Metafire

Chapter 4 Invention

Four million people in America had lost their lives and as many in other parts of the globe. This was something like one in one thousand of all humanity. The bombs were found to be Russian plutonium bombs, but were not delivered by the Russians. The Russians had lost, once more, their heart and soul, their dear Moscow. Once more, every man, woman and child had been viciously murdered for some cause unclear. But it was in Russia, in a town east of Moscow, that the invention came.

The secret was in a thought. An old woman had shown up in the town just after the bomb had burst on Moscow. Her son was in the laboratory. It was a secret Russian laboratory, established by the Soviets to determine a mechanism for getting large numbers of people off the planet. The solution was simple if the resolution was firm. Rockets could be manufactured in large numbers. Five percent would never make space. Ninety five percent would make space, but could never return. The cost in time and money, they reasoned, would be in the return to Earth. The space travelers would be left with a mere trickle of return flights.

At a lunch with her son, the old woman explained to the people in the laboratory that this was the time to get people off the planet. Now, when lots of people understood the danger. Her son, a senior manager, agreed and established the committee to start the evacuation of as many souls as the Russian military-industrial establishment could put on rockets. Nobody would go who did not volunteer, but getting fifty thousand to volunteer was not going to be a problem. The problem was mustering the resources, the commitment, in Russia. But even this did not take long.