Version from 16 February 2008
‘Can you see it?’ Sam gasped, struggling to hold the top of the toroid tube on his shoulder.
Michael squinted along the magnet’s shiny alloy casing into the gloomy cavern overhead. Yes, he thought, I can see it, but why waste time talking about it? We’ve failed again. The toroid’s still pulling it down and it’s impossible to stop it now. In a few seconds your head’s going to be sucked into it, Sam. Then it will hit the Earth and we’re all going to die.
Michael Zhang was almost reconciled to death now. Indeed, he was more excited than afraid. This was a truly historic moment. In all probability this was the first persistent micro-black-hole that had ever been created in the history of the Universe. As the scientist most directly involved in its development, and the one who had been trying unsuccessfully to control it, he was desperately keen to observe it. He would never be able to record his observations or communicate them to anyone, but at least he would learn something from this disaster. Michael was still intensely proud of his brain-child, even though he knew it was about to kill him. His only regret was that he had not anticipated it would last this long, nor that it would emerge from ATLAS and threaten the Earth. Nobody could possibly have predicted such an outcome, which was clearly not his fault.
From this position, lying on the cavern floor at Sam’s feet with his arms still wrapped round the bottom of the toroid, it wasn’t easy to see the hole. An intense beam of light was shining down through the huge shaft overhead, illuminating the stretcher and the firefighter hanging in the middle of the ATLAS cavern. The beam dazzled him and the hole itself was very small so he couldn’t see it directly, but he knew where it was. It bent the light like a powerful lens, creating the illusion of a dent in the firefighter’s yellow helmet. His biggest problem in observing it accurately was that the man’s boots were in the way.
Michael tried to roll onto his back for a better view, careless of the broken ATLAS shards scattered across the concrete, but his jacket sleeves had caught in the torn edges of the tube and he couldn’t move. He quickly gave up the struggle and returned to peering along it. He wanted to see if the hole itself would be visible when it came close.
‘Michael,’ Sam Fitzpatrick said urgently, still struggling with the heavy toroid, big as a man’s body and twice as heavy. ‘Is this pointing the right way?’
‘Yes,’ Michael said quietly and continued to track the hole. The distortion left the firefighter’s helmet and moved down his back. The words on his grey uniform bulged and buckled:
FIRE & RESCUE
CERN
SECOURS & FEU
Then Michael lost sight of the hole as it moved behind Sam’s head. Only a few more seconds left, he thought, and smiled grimly. How ironic that people had been so worried about nuclear war, terrorism, global warming and other such trivia when the world was going to be destroyed by his simple little black hole. He knew that it would only take a few more seconds to reach the cavern floor and then only a few minutes to sink to the centre of the Earth, swallowing everything in its path like a worm burrowing into an apple. This situation was so terrible that the tragedy had turned into farce. He almost giggled as he imagined the slurp and gurgle as it sucked away the molten iron core, like water running down a drain. The mantle would collapse, of course, and the crust would melt. Every human being on Earth was going to be boiled alive, there was no question about that and Michael felt no compunction. He consoled himself by reflecting that humanity was, after all, just a passing phase of evolution. On some other planet, somewhere in the Galaxy, other forms of life were no doubt evolving. Hopefully they would be more intelligent, wiser and more fit to inherit the Universe.
These thoughts were interrupted by the Irish girl screaming ‘Sam! The black hole’s…’ Then she went quiet. Michael could see the distortion again as it emerged from behind Sam’s head, moving quickly towards the toroid. It had missed Sam and was so close that the hole itself was visible now, a tiny black dot in the middle of the spherical distortion.
Michael only had a second to observe before it hit the top of the toroid. The impact made no noise. He only knew it had touched when the tube’s jagged bottom edges pulled his jacket sleeves upwards. His heart began to pound with excitement as he was lifted off the concrete floor. He and Sam were going to be the first humans ever to be absorbed by a black hole! What a fantastic scientific opportunity, and, ultimately, a much quicker death than being fried alive.
# # # #
‘Sam! The black hole’s…’ Before Catriona could finish, the distorting shadow plunged down and touched the jagged top of the magnetic tube resting on Sam’s shoulder. Horrified she watched as Sam’s head seemed to shrink and then his whole body was lifted up, as if by a mini-tornado. Her voice died in her throat. In total disbelief she saw the magnet, Sam and Michael swirl up into a whirlpool and shrink before her eyes. They flew upwards, spinning and vanishing in the blink of an eye. Before she knew what had happened it was all over.
Catriona wanted to scream but she couldn’t. She couldn’t take it in. She grasped Alex’s hand. It wrapped comfortingly around hers.
‘They’ve gone!’ He sounded dazed.
Catriona blinked again, hoping her eyes would tell a different story. From this balcony, half-way up the tall cavern wall, she could see the cavern floor in the light shining down from the ceiling, but still she couldn’t see Sam. He wasn’t there! And the top of his balding head still fresh in her mind, like the memory of a dream. This couldn’t be happening, not really.
