Cosmic Swan

By Bill Copeland

A Dramatic Science Fiction story about a geologist, Mark, who is exploring the Himalayan mountains to find the source of increasingly powerful earthquakes. He meets a beautiful woman cult leader, Kusoom, who tells him a great being is about to be born. He is skeptical until he sees its eye in a deep cave. He realiz

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Savvy International
• Release date: May 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781961204201

Bill Copeland

BILL COPELAND, B.A, M.S. Cybernetic Systems, has an extensive technical and writing background. For his master's thesis, he led a group that produced a detailed report on the development requirements for a space habitat. He led development groups at pioneering organizations, such as NASA, Hewlett-Packard, Tibco, and SAP. He managed multimillion-dollar systems development projects for government and industry, including 3-D rocket inspection systems, satellite signal acquisition, internet development, and financial control systems. He spent many years pioneering world-class high-tech software and hardware companies in Silicon Valley. He wrote a series of books that helped major corporations boot-strap the application of robust financial systems, 3-D rocket inspection systems, satellite signal acquisition, and internet development. He has been a cybernetics engineer and holds a Patent for "Airborne Stereoscopic Imaging System. He has also been a video producer and teacher. He has written two science fiction books, Birth of the Cosmic Swan and Cosmic Swan. As the Silicon Valley Science Reporter, he produced science videos on astronomy and cosmology, including three on the Cosmology Revolution. These videos are available at CosmicSwan.com.

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Copyright © 2023 by Bill Copeland

All rights reserved.

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ISBN-13

Hardback: 978-1-961204-46-1

Paperback: 978-1-961204-21-8

eBook: 978-1-961204-20-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023907336

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CHAPTER 1

Earthquake

Mark lay alone in his bed. All was quiet in his little ranch-style Palo Alto home, but he couldn’t sleep. His mind was tossed between two demons. One kept reminding him of his wife, who ran off to India to be with her guru. He ran his fingers through the beard he started growing when she left. Why couldn’t I be her guru, the person in whom she believed? He still loved her, but he felt more lonely as the love faded. He felt strong, vigorous, healthy, like a powerful genie corked up in a bottle in the dark.

The other demon threw monstrous geological puzzles at him. As senior member of the U.S. Geological Survey staff, his job was to make sense of the turbulence rocking the Himalayas. No plate tectonics or clashing of continents could explain the growing magnitude of destruction. The data didn’t fit.

He loved being a geologist and looked the part. He proudly wore his dark brown hair long, but kept his greying beard trimmed. He enjoyed working in the rocks, the dirt, and hills of California. He like to be in the open with the Sun and wind on his face. He was happy to spend days following a fault line along the coastal range, but now he was spending too much time with a computer in his cavernous office. He wanted his copper tan back. His well-developed arms and legs were becoming weaker by the day.

Just past midnight he finally fell into a deep sleep. The storm of earthquakes in south Asia followed him into a dream. He stumbled for hours through a hot jungle. He slashed dense vines. The earth pounded, growled, nearly knocked him down. He struggled through the tangled growth and finally saw a clearing. Giant elephants were dancing in a circle around his grandchildren, Rhys, Trys, and Izabel. Fearing that the elephants would trample them, he fought frantically to protect them, but the elephants danced more and more wildly until he couldn’t stand. The precious children cried out in terror.

He awoke with a start to find that the thundering elephant dance and cries of his grandchildren continued. His mind churned. Was he having a stroke? In a flash he was fully awake and understood that a strong earthquake was shaking the house. Earthquake! Earthquake! he shouted. Everybody out of the house!

With bare feet he leaped out of bed and rushed through the shaking hall to his grandchildren’s room. The two-year-old Rhys was screaming through tears, holding on to the rail of his bed like a sailor in a stormy sea. The earthquake had walked the crib into the center of the bedroom.

Trys, his six-year old brother, was standing next to the crib, holding on to the rail and yelling Earthquake, Rhysy, earthquake. Trys looked cold. He was wearing only his white jockey shorts.

The bathroom light went out. The shaking housed was totally black.

Mark scooped up a struggling child under each arm and rushed into the hall toward the front door. The boys started calling, Mommy, Daddy, Mommy, Daddy! He ran into his daughter-in-law Mary as she burst out of the bedroom door. She yelled, my babies, and like a professional football player took the hand off of Rhys from Mark. Mark set Trys down to run out the front door with his mother and turned back toward his son Tim’s bedroom to see what happened to him. The earthquake punched the whole house hard, knocking Mark to the floor and shattering the window above the front door. Glass came raining down on him. Broken glass cut into his palms.

Damn it, he heard his thirty-year old son Tim shout on the other side of the bedroom door. The damned door slammed shut. I can’t get it open." Mark pushed himself off the floor. He grabbed the bedroom door knob. It slipped out of his bloody hands. The door frame was so badly warped, it slipped out of his bloody hands. Tim sounded frantic. Panic rose through Mark’s throat as he thought the whole house could come crashing down on them. He heard Tim groaning as he fruitlessly pushed on the door.

Son of a beach! Tim said, and Mark heard him kick the door. It opened a few inches. Mark pulled and Tim kicked until it wrenched open.

Damn it, I hurt my foot, Tim said, as he limped into the hall. Walking barefoot over shattered glass they reached the still open front door.

Rushing into the front yard they could hear the house roaring and crashing with falling dishes, books, and lamps. The tall grandfather clock fell with a cacophony of chimes and springs over the mini grand piano.

Mark and Tim limped onto the churning lawn. The grass was cold and damp under their stinging feet. The neighborhood was pitch black. He had forgotten it could be so dark. As his eyes adjusted, he could see the faint glow of the stars. He recognized Jupiter glowing brightly high in the South.

Mary, shivering in her short lacy pajamas, wrapped a blanket around Rhys. Trys was running practically naked around the pine tree shouting, Whoopee! Earthquake! His curly blond hair glowed as it caught what little light there was. He seemed like a dancing elf in an ancient forest.

Mark looked at Tim and saw the same curly hair. Tim caught his eye and they both smiled.

Slowly the heavy-footed elephants moved away. All became still. Then Mark heard neighbors. Standing on the sidewalks and in the street, they chattered in excited tones.

Mark called out Hey Keith! Everybody OK over there?

Just a few cuts and a broken house, his neighbor assured him. Rhys kept repeating earthquake!

Mark limped to his car and rummaged around in the trunk until he found a couple of flashlights, a battery-operated radio, and some old tennis shoes. He turned on the radio and listened as he pulled the tennis shoes over his bloody feet.

Preliminary reports, an announcer was saying, indicate the epicenter is in the Pacific Ocean twenty miles West of San Francisco. It measured 6.7 on the Richter scale...

Mark turned on a flashlight and walked back to where Tim and Mary were huddling around baby Izabel. Wow, that was a big one, Tim said.

Mary said, "You look like a wild man, Mark. You’re all messed up.

Couldn’t you stop to brush your head and beard before waking us up? Well, said Mark. Give me a break or I’ll just take my radio and flashlights and go away. Mary squinted a smile as Mark handed Tim a flashlight. Mark said, I wanted to look my best for the earthquake. The radio said it was a 6.7. I wonder how it felt in San Francisco?"

Trys snuggled up beside Rhys to share the big blanket. The late December cold finally settled him down.

I think it’s over, said Tim. They all agreed that it was probably safe to go back into the dark house.

Mary said, "Look at your feet, Tim. Oh darling. They’re all bloody.

How can you walk on them?"

They’re only mildly excruciating, Tim answered.

Yes. We’re all barefoot except me. Mark said. I’ll go into your bedroom and get some slippers for you. Shining his flashlight he gingerly stepped over broken glass, through the broken door, and into the house.

Ouch! he stubbed his toe on an overturned dresser.

He brought out the slippers. Carrying flashlights, they carefully filed back in, stepping over picture frames, fallen books, and flowers mixed with wet broken porcelain. The crib was filled with splinters but Tim and Mary’s bed was OK. Rhys and Trys happily snuggled into bed with their mother, but kept up a rapid-fire chatter about the scary earthquake.

Mark and Tim opened up a path to the heavy dining-room table. Tim lit some candles and Mark set the radio on the table. From the reports, they realized that this had been no ordinary earthquake. It pushed up a large tsunami that battered Pacific Ocean coasts from Long Beach to Seattle.

Monterrey and San Francisco got thrashed. Many were killed, hundreds were injured, and a million people were suddenly homeless.

Mark and Tim walked outside again to see if lights were showing anywhere in the neighborhood. Everywhere they looked it was black except for a few flickering candles and dancing flashlight beams. The traffic lights on the corner were not working, and cars occasionally rushed heedlessly through the intersection. Just as they were about to go back into the house, a screech rang out, then a crash. A jeep hit a pickup truck, spreading broken glass, plastic chrome, and broken bags of dog food all over the intersection.

Oh my God, Tim yelled. They ran out to the intersection to see if the drivers were hurt. The dazed drivers emerged from behind air bags to inspect the damage. A tall stocky driver in blue mechanic overalls started arguing with the other, a young man wearing black Levis and a camouflage tee shirt. The young man refused to agree it was his fault. Neither of them seemed hurt. George the neighbor who lived on the opposite corner started placing red flares in the intersection. Mark hadn’t seen old George in years. He moved stiffly.

