Samuel Florman - The Aftermath

“Captain, Dr. Hardy, I know that what I have told you sounds fantastic; but I have it on excellent authority—and I have run the numbers myself, several times now.” She glanced down at the maroon carpet on the floor of the room, finding it difficult to look at them directly. “The impact will occur at about eleven our time, which is about four in the afternoon on the East Coast, one P.M. West Coast time, in the States.” Each man looked at his wristwatch. “Yes, just two hours from now,” she confirmed.

Hardy removed his glasses. A widower, in his early sixties, he had a kindly if somber face, and a full head of hair streaked with gray and white. “What shall we do about it? I cannot really accept this—emotionally, that is. Intellectually, I do understand what you are saying, Dr. Warner, and I believe you, but—” He shrugged and gestured helplessly with his hands, unable to finish his statement.

Nordstrom, too, was taken aback, rapidly processing Jane’s information and the implications for his ship, its crew and passengers. Inevitably, he thought of his family in Oslo, which made his heart pound painfully. There was time to contact them, and he was determined to try, before he began to prepare his vessel for… for what?

“I ask the same question as Dr. Hardy: What must we do? How will this—this thing affect us? Can you tell us, please?” His calm, polite tone barely masked the fear and sadness he was feeling. Like the American engineer, his well-trained professional mind fought to overcome the primitive, emotional responses of the human animal.

“It is possible,” Jane replied, “that we will be crushed by fragments of the comet, or engulfed by huge tsunamis, or assailed by fire from the sky, flames that consume everything including our oxygen, or annihilated in some other way I can’t even think of. In short, I don’t know the answer. Or perhaps we might be spared. I’m dealing with numbers and uncertain suppositions.” Then, seeing the look of horror and incomprehension on each man’s face, Jane continued: “Captain, I feel that we should do nothing until we know more—except maybe you want to confine all the passengers to their cabins by eleven P.M. Some kind of curfew, with whatever excuse you need to use.”

“Sounds like a wise suggestion to me,” Hardy volunteered, and Nordstrom agreed.

So, about ten thirty, the passengers were notified of the eleven o’clock curfew, with a severe weather forecast attached. The evening had been in full swing, with continuing Christmas celebrations and cocktails or dinner being served in a number of dining rooms, many of the children still awake playing with the toys they had received earlier in the day.

Jane paced back and forth in her stateroom. Jake Warner had retired early, after a busy day of kibbitzing and cocktails, and a post-dinner poker game. She was jealous of his carefree state of ignorance. As the fateful curfew hour approached, she slipped outside and went to the port-side deck rail, looking into the black sky. Cloud shards swept past the spectacular showcase of stars.

A few minutes later, straight ahead, as she looked west northwest, she saw a thin horizon line—a dirty yellow glow—that had not been there before, that was not supposed to be there at this time of night. As she watched, transfixed, the line began to turn red and widened to a band that appeared to be approaching the ship.

She heard a piercing scream, a shriek really, in the distance from another deck level. Then nothing. She stood silently, gripping the handrail, feeling the sweat of her own palms. Then another sound, a man’s voice shouting and others responding—doors opening and closing. Down along the deck passage where she stood, two doors opened and people came out and, like her, went to the railing and looked into the sky.

Next, she heard words from some of her fellow passengers: “I was on the telephone and it went dead.” “They said there was some disaster.” “What’s happening out there—look!” “I’m scared to death. What is it?” Jane began to walk slowly along the deck as more people came outside giving vent to expressions of alarm. The sky glowed more brilliantly red, and the air around the ship became increasingly warm, then oppressively hot.

Within minutes the captain came on the loudspeaker system, sounding businesslike and composed. He stated that the glow around the ship was in some way related to the comet, which apparently had made contact with the earth. The possibility of danger for the ship—and for the world—was still unknown; but there was good reason to hope for the best. He urged everyone to remain as calm as they could, and to keep the children indoors. He stated that the ship appeared to be totally secure and undamaged and that all passengers and crew were accounted for and unharmed. He assured that all systems—radar, sonar, and particularly radio—would be kept on high alert, in an effort to make contact with other ships or people on shore.

Jane heard a child start to cry, and then another. Within minutes, the emotional atmosphere was charged with fear and despair. Jane could see, however, that the children served as a calming influence on the adults. She was not a parent herself, but she could imagine how powerful is the impulse to spare one’s children from anguish. Like the father in Life Is Beautiful, which won an Oscar several years ago—the father who, for the sake of his young son, made a game out of being in a concentration camp—the parents among the passengers put on the performance of their lives.

Passengers started to gather in clusters, exchanging rumors and bits of information. Jane overheard one animated conversation among a group who had been talking on telephones or listening to short-wave radios in their cabins. She heard them repeating certain key phrases which had been gleaned from sources in various parts of the world: “red sky,” “awful heat,” “roaring fire,” with an occasional “Oh my God!” She could not stand it any more and went back to her own cabin, where her husband had awakened and was standing half-naked outside their door.

By this time the sky was incandescent, pulsing like the light atop a police car, and the temperature was well over one hundred ten degrees Fahrenheit.

She touched Jake’s arm. “I’m going to speak to the captain,” she said.

“He told us to stay in our rooms. What the devil is this? It’s hotter than hell out here. Is it some kind of nuclear war or something?”

As calmly as she could, she gave him the sixty-second version of the disaster. “It’s the end of the world as we know it, Jake,” she concluded. “You were too busy having fun today, I didn’t want to spoil it for you.” She left him standing there stunned, and ran up toward the bridge.

Encountering one of the ship’s officers, she asked what news was coming in from the outside world. “None,” was the reply. “Not asound.” Then the officer reaffirmed what the captain had said: that the ship’s systems were all functioning, antennas in place, skilled operators anxiously rotating dials. But no signals had been detected—not for the last half hour. He barred her way toward the control center, saying, “The captain ordered it, ma’am—and that means everybody. That’s his exact words, ma’am.”

The tension throughout the ship was now palpable. The sky continued to glow unnaturally, and the heat coming from every angle created the feeling that the vessel and everyone aboard was in a pressure cooker.

After an hour—an agonizing hour—the red glow diminished, the sky turned a murky purple-blue, and the heat started gradually to ease. The immediate crisis seemed to have passed. Jane and the others felt relieved, dazed, and most of all, bewildered.

The first shock wave arrived at a little past four in the morning with a dull thud and a shuddering of the ship. But there was no visible damage, and Captain Nordstrom again gave a brief and calming message over the loudspeaker system. Three hours later, the Queen of Africa felt a second impact, this time from pressure coming around the world the longer way. Close to the comet’s point of impact, the blast effects had been cataclysmic. But for these survivors, so far distant, the explosive force posed no danger either to the ship or to any passengers.