Disaster Among the Heavens - Don E Peavy Sr (best books for students to read .TXT) 📗

Once The President was inside the room, the two Marines and the small, stocky fellow retreated beyond the door.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” greeted The Director. The President walked past him and sat down in the mahogany easy chair with a square, upholstered back which was positioned in front of the fireplace.
Landest reclaimed his seat. There were not enough seats for everyone so the three Generals, the Admiral and the two Colonels took what seats remained and moved them in a semi-circle around The President, which also faced the desk at which the Director sat since the desk was several feet away from but directly in front of the fireplace. The two women Stenographers had no seat so one sat on the lap of the Army General and the other sat on the lap of the Marine General. The Navy Admiral looked perturbed and so one of the men in suits sat in his lap and another sat in the lap of the Air Force General.
With hurried resolve, The President waited for everyone to settle down. He turned slightly so that he was facing the Director And said, “Mr. Director, we have a problem! Did you enjoy your reading?”
Landest did not answer immediately. Looking beyond The President, he focused his attention on the fireplace. He envisioned a raging fire there that reached out and engulfed The President and consumed him. For only then would this meeting have purpose for him. However, as so often happens with dreams, the fire never came, he then moved his attention past The President to each of the others in the room.
“Mr. Director, I am waiting,” reminded The President. He sat back in the chair and looked intently at Landest as if he were trying to peer into the Director’s soul.
The Director was about to address The President when a tall, thin man with silver hair and sporting a blue pin-striped double breasted suit with white shirt and a blue and white striped tie rushed into the room and approached The President. Landest recognized him as the Chief of Staff who handed a file folder to The President. The President flipped through the pages, scanning each one. This allowed the Director time to continue his survey of the room.
There was the General of the Army, the General of the Air Force, and the General of the Marines in full battle gear for their respective service. Then there was a Colonel from Kentucky dressed in a three-piece white suit that had long white hair and a white moustache and beard and carried a walking stick with the head of a chicken on it and another Colonel from the Army who was also dressed in full battle gear.
“Has the Director seen this?” asked of The President to the Chief of Staff as he finished reviewing the contents of the folder.
“No, sir, I don’t think so,” answered the Chief of Staff.
“Very well, I will fill him in,” responded The President.
Ignoring the others in the room, the Chief of Staff leaned over and whispered something into The President’s ear, shifting his posture by leaning forward to meet the Chief of Staff. The President’s mouth formed a grimace as he nodded his head in the affirmative. Looking pleased, the Chief of Staff then turned and left the room. The Director returned to his survey of those in the room.
His eyes fell upon The Senator whose progressive policies had brought the first group of Negroes to the CIA and his Assistant -- these were the two men in suits who were now sitting down. And the third man who was frail and about the age of Moses, and who was dressed in a double-breasted brown suit with wide lapels, stood to the left of the fireplace and leaned against the mantle. There was also the Admiral of the Navy in full evening dress and finally, the two Stenographers who were dressed in, well, dresses. The Stenographer sitting in the lap of the Marine General was painting her nails as she too waited for The Director’s answer. The other Stenographer was putting on make-up. Since the remaining description of these individuals will not add anything of substance to our story, The Director did not take further notice of them. Instead, he turned his gaze to The President and surveyed this six-foot-three Texan from hat to sole.
He peered into the deep spastic eyes of The President. They receded far back into his eye sockets as though they sought refuge from a blazing truth. His face looked more like misused and abused land that lay dried and cracked and wind-whipped than human skin. His jaw bone protruded forward, beneath which a patch of skin hung like the dried breasts of a cow the essence of which evaporated into the noonday sun. He had a big puffy nose, like W.C. Fields, the nostrils of which had been stained by the many cigarettes The President smoked each day.
His salt and pepper hair was well groomed – he combed it to the back revealing a retreating hairline.
The President wore a gray flannel suit from Brooks Brothers over a white dress shirt accentuated with a blue-and-white striped tie. He sported a wide leather belt which was fastened by a large silver buckle in the shape of the State of Texas. All of this was supported by a pair of Justin armadillo boots which had been dyed black. The President looked much older than someone a little over a month shy of his fifty-eighth birthday and more like the leader of the most powerful country in the world who was having the worst year of his political life. He had lost a lot of weight since being in the White House and no longer looked like the fit and robust rancher which made him so attractive in his early years. His skin was whiter than one would expect of a rancher and his thin frame made his clothes seem almost too big for him.
