"All right, gentlemen." Jasmine declared to the assembled committee who had gathered that night in the tower. "We're here. What do you want to show us?"
The Astronomer Royal lifted his hand. "Narrator play asteroid scenario of highest probability."
The night sky vanished to be replaced by the tumbling rock dumbbell. The narrator declared, sounding like an ominous prophet of doom. "You are observing an asteroid about two and a quarter miles long made up of two one mile stone spheres. It appears to be solid rock and completes one revolution every five minutes. Presently it is approaching the sun where it'll swing around it and eventually intersect Earth's orbit at nearly 60,000 miles per hour. Soon it will rise in the sky and become visible as it approaches Earth." The asteroid was shown vanishing in the Sun's glare and then reemerging on the other side.
"When it reaches Earth's orbit it will not miss this time. There is a 99.95 percent chance of a direct collision. The following simulation shows the best estimate of what will happen."
The slowly tumbling asteroid whizzed closely by the Moon, and the Earth became visible with North America just emerging into the sunlight. The Earth grew in size as the sunlight swept across the continent and then the tumbling asteroid swept into view. Somewhere over the Great Lakes it encountered the first wisps of Earth's atmosphere and it began to glow.
"This has been slowed so you can see the sequence of events." The narrator said. "In actuality just after entering the atmosphere the asteroid strikes the ground in seconds."
The asteroid began glowing fiercely and then it broke into two parts. Both spheres glowed and small fragments from the column exploded as they penetrated deeper. Both spheres were now so bright they could not be looked at directly. "The speed of each sphere is such that the air in front of them is acting no longer like a gas but an extremely viscous fluid, almost a solid. The sonic booms and shock waves from their passages will knock forests over and touch off avalanches."
"From ground level they will appear to form a single glowing fire stream that will stretch apart just before impact." The image showed the two glowing spheres separating slightly and then one plowed into a volcanic mountain which vanished in a fireball brighter than the sun.
"Mount Rainier will be nearly ground zero for the first sphere. The impact crater formed will be about thirty miles wide." A flaming mushroom cloud roared into the atmosphere and fiery rocks, some as big as a hundred feet long were thrown into the air, fragmenting as they impacted each other.
"The second sphere strikes the Pacific Ocean about five hundred miles off shore." There was another bright flash in the ocean and more flaming rocks were hurled skyward. "The biggest immediate problem from the second rock will be the tidal wave."
A great mound of water was shown rushing away from the water blast like a giant expanding ring. "The tidal wave will at first be a couple hundred feet high but as the water shallows it will grow to over a mile high and be moving at nearly a thousand miles per hour when it makes landfall.
"It'll race inland and arrive at the walls of the first crater in minutes just as all the released lava from Mount Rainier's former magma chamber is roaring to the surface along with the impact melt. There will be a huge secondary explosion as water and fire meet that will blast more rock out and enlarge the crater even more. Then the completely uncapped magma chamber will begin a full scale eruption."
"About this time the first fragments of rock thrown into the atmosphere by the first blast are just returning to the ground." The image showed flaming comet trails of rock smashing into the ground and landing amongst the fallen trees for hundreds of miles around the crater. Immediately huge forest fires sprang up and in minutes everything within five hundred miles of the crater that could burn was on fire.
"The former Mount Rainier erupts in one of the largest volcanic eruptions ever seen on the planet. Magnitude 15 earthquakes from the impacts shake the West Coast and in seconds the Santa Andreas fault line jumps a quarter mile as everything is brought down in ruins. Every volcano that has ever been active on the West Coast becomes active at once adding their eruption clouds to the one roaring out of the first crater. This fine dust and gases will disrupt the weather for years. There is a thirty percent chance that the super volcano located near Yellowstone will be set off."
There was a pause as the map showed a great cloud of gas, dust and debris from the impacts and the volcanoes begin to flow over the North American continent, cross the Atlantic and then begin to sweep over Europe and Northern Africa.
During that pause Jasmine realized she was gripping Razoul's hands so tight that hers were white and had no more feeling in them. She saw his mouth was hanging open but it couldn't be any more open than hers was. She jerked her left hand out of its death grip and threw her left arm around his waist. A moment later she felt his right arm go around her and hold her tightly to him.
"The problem for Agrabah will not be the impacts and the fiery debris but all the dust and gas." The announcer continued. "The dust will cut off sunlight and lower surface temperatures enough that even the East Coast of North America will be buried in snow. But as the dust finally settles, then will come a warm up. The gases will create a greenhouse effect and heat the whole planet up. Temperatures in Agrabah will first fall by several degrees and then will rise to several degrees above normal