A hundred thoughts flashed through her head, as if she needed something else to think about. She saw, for the first time in her life, how much she loved Sam Fitzpatrick. Her step-father was a thoroughly good, kind, generous man. He had always been there when she needed him, in the six years since her father died, while her selfish bitch of a mother was always out pursuing her own career. But now he wasn’t there any more.
At last Catriona found her voice. ‘Sam!’ she screamed, ‘Sam! Sam! Sam!’ But he didn’t answer. All she could see was the black hole moving where the tube had been, where Sam had been.
She heard the firefighter hanging beside the stretcher saying ‘Everything’s going to be all right, Maria.’ He obviously hadn’t seen what had happened below his feet. She saw the black hole move down towards the ground and felt an urge to jump down from that balcony and catch it. What would happen when it touched the ground? She remembered Sam asking Michael that very same question, earlier this morning while they were in the Electronics Room, before the stairs collapsed. Michael had said ‘I don’t really want to think about that.’ And then she remembered Danny saying to Michael ‘You knew what was going to happen.’ Well if that was true he had got his punishment now.
# # # #
Although he was terrified, Michael Zhang also felt supreme elation. He was going to die anyway, either by being shredded in the black hole or boiled alive as the Earth melted. If he fell into the black hole, at least he could make the first ever scientific observation from the inside. It would be his glorious final achievement. For a second he and Sam and the tube seemed to hang in mid-air and he heard the firefighter say ‘Everything’s going to be all right, Maria.’
How wrong can you get, Michael thought as the cavern spun around him. Danny’s wife, like the rest of the world, would soon be boiled alive, not much better off than Michael himself, except that he would be torn apart much sooner by gravitational tides. That was inevitable. He found himself breathing fast, waiting for the pain, using his last few lucid moments to observe, analyse and memorise. He saw every detail with enormous clarity.
Sam’s head and the toroid’s top seemed to bend round within the distorting aura surrounding the hole while the stretcher and the rest of the cavern grew rapidly smaller. A darkness closed in around him until he was in total darkness apart from the flashlight beam still distantly visible behind him. He could hear Sam moaning and sobbing ahead of him. Michael clung to the toroid tube and began to sweat, knowing the agony could start at any moment.
This black hole was extremely small so he was probably already approaching the event horizon, the point of no return where gravitational forces would be strong enough to shred his body. He wondered why he wasn’t yet feeling the devastating effect of the gravitational tide. Relativity theory was very clear on this point. Nothing could survive the massive forces surrounding a black hole, just as nothing could ever come back out. His head was much closer to the black hole than his feet were. Gravity should have ripped the top of his head off by now, he thought, squeezing out his brains like toothpaste. Relativity could not have got this wrong, could it? It wasn’t easy to think logically with his heart racing as he braced himself to receive death. And yet, for second after second, he felt no pain except for the edges of the toroid’s alloy casing slicing through his sleeves into his arms.
Michael glanced back to see whether the rest of the world was following, but saw nothing behind him but the stretcher, now looking very small, lit from above by the searchlight, with the faint line of the emergency lights on the floor below. The whole scene was tiny, as if he was looking out of a distorting lens.
Evidently the black hole had not hit the ground yet, otherwise there would have been a torrent of rock behind him. This confused him. At least a minute must have passed since he had been lifted off the ATLAS cavern floor yet it should take only a few seconds for the hole to reach the ground. Then he realised why: time dilation! From inside a black hole it looks like the world outside is slowing down.
‘What the hell is that?’ he heard Sam gasp.
Michael looked up to see Sam’s faint silhouette in the darkness ahead, still holding the toroid tube, revealed against a faintly glowing pink background. Pink? He searched his knowledge of black holes for an explanation but could find none. A huge pink surface was taking shape ahead of him, growing brighter, Sam’s silhouette becoming sharper every moment. He stared at it, straining his brain to understand its origin. Its size astounded him, filling his field of vision. The event horizon should have been tiny, he thought, not huge like this!
There was nothing in relativity theory which could explain this. Clearly some unknown science was at work here, waiting to be discovered. This was an utterly unexpected phenomenon that deeply fascinated Michael. He felt no fear. He had nothing to lose. His life was already forfeit and every additional second was a gift.
He searched the surface for some clue to their origin. He noticed an array of small objects, black against the pink background, moving ahead of him. They had to be fragments of ATLAS which the black hole had absorbed earlier. Might the pink light be heat from the collisions of this falling debris, he wondered.
‘What is that, Michael?’ Sam said, still staring at the huge pink surface.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Have we been absorbed by the black hole?’
‘Not yet, but we’re heading for it.’ He was still expecting to be torn apart any moment, although the terror of it was growing less as every second passed.
‘This is all your fault.’ In the pink light Michael could just make out the fierce look in Sam’s eyes.
‘What makes you say that?’ He felt somewhat annoyed about this completely false accusation.
‘Danny said as much in the Electronics Room. He said you had kept the monopole secret. Is that right?’
Ah yes, Michael thought. The monopole.
