Birth of an Age Page 8

  Estimates of the death toll from the initial effects of Asteroid 2031 KD would be placed at 175 million. One additional tribulation would be brought on by the asteroid’s passage, but it wouldn’t be apparent for another two to three weeks. When 2031 KD entered the lower stratosphere, it created a massive disruption of the Earth’s ozone layer, which was compounded when it returned to space, pulling with it millions of cubic miles of atmosphere. Though it would quickly be drawn back by the Earth’s gravity, the combined disruptive effect to the ozone layer would stretch around the planet. It would take only a few weeks for the ozone to settle back into place and again provide its protective blanket to the Earth’s surface, but this wouldn’t come before the planet had been bathed in sufficient ultraviolet light to severely damage the enzymatic pathways of plant life throughout the world.

  Of the two major varieties of plant life (broadleaf plants and grasses), grasses — including such plants as corn, wheat, rye, oats, barley, and sugar cane — are far more dependent for life on the synthesis of aromatic amino acids, which takes place in the enzymatic pathways. As would soon become common knowledge among the survivors of planet Earth, if these pathways are blocked by damage from ultraviolet light, grasses will immediately stop growing. About ten days later, when the plant’s storehouse of aromatic amino acids is depleted, the plant turns reddish-yellow, then yellow, and finally brown, dying completely in about three weeks. Thus it was that within three weeks of the asteroid, all of the green grassy plants — burned by the ultraviolet rays of the sun — shriveled and died throughout the world. Only in the Southern hemisphere, below the Tropic of Capricorn, where it was Winter and the grasses were dormant, were they spared.[27] Collectively, with the fires across the American continents and the destruction of all non-dormant grass plants, approximately one third of the Earth’s land mass would be burned.[28]

  In some areas the grass would return before fall, and the grain crops would be replanted the next year. But in the interim, famine would claim the lives of additional millions.

  In the parts of the world unaffected by the immediate results of 2031 KD, mankind looked on in horror and disbelief at the incredible destruction that had befallen their planet. Satellite videos of the asteroid’s course were quickly pieced together to provide a complete depiction of the path of slaughter and destruction.

  No one who watched was unaffected. Those who didn’t have relatives or friends in the impacted areas had their own fears to trouble them: Two asteroids were still out there, heading toward the Earth. Scientists and government officials tried to reassure people, pointing out that the first asteroid’s change in course had been a highly unusual quirk and that there was nothing to fear from the second asteroid. But who could believe these experts now?

  Someone came up with a best guess to explain why the first asteroid had changed course and it quickly caught on with the media, who were desperate for some sort of explanation. The theory was that, just as a micro black hole or chunk of white dwarf had originally pulled the three asteroids from their normal orbits, so a similar phenomenon had affected the first asteroid when it came closer to the Earth; perhaps it was the same black hole or chunk of white dwarf. For the public, however, that explanation only evoked more questions: Was it still out there? Would it have a similar affect on the second asteroid? Would the object itself threaten the Earth? And most menacing of all: Would it somehow prevent the missiles now headed for the third and largest asteroid from reaching their target?

  To the last question the answer was relatively certain. The missiles, now five days and nearly three million miles into their journey, had already passed beyond the point at which the first asteroid had been diverted, and the telemetry from all missiles indicated they were still precisely on course. As to whether the micro black hole or chunk of white dwarf or whatever it was, was still out there and whether it threatened the Earth — either by altering the course of the second asteroid, or by colliding with the Earth itself — the possibility was almost as unlikely. “Bodies in space are constantly in motion,” one of the interviewed scientists said. “The possibility that a similar set of circumstances could occur, causing the second asteroid to be pulled off course in the direction of Earth, is simply too astronomical to be imagined.”

  New York

  Christopher stared blankly as those around him in the emergency meeting of the Security Council discussed providing relief to the survivors of the asteroid’s devastation. It had been less than two hours since the asteroid had made its pass. The first logical order of business was to dispatch teams to assess the situation and report back with recommendations. Beyond that, all that could be done was to discuss contingencies for providing relief.

