The Weapon - Apocalypse - part 25
By Diana the Valkyrie
The sun went out

In the middle of the day. The sun went out. It wasn't like a total eclipse of
the sun, where it gradually gets darker and darker until totality. It was like
a lightbulb being switched off. Just a couple of minutes after she'd left, it
was like night had suddenly fallen.

Then it got lighter again. But that was the outside floodlighting
automatically switching on when the photocells detected the dark. And someone
switched on the room lights. But outside, it was deepest, darkest night. The
sun had been switched off.

She came back into the room, and again hovered in the middle. This time, she
said nothing, just silently continued to feed the baby.

The president looked over at his Science Advisor. "Jim, what's happened?" "I
think, I think. Er." "What?" "I think she, she. I think she switched off the
sun." Wendy glanced up, smiled, and continued to devote her full attention to
the baby. "Well, what can we do, Jim, what's our options?" He thought for a
moment. "Mr President, are you a praying man?"

He took it seriously, closed his eyes and clasped his hands together. "Aren't
you supposed to get onto your knees?" asked Wendy. Several of them did exactly
that, as the President led them in prayer. I stared, horrified; is this the
only recourse that we have? Ask for a miracle?

At the end of the prayer, they struggled back to their feet. "Tell you what,"
said Wendy, "that doesn't seem to have worked yet. Why don't I give you an
hour, maybe your prayers will work by then, or maybe you can think things
over, maybe you should pray a little for guidance, then I'll come back and see
how you feel. Hmmm?" She left through the window

We all believe in the power of prayer. But it isn't something you'd want to
bet on. "What happens now?" asked the president, not asking anyone in
particular. "In the short run, I'd guess riots and the breakdown of law and
order," guessed the Attorney General. "In the medium term, we can't grow
crops," said the Agriculture Secretary. There was a silence for a while. "And
in the long term?" ask the president. "In the long term, we're all dead,"
replied the Secretary of the Treasury. There was more silence. Through the
hole in the wall where the window used to be, we could hear the distant
crackle of gunfire.

"No," I said. They all looked at me. "She wouldn't kill us, she isn't like
that." "How do you know," asked the Energy Secretary, "it's just a machine, how
do you know what it might be programmed to do." "No, you heard what she said,
she just wants us to leave her and her babies alone, but she isn't going to
kill anyone to make that happen." "She's evil." "No," I argued, "she isn't.
She's just protecting her babies. How do we know whether someone is good or
evil? By their acts. I've never seen her do anything bad, and she's done lots
of good. And how can you call a mother protecting her babies evil? She'll do
what it takes, whatever it takes, and none will call her evil. And she isn't a
machine, she's a person who isn't human."

"Fine distinction," said the President, "Either way, she has no soul. So she's
bluffing, is that what you're saying?" I thought. Could I be wrong? No, she
didn't sink the carrier when she could have, she stranded it instead. Plenty
of damage to property, none to people. "It's the way she is," I explained,
"she breaks things, but she won't take lives. Yes, it's a bluff."

"And if you're wrong, we're all dead."

I didn't say anything. That was obviously correct.

"So, gentlemen," he said, "do we become the first administration in American
history to surrender to a foreign power, or do we call her bluff?"

"Even if we surrender, there's no guarantee she would switch the sun back on.
And maybe she can't, maybe once it's extinguished, it's off for good," pointed
out the Secretary for Defense.

"No," I said, contradicting the man who oversaw the armed forces that I was a
minor officer in. Well, I thought, if we get this wrong, it doesn't matter
what they do to me, does it. "Look, if she can't turn the sun back on, then it
doesn't matter what we do, we're all dead, so we might as well assume that she
can." And anyway, I was pretty sure that she hadn't actually extinguished the
sun. I had a good guess about what she'd actually done, but this wasn't the
time or place to discuss science and propound theories.

The Secretary of Homeland Security got back onto his knees and started praying
again, and a couple more followed his example. Then a few more got down, and
then the president knelt, and led them all in the Lord's Prayer.

