Eric Flint - Time spike

So it wasn't as if the issues that Margo would occasionally express pungent opinions about weren't real issues. He could even see-quite easily, in fact-her side of the matter. The problem was the attitude that usually lay beneath, for him. He'd found most people with liberal or radical political views to be glib and cavalier in the solutions they advocated, and it was that more than anything else he found so irritating about them. Measures and policies that seemed clear and simple in a Manhattan cocktail party were not clear and simple at all, if you were the poor bastard in the trenches who had to carry them out. On the gripping hand-he was a science fiction fan, and particularly liked Niven and Pournelle'sThe Mote in God's Eye -it was difficult to imagine Margo at a Manhattan socialite's cocktail party.

She'd been born, bred and raised on that most peculiar of America's islands, and in most ways shared its inhabitants' unique mix of hyper-sophistication and abysmal insularity. But there was nothing flighty about her at all. As he brooded and pondered, giving only half his attention to the discussion at the table, Margo flashed the smile at some jest made by Karen Berg. Nick, quit stalling. Just ask the lady out. If you leave without even giving it a shot, you'll be cursing yourself the rest of your life. Everything finally came into focus. That left the problem, of course, of where you went out on a date in an iron mine. "-world they'd be in would be predominantly early Cretaceous, but there'd be elements from every time and place the spike stuttered and wobbled-including, of course, their own-and every place in time periods still earlier where what we've called the reverberations struck." Cohen paused in his summary, for a moment, and stroked his beard. "You'd have everything in that mix, from modern plants and animals and people to animals and plants from-possibly, at least-as early as the Devonian. Am I right?" "Yes, Alex, you are."

That came from Morgan-Ash. "How big would the geographical area be?

What I mean is, at whatever time the spike finally stopped and… dropped everything off, how's that?" A little laugh went up.

"At that specific place in time-let's assume for the moment that the center of the estimate is valid and they wound up in the year one hundred and thirty-five million BP-how big would the area be in which this incredible time jumble applied? I'm assuming, at least, that it couldn't possibly cover the entire planet." "Oh, God no." Dingley looked startled, for a moment. He'd obviously not considered this aspect of the problem. "I have no idea what sort of energy figures you'd need to carry through a complete time jumble that covered the whole surface of the planet, but…" He looked at the display.

"Karen, go back to image ten, would you?" After she did so, he studied the new display for a moment and shook his head. "Not a chance, Alex.

Even with almost all of the energy striking along the time dimension, that sort of energy would have left a crater in southern Illinois the size of…" He peered at one of the paleontologists from the museum, Fred Gibbs. "What's the name of that damn thing in Yucatan?"

Gibbs smiled. "Chicxulub. The best way to learn to pronounce it"-here he gave Margo a theatrically apprehensive look-"but make sure there aren't any radical feminists around-is 'Chicks Who Lube.' If you say that maybe ten times in a row accompanied by any serious use of your visual imagination, I guarantee you'll remember how to pronounce it."

That brought a big round of laughs; Margo's, louder than anyone else's. Once it died down, Leo shook his head. "I'm afraid-again, alas-that we can't give you a precise answer. But I figure the radius of the… okay, guys, what do we call it?" "Blast zone," said Brisebois. "Call it that, why not? I'm sure from the standpoint of the people caught in the spike, that's what it must look like." The somewhat grim note quieted everyone for a moment. Then, Leo nodded. " 'Blast zone' it is." He pursed his lips, studying the diagram. "I figure the radius of the blast zone has to be at least fifty kilometers. At the upper limit… figure two hundred kilometers. If I was placing a bet, though, I'd probably plunk it down on a radius of somewhere between seventy and eighty kilometers." "And-assuming you were in position to explore at all-if you traveled beyond the perimeter of the blast zone," said Cohen, "you'd find yourself in the normal conditions of the early Cretaceous." "That's right." The elderly financier leaned back, his hands on the table. "I have to tell you, I am deeply impressed with the work you've done here. It exemplifies, I believe, the reason I've been so devoted to the pursuit of science my whole life." A wry smile came to his face. "Perhaps some of that is compensation, I suppose, for a lingering feeling of failure. You'd think someone who can play the stock market as well as I do would have managed to get better than a 'D' in high school math and a 'C-minus' in physics and chemistry." Another little laugh went up. It was a bit hushed, though. All of the scientists around the table, if not perhaps the policemen, understood that they were on the verge of that precipice that all scientific projects were forced to skirt. The great yawning chasm called "money." Cohen understood it also, of course. He smiled serenely. "I think I can spare us all a lot of awkwardness, at the cocktail party you've gone to such lengths to organize this evening-no small feat, I imagine, in such an isolated area. I will have my people running the foundation start funneling every dime we can manage to The Project. We do have many existing commitments, of course, which I feel obligated to sustain. But I'm quite prepared to tap deeply into the foundation's capital, if necessary, not just use the interest and dividends." The scientists at the table seemed frozen. That would be their way of maintaining decorum. Otherwise, they'd be leaping around the room making war whoops and whatever pitiful attempts they could at dancing. The Cohen Foundation had alot of money. "There are some conditions, though. The first and most important is that I want someone running this show. I mean no offense, but the sort of relaxed and collegial way you've managed The Project's work thus far simply won't do any longer." The scientists were not entirely pleased with that, of course. But they'd half-expected it, assuming Cohen had proved interested. "Yes, of course," said Morgan-Ash firmly. "That sort of funding needs careful handling and accounting for." "I'm not particularly concerned about that," said Cohen. "Yes, obviously, we'll need serious bookkeeping and accountability. But I've done quite a few inquiries since I arrived.

One of the things I discovered-not to my surprise-is that every scientist attached to The Project undoubtedly suffered some damage to their career prospects as a result of it. I hardly think people who'd do that voluntarily are people I need to watch like hawks to make sure they don't pilfer the till." He shook his head. "The problem lies elsewhere. As much as I'm fascinated by the science involved, my personal attitudes are far closer to those"-he nodded at Harshbarger and Boyle-"of the policemen sitting at the table." Grimly: "I also think a crime is being committed here. And quite possibly more than one. As I'll explain in a moment." He looked at the display. "The point is, I want someone in charge who isn't quite as… detached, so to speak. And, even more importantly, has a completely different mindset. I believe The Project is the most important-critical, at least-scientific project since the Manhattan Project. I will let you scientists choose your own equivalent of Oppenheimer. But I want my equivalent of General Groves." Nick Brisebois shook his head. "Alex, I think you're going way over the top. I'm not sure I even agree with Tim that you can call the government's policies with regard to these time events a 'crime' in the first place. National security run amok, sure. But that's not the same thing." "Isn't it? I believe I can make a good case that, in a democracy, what you call 'national security run amok'is a crime." Cohen waved his hand. "Leave that aside for the moment. It's public knowledge that I am sharply critical of the current administration. They have no love for me; nor I, for them.