The Director cleared his throat to signal he was about to answer. “I’m afraid, Mr. President, I don’t understand. My Former Assistant is dead. What more is there to do?”
“Dead? That traitor has taken over NORAD!2 You Northerners continue to amaze me how you underestimate those people.” The President took a package of cigarettes from his inside coat pocket and extracted one. The Army Colonel flicked his Bic to light it.
“But Mr. President, the Chicago Police verified that he was killed,” pleaded Landest as he shifted in his chair. He diverted his attention from The President momentarily then returned to face him.
“There has been a mistake,” Landest continued. He reached for a cup of coffee and drank it in one long gulp. He looked sheepishly as he placed the empty cup back on the cart.
“Well, son, where’s the body?” interjected the Kentucky Colonel. “You can’t say a nigga’s dead till you’ve seen the body.”
“The last I heard a local doctor took the body in for an autopsy. I know he’s dead!” answered the Director as his confidence began to wane.
“You don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground!” charged The President, who flicked his cigarette into the fireplace and took out a fresh one that was lit by The Senator’s Aide.
“Do ya have an autopsy report?” The Kentucky Colonel stroked his beard as he awaited Landest’s answer.
“No sir, I don’t, but I don’t buy this Superfly business. The Assistant is dead,” whispered The Director. His face was now flushed and it was not clear whether it was from anger or embarrassment or both.
“Hot diggity dog! I knew it!” The Kentucky Colonel said with such force he threw the young man off his lap and both man and cane crashed to the floor.
The President stood up and walked over to the fireplace. He looked into it as he leaned against the mantle. He did not look up as he said, “All I can tell you is that he has taken over NORAD and we received that package yesterday along with a note. I have asked Mr. Cosmologist with the National Science Institute to join us and to explain the threat we are facing. Mr. Cosmologist, please proceed.” The President returned to his seat as one of the men in suits opened his briefcase and extracted a folder and a flat object. This was Mr. Cosmologist.
He was a short, thinly built man of sixty-two who wore a gray flannel suit with blue shirt and a blue tie with pint polka dots. His wardrobe was completed by a pair of brown Stacy Adams wing tip shoes which were in desperate need of a shine and a new set of heels. He had a full head of hair which was unkempt and fully gray. He sported a full beard, moustache and sideburns, which were not trimmed and which offered no lines of demarcation.
Mr. Cosmologist walked over to stand between one end of the semi-circle and where the Director sat and said, “Thank you, Mr. President.”
He hit the flat object against his leg and it opened up into an easel on which he spread out a map of the universe which he extracted from the folder. He then reached inside his coat pocket and took out a pen and tapped one end of it. The other end grew and grew until it became a pointer.
“This, ladies and gentlemen, is Earth,” he said as he hit his pointer against the map. Mr. Cosmologist was neither intimidated nor humbled by the power and prestige of his audience. He presented his “lecture” as if he were in his regular class room.
He continued, “And this is the moon. Now this line I am about to draw is very important so keep your eyes on it.”
After drawing a line a few inches in front of the moon he continued, “Within a certain distance of a planet, tidal forces are so intense that they exceed the gravitational strength that keeps a satellite from disintegrating.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Cosmologist,” interrupted the Admiral. “You’re not going to do a Carl Sagan on us, are you?”
The Cosmologist looked over his wire rimmed eyeglasses at the Admiral and answered, “Sir, I would be careful about casting aspersions on Mr. Sagan. He is truly a prophet of the heavens. As early as Genesis 1:14 we are told to watch the heavens for signs. Our lives are determined by the alignment of the planets and stars and we would do well to study them with care and reverence.”
“But …”
“Let’s not go down that road. Please continue, Mr. Cosmologist,” instructed The President. The Admiral gave no sign of disgust at being silenced by The President.
Mr. Cosmologist picked something out of his beard, looked at it momentarily, flung it to the floor, and continued as if he had never been interrupted. “This boundary, called the Roche limit, extends about two point five times the radius of a planet from its centre. Keep in mind what I said to the Admiral about all the planets and stars and us being connected. Not a single star can go nova without it having far-reaching effects on the other stars and planets.
“Consequently, if for some reason a planet was to move into its Roche limit, it would disintegrate. And if it did not disintegrate, at least in terms of the moon, it would cause devastation on the earth to a degree never seen before. In other words, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking