was like a huge tsunami. Chains would have been ripped from concrete blocks. And concrete blocks themselves would have been broken into small pieces.”
“Even difficult to imagine,” Samantha said.
“We’ll see the evidence when we see the craters in Devon.”
The helicopter went up and started in the direction the debris had traveled.
“Will we trace the exact trajectory?” Samantha asked.
“Yes, we’ll go in the path of the debris,” McDonald replied.
“Wow! Exciting!” Samantha said. “It would have been more exciting if we had followed the debris as it moved towards Devon. And frightening, too.”
“Robert and David got that chance. They were the lucky ones. And, so were McDonald and Thorpe,” Dr. Wardle said.
“When we got stuck in the air, I thought that we would crash,” Thorpe said.
“All of you are lucky twice over,” Samantha said. “I may not be lucky, but I’m excited to take the path today. It gives me a shiver imagining how it would have felt to have flown behind the debris cloud.”
“We are behind the debris,” Dr. Wardle said.
McDonald and Thorpe turned around and looked at him curiously.
Dr. Wardle gave a wink and continued, “I mean we are behind the debris by about fifteen hours only.”
“Don’t look behind at the same time,” Samantha said to McDonald and Thorpe. “We want you to take us safely and bring us back safely.”
“Don’t worry, Samantha. I can fly the helicopter with my eyes closed,” McDonald said.
Thorpe started giving a commentary of the path, “The debris moved in a parabolic path till it reached the highest point. We are still in that path. We’ll reach the highest point in about five minutes. That is at a height of over three thousand meters. The debris was several thousand times bigger than the helicopter, had millions of items - big and small, which made it a million times heavier than our helicopter. We are going full throttle. You can imagine the gravitational pull of the comets.”
“You are stealing Al’s job,” Samantha said. Everyone, including Al laughed.
“I’m happy to play the role of a listener. It’s always good to have another person’s perspective. Carry on, Thorpe,” Al said.
Thorpe continued, “If you look down, you’ll see the first evidence of a loose object.”
All three looked down. “The hole in the cluster of trees?” Dr. Wardle asked.
“Yes,” Thorpe replied.
“How do you know for sure?” Dr. Wardle asked.
“I’ve been flying this route for seven years. I know every stone in the path. And we witnessed the fall of the first object yesterday.”
“Okay,” Dr. Wardle said. “How big was the object? It was a pillar from the Bridge. Wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was a huge concrete pillar. It must have been at least half a ton in weight.”
“We’ll get to know the exact details from DIMA later,” Dr. Wardle said.
Thorpe continued, “We have reached the highest point. From here, we’ll fly nearly straight for almost an hour.”
“Why nearly straight and not completely straight?” Samantha asked.
“You’ll know after about thirty minutes. I don’t want to kill the suspense talking about it now,” Thorpe replied.
“I’ll wait for the suspense,” Samantha said.
Thorpe continued, “Thanks to both of you, we nearly missed the second place where an object fell.”
“Have some fear of your boss,” McDonald said with a smile. “You cannot be insulting his passengers in front of him.”
“I’ll keep that in mind next time,” Thorpe replied and continued, “The second spot is visible better because the object landed in the middle of a farm. I’m sure all of you know about it. Robert and David went down to investigate. We took a break here and then continued our journey behind the debris cloud.”
Everyone looked down again and could see a brown patch in the middle of the green farm.
“That should have been an iron chain,” Samantha said.
