Айзек Азимов - Before The Golden Age

“I think so. It has all the symptoms. Long, long ago, how long ago, Heaven only knows, it escaped from some nebula in outer space—some nebula that’s built in reverse—and headed this way. And here it is. The glowing and flashing surface is the result of its contact with cosmic dust— the little particles of matter that drift around through all space. And every time it picks some up there’s a flash; all the charged particles are neutralized and head away from it as light. And it has added a few more neutrons to its collection. They probably sift down to the center of gravity of the thing. That’s why it’s so infernally heavy.”

“Then, teacher”—Mike was having an idea—”it was probably a rather ordinary planet when it started out on its travels. Barring being built backward, that is! I’d make a guess that it was about half the mass of Jupiter when it started, and, I suppose, had about half the volume. But every time it picked up some normal matter it both shrunk and got heavier. The mass of the positrons and electrons lost would be too small to lose sleep over, and, on the average, it would pick up one neutron for every one of its own freed from a nucleus.

“So it’s ‘most used up now—an awful flock of neutrons left, and just a little bit of normal reverse matter. The neutrons will have most of the mass, and the reverse matter will take up almost all of the space. Neutrons don’t take up any volume to speak of.”

“Right. So now it has twice the mass it started with, approximately, and a minute fraction of its original volume. When the rest of the reverse matter is finally neutralized it will be a little heavier, and so small that it’ll be completely invisible. Maybe there’ll be a few cubic centimeters of neutrons, or some absurd amount like that, with all that mass. But we’d better hurry! It won’t be very amusing if that neutralizing is done with some of the Earth’s surface! Hold tight—here comes some acceleration!”

Ten days later Carter and Poggenpohl presented their report to the commissariat of science of the United States of America, and two days later they attended an emergency meeting of the heads of the departments of science of the governments of the world. Carter was speaking.

“So you see, gentlemen, what the situation is. You all understand the theory of the phenomenon, and you know that the observatories of the world and of the other two inhabited planets have checked our own telescopic observations. In addition, there is the phenomenon we observed when the six-inch projectile hit this—this--”

“Call it ‘Gus,’” whispered Mike disrespectfully.

Jimmy glared at him, and continued, “—this—minus planet. I am aware of no alternative theory to explain the behavior of this anomalous body, and most of you appear to be inclined to adhere to the one Dr. Poggenpohl and I have presented.” He looked around the table and saw nothing but a succession of reluctant nods.

“Then, the question is, what to do about it? If it were normal matter it would be bad enough. But then, it might be possible to install huge rocket tubes on the intruder and drive it out of its course sufficiently to miss the Earth by a safe margin. But what can we do with this thing, when, if we touch it, we shall be annihilated? And if we don’t touch it, we shall be annihilated anyhow. At least the Earth, and those who can’t escape to the other planets will be annihilated, and that means ninety-nine per cent of the population. For you know that our combined rocket fleets aren’t enough to move one per cent of the Earth’s population in the time we have available. And even if we could move them—the other planets are only barely inhabitable by man, and certainly could not support all of us.”

“There’s one thing we must do,” remarked the science commissary of the Russians, “and that is to keep this situation a secret, for the present at least. For if we don’t, there will be such a rush for the few rockets we have that half the world’s population will be killed in a few days in the panic. And the rockets themselves will be smashed. We won’t be able to do anything at all with them.”

“There’s no doubt at all on that point,” said the delegate from the Federated States of Europe. “I take it that the meeting is unanimous on that point?” There was another chorus of nods, but this time more enthusiastic. “But has anybody any idea of how to move this—minus planet—out of the course it’s following?”

There was a sodden silence, and then Mike rose slowly to his feet, his red hair bristling with what looked like an idea. “Gentlemen, there’s one other way to move our little country cousin out of his course. Hit him with something heavy that’s moving fast enough to do the job.”

“But what will happen to that thing, whatever it is? Won’t it be annihilated?”

“Not so you could notice it, when it comes to the effect. All the electrons and positrons will be gone, and it won’t be normal matter any more, but the neutrons will be left, and they will have the momentum they started with.”

“Very well, Herr Poggenpohl, but what can we hit it with that will be big enough to make any difference? All the space ships in the solar system, firing all their biggest guns for a year, wouldn’t be enough to do anything to its course! After all, it weighs as much as Jupiter!”

“There’s one projectile available that would be big enough to make quite a perceptible dent in its path: the Moon! We can spare it. All it does is produce the tides. Mount rocket tubes on the Moon, pry it up out of the solar system, and sock the intruder so that its course will be changed and it will fall into the Sun! We can do that if we hit it while it’s still far enough away from the system.”

The council gasped at the suggestion, and there was a chorus of excited protests, which slowly died, as the sheer magnitude of the plan gripped the imaginations of the assembled scientists. Nobody thought of putting the question to a formal vote, and in twenty minutes the meeting had been changed, automatically, into an executive council, which was in an excited argument about ways and means, in which calculating machines, reference books, celestial mechanics, the quantum theory, and polylingual profanity played a prominent part.

Carter pounded on the table and shouted until he managed to attract the attention of the disputants. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I suggest that we present our plans to the various governments, in order to obtain their cooperation in the execution of our project. And I also suggest that publicity can do no harm now, since we have an apparently practicable remedy for the difficulty. The amateur astronomers will let the cat out of the bag very soon, anyway, if we don’t make some statement. And finally, may I suggest that we request the President of the United States to make a television broadcast, explaining the situation to the public, asking their cooperation, and assuring them that the said situation is, as it were, well in hand?”

The assembled scientists stared blankly at him, nodded absent-mindedly, and returned to their discussion, more violently than before. Carter grinned at Mike, lighted a cigarette, and wandered out of the room, in search of a communicator in some place that was quiet enough so that he could make his message to the President heard above the din.

The President revealed the danger to the world in one of his famous fireside broadcasts, concluding with a request that every one remain quietly at his normal duties, unless called upon to cooperate in some way with the scientists who were working at what appeared to be a practicable method of saving the planet.

The heads of the other governments of the world made similar broadcasts.