Ben Bova - Test of Fire

Cities became ovens. Grasslands became seas of flame. As the touch of dawn swept westward across the spinning planet Earth, its fiery finger killed everything in its path. Glaciers in Switzerland began to melt, floodwaters poured down on the burning, smoking villages dotting the Alpine meadows. Paris became a torch, then London. North of the Arctic Circle, Lapplanders in their summer furs burst into flame as their reindeer collapsed and roasted on the smoking tundra.

The line of dawn raced westward across the Atlantic Ocean, but as it did the brightness diminished. The sun dimmed as quickly as it had brightened.

The Americas escaped the Suns wrath. Almost.

A hard, dark book, the story of mankind after the fall... compulsive reading... the battle to rebuild Earth after its almost total destruction by a gigantic solar flare.

Harry Harrison

by

BEN BOVA

Published by ReAnimus Press

Other books by Ben Bova:

The Exiles Trilogy

The Star Conquerors (Special Collector's Edition)

The Star Conquerors (Standard Edition)

Colony

The Kinsman Saga

Star Watchmen

As on a Darkling Plain

The Winds of Altair

The Weathermakers

The Dueling Machine

The Multiple Man

Escape!

The Craft of Writing Science Fiction that Sells

2012, 1982 by Ben Bova. All rights reserved.

http://ReAnimus.com/authors/benbova

Cover Art by Clay Hagebusch

Licence Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents its purely coincidental.

~~~

To Jay Kay Klein, gentleman songster. And to Frank and Bev Herbert, who know some good songs, too.

~~~

Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.

Seneca

It was a fine moonless night. A light summer breeze rustled through the forest, making the trees murmur in the darkness. High up on the mountaintop, far from the noise and lights of cities, the sky was deep and wondrous, sparkling with thousands of stars.

Pipe clamped tightly in his teeth, Dr. Robert J. Lord leaned against the parapet surrounding the observatory dome. He could just make out the lovely features of the student beside him in the shadows.

This is what your life will be like, he said to her, his voice a calculatedly soft whisper. If you go ahead and take your degree in optical astronomy, youll be here night after night, working til dawn.

Jenny Robertson tried not to show how cold she felt. It was mid-August, but up here on the mountain the New England night was almost wintry. I wont let him see that Im freezing, she told herself. Physical discomfort is something that astronomers have to face. And besides, one shiver and hell try to put his arm around me.

All night long, Lord repeated wistfully. It gets pretty lonely.

Jenny knew about his reputation. Dr. Lord was in fairly good shape for a man of fifty, she thought, even though that age seemed ancient to her. Every female student in the department knew his statistics: married twice, divorced twice, and you could get an A from him the same way Hester Prynne got hers.

But doesnt the computer handle the telescope once youve programmed in the coordinates for the nights observations? she asked, clasping her arms to herself and wishing she had worn a heavier sweater. I mean, like, you dont really have to stay up here all night, do you?

Lord took the pipe from his mouth and fiddled with it while he arranged a reply in his mind. He wanted to impress this pert-faced, ample-bosomed graduate student with his dedication to astronomy.

Oh, sure, you can let the computer and the image enhancers and the cameras do your work for you, he said lightly, almost carelessly. But some of us prefer to stay on duty right here and make certain everything is going right. Im probably old-fashioned about it, I guess.

Oh no, she said quickly. I think youre very... well, like, dedicated. And she told herself silently that the trick is to get a good grade out of him without letting him get his hands on her.

Lord shrugged modestly. You see, theres always the chance that something unexpected might happen. Equipment glitch, maybe, or maybe something pops up there in the sky and you want to get onto it right away.

Have you ever come across a totally unexpected phenomenon? Jenny asked. Something that nobodys ever seen before?

Well, no, he admitted. Not yet, but...

He stopped. It suddenly struck him that he could see her face clearly. Turning, he looked up at the eastern sky. It was milky white. He glanced at his wristwatch. It was bright enough to see the hands easily.

Two-twelve, he muttered. Dawn isnt for another five hours.

A breath of warm breeze gusted past them. Jenny felt herself relax; her goosebumps disappeared. But Lord was staring open-mouthed at the brightening sky.

It cant be, he said. It cant be.

The wind rose sharply and became warmer, hot as midsummer noon. The vast forest surrounding the mountain sighed and groaned under the wind. The sky turned molten copper, the stars faded from sight. Birds began chirping in the trees below.

And still Lord stared at the glowing sky. Oh my god, he whispered. Oh my god...

* * *

In Rome the sun had been up for more than an hour and the city was alive with honking, beeping automobiles driven by impatient, excitable Romans who banged on their horns and leaned out of their car windows to hurl imprecations at each other.

Without warning the air suddenly became unbearably bright and hot, as if giant floodlamps had been turned on everywhere. Traffic crawled to a halt, people stared in fright, drivers clawed their way out of jampacked cars, sweating, staggering, and still the light became brighter and hotter, intolerably white-hot like a vast burning iron pressed down everywhere. Women screamed and fainted. Men collapsed onto bubbling asphalt streets. Trees began to smolder along the sidewalks as people ran shrieking indoors. Awnings burst into flame. The Vatican gardens blossomed into a firestorm. Fountains turned to steam. The entire city began to smoke and flame under the burning sky.

All of Italy, all of Europe, Africa, Asia burst into flame. Wherever the sunlight touched, flame and death blossomed. By the millions, by the hundreds of millions, people died in their tracks. Whole forests of equatorial Africa blazed as animals panicked blindly, racing for shelter where there was no shelter. Human animals panicked too: pygmy hunters deep in the burning forests and western-dressed businessmen in modern cities, they all died, their clothing bursting into fire where the sun touched them, or suffocating in the firestorms that swept whole continents as they tried to hide from the sun inside their white-hot buildings.

Cities became ovens. Grasslands became seas of flame. As the touch of dawn swept westward across the spinning planet Earth, its fiery finger killed everything in its path. Glaciers in Switzerland began to melt, floodwaters poured down on the burning, smoking villages dotting the Alpine meadows. Paris became a torch, then London. North of the Arctic Circle, Lapplanders in their summer furs burst into flame as their reindeer collapsed and roasted on the smoking tundra.