  It would not be an easy matter. The UN was already fully expended in its effort to assist the survivors of the China-India-Pakistan War, and it was in large measure the benefactor nations of that effort that now found themselves needing aid. For the moment this fact went unmentioned but certainly not unnoticed by the primary members representing those war-torn countries. They realized that North and South America would be turning their attention to their own needs, which would bring to an end their aid to the East. Their only real hope was to obtain increased funding from Europe and Northern Asia. But diplomatically, it was not the time to discuss the needs of China, India, and the few survivors in Pakistan. Better to wait and discuss this with the primaries from Northern Asia and Europe in private. Besides, the primary from Europe, Christopher Goodman, seemed distracted by his own thoughts at the moment.

  Had the ambassadors from China and India known what Christopher knew, they would have realized that the problems for their countries were about to become much worse. John and Cohen had proven their ability to make good on their threats. The first prophecy had been fulfilled to the letter. If the remaining prophecies were carried out as literally, the suffering was only beginning.

  Chapter 6

  Cat Strike

  Kiso Mountains, Japan

  As they went about their work observing the approach of the second asteroid, the astronomers of the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory outstation, two hundred kilometers west of Tokyo, kept an eye on the news and graphic depictions of destruction in the Americas. As scientists, they realized the incredible odds against a repeat of what had happened with asteroid 2031 KD. Even so, they each watched carefully, as did the rest of the world, for any deviation in the second asteroid’s course.

  Tokyo Astronomical Observatory outstation, Kiso Mountains, Japan

  When it actually began to happen, no one said anything.

  At first it was only enough to be detected by the most sensitive equipment, and the most sensitive equipment is, by its very nature, most susceptible to error. Besides, it was so incredibly unlikely that the second asteroid could be off course that no one wanted to be the first to say anything and risk causing a panic over some minor computational error.

  But with each passing second the deviation grew, and quickly it became obvious to the observatory team that there was no computational error — the asteroid’s course was changing. Soon it would be apparent even to a novice.

  Dr. Yoshi Hiakawa, Director of the Kiso outstation, looked at the media crew and motioned for the lead reporter to come over. In the most business-as-usual presentation he could summon, he told the reporter, “We’ve detected a slight deviation in the asteroid’s course.”

  The reporter waited for additional information but none followed. “Is it headed toward us?” he prodded.

  “On its present course it will still miss the Earth,” Dr. Hiakawa said. “But if the angle of deviation from its original path continues to grow, that possibility does exist.”

  “Where will it hit?” the reporter asked, unconvinced by Hiakawa’s suggestion to the contrary.

  “As I said, at this time there is no indication it will hit the Earth at all; only that its course is presently undergoing an unexplained deviational anomaly.”

  “What shall I tell the p
ublic?” the reporter asked.

  Dr. Hiakawa shook his head. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ve provided the information. What you do with it is up to you.” Hiakawa had no desire to start a panic, which itself could cost lives, but neither did he want to bear the responsibility for withholding the information.

  It took nearly a half hour to determine whether the asteroid would strike the Earth. It took only a few minutes beyond that to determine with some certainty where it would hit. Asteroid 2031 KE would score a direct hit on the Earth somewhere in or near the Philippine Basin in the Pacific Ocean. Emergency broadcasts immediately began to warn residents to seek high, flat ground away from manmade structures in preparation for the massive earthquake and tsunami that would certainly result.

  At 10:47:18 A.M. GMT, asteroid 2031 KE pierced the Earth’s atmosphere. Unlike its predecessor, the second asteroid’s path left no doubt that collision would occur. Twelve seconds later, traveling at 67,280 miles per hour, the surface temperature reached 1,525 degrees Celsius. Quickly an oblation shield formed as droplets of liquescent iron peeled away. The red-hot trail of molten metal gave the asteroid the eerie appearance of a huge flaming mountain.[29]

  Just eighteen seconds after entering the atmosphere, 2031 KE slammed into the Pacific Ocean 470 miles south of Kōchi, Japan, in the southern-most portion of the Shikoku Basin, with a total force equal to of 2.7 trillion tons of TNT, creating an initial splash that reached forty-two miles above the Earth.[30]

