Sun Dance (64 page)

He sipped more wine and gazed up at the classical mouldings. Ancient civilisations afforded due deference to power and greatness. The colossus of Rhodes, that giant statue of Apollo had stood astride their harbour. He, Sir Joshua Goldberg, would straddle the most powerful force known to man. “You know Nicky dear, this spot of punishment had to be inflicted, the Iranians needed to know where their true interests lie,” and waxing philosophical for a moment, “There's no profit without pain, for someone,” he added.

Today all had gone well. Gold was moving nicely, Nicky would fix the finance for his Scottish nuclear base, dear Nicky. Goldberg slipped an arm under his friend's waist. The pair rocked gently together. The warmth, the alluring scent, the soporific warmth, Nuen's chairman saw himself on a white marble plinth, busts of the great and good lined the stairs of his mind. “You know Nicky,” he drooled, “we need a mini war from time to time, keeps the system topped up. As one of Britain's finest Prime Ministers once said on a successful day, ‘Rejoice, rejoice.'

Sensual lighting from the masterly ceiling reflected upon two white bodies, and in its caressing glow the whirlpool of bubbles sparkled. A responsive Sir Joshua was beginning to enjoy his friend's attentions.

It was play time.

Smashing fundamental particles together as they accelerated round a circuit within an intense magnetic field had been my job. All those years I’d spent working at the Hadron Collider outside Geneva, staring into a screen crunching data through my computer now a seemed world divorced from a creative thinking which saw more artistically into the origins and future of the universe. I didn’t belittle my scientific background. It yielded the raw material to fire my imagination, and imagination is the fuel of science. Simple life at Ach na Mara was the catalyst of fresh ideas; as with Sandray, I had time and space.

Regarding Einstein to have been mistaken was heresy but I’d come to believe that any measurement, no matter how large or small, could only be an approximation. I saw the universe as an immense evolving system without any constant factor and therefore no fixed point. Were there even one constant, such as a finite speed for the photons of light, I believed the universe would not exist in the form we presently observe it, or indeed even exist at all. The introduction of a cosmic constant into calculations was a mathematical trick. The aim of my research in Switzerland had been to find the fundamental particle by which energy transformed to matter. Now, contemplating the nature of the universal driver of eternal change stirred my imagination.

The trigger for these thoughts came about through young Eachan’s need for a computer as part of his schooling. We both had doubts as to its function in promoting learning and least of all for encouraging common sense or advancing an order of priorities which might aid future survival. The internet communications it opened up, such as Twitter and Facebook appeared to us pointless and time wasting by comparison to reading or playing games in the fresh air. Its role in providing children with violent games and virtual reality stunts left us disgusted.

Our concern however went far beyond the classroom. Highly vulnerable areas of modern civilisation were serviced by computers. Banking to accounting, aircraft to weapon systems, satellites and power lines, down to mundane usage, we were falling victim to IT domination and its vulnerability. Recently we’d learnt that the perimeter of the nuclear submarine and weapons base on the Clyde was patrolled by autonomous robot vehicles operating independent of human control.

Apparently they were able to engage an intruder using a laser weapon if necessary and return lethal shots if fired upon. “Safeguarding nuclear weapon dumps could be trickier than just deploying intelligent surveillance machines,” We talked seriously one evening after the boy was in bed, “How long before robots are out on the city streets?” I commented and Eilidh extended the theme, “How long before the mega-wealthy have them running around the outside of their exclusive compounds?” I ended the conversation rather grimly, “Autonomous killing by robots is just round the corner, and if you want gloom and doom I’m your man.” We laughed in spite of the thought.

The attack on Iran stepped up the level of security on Sandray. The round the clock drone of helicopter activity drowned out our natural world. Naval vessels appeared over the horizon escorting incoming ships. Castleton School overlooked the Minch and on one occasion, Eachan, his eyes bright with excitement, came bursting through the door to tell us, “An aircraft carrier was in the Sound today, we could see the fighter planes on the deck.”

In many ways the danger of an attack on Sandray by external forces worried me less than the knowledge gleaned from visiting other nuclear installations many years ago. Experience told me that the Sandray underground dump would be a maze of computer and robotic controls. From working in Geneva I understood and feared the unpredictable nature of complex systems.

Producing food rather than commuting to an office emphasised a change in weather patterns. Weeks of dry terminated in endless spells of rain. When storms hit, the wind speeds had no problem reaching ninety. Livestock and crofter alike, in our simple way of farming we were struggling; it was far from factory farming- all under a roof converting oil into food. Most obvious to me working outside, was a quite distinctive shift in the type of rain which fell. Not so much the thin soft drizzle, a cross between fog and rain drifting in off the sea to settle on my woollen jersey like a silver mould; more frequently the droplets were large and heavy, pounding the ground, causing me to turn up my coat collar.

Record droughts in Australia, followed by torrential rain and floods, melting glaciers in other parts of the world, mud slides engulfing remote Brazilian villages and tragic flooding on the plains of Pakistan; mystic soothsayers of the sandwich board variety quoted Nostradamus,
the end is nigh.
More scientifically minded pundits blamed the extremes of weather on the sun’s current quiescent state. Astrophysicists informed us that the normal eleven year sun spot cycle had stretched. The period of minimal activity on the sun’s surface did appear to be unusually extended.

Historians quoted the mammoth disruption to the world’s fledgling communication network of 1859. The spectacle of the northern aurora was witnessed over Rome, the sky blazed with shooting colours and people flocked to church. Apart from Quebec’s entire power supply being knocked out 1989, well, history was history… what’s on tonight’s telly?

In America, scientists at NASA’s Space Flight Centre were becoming increasingly concerned. The sun was sleeping, and they sure didn’t like it.

Sir Joshua arrived unannounced on the summit pad of Sandray. He preferred his visits to be a complete surprise. It kept the staff on duty in a state of unease. His personal helicopter flew out from Nuen’s nuclear weapons base on the Clyde, ostensibly heading for London. Once airborne he shouted into the intercom, “Head for Sandray!” The pilot nodded and banked northwest. Fully aware this change of course should immediately be notified to the Traffic Controller at Glasgow airport, he remained silent. Goldberg preferred it that way.

A flurry of courtesy greeted their Chairman. Would he care for lunch, coffee in the central operating gallery? “Not at the moment, I shall go straight down to inspect the storage chamber.” Goldberg had no wish to allow any delaying tactic which might enable possible shortcomings to be rectified.

The Chief Technician, alerted from the switchboard, made a hurried appearance, “Good afternoon, sir.” Goldberg inclined his head, “You’ll kindly accompany me. Firstly I want a full inspection of the underground area.” “Of course, of course, sir,” the technician ushered his employer to the main lift shaft and the pair descended into the bowels of a storage centre designed to hold enriched uranium with a half life varying from a few hundred to tens of thousands of years.

Five hundred feet below the summit of the Hill of the Shroud, Goldberg stepped out of the passenger lift into the halogen whiteness of a huge concrete lined chamber.The couple stood on the stainless steel platform looking down on a series of massive lead covers securing the top of an extensive line of boreholes. To their left, a track way running alongside them disappeared down a narrower tunnel which led to the unloading jetty on the shore. A large container of waste on a low loading trolley moved silently, inch at a time, up the track. Robotic machines, their green security lights flashing, slid into place. Clawing arms waved towards the cylinder. Another massive robot positioned itself over the mighty lead cap. Operators in the central control module regulated the whole slow motion dance on 3D screens.

Man, robot and remote control. No humans ever entered this subterranean hall without express permission, nor without wearing heavy lead lined clothing. Ignoring his own regulation Sir Joshua stood before a majestic display of human endeavour. In the Halls of Valhalla, amidst cloud and thunder, lived the Viking Gods of the sea rover’s belief, omnipotent in their power over the life or death of humankind. Under the hill of their island sanctuary, the Hill of the Shroud was built. A chamber of echoes, hallowed alone by its power to obliterate human life. In the funereal hollow, before moving arms which knew no feeling except the pulse of circuits, Goldberg deemed himself at the apex of his life; supreme control, answerable to none, other than his own free will.

“Where is that consignment from?” Sir Joshua watched the canister’s deliberate trundle towards its burial vault, “France, sir.” “Excellent. How close are we to capacity?” “Only twenty-five percent storage left, sir.” Goldberg smiled inwardly. The inestimable value of what he controlled, the sheer unadulterated, fabulous wealth, his cultured mind whispered; a fortune beyond even the fabled riches of Babylon.

“Follow me.” Sir Joshua spoke over his shoulder, “I shall examine the far end of the unit. We shall widen this tunnel, drill some deeper bore holes, double the present capacity.”

Along the wide steel gantry flanked by monitoring dials and lights, Goldberg marched.

His footsteps rang out, hollow and metallic…

Ninety-three million miles and twenty-five days to each rotation, the furnace at our solar heart turns slow. Six thousand degrees are on its face, a roaring fusion is within. Five billion years remain to drink our power house dry. Crunched by gravity’s brutal jaw, a shrunken dwarf, it’s girth no bigger than this earth. Electrons jostle protons, pack so dense and tight a spoonful of its matter weighs three tonnes or more. No planets left, away it spins, its light a guttering flicker. Our once proud sun and fifty billion dwarfs which too were suns are companions in the galaxy. There, inert and feeble they await the day when the great Andromeda spiral will crash into our Milky Way; and Dark Energy begins its fight to oust the power of Gravity; and deal the final hand of fate.

Three hundred million years is one rotation of our galaxy, a dot amidst the denizens of space where a hundred thousand million systems swirl. Can we contemplate such span of time? Death will banish time. For at the centre of this Universe, gargantuan and supreme, there spins the black dark hole through which all things are drawn; a single point that turns infinity to eternity. And in the brightness of one creative flash all posibilties awake to fields of Universes new. Will consciousness endure, be born again? Become some form which owes survival to imagination’s strength? Will entangled waves of this self same energy feast on knowledge, posses the power to build a Universe?