Chrissy Kolaya - Charmed Particles

“Likewise,” Rose said. “And thank you both,” she said, turning back toward Sarala and Abhijat, “for looking after my daughter today. I imagine she feels like a bit of an orphan during this hearing.” She ran her hand over Lily’s back, but Lily continued her project of conducting a careful study of the mock wood grain of the table.

Back in the auditorium, the audience again took their seats, the officials returning to their places at the long table on the stage.

Looking around the auditorium from her seat on the supporters’ side, Meena felt like she could sense the fear and anger in the room. Fear of the super collider on the part of the protesters. Fear of the protesters on the part of the scientists, who had begun to worry over what would become of the Lab if the super collider wasn’t built. And on both sides, anger that the other side wouldn’t listen to reason. It was a room in which everyone was afraid of everyone else. Meena turned back to face the stage. She had never seen adults like this.

The moderator called the audience back to order. “We will now reconvene today’s hearing on the matter of the Super Collider.”

As Meena watched, she kept a different kind of inventory than the one growing on Lily’s legal pad. Instead, as the speakers resumed, exchanging places at the podium, one after another, Meena noted the speakers who made sound, well-reasoned points:

“Before you scoff at the questions we ask here today,” one woman urged, “take a moment to remember how many times during the past fifty years our government has asked us to trust its decisions. They say they have our best interests at heart, yet twenty years from now, when the true effects are known, all they will say is, ‘We’re sorry. We didn’t know.’ People who believe this will be safe because the federal government says so are being naïve. Those of us who oppose this project are not a lynch mob. We are mothers and fathers, grandparents, homeowners, farmers, and businesspeople who want to protect our homes, our community, our children, and our wildlife.”

One supporter, who introduced himself as a technician at the Lab, pointed out that “this project is not, as many of the opposition would have you believe, ‘welfare for the overeducated’ or ‘a toy for scientists.’ It is a project deserving of our intellectual curiosity and attention.”

At the other end of the spectrum, Meena noted, were the speakers whose words caused one side of the audience or the other to erupt:

“According to these maps they’re showing us, this thing is going to run right underneath my daughter’s school,” one man said. “Now, what about electromagnetic fields? One study I read about found that children living near power lines have more than their fair share of leukemia. And this is going to be located under a school? No one in their right mind could approve such a thing!”

Another speaker, her voice full of anger, insisted, “You people can put as many charts and pages of information as you want in front of us, but it will never take away our fear of living above this experiment. We will not be turned into the next Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. You officials tell us this is safe, but so were the others, until they blew up!”

And then, following these, Meena noticed, were the frustrated, exasperated responses:

“There have been absolutely no incidents in which a collider has blown up,” one of the Lab scientists responded, his voice loud and angry. “This is simply fear-mongering at its worst. What a picture we must present to our government officials here today — a bunch of uninformed yokels who, they will probably decide, don’t deserve the honor and distinction of such a facility.”

One speaker, temper already flaring, began, “I’m tired of hearing from you people at the Lab, who tell us we ought to sacrifice ourselves and our homes for the good of science. You think we ought to listen to you just because you have a bunch of fancy degrees. Well, I might not be a college professor, but I know horseshit when I see it, and as far as I’m concerned, you scientists can all go to hell.” As he spoke, there was a growing crescendo of applause from the opposition side of the auditorium.

Randolph’s and the villagers’ running was no match for the wall of water that rushed in on them.

One moment he was running, heart pounding against his chest. The next he was lifted off his feet — buoyed up, swept past trees, houses, buildings, faster than his own feet could have carried him, and all around, the bobbing heads and limbs and panicked cries of others who had been swept up along with him. He looked frantically for something to grab hold of as the water rushed through the village, carrying him along with it.

Back and forth, one after another, supporters and opponents of the collider took their places at the podium. As Sarala listened, she could sense the disconnect between the careful scientific communication the supporters — especially those from the Lab — felt they needed to use, and the desire on the part of the opponents for guarantees, for absolute assurances about the safety of operating such a facility. The scientists had been trained not to think in such terms. For them, a probability of 99.9 percent was a good answer, she knew, a reasonable indication of safety, but the opponents were tortured over what that 0.1 percent chance might mean for themselves and their families. Beyond their fundamental disagreement on the issue, Sarala thought, the two groups just didn’t know how to talk to one another.

The next woman paused before speaking, allowing herself a moment to smooth her cardigan over her waist in a slow and deliberate way that suggested she wasn’t a person to be rushed. “You scientists tell us that this collider is going to help you understand the Big Bang and the creation of the universe, but I think many of us prefer the version of that we can read about in Genesis. You experts should remember,” she continued, “that not all of us care to know what happens when protons collide with one another.”

Rushing through the center of the village, carried along by the wild, churning water, now full of detritus, Randolph caught site of a large tree approaching. Could he reach it? Would it stand against the water? The ocean rushed on, sweeping him with it. He reached up, caught hold of a branch, and wrapped his arms and legs around the trunk, clinging to it as he pulled himself up slowly. He climbed, wet and shaking, into the highest branches of the tree that would bear his weight and watched, below him, the dark, feral ocean rising.

As the parade of state officials continued, Rose, from her seat on the opponents’ side of the auditorium, was paying careful attention to each of their performances.

The director of the state Department of Agriculture had, she noted, been persuasive, arguing that construction of the collider could result in positive developments. “We see the collider as a mechanism to protect farmland from residential, commercial, and industrial encroachment,” he explained.

She was concerned to hear this opinion echoed by another speaker, a man she recognized as a longtime resident of Nicolet, who asked, “Have you all considered what might become of this land if it’s not acquired for the collider? Maybe we’ll build more $400,000 homes that none of us can afford to live in. Maybe a couple more shopping malls. That’s just wonderful. Make no mistake,” he warned, “change and growth are coming. I believe the collider will give us a way to control that change.”