  Despite the tremendous resistance of the water, it took just a third of a second for the asteroid to reach the sea floor, 3.6 miles below. So quickly did it pass through the water that it reached bottom before the surrounding sea could rush in to fill the void, thus creating a two-mile-wide open shaft the full distance to the surface. To the crew of an oil tanker less than a mile from the point of impact, it had appeared that the asteroid would collide directly with their ship, but as the vessel – set ablaze by the asteroid’s heat – was drawn down into the open abyss, their exact cause of death became academic.

  Having transferred approximately eighty percent of its kinetic energy during its passage through the ocean, the asteroid struck the sea floor with an explosive force equal to 540 billion tons of TNT, or 54 times the total destructive power of the world’s combined nuclear forces at the height of the Cold War. The center of the impact, which was three times hotter than the surface of the sun, vaporized the sand and rock in the asteroid’s path and caused the sea for fourteen miles around to erupt and boil violently, filling the surrounding air with scalding steam and cooking the 95-man crew of a Japanese Navy frigate like lobsters in a pot.

  Continuing down like a bullet into soft wood, the asteroid created a massive crater twenty-two miles in diameter and twelve miles deep. The initial resulting earthquake was measured at 11.3, or 18 times the most powerful quake ever measured.[31] Had it struck dry ground or in shallower water, the debris would have been sent flying into the atmosphere and created a dark blanket of dust over the entire planet. Within weeks, such a blanket would have eliminated all or nearly all life on Earth. Instead, because it hit in one of the deepest parts of the ocean, in water more than three and a half miles deep, only about 2 percent, or ninety-six billion tons of the debris was ejected above the ocean’s surface. Of that, the vast majority consisted of large pieces of iron and massive tektites, which fell back to Earth over a 1,600-mile radius. Only a very minute amount of material was small enough to be kept aloft.

  But while the water’s resistance stopped most of the smaller fragments from reaching beyond the surface and thus spared the atmosphere from filling with dust, the sea itself bore the brunt as more than 3.8 trillion tons of material small enough to be suspended in ocean currents, including more than 720 billion tons of iron particles from the asteroid, were carried across the ocean by the giant waves that radiated out from the impact.

  In the seabed, the shock of the initial collision and the subsequent fracturing of the Earth’s mantle set off additional massive earthquakes that were felt for thousands of miles throughout the Circum-Pacific Belt and the Eurasian, Philippine, and Fiji tectonic plates. On land, buildings crumbled, killing thousands, and in the sea the quakes set off additional tsunami hundreds of miles in advance of the waves from the actual impact.

  In the bay of Wangpan Yang, south of Shanghai, China, the waters of the Pacific suddenly began to recede toward the open ocean with incredible speed, pulling with them nearly everything afloat that was not securely tied or anchored. With a terrifying roar of hissing, sucking, and gurgling, the water as far inland as the mouth of the Fuchun River was drained out in less than five minutes, leaving tens of thousands of acres of sea bottom suddenly exposed. On the Wangpan Yang seabed, well-anchored boats and ships of all sizes were left foundering in mud and sand. All but the flat-bottomed vessels had tipped over and lay on their sides, their crews forced to climb out among stranded sea creatures left by the retreating waters. On the surrounding shores, startled onlookers, seeing fish and booty from long forgotten wrecks laying there for the taking, rushed out to acquire the benefits of nature’s apparent boon, completely unaware that what nature had relinquished, it would just as quickly reclaim, along with their lives.

  At the mouth of the bay, the crews of the ships that had been pulled toward the sea watched helplessly, clinging to the decks in awful fear as their vessels, large and small, were sucked into the churning trough of death beneath the oncoming wave, which rose like a foaming mountain, 120 feet into the air.

  The event was repeated at every bay and the mouth of every major river along the Asian coast, as Pacific waters swept over China as far inland as two miles. Along the Yangtze River, flooding reached as far inland as Nanjing.

