It is the appalling danger to Earth’s magnetic field! The Earth is a magnet, you know, and like any other magnet is surrounded by a magnetic field. If you want proof of it, look at the compass needle revealing the lines of force between the two poles.”
“High school stuff,” Ken said. “What about it?”
“That magnetic field, Ken, is our protection against appalling disaster! If it were to break down, the consequences would be terrible, and it is because the possibility exists that I am so worried. As yet I cannot seem to get all the astronomers to worry with me, but they will as the spots multiply. The more the sunspots increase, the greater becomes the danger of the magnetic field collapsing.”
Ken gave a half-smile, and then it faded. Knowing Drew as he did, knowing his profound scientific knowledge and that he only concerned himself with facts, it was disturbing to find him so uneasy. He never worried without good reason.
“Sunspots go in cycles,” Drew, explained. “Highs and lows return in approximately eleven years—but there are other variations in their regularity which are the outcome of another independent cycle of more than a century’s duration. Up to now, the highs of the eleven-year and the hundred-year cycles have never matched, though astronomers have known for long enough it must do so about a year hence. It means the absolute maximum of sunspot activity, an activity never known in the history of the world. With those high cycles working together, and at maximum, our magnetic field might collapse!”
Ken cast a glance towards the window. There was a rectangle of evening sky with a star gleaming between the sides of lofty buildings. The extraordinary peace made it hard for him to believe.…
“Frankly, Anton,” he said, after a moment, “I’m hazy about what the magnetic field does. I’m an engineer, not an astronomer.”
“The magnetic field,” Drew said, “is our only protection against cosmic rays. It is so strong that only cosmic rays of energy greater than 200-million electron volts can penetrate it, but when these do penetrate, things happen. You find two-headed chickens, double-fingered children, five-legged calves—all kinds of monstrosities. Why? Because the parental germ plasm has been accidentally struck by cosmic radiation which has completely distorted it, with the result that a freak is born.…”
Drew took his pipe from his teeth and contemplated it.
“Under present conditions, Ken, with the magnetic field doing its normal job, the chances of a hit by cosmic rays are infinitely remote, but the cases I have instanced show it does happen every now and again. Roughly speaking, the cosmic rays aim thirty shots at every living body every second, and each body has something like a thousand trillion trillion atoms. But consider these atoms, as apart as island universes, each with their planetary electrons separated from the nucleus by distances proportionate to those between members of the Solar System— Then we see why a direct hit is unlikely. The cosmic radiation projectiles, as we might call them, go straight through empty space.
“Consider, though, the effect if the field were only partially weakened. Eight hundred million billion cosmic rays strike Earth every second with a thousand times the voltage of lightning. Imagine even a part of that inconceivable energy raining down upon us, upon everything. Life as we would know it would cease. The most incredible changes would occur. It would be…the end of the world.”
“Not very cheering,” Ken muttered, “but I don’t see the connection between the magnetic field and sunspots, though. How do they affect each other?”
“The atomic storms of the sun—sunspots—are responsible for its own magnetic field,” Drew answered. “The stronger the solar field becomes, the weaker becomes the Earth’s. That is elementary law. Hence, a vast number of sunspots will enormously increase the sun’s potential, and correspondingly lower Earth’s field. We may survive this hundred-year-cycle of spots with nothing worse than violent magnetic storms, which are bound to develop before long; or we may have something much worse to contend with if the spots continue to increase.”
Ken got to his feet.
“How long have you known of this possibility?” he asked.
“Does it signify?”
“Of course it does! Isn’t it time the authorities were told about it?”
“No use,” Drew answered, shrugging. “Even most of the astronomers think I’m a scaremonger, so you can imagine the reaction of the Government!”
“I can’t see why reputable astronomers refuse to listen to you.”
“I’ll tell you why.” Drew’s face became grim. “They just haven’t the imagination to hurdle the gap between the obvious and the possible. Astronomy, to them, is just routine. They fail to realise that these sunspots, unchecked, might cause catastrophe. In any case, if the Governments of the world were told, think of the panic! The population of Earth would look like an overturned anthill.”
“I suppose,” Ken said, after a troubled interval, “it is rather foolish to plan for the future? As things are?”
“I suppose it is,” Drew agreed, musing.
Silence.
“Well, I don’t believe it!” Ken declared at last. “It isn’t that I doubt you: it’s just that I can’t credit the human race being blotted out. Look at the things we have achieved. Destruction would just knock the bottom out of all reason for living!”
“I take a dim view of humanity myself,” Drew sighed. “Here we are in the twenty-first century, still so absorbed in thinking up ways of killing each other we still haven’t mastered some of the more virulent diseases, or how to properly feed everyone on the planet. To my mind, humanity deserves to be blotted out.”
“Anton—do you think I should tell Thayleen of your theory?”
“Why worry the poor girl?” Drew gave a shrug. “If she thinks the world is coming to an end, her musical gifts may go to pot. Why bother upsetting her? She’ll know soon enough when the news can’t be suppressed anymore.”
Ken gave an uneasy smile. “I came here to tell you I expect to be a father, and you hand me the end of the world! We certainly cover the ground, don’t we?”
“Yes. Like you, there is much I wanted to do.”
“Wanted?” Ken repeated. “That sounds as though you regard the end as inevitable, and not just a possibility.”
“I have been trying to let you down lightly,” Drew admitted quietly. “Perhaps that wasn’t very sensible, since you are anything but a weakling. Beyond a shadow of doubt, Ken, the end of the world is coming, because it is scientifically impossible to escape it.”
“But you hinted at a doubt—!”
“I’d have let you go away thinking that, only my past tense a moment ago tripped me up. Listen, Ken, the naked facts are these: sunspots are constantly increasing, and we are only at the start of a hundred-year-cycle in which is incorporated the normal eleven-year cycle. The spots cannot possibly get less for the next hundred years! A century, man! Whether they will destroy the sun as they progress, I don’t know, though I imagine his collapse into a white dwarf is possible; but long before that happens, this world of ours will have become the target for the full blast of cosmic rays, and we ourselves will only be memories.”
“It sounds