Jeff, another neighbor, pulled out his cell phone and tried to call the police. Darn! he said. I don’t have a signal. Tim rushed in the house to use the house phone. In a minute he came out shaking his head.

There was no way to call the police. The two drivers stopped arguing and exchanged information. The young man picked up the sacks of dog food, leaving the spilled stuff in the intersection. Their banged up vehicles were still drivable, so they just drove off.

Mark and Tim stood on the corner with the neighbors watching the strange scene. Mark was glad to see George and Jeff, even under these circumstances. He rarely saw his neighbors.

A cool breeze blew the smoke from the flares up the road to mingle in the trees. In the quiet that followed a mother raccoon and three little ones emerged from the storm drain. She stopped, stood up on her hind legs to look at the people. Then she led the hesitant little ones to edge of the intersection where they feasted on the scattered kibble.

The four men chatted for awhile and then went to their houses. Mark took the radio to bed and listened with earphones. The Bay Area death toll was in the hundreds and kept rising. An oil tanker was breaking up on the Farallon Islands. Thousands of people were struggling through the cold night with no shelter, food, or water. Mark fell asleep with ghastly images of wreckage, pain, and crying children bleeding into his dreams.

CHAPTER 2

Geological Survey

The silhouette of Mount Hamilton stood out against the purple dawn. The golden dome of Lick Observatory capped the dark mountain like a temple.

Mark jumped into his Dodge Neon and cautiously drove up Middlefield Road toward his USGS office in Menlo Park. Few other cars were on the road. A strong wind buffeted his car and the air was so dry his hands itched. The electric power was still off in the area. A few major intersections were controlled by police and volunteers, but most were left to the judgement of the drivers.

He drove slowly to look at the damage. One side of the main library had caved in. The bed and breakfast Victoria House was still smoking from a fire started during the night’s bad shake. He had to stop at the flooded the intersection at University Avenue. A broken fire hydrant was still gushing. He backed up and turned around to take another route.

After working through a maze of back streets, Mark pulled into the USGS parking lot. The lot was already half full. He knew his colleagues were hard at work trying to understand the churning that was going on deep in the earth. He could see the glow of battery lamps coming form office windows. The familiar smell of fresh-brewed coffee filled the otherwise stale air as he walked down the hall. In the corner meeting room the chief of the earthquake section, Bill Daniel, was holding an informal discussion. Mark turned into the open door and stood listening as Bill summarized what they knew.

Virtually every fault system in the earth is in motion. The Pacific rim is particularly active, as we here in the Bay Area know. Hawaii has been badly hit. Two tsunamis rushed over low-lying areas up to 20 feet above sea level. Communication with many low-lying islands in the Pacific has been lost. Well, I could go on and on about the damage, but the real center of all the movement, the trigger, is on the border between the Indian plate and the Asian plate. The complex arc of fault zones from northern Afghanistan to northern Thailand is experiencing the greatest movement, with a prominent bulge somewhere West of Everest. While all earthquake regions have experienced similar movement in the past, this is the first time in recorded history that we have seen all regions light up at the same time.

Mark interrupted. Has anybody had enough time to examine the seismic wave patterns to get a feel for the cause?

Bill answered, I personally have not seen enough data. What about you, Rajiv? You have a taken a special interest in that area. Any first impressions?

Well, said Rajiv, the low-frequency band shows a harmonic pattern very like what we see with movement of magma. But there is a hard reflecting core that does not flow. It exhibits upward thrust as if driven by a deeply buried piston. It is unusual because, typically, the deeper we go, the more viscous is the medium.

Thanks, Rajiv. Well, that’s all for now. Let’s go back to our offices and dig into the data some more.

As Mark turned toward his office, Bill called out to him. Hey, Mark, hold on there. Can you swing by my office? I have a little job for you.

Can I get a cup of coffee, first? It sure smells good.

Mark walked down the hall to his office. It was all in a jumble. What a mess. Where’s my coffee mug?

Folders, books, his potted palm, and papers were on the floor. One of the bookcases had fallen against the wall, and a crack snaked across the bottom of the window. He finally found the coffee mug on the floor. Darn. That was my favorite cup. There’s a chip in the lip! He rotated the cup to see the jungle scene and peacock standing in front of an elephant. He picked it up, felt the chip with his thumb, and decided that it would be all right for now. He stepped carefully down the hall to the coffee room where Carla, the group administrative aide, was cleaning up.

You guys sure can make a mess fast, she said, I cleaned this place last night before I left, and look what you’ve done to it! Must have been a hell of a party, and you didn’t invite me! Mark laughed and helped her pick up a fallen cabinet.

The heavy gray steel desk under the window held the coffee solution for the day. It smelled a little overcooked but good. He poured a cup of the black fluid.

