Fred Hoyle - The Black Cloud

First estimates of the heat rays from the Cloud underrated their importance. Otherwise the American Government would never have placed their scientific advisory establishment in the western desert. They were now obliged to evacuate men and equipment. This made them more dependent for information on Nortonstowe, which therefore increased in importance. But Nortonstowe had its own difficulties.

Alexandrov summed up the general opinion at a meeting of the Cloud investigation group.

“Result impossible,” he said. “Experiment wrong.”

But John Marlborough averred that he was not wrong. To avoid an impasse it was agreed that the work should be repeated by Harry Leicester, who otherwise was concerning himself with communication problems. The work was repeated and ten days later Leicester reported back to a crowded meeting.

“To go back to the early phases. When the Cloud was first discovered it was found to be moving in towards the Sun at a speed of slightly less than seventy kilometres per second. It was estimated that the speed would gradually increase as the Sun was approached, and that the average speed eventually attained would be around eighty kilometres per second. The upshot of observations reported a fortnight ago by Marlborough is that the Cloud is not behaving as we expected. Instead of speeding up as it approaches the Sun it is actually slowing down. As you know, it was decided to repeat Marlborough’s observation. The best thing will be to show a few slides.”

Only one person was pleased with the slides — Marlborough. His work was confirmed.

“But damn it all,” said Weichart, “the Cloud must speed up as it falls through the Sun’s gravitational field.”

“Unless it gets rid of momentum in some way,” countered Leicester. “Let’s look at that last slide again. You see these tiny pips right away over here. They’re so small that they might be a mistake, I’ll grant you. But if they’re real they represent motions of about five hundred kilometres per second.”

“That’s very interesting,” grunted Kingsley. “You mean the Cloud is firing off small blobs of material at very high speed, and that’s what is making it slow down?”

“You could interpret the results in that way,” answered Leicester.

“At least it’s an interpretation that conforms with the laws of mechanics, and which preserves sanity in some degree.”

“But why should the Cloud behave in such a darned fashion?’ asked Weichart.

“Because bastard inside, maybe,” suggested Alexandrov.

Parkinson joined Marlowe and Kingsley that afternoon as they were walking in the grounds.

“I’ve been wondering whether things are going to be altered in any important way by these new discoveries,” he said.

“Difficult to say,” answered Marlowe, puffing smoke. “Too early to say. From now on we must keep our eyes wide open.”

“Our time schedule may get changed,” remarked Kingsley. “We reckoned that the Cloud would reach the Sun in early July, but if this slowing down goes on it’ll take longer for the Cloud to move in. It may be late July or even August before things begin to happen. And I don’t give much for our estimates on heating inside the Cloud either. Changes of speed are going to alter all that.”

“Do I understand that the Cloud is slowing down in rather the same way that a rocket might slow down, by firing off bits of material at high speed?’ asked Parkinson.

“That’s what it looks like. We were just discussing possible reasons for it.”

“What sort of thing have you in mind?”

“Well,” continued Marlowe, “it’s quite likely that there’s a pretty strong magnetic field inside this Cloud. We’re already getting quite big perturbations of the Earth’s magnetic field. Might of course be corpuscles from the Sun, the usual sort of magnetic storm. But I’ve a hunch that it’s the magnetic field of the Cloud that we’re beginning to detect.”

“And you think this business might be bound up with magnetism?”

“It may be so. Some process caused by an interaction of the magnetic field of the Sun with that of the Cloud. It’s not at all clear just what is happening, but out of all the explanations we’ve been able to think of this seems the least unlikely.”

As the three men turned a corner, a stocky man touched his cap.

“Afternoon, gentlemen.”

“Wonderful weather, Stoddard. How’s the garden?”

“Yes, sir, wonderful weather. Tomatoes are ripening already. Never known it before, sir.”

When they passed Kingsley said:

“To be frank, if it were given to me to change places with that chap for the next three months, you know I wouldn’t hesitate. What a relief to have no horizon but the ripening of tomatoes!”

Throughout the rest of June and July temperatures rose steadily all over the Earth. In the British Isles the temperature climbed through the eighties, into the nineties, and moved towards the hundred mark. People grumbled, but there was no serious distress.

The death-roll in the U.S. remained quite small, thanks largely to the air-conditioning units that had been fitted during previous years and months. Temperatures rose to the lethal limit throughout the whole country and people were obliged to remain indoors for weeks on end. Occasionally air-conditioning units failed and it was then that fatalities occurred.

Conditions were utterly desperate throughout the tropics as may be judged from the fact that 7,943 species of plants and animals became totally extinct. The survival of Man himself was only possible because of the caves and cellars he was able to dig. Nothing could be done to mitigate the stifling air temperature. The number who perished during this phase is unknown. It can only be said that in all phases together more than seven hundred million persons are known to have lost their lives. And but for various fortunate circumstances still to be recounted the number would have been far greater still.

Eventually the temperature of the surface waters of the sea rose, not so fast as the air temperature it is true, but fast enough to produce a dangerous increase of humidity. It was indeed this increase that produced the distressing conditions just remarked. Millions of people between the latitudes of Cairo and the Cape of Good Hope were subjected to a choking atmosphere that grew damper and hotter inexorably from day to day. All human movement ceased. There was nothing to be done but to lie panting, as a dog pants in hot weather.

By the fourth week of July conditions in the tropics lay balanced between life and total death. Then quite suddenly rain clouds condensed over the whole globe. Within three days not a break was anywhere to be found. The Earth was as completely cloud-shrouded as normally is the planet Venus. The temperature declined a little, owing no doubt to the clouds’ reflecting more of the Sun’s radiation back into space. But conditions could not be said to have improved. Warm rain fell everywhere, even as far north as Iceland. The insect population increased enormously, since the torrid hot atmosphere was as favourable to them as it was unfavourable to Man and the other mammals.

Plant life flourished to a fantastic degree. The deserts flowered as they had never done at any time while Man had walked the Earth. Ironically no advantage could be taken of the sudden fertility of hitherto barren soils. No crops were planted. Except in north-west Europe and the far northlands it was all Man could do to exist. No initiative could be taken. The lord of creation was beaten to his knees by his environment, the environment that for the previous fifty years he had prided himself on being able to control.

But although there was no improvement, conditions got no worse. With little or no food, but now with plenty of water, many of those exposed to the extreme heat managed to survive. The death rate had climbed to a wholly grotesque level, but it rose no further.