Wendy timed it nicely. She came back in just as they finished. She didn't
interrupt, she didn't say anything, she just floated in midair, the baby
asleep in her arms, and she waited for a response, while they knelt at her
feet.

The president glanced at me, and took a deep breath. "You're bluffing," he
said, "you wouldn't kill us all." And I thought, bitterly, what have we come
to. He's playing our trump card. Our greatest hope was our utter vulnerability
and weakness.

She smiled happily. "You're right," she said. "I wouldn't. Let's just call
that a demonstration of power, a shot across your bows." She looked at me.
"Rammer, tell them what I actually did." Everyone looked in my direction. It
was time to make a complete fool of myself.

I took a deep breath, and hoped I was right. "The timing wasn't right. It
takes eight minutes for light from the sun to get to us, and you were only
gone for a couple of minutes. It would take you eight minutes to get to the
sun, even at light speed. And even if you could get there instantaneously, it
would still take eight minutes before the light here failed. So, you didn't
switch off the sun, you just blocked off the light. I'd guess you spread your
cape out, and we're in its shadow, like a total eclipse is the shadow of the
moon."

"Very good Rammer, that's exactly what I did. Now let me explain what else I
can do."

She had everyone's attention, and I felt that, whatever she was about to say
she could do, they wouldn't question her capability.

"I won't cut off the sun completely. I'll just attenuate it, fifteen percent.
And that will only be over the United States, not anywhere else. That won't
kill you."

I had no idea what that would do. I mean, I had some idea, but not
quantitatively. And while I thought this over, the Science Advisor started to
lay out the consequences for the rest of the Cabinet.

It would mean we'd be colder, but I don't know how much colder. It would mean
a change in weather patterns; colder everywhere, plus the rainfall would be
disrupted. And some of what was rain, would now be snow. It would mean that
land that could grow crops, would become too cold for agriculture. Land that
could still be farmed, would have much lower yields. It would mean increased
demand for heating oil and coal, but at the same time, lower production to pay
for imported oil as the weaker sun interfered with agriculture.

The unprecedented cold would bring more snow, which would interfere with
communications. Lakes would freeze. Railways would need to be regularly
cleared for them to operate normally. People would live in a colder climate
than they were used to, and would get respiratory infections. Maybe the more
northerly states would be deserted in favour of a migration to the south. A
housing crisis in the warmer states. Unemployment. Riots. Disruption. Chaos.
All caused by a weakening of the sunlight over the country.

The United States would be crippled; it would be a terrible time. Oh, we'd
come through it in the end, we're a hardy people. But we wouldn't be as strong
as before. The land of the free and the home of the brave would become the
land of ice and the home of cold.

The president looked round the room; no-one would meet his gaze. Except me.
"Sign," I said.

He looked down at the paper. "I need to read it," he said. "No you don't,"
said Wendy. He looked up at her, and reached for a pen.





The Female of the Species
By Rudyard Kipling, 1911


When The Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside;
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail,
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it as he can;
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws, 
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws. 
'Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale,
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away;
But when the hunter meets with husband, each confirms the other's tale-
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man, a bear in most relations - worm and savage otherwise, -
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.

Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere be lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger. Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue - to the scandal of The Sex!

But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same; 
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.

She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast
May not deal in doubt or pity - must not swerve for fact or jest.
These be purely male diversions - not in these her honour dwells.
She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else.

She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great 
And the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate! 
And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim
Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.

She is wedded to convictions - in default of grosser ties;
Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies -
He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild, 
Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.

Unprovoked and awful changes - even so the she-bear fights,
Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons - even so the cobra bites,
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw,
And the victim writhes in anguish - like the Jesuit with the squaw!

So, it comes that Man the coward, when he gathers to confer
With the fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
To some God of Abstract Justice - which no woman understands.

And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the woman that God gave him
Must command but may not govern - shall enthrall but not enslave him.
And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail,
That the Female of the Species is more deadly than the Male