Trifariam, The Lost Codex (2012) (33 page)

After logging in with his username and password, a drop-down menu appeared before him. He started to search through his available contacts until he found a message that made his eyes light up.

ROBERT (ONLINE): “DO YOU EVER FEEL LIKE A STAR IS GUIDING YOUR WAY?”

He quickly double-clicked on his name and a new window opened. He clicked on the video call button without hesitation.

Richard, who was leaning on the upper right corner of the television with his elbow, jumped when it suddenly switched itself on. The webcam on top of the plasma screen began to turn around, configuring itself and recognizing all the space around it. It seemed that the laptop was connected to the television and that it was used for videoconferences.

After a few minutes’ wait, a short beep was heard in the office. In the emerging window appeared the following message:

VIDEO CALL ACCEPTED. PLEASE WAIT…

The professor was overcome with nerves once again. He was anxious to have his ideas confirmed, although he already feared that he was right. The gray image on the screen gave way to the face of man who was younger than them, around thirty years old, with a clean-shaven face and gelled hair. His glasses seemed to be the latest Dolce & Gabbana model, giving him an even more sophisticated air.

Richard recognized him at once. It was James’ younger brother.

“H
ow are you James? You’ve caught me at a bad time, they’re waiting for me to join them for coffee.”

“Wait!” exclaimed the professor, getting out of his chair and stretching out his right arm. “We have a problem and we need your help.”

Robert remained frozen in front of the monitor for a few seconds. Although they had a cordial relationship, he considered his brother to be a very arrogant person who found it enormously difficult to ask for help. As children they would compete to solve different mathematical problems they found in old books abandoned in the attic. James would always solve them before his brother. However, on one occasion Robert found the solution much quicker than he did, breaking the usual cycle. This made James so nervous that he couldn’t think straight for hours, leaving him unable to solve the problem. At no point did he accept his brother’s multiple offers of help and he spent almost a whole day trying to solve it.

In light of all these memories, it was extremely difficult for him to believe that his older brother was now asking him for help.
The great James Oldrich has finally pulled down his pants and asked for help. It can’t possibly be true.
It must have been something of huge importance because he hadn’t even told him about his recent separation from his wife. “How can I help you?” he finally asked as he sat down.

“First of all, let me introduce you to Mary. I met her in Florence and she’s been involved in this matter since the very beginning. She’s been a great help over the last few days.” Robert raised his eyebrows in surprise, since he hadn’t even noticed that she was there. “This is my brother - a renowned astronomer who will be able to shed some light on this matter,” he whispered into Mary’s ear. “Could you tell us something about the meteorite ‘Apophis’?”

At the mention of the word
meteorite
, both Richard and Mary turned to look at James, speechless.

“Yes, of course,” replied Robert politely. “Apophis is the name given to the asteroid which was discovered to be orbiting the Sun in June 2004, and whose trajectory is close to that of our planet. According to data disclosed by NASA, the asteroid will pass very close to the Earth in the years 2029 and 2036. However, any slight collision with another asteroid could knock it off course and towards our planet, producing an effect which would be more devastating than that of forty thousand atomic bombs.”

Richard had turned considerably pale and begun to stammer. “That asteroid… is it big?”

Robert replied laughing. “It depends what you mean by ‘big’. It belongs to the Aten group of asteroids, which include all those whose orbit around the Sun is smaller to that of the Earth. The orbital period of Apophis is 323 days to be precise, crossing the Earth’s orbit twice every time it goes around the Sun. At first it was thought to be larger than four hundred yards in size, but a deeper study eventually gave us a measurement of two hundred and fifty yards, its mass being 2.1 x 10
¹⁰
kg.”

Mary, who had until then remained silent, asked a question nervously. “Is there any possibility of the asteroid crashing into Earth?”

“Yes,” replied Robert in a melodramatic voice. “After carefully analyzing its trajectory, it became apparent that on 13 April 2029, the asteroid will be so close to Earth that it will be visible to the naked eye. It will come so close to our satellites that it will most probably destroy them all, causing tremendous damage to the telecommunications network. However, recent studies have completely rules out the possibility of a collision that year, but there’s a high chance that the asteroid will visit Earth in 2036. In fact, they’ve already mapped out the route it will take and where it will land.”