  The coastal regions and cities of Taiwan were completely covered, utterly erasing the existence of four million people.

  As large as they were, these first waves were merely a pale foreshadowing of the destruction to come. Two to three hours away, depending on the geography of the Asian coast, a train of waves rolled out like ripples from the point of the asteroid’s impact and expanded outward in rings that sped through the open ocean at more than 600 miles per hour, waves so large they dwarfed the one that struck the bay of Wangpan Yang. Tens of millions of lives in the Ryukyu Islands, Okinawa, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Northern Marianas and Guam, the Sunda Islands, the Palau Islands, Micronesia, the Caroline, Solomon, Marshall, Santa Cruz, Gilbert, Phoenix Islands, and hundreds more all lay helpless in the path of the immense killer waves.

  In Siberia, Korea, China, and Vietnam, those on land who had survived the earthquakes and the first tsunami struggled inland to reach higher ground. Ships at port that had not been scuttled by the initial waves headed out to sea, hoping to reach deep water before the tsunami grew to an unmanageable height. Their efforts would be futile. As the wave train began to climb Asia’s continental shelf, the lead wave had already reached 180 feet. By the time the tsunami was within twenty miles of shore, it had grown to five times that height. Those ships that had hoped to reach the safety of deep water instead found that they were sailing into certain death as a wall of water no ship could survive sped to meet them. Ships of all sizes were thrown about and swallowed up like toys by the leviathan waves.

  The same scene was played out throughout the Pacific Basin countries, with some waves topping fifteen hundred feet by the time they reached shore. The Chinese navy was reduced from 760 combat vessels to just 29; the Japanese navy from 160 to only 6. Thousands of cargo ships, hundreds of supertankers, literally millions of commercial fishing boats, and untold smaller crafts and their crews, all fell prey to the remorseless waves.[32]

  Two hours later the wave ring reached New Guinea, which, because of its location directly between the point of impact and Australia, took the full aggression of the waves and deflected much of the tsunami’s force from the island continent to its south.

  Star off the coast of Asia marks the point of asteroid impac
t. Tsunami map generated by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) using Tsunami Travel Times (TTT) software, which calculates first-arrival travel times on a grid for a tsunami generated at a given epicenter. The contours on the maps are in one hour time intervals.

  Owing to their volcanic origins, on the islands of Hawaii there was no shortage of high ground, and with eight hours of warning, most islanders loaded cars, trailers, trucks, and carts with everything they could carry and headed for the safety of the nearest dormant volcanic mountain. Because Hawaii has no “shelf” such as surrounds the continents, the waves didn’t reach the incredible height they had on the Asian coast. Still, from their mountain perches, the people watched in disbelief as successive three-hundred-foot ocean walls, each moving at more than four hundred and fifty miles per hour, stripped the islands to bare rock.

  On the rim of the Kilauea Caldera, the scientists of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory had their hands full with another matter. Awash in a tsunami of seismographic data and satellite telemetry, the scientific team monitored the tremendous effects of the fracturing of the Earth’s mantle. Throughout the region known as the Ring of Fire, which circles the Pacific Ocean and includes Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, New Zealand, Chile, Bolivia, Central America, Mexico, the west coast of the United States, Canada, and Alaska, new and increased volcanic activity was indicated. It wouldn’t happen immediately, but it was certain that within weeks scores of volcanoes would erupt as a direct result of the asteroid’s impact.

  On the other side of the Pacific, on the west coast of North and South America, there was more time to prepare. The tsunami train reached Alaska in just seven hours, but it took four hours more to reach Cape Mendocino, California, which was first on the main US coastline to be hit. Southern Peru and Chile on the west coast of South America had even more time to prepare. It took twenty-three hours to reach Iquique, Chile, the most distant point on the Americas’ Pacific coast. Having been warned of the tsunami’s strength, residents had ample time to reach higher ground. The time available to the people of Northern Peru and Central America made little difference. Those few on the coast who survived the passage of the first asteroid had little opportunity or means of escaping the waves of the second.