Not bad. How did you make coffee if the power is out and the gas is shut off?

Carla was ready with an answer. There are a lot of clever scientists here, but they have no clue about such practical things. I remembered the little pots of Sterno that we used to keep the barbecued hamburgers warm for the last party. That and an old percolator coffee pot from our camping kit did the trick. It came out a little strong, but it is better than no coffee.

You’re a genius, Carla. I’ll recommend you for a raise. How kind of you, she said.

Mark walked down to Bill’s office. As he went in the door, Bill asked him to close it behind him.

Look at that, Mark. Batteries are running low and the auxiliary generator still isn’t up. Well, it doesn’t matter for now. My son is begging me to let him go over the hill to Halfmoon Bay. With all the tremors and that terrible tsunami, it seems the surf is up. He has no idea.

Bill’s expression turned serious. I have a job for you—a requirement from the Department of Interior to send a geology liaison to Rajasthan to gather data and exchange conclusions. Normally, I would make this optional, but you are our best man and this is a first-priority job. You’ll be flying in a U. S. Air Force transport that is taking relief supplies and instrumentation. It leaves on Friday, the third. That will give you a few days to get your stuff together. Happy New Year!

Wow. I will get to see this thing up close and personal. A lot of people will not have a happy New Year will they?

You’re right about that, Mark.

CHAPTER 3

Flight to India

The loud C-130 turbo prop engines droned as they carried Mark and the Air Force flight crew across the Pacific Ocean. Sitting on a jumpseat behind the flight engineer, Mark could not rest and could not stay fully awake either. The air was stale, smelling of a mixture of warm tar and a government regulation toilet disinfectant.

Finally Lieutenant Thomas Kaltenbach, the flight engineer, shouted at Mark, sitting behind him in a jump seat. Wake up sir. We’ll be landing in Jaipur in an hour.

Mark, covered with sweat, nodded. He looked at the lieutenant through bleary eyes. The tall grey-haired officer looked surprisingly well-pressed in his blue uniform. Can you open a window or something, lieutenant? How’d it get so a hot and humid way up here?

Lt. Kaltenbach chuckled. "We can’t open a window at 30,000 feet.

I’ll see if we can get a little better circulation. By the way, the Indian science ministry radioed. All they could scrounge for your transportation was a tourist minibus to take you to Udaipur. They’ll put your instruments in an Indian Army truck that will follow you in a day or so. Glad to get off that jumpseat?"

You’d better believe it, lieutenant! My rear is sore, Mark responded. Thanks for the info. What time is it in Jaipur?

Let me see. He looked at his watch. It’s 0030. Back in California, it’s Noon—lunch time. Did you get anything to eat?

As Mark was resetting his watch he answered, "Yeh, a couple of hours ago I warmed up two beef enchiladas from your little refrigerator.

Delicious!"

You’re kidding.

Well, they aren’t as good as Mama Comacho’s, but they filled me up. I took the liberty to grab a Corona beer. Do you have any idea what to expect on the ground at Jaipur?

Well sir, said Lt. Kaltenbach, We hear Jaipur has suffered from the the long series of earthquakes. An Indian Air Force plane dropped some medical supplies and food there earlier this week. Buildings in the old Pink City were damaged mostly from a big fire. Many of the new high-rise buildings are completely destroyed. Quite a few people died. Homeless survivors are living in a tent city near the airfield. They might be a problem, when we land, but our main concern is the condition of the runway. It has some big cracks. Only helicopters have landed there since the biggest quake a week ago.

Are you sure it’s safe to land?

A helicopter pilot reported that the south end of the runway is pretty broken up, but the north end of the runway near the tower should hold us. This old C-130 was designed to land on a short, rough runway.

Sounds reassuring. I think it’s time to recycle the beer. Excuse me.

Mark walked toward the tail of the plane and stopped to peer out a port hole in the exit door. A half moon was high in the sky and illuminated the top of a dense haze. Only a few opalescent lights penetrated from the ground, making it impossible to make sense of the features moving under the plane. Then he felt a thrill as he was struck by the brilliant ivory reflection of the moon off the ragged line of the Himalayas looming out of the black north. He watched the cool, inviting peaks as long as he could.

The plane descended through bumpy air. Smoke was rising from many locations along the road that ran to Jaipur.

With a strong hill-billy accent Captain Rowell announced, "It looks like the power is out at the airport. They lined the runway with torch pots to show us the way. Tighten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy landing.

Mark sat down in his jump seat, tightened his belt, and gripped the metal base of the seat. He leaned forward and asked the pilot, can you land this thing on the broken runway?

"We’re making a full-flaps, slow pass over the runway now with our landing lights on to check out the damage. Let’s see. I don’t see any big breaks in the