“What?!” Mary was completely outraged. “They know that an asteroid is going to collide with Earth and they still haven’t done anything about it?!”

“It has only been classified for the time being. It has been graded as a Level 4 on the Torino Scale and a 1.10 on the Palermo Scale, the highest an asteroid has ever registered. So, it does have astronomers worried to some degree because any collision with another asteroid could dramatically alter its path and make it crash into Earth much sooner.”

Just then, the aircraft turned sharply to the left as it gradually began its descent. The roar of the landing gear as it opened out went unheard by the trio. It seemed that they would at last be touching down in Mexico after countless hours traveling.

“Where do they think it will land?” asked Richard in a panic.

“The first hypotheses claim that it will cross the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles from the coast of California and Mexico, it will continue between Nicaragua and Costa Rica and over the Caribbean Sea, crossing Colombia and Venezuela, ending its journey in the Atlantic just before reaching Africa.”

“Robert, do you know if any procedure is currently being followed to destroy or divert it?”

“Are you familiar with the comet Tempel 1?”

“Yes, I think I’ve heard about it at some point.”

Robert raised his eyebrows in surprise and continued to speak. “Tempel 1 is a comet of considerable size, around nine by two miles. In 2004, NASA created a mission under the name ‘Deep Impact’. Their intention was for the space probe of the same name to launch a projectile which would crash into the comet’s surface at around twenty three thousand miles per hour, causing a giant crater. The mission was a complete success. The collision caused a gas and dust cloud which spread for around 1100 miles, even affecting the communication system of the probe which was only three hundred miles away. And although the projectile hardly altered the course of the comet, it is thought that it will provide enlightening data on the origins of the universe, extremely important information about their composition, as well as facilitating the study of alternative methods for diverting them with a greater likelihood of success.”

“But… why don’t they destroy it? Wouldn’t it be enough to detonate a bomb?”

“Destroying it isn’t a good option. It could create a shower of asteroids which would be smaller in size, but would be raining down at a much higher speed and without much deviation. From what I’ve read, NASA wants to send a space crew to the asteroid. Once there, they would analyze its composition with the aid of sophisticated equipment and try to ascertain whether it would be possible to destroy it, or if it’s better to redirect it. Meanwhile, a friend told me a few days ago that Spain is planning a mission called ‘Don Quijote’. They will try to send two crafts into space; one called ‘Hidalgo’ which will crash into the surface of the asteroid in an attempt to break it up or redirect it, and a second, ‘Sancho’, will remain in orbit while it observes and sends information back to Earth.”

“And why haven’t they already done it?” asked James startled.

“Firstly, the human race is becoming arrogant and complacent. The people in charge still don’t see it as a serious threat because, in theory, we have more than twenty years until it crashes into Earth. But what would happen if tomorrow it collides with another meteorite, and we end up with an asteroid which is out of control and heading for Earth? What if it was forecast to arrive in three months? Would that give us enough time to prepare ourselves? The truth is that there still isn’t a spacecraft in existence which would be able to take astronauts to the asteroid. Also, the Spanish project has currently yet to get off the ground because there are a number of companies who are competing to be definitively awarded the project.”

Robert was starting to get uncomfortable. It was unusual to see his brother so intrigued by astronomical matters. He hated looking at the stars and had refused his invitations to see aurora borealis from his wonderful state-of-the-art telescope on more than one occasion. He was starting to wonder what the hell those three were hiding. What were they trying to cover up? “But… tell me. Why are you so interested in this subject? What’s happening?”

“It’s best that you don’t know,” said James before anybody could mention anything. “It’s for your own safety.”

“For my own safety? Don’t feed me nonsense. Who’s going to kill me for speaking to you?”

Although the three of them knew the answer to that question, they disguised it with smiles. Clearly James didn’t want to get his brother involved in this adventure and he wanted to keep him safe.

