They say that in space no one can hear you scream. Scientists would explain that lack of mass prevents the conduction of sound waves. They would use charts generated by complex mathematical formulas and three-dimensional software to demonstrate that if enough mass was gathered at one place in space, accompanying gas particles would be drawn together, and if enough gas was present, it would form an atmosphere.
And in such an atmosphere, you would be heard.
They could calmly and rationally explain the physics, because they didn't know that such a mass existed and that it was on a collision course with Earth. They were busy giving and accepting awards from each other as if Santa Claus had just discovered the existence of laboratories.
If they had bothered watching more than two percent of the sky, perhaps one of them would notice a tiny blur in one of their multi-million dollar telescopes. A week or two later, if he were curious enough to do further research, he would see that the dark mass now blotted out over a dozen stars in the northern sky.
Then other scientists might set down their cocktail glasses and return their rented tuxes long enough to determine that something was coming that no one, regardless of how many awards decorated their chiseled stone mantles, would be able to save the Earth from.
The killer asteroid scenario had always been the ultimate bogeyman of the scientific community, but it was dealt with as it existed; on paper. And in a thousand paper scenarios that read like cheap pulp novels, the scientists always emerged as the hero; the ultimate saviors of the planet, their superior intellects the match of any threat the cosmos had to offer.
The scenarios had two weaknesses; the most notable being that none of the plans were ever implemented, only theorized. But the more dangerous flaw was that the planet killer scenario only ever dealt with one killer asteroid. So it would be natural for the scientist that first found the mass coming toward Earth - for the last naive moment of his life - to think of the new awards that this discovery would give him, until he identified it.
Rather, identified them.
What at first appeared to be a single unified body was, in fact, a cluster of over a hundred meteors and asteroids, close enough to each other to share a thin atmosphere.
The scientist would lock himself in his laboratory and produce charts. He would take the time to calculate the damage of such an impact with three-dimensional software and complex mathematical formulas and each time, he would come to the same conclusion: The mob of stellar bodies was on a collision course with Earth, destroying everything in its path and the simultaneous puncturing of the Earth's atmosphere would result in an event unsurvivable by any scenario, outside even the protection of The Scientific Community. The force of the simultaneous strikes would be enough to destroy the Earth and knock it out of orbit.
And with that realization, since that scientist was in an atmosphere, you would be able to hear his scream.
Labels: Teaser, The Last Witness, The Protean Explosion
