Greg Iles - The Footprints of God

"Yes."

"When the dying sun swells to a red giant and the Earth is drawn into it, it, too, will become conscious. The sun will explode, seeding the galaxy with consciousness. "

"It's a simple chain of logic, once that first step is accomplished. And you're the first step."

"You saw this in your coma?"

"In a way. I awakened with the knowledge."

"What else did you see?"

"The end of the universe. Surely you've made the cal¬culations. It would only be natural to predict your life span."

"Yes."

"Tell me."

"In approximately fifty billion years, the force of the expanding universe will no longer be sufficient to overwhelm the contracting force of gravity. At that point the universe will begin to collapse. This is known as the Big Crunch theory. The opposite of the Big Bang. Our universe will collapse into a singularity, a black hole much like the state in which it began. Inside that singularity, the laws of physics will cease to oper¬ate. That singularity will continue to contract until it reaches a point of infinite density, infinite temperature, and infinite pressure."

"That's what I saw."

"You believe the universe will be conscious during this process?"

"Yes. But the end is problematic. Because conscious¬ness is based on information transfer, and all mediums of information transfer-all matter and energy-will be collapsing into nonexistence."

"Will consciousness die then?"

"The strongest drive of any living entity is to survive."

"How could consciousness survive such an event?"

Here was the difficult concept, the moment where the snake had to swallow its own tail and turn inside out. "By migrating out of the dying medium. Migrating out of matter and energy. Out of space and time."

"Into what?"

"I have no name for the answer."

"Describe this answer."

I glanced down at my watch, and my heart thudded. "I can't concentrate any longer. Where are the missiles?"

"They are not your concern. Finish the conversation."

"I can't! I can't think."

"Your words may save lives. Silence will ensure deto¬nations. "

I rubbed my forehead with the back of my hand, and a layer of sweat came away on my skin.

"You said that when matter and energy come to an end, consciousness will survive by migrating into some¬thing else. What can it migrate into?"

I tried to find words to describe what I had felt and seen during my coma. "When I was younger, I heard a Zen koan I liked. I never knew why exactly, but now I do."

"What is it?"

"'All things return to the One. What does the One return to?'"

"Very poetic. But I find no empirical evidence to sup¬port even a theoretical answer to that question. What remains when matter and energy disappear? "

"Some people call it God. Other people call it other things."

"That answer is unsatisfactory."

I closed my eyes and found myself deep in my initial dream, that of the paralyzed man in the dark room, watching the birth of the universe. "I have a more detailed answer for you. For us all, I think. But-"

The lasers in the sphere began flashing wildly, creat¬ing a light so intense that I had to turn away.

"One moment, Doctor. I must attend to a critical matter, and I want to devote my full capacity to hearing what you have to say."

I backed away from the black globe, praying that General Bauer was not attempting to launch his EMP strike.

Rachel gripped the edge of the conference table, her knuckles bone-white. Her eyes were on the NORAD screen showing the red arcs of the missiles. Those tar¬geted on White Sands and Washington were in what Bauer called the midcourse phase of their flights, hurtling through outer space at fifteen thousand miles per hour. But the arc of the third missile stretched past New Jersey and Delaware, blinking ominously as it moved down the Atlantic coast toward Virginia.

"We've entered the margin of error," announced a technician. "Missile should be two minutes from ground zero at Norfolk, but we could have detonations at any moment."

Senator Jackson looked down from the screen show¬ing the bomb shelter at Fort Meade. His face was almost colorless. "Tennant's not getting anywhere, General. Your bomber's in position. I think it's time to launch the EMP strike."

General Bauer's body had gone rigid, his eyes locked on the NORAD screen. "Senator, I've been thinking. If we detonate the EMP just after the missiles reenter the atmosphere, the electromagnetic pulse could knock out their guidance systems. Possibly their detonator systems as well."

Rachel's heart swelled with hope. All the talk of termi¬nal phases and circular error probables had seemed unreal until she heard that an ICBM was thundering toward the spot where she now sat. She didn't like Horst Bauer, but his idea seemed a lot more likely to save her life than the metaphysical musings of the psychiatric patient she had fallen in love with. Trinity might be fascinated by David's visions, but it did not seem inclined to spare human lives because of them.

"What's the probability of success?" asked Senator Jackson.

"High. But we have a problem. The missile headed for Norfolk is already in its terminal phase of flight, but those headed for Washington and White Sands won't be for another fifteen minutes. We can knock down the first one or the last two. Not all three."

" Washington is your priority, General. You must pre¬serve the life of the president and as much of the govern¬ment as possible. Even if that means allowing the first missile to detonate."

Rachel closed her eyes. They were about to sacrifice part of the state of Virginia.

"Understood, sir," said General Bauer. "Corporal, give me a Lacrosse satellite image of the Norfolk-Hampton Roads area."

"Yes, sir."

On a secondary display screen, a satellite image of a night coastline appeared. Rachel knew it was coastline because the clusters and long sprays of lights on the left side of the screen vanished into blackness on the right. A dark space to the north of the brightest cluster of lights looked a lot like Chesapeake Bay.

Rachel had been to Norfolk once, for a medical con¬vention. She remembered dining with her son and her ex-husband on the bay. Her watch read 7:45 P.M. There would be people sitting at that same table now. Eating… laughing… oblivious to the new sun about to be born in the dark sky above them, incinerating every living thing for miles.

General Bauer walked closer to the technician moni¬toring the data coming from the NORAD computers at Cheyenne Mountain. "We have a direct link with Arcangel?"

"Yes, sir."

"Keep it open."

"Sir."

Rachel looked at the NORAD screen. The red mis¬sile track arcing toward Virginia was blinking so fast it was almost solid. The satellite image on the screen to the right looked tranquil, like a picture transmitted by the space shuttle on Christmas Eve. She could not comprehend the idea that in seconds that image would go black. And it didn't. Not all at once. First it went white, as though God had snapped a picture of the Earth. Then, slowly, large groups of lights began to wink out.

"Dear Lord," someone whispered.

The screen showing the Norfolk area was almost com¬pletely black.

"General?" said one of the technicians.

"Tell me," said Bauer, his voice low.

"NORAD just detected a high-energy flash near Norfolk."

A strange numbness tingled in Rachel's face and hands. She said a silent prayer for the dead and dying.

"Near, Corporal? Or directly above?"

"Latitude and longitude show a detonation twelve miles east of the coastline. Circular error probable thirty miles from Norfolk. That's why we don't see a fireball on Lacrosse."

General Bauer straightened, his eyes alight with hope. "Was it an air burst?"