Sweetness in the Dark (53 page)

Bruneau, Idaho

The wedding quickly became the social event of the decade in tiny Bruneau, Idaho. Paul and Amanda had decided to have a simple ceremony with just family members. They had found a quiet spot on the Kendall Ranch for the service. It stood along the banks of the Bruneau River under some Locust trees interspersed with large poplar and juniper trees.

The family began mowing the grass and making the area worthy of a wedding. Chairs were borrowed from the Bruneau Baptist Church for the day.

Everything was set, at least up until the time that Paul learned that the President would be attending. Suddenly their small wedding was turned upside down as they struggled to keep it manageable.

The community of Bruneau cooperated in the couple’s request and the Owyhee County Sheriff joined the effort. Even ‘Big Bob’ Caldwell, Sheriff of adjoining Elmore County offered deputies for the event. The three roads leading to Bruneau would be closed prior to the wedding and only invited guests would be allowed into town. The largest hall, the Bruneau Grange Hall, was reserved for the reception.

On top of the wedding, John and Julie had planned to have their first child baptized the Friday evening before. They found out the President would arrive a day early and attend their event, also. With the President of the UAS in attendance, a simple baptism and wedding in Bruneau, Idaho had turned into a media event.

John Ewing and his wife Julie had wanted a simple ceremony at the local church to celebrate the birth of their first child. But when the President had gotten wind of the affair, he changed his itinerary and added the baptism to the wedding plans.

The Congress had recently taken up his initiative on encouraging large families. The initiative was to start the recovery of the nation’s population that had been lost due to ‘the Pulse’. A new baby being baptized was just the event the President wanted to emphaize his policy.

The next day, Amanda and Paul ended up with a quiet wedding by the river in spite of their important guest. A gloriously pleasant September Saturday, combined with the gurgling sound of the slow river in the background made a perfect setting.

After the service the newly married couple moved their celebration to the Grange Hall, as food and drinks were laid out on tables. A small clutch of reporters who had been kept from the wedding service itself were allowed to join the reception.

Things were going smoothly until Julie came and said to Paul, “You need to do something. Kevin is buttonholing the President.”

Paul and Amanda were sitting at the head table greeting well-wishers while the party buzzed around them.

“Julie, it’s OK. The President can handle himself,” Paul said.

“But you know Kevin. His ideas are a little over the top,” Julie threw back.

Paul knew her concern would only grow, so he stood up and headed over to escape the continued haranguing. As he approached the two, he could tell the discussion was intense.

“Explain to me again. I think I understand what you’re saying, but it is a little startling,” the President said.

Oh God
, Paul thought.
Kevin is on his soapbox again
. Ever since he had reached Bruneau from his brush with mortality on the East Coast, he had settled into the community. Glad to be around people who had not witnessed the horrors of life after ‘the Pulse’, he had joined in local events. Eventually he met a local woman who had been left widowed with two children.

But as he worked on his new girlfriend’s ranch near the Kendall place, his thoughts turned to what the massive Coronal Mass Ejection that had crushed the Earth’s electronics implied. It fit with what he had been working on before ‘the Pulse’.

Kevin Shepardson had started college life as a history major. Getting a Master’s Degree in history had led him into the PhD program at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. But it was his sister’s interest in astrophysics that had diverted him from a life of strictly history.

While his main interest was European Medieval History, Julie’s study of the sun led him to the work of Piers Corbyn. That discovery had changed his life. It would soon change the world.

Corbyn was a British astrophysicist that had turned a rather obscure science into a moneymaker. Corbyn’s business revolved around studying current sunspot activity and then comparing that information to a point in history with a similar sun spot activity pattern. When he pinpointed a similar pattern, Corbyn would then look at the weather records for that time in history.

He made money on his work by placing bets on future weather activity. In 2009, the official weather forecasting service for Great Britain predicted a mild winter. Corbyn, through his work, predicted correctly the coldest one in a hundred years. He made money investing on the difference.

Kevin had become consumed by Corbyn’s work and became quite proficient at matching his forecasts. Using his knowledge of medieval history, he worked with Julie by email on monitoring the sun’s activity. He soon made enough money on his future predictions to fund both his and Julie’s graduate school work.

But now here he was cajoling the President with his theories. Paul decided he’d better intervene.

“Kevin, the President has many friends here. Please let some others enjoy this time with him.”

“No Paul, this is quite interesting,” the President interrupted. “Please continue.”

“Mr. President, I don’t take you for one of the global warming true believers. Am I right?” Kevin asked.

“At least not anthropogenic global warming. If the sun is causing warming, I would be open to that. But man-made? No way.”

“Good, I don’t have to start at the beginning then,” Kevin said. “But are you familiar with global cooling, sir?”

“Well, I know about the Ice Age. And the Little Ice Age that Europe suffered through after the Middle Ages.”

“Well, hear me out then.” Kevin was animated now as he talked. “We just experienced the largest CME in recorded history. A Z class solar flare just doesn’t happen every day, but we got to live through one.”

“And I’m happy they don’t happen frequently,” the President said.

Kevin continued to explain how solar activity happened in eleven-year cycles and that the current cycle was designated a solar maximum. Solar flares would be at their maximum strength as witnessed by the one that had produced ‘the Pulse’.

Paul noticed others had gathered around and were listening intently to the conversation. A couple of the reporters were leaning in and taking notes.
Great
, Paul thought. He should have broken up this little confab as soon as he had walked over. He glanced at Amanda and received a glare in return.

But Kevin continued with his talk, “Mr. President, we are currently in Cycle 24. We are approaching the end of an eleven year cycle. Have you given any thought to what Cycle 25 will bring?”

“No, I’ve been busy dealing with the effects of Cycle 24, I’m afraid,” the President said. There was frustration in his voice.