“What would be the scale of the damage if the asteroid collided with the sea?” asked Mary quickly, returning to the conversation they were having before.

“Catastrophic. It would be the end.”

T
he aircraft finally touched down without a hitch. The pilot’s skill of the controls was magnificent; nobody was aware that the plane had landed. The weather in Mexico was hot, with summer temperatures which invited tourists to spend long afternoons keeping cool at the beach.

The pilot used the loudspeaker to inform the trio that they had successfully landed in Mexico and that they could disembark whenever they wanted. However, they didn’t hear him. They were absorbed in a much more enthralling conversation.

“What? Catastrophic? To what extent?” asked James somewhat hysterically.

“The asteroid will cross the atmosphere at more than twenty eight thousand miles per hour, which means it will turn into a giant fireball of over one thousand eight hundred degrees Fahrenheit. When it is less than sixty miles from Earth, the oxygen-rich air will start to heat up to exorbitant temperatures, close to that of the Sun. If it followed the forecast route and fell into the sea, it would cause a crack in the Earth’s crust of several miles in length, which would cause a huge tsunami infinitely more powerful than the one which lashed Indonesia in December 2004. It would spread through the Atlantic in less than ten hours, creating waves half a mile high which would sweep up everything in their wake, causing millions of people to die. Devastating earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis, the like of which have never been seen before, would batter every continent.

“And what if it landed in the middle of a city?” asked Richard, his eyes on stalks.

“It would be destroyed in less than a second. It would melt steel and stone at blistering speed, leaving behind a giant crater. The eventual consequences would be similar. People within a twelve-mile radius would die so quickly that the nerve impulses caused by pain would never even reach their brains. They wouldn’t feel their own deaths, they would be the fortunate ones. The impact would trigger a vast wave which would move at a speed similar to that of sound, accompanied by winds of over six hundred miles per hour. Eventually a large cloud would form from all the rubble from the destroyed cities and it would fill the atmosphere in a matter of minutes, blocking out sunlight for months. In the following weeks crops would fail, a multitude of species would become extinct and those which didn’t die of hunger would do so due to cold. Approximately fifteen percent of the world’s population would perish.”

“What if the calculations are mistaken and the asteroid lands in Antarctica?” asked Mary apprehensively.

“In that case… we would all die within a few months. There are thousands of asteroids close to us which would devastate the human race if they were to collide with the Earth’s surface. In fact, until recently it was thought that the asteroid ‘2004VD17’ would impact with Earth in the year 2012. Are you familiar with the Mayan theories about the end of the world coming that year?”

“Yes,” replied Mary. The two professors nodded.

“Many scientists tried to find a possible link between both events, but the fact that the asteroid was recently categorized as a Level 0 on the Torino Scale put paid to all those hypotheses. But it comes down to the same thing - what would happen if it impacted with another asteroid which was unknown to us? Would it end up hurtling towards Earth?”

Richard, who until now had been listening open-mouthed to the explanations given by James’ brother, frowned and addressed Robert in a friendly voice. “From you’re telling us, there is a high chance that an asteroid will collide with Earth sooner or later, causing very serious damage.”

“Precisely!” exclaimed Robert. “But that is to be expected if you take into account that there are thousands of asteroids which are bigger than two thousand feet, and we only know about a few of them. We might discover one which is heading for Earth at great speed at any moment, and it will destroy us if we aren’t prepared.”

“Why don’t they do anything to avoid this from happening?”

“For the last twenty years, the United States has tried to explore space in search of asteroids or meteorites which have a high risk of impacting with the Earth. They have already discovered around four thousand seven hundred objects, seven hundred of which could trigger an apocalyptic end to our planet. It is currently very difficult to get politicians to open their eyes to this, even more so when their salary depends on them remaining closed. They argue over futile wars, destroying each other and causing thousands of deaths. That is how the world works and it is a real shame. We should concern ourselves with looking after it and protecting it from anything that could destroy it. Instead, we waste our time and money creating weapons of mass destruction. Why? To protect us from ourselves?”