Read Online The Citadel and the Wolves by Peter Goodman - Free Book Online
Authors: Peter Goodman
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though the other wasn’t a boy. He was a man and good-looking too. I bit my lip. What was I thinking? I blushed self-consciously behind my comic.
“Passing close to the influence of Mars has now increased the velocity of the comet by perhaps up to 1.2 kilometres per second,” answered Frank…daddy grimly.
One or two in daddy’s group whistled. They seemed impressed by his figures, though 1.2 kilometres per second didn’t seem very fast to me till I did some simple mental arithmetic in my head. I realised astonished that 1.2 kilometres per second was over 4000 kilometres per hour. I almost whistled too. The thought also frightened me. That was only the increased acceleration point of the comet.
“So, how fast is the comet travelling now, Frank?” wondered another in unscientific terms.
It was a question that was on my lips too.
“The comet is now travelling at almost 15 kilometres per second,” replied daddy as a matter of fact.
About 54,000 kilometres per hour, I thought. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I tried not to think about such fantastic speeds. The comet hitting the earth at that speed was a nightmare vision. It was almost unimaginable.
“Frank, what is the comet’s mass?” someone else.
“A comet is a pretty small thing in space compared to a planetary body, so it’s extremely difficult to calculate its mass from such a distance.”
Daddy is right. I’ve observed the comet through his telescope. It’s little more than a pinprick of light in the vastness of outer space. It seems harmless enough, yet I and daddy know that it isn’t. Daddy had the answer because he had worked it out with the help of his computer. He was being too modest again, I thought.
“Hazard a guess, Frank,” urged another.
Daddy lit his pipe thoughtfully before he answered the question: “Although the science isn’t an exact one, we now know that the radius of the rogue comet is about 2 kilometres, so the mass must be in the order of many megatons.”
ZOOTWOSOME! Many megatons? My mind boggled. I knew the figure was almost astronomical. When I was 7 or 8 as I recall, a rock from heaven (daddy called it a meteorite) crashed into our garden greenhouse, breaking one of the glass panes. But that was a tiny pebble compared to ‘Robinson’s Comet,’ which was the size of a minor planet!
“Frank, what sort of destruction would a comet of this size cause?” another.
“It would probably wipe out most of Western Europe.”
Most of Western Europe? I went cold inside.
Daddy added, “The comet would leave a crater many kilometres deep and wide, cause giant tidal waves, trigger earthquakes and volcanic eruptions throughout the world, and the impact of the rogue comet would throw up billions of tonnes of rock and ash into the upper atmosphere, blocking out the sun for decades, even centuries, which could lead to a new ice age.”
Dad was painting a very gloomy picture indeed for the future of mankind. But what would it mean for me?
“I’ve been studying the behaviour of our rogue comet too, Frank,” said one, “and it seems to me that it could be made up entirely of ice and water and would evaporate harmlessly anyway as soon as it had entered the outer layers of the earth’s atmosphere.”
A few murmured in agreement.
Perhaps the speaker was right. I hoped so. We’d all worried for nothing. The end of the world wasn’t around the corner.
“Metals and rock,” insisted daddy.
“Frank, do you seriously believe that this fragment of the Icarus 9 Comet is going to collide with the planet earth sometime in the near future?” queried the first dissenting voice in the group of believers.
I was surprised. Who was it? I peered over my comic. It was an older head, which didn’t surprise me. It was someone who couldn’t accept that such a catastrophe would ever be visited upon our world, yet it had in the distant past. I thought of the dinosaurs again.
But daddy threw the question right back at
“Passing close to the influence of Mars has now increased the velocity of the comet by perhaps up to 1.2 kilometres per second,” answered Frank…daddy grimly.
One or two in daddy’s group whistled. They seemed impressed by his figures, though 1.2 kilometres per second didn’t seem very fast to me till I did some simple mental arithmetic in my head. I realised astonished that 1.2 kilometres per second was over 4000 kilometres per hour. I almost whistled too. The thought also frightened me. That was only the increased acceleration point of the comet.
“So, how fast is the comet travelling now, Frank?” wondered another in unscientific terms.
It was a question that was on my lips too.
“The comet is now travelling at almost 15 kilometres per second,” replied daddy as a matter of fact.
About 54,000 kilometres per hour, I thought. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I tried not to think about such fantastic speeds. The comet hitting the earth at that speed was a nightmare vision. It was almost unimaginable.
“Frank, what is the comet’s mass?” someone else.
“A comet is a pretty small thing in space compared to a planetary body, so it’s extremely difficult to calculate its mass from such a distance.”
Daddy is right. I’ve observed the comet through his telescope. It’s little more than a pinprick of light in the vastness of outer space. It seems harmless enough, yet I and daddy know that it isn’t. Daddy had the answer because he had worked it out with the help of his computer. He was being too modest again, I thought.
“Hazard a guess, Frank,” urged another.
Daddy lit his pipe thoughtfully before he answered the question: “Although the science isn’t an exact one, we now know that the radius of the rogue comet is about 2 kilometres, so the mass must be in the order of many megatons.”
ZOOTWOSOME! Many megatons? My mind boggled. I knew the figure was almost astronomical. When I was 7 or 8 as I recall, a rock from heaven (daddy called it a meteorite) crashed into our garden greenhouse, breaking one of the glass panes. But that was a tiny pebble compared to ‘Robinson’s Comet,’ which was the size of a minor planet!
“Frank, what sort of destruction would a comet of this size cause?” another.
“It would probably wipe out most of Western Europe.”
Most of Western Europe? I went cold inside.
Daddy added, “The comet would leave a crater many kilometres deep and wide, cause giant tidal waves, trigger earthquakes and volcanic eruptions throughout the world, and the impact of the rogue comet would throw up billions of tonnes of rock and ash into the upper atmosphere, blocking out the sun for decades, even centuries, which could lead to a new ice age.”
Dad was painting a very gloomy picture indeed for the future of mankind. But what would it mean for me?
“I’ve been studying the behaviour of our rogue comet too, Frank,” said one, “and it seems to me that it could be made up entirely of ice and water and would evaporate harmlessly anyway as soon as it had entered the outer layers of the earth’s atmosphere.”
A few murmured in agreement.
Perhaps the speaker was right. I hoped so. We’d all worried for nothing. The end of the world wasn’t around the corner.
“Metals and rock,” insisted daddy.
“Frank, do you seriously believe that this fragment of the Icarus 9 Comet is going to collide with the planet earth sometime in the near future?” queried the first dissenting voice in the group of believers.
I was surprised. Who was it? I peered over my comic. It was an older head, which didn’t surprise me. It was someone who couldn’t accept that such a catastrophe would ever be visited upon our world, yet it had in the distant past. I thought of the dinosaurs again.
But daddy threw the question right back at
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