“Sir, I think we need to break this up. You do have other duties today, I believe,” Paul injected, attempting to end the discussion before things got out of hand.

“Yes, I do need to be attending to my schedule,” the President said. He looked around for help in extracting himself from the situation.

John and Julie noticed the President’s predicament and walked over to help.

“Mr. President, I want to thank you for coming,” Paul said as he placed his arm under the President elbow to escort him out of the entanglement.

“Just one more minute. I can assure you it will be worth your time,” Kevin pleaded.

The President looked over at Paul and made eye contact that indicated he needed help extracting himself from his predicament.

“Please wrap it up, Kevin,” Paul offered sternly.

“What if the Z-class blast that hit Earth, ‘the Pulse’ as we call it, was an explosion that released all the pressure inside the sun? Now that the pressure is gone, what might we expect next?” Kevin dropped the bomb and stood back.

The crowd stood waiting for the answer, but Kevin stood mute. He wanted the moment to settle in and the silence was like a roar in the room. Finally a voice spoke up. The crowd around the President all turned to look at its source.

“Nothing,” Julie said. The uninformed took that in and stood content.

Nothing is good, isn’t it?
Paul thought. He was obviously one of the uninformed.

The President joined the consensus, “Nothing is good, right?” his voice hesitant.

“Nothing is bad. Very bad. Very, very bad,” Dr. John Ewing, Professor of Astrophysics, answered.

Paul was confused. He asked, “If a period of solar maximums had just about killed off humanity, then a little less activity must be good?”

“A little less activity would be OK, but Kevin may be right. With the size of the explosion on the sun, the activity may drop off to nothing as the sun settles into a quiet period. No sun spots of any kind for the next eleven years is catastrophic,” John answered.

“What are you telling me? We’re not out of the woods yet? We’ve set the standard that all new electronic devices vital for society will be hardened against any future CME. Now you’re telling me we’ve missed something?” the President asked, showing the strain.

The reporters were leaning closer. No one seemed to notice their existence. What should have been discussed in private was being announced to the world.

“Mr. President, if my theory holds, then no sunspot activity will bring about another Little Ice Age. What you’ve done so far is fine for an active sun. What may be coming will take something totally different.”

Paul was grabbed from behind by Amanda. She forced his arm so that he had to turn around. She pointed out the news reporters busy writing busily in their notebooks. He quickly got the point.

“Mr. President, this is all interesting and I’m sure we can set up a meeting with your science committee to review all of this. But I do insist that we leave for Boise now,” Paul said. Paul shoved forward and took the President by the arm. His brother, John, took the other. With Amanda opening a path, they led him out of the melee that was quickly developing.

“Mr. President, what are the ramifications that these scientists are talking about? What is your administration going to do about this new development?” the reporters all yelled as the leader of the country was hustled out of the room. They quickly turned their attention to the instigator of the whole controversy.

“Mr. Shepardson, can you describe what global cooling means?”

But their voices carried into the emptiness as Julie took Kevin’s arm and headed him in the opposite direction. The reporters were stopped at the door by the local Bruneau guests.

The President and his advisors climbed into his Suburban. A cordon of security stood at a distance. The President turned to John, “OK, what just happened?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. President. That was not suppose to happen. My sincerest apologies,” John said.

“I’m not worried about the press, but what you and your brother-in-law were saying. Any truth to it?”

“I’m afraid there’s a very real possibility that what Kevin is saying could be true. A silent sun for any length of time is serious,” John said. “And before we go any further, Mr. President, you need to know Kevin is already acting on his theory. He has put together a consortium of local ranchers to pool their money and purchase farmland in Alabama and California. My son has already moved to Alabama to get everything set up,”

“And my daughter, Brittany, has joined one of the local sons of those investors,” John added. “They are in Petaluma, California, purchasing sheriff sale property cheap and getting it ready for production.”

“Why didn’t you inform me about this earlier? Anyone else privy to this information?” the President asked.

“Just old family friends in New Zealand. The Leffingwell family have been in touch and I have informed them. They have headed to the North Island and are purchasing Chinese-owned farm land at sheriff sales. Seems the Chinese owners aren’t paying their property taxes,” John answered. “And this information has just recently come up. Kevin has kept things very quiet while he put his money investors together.”

“Well, thanks for declaring your interests in this. But this is too big an issue to the nation to worry about all that. If your brother-in-law turns out correct in his prediction, his investing before the event will be a small blip. So, spit it out, what are we talking about?” the President demanded. “If it needs dealing with, I need to know.”

“A silent sun means cold. A Little Ice Age, or God forbid, a major Ice Age. Even with a Little Ice Age, the northern latitudes will be frozen wastelands until the sun begins a new cycle. Everything north of Missouri will be so cold that crops won’t grow. Europe back in the Little Ice Age suffered massive famines. The Dark Ages were named for this period in history,” John said.

“John, forget the Ewing Commission. You are to convene the best scientific minds we have and give me a report on the possibility of global cooling as soon as possible. We were prepared for the CME when it came. I intend to have the whole country prepared for what comes next.”

Turning to his other advisors, the President continued, “Paul and Amanda, go have your honeymoon, but make it short. I’ll need you both working out the political implications of all this.

Paul said, “Mr. President, I’m afraid the sun hasn’t finished with us yet.

The very real threat of an EMP attack on the United States motivated me to write this book. While other books have dealt with a hostile power’s attack on the U.S. with nuclear missiles, I chose the sun’s threat to the Earth.

Watching the news, it seems that there is almost a monthly report of solar flares taking place that could attack our world. While some are small in nature, some catastrophic flares have been reported. Luckily, the very big ones were not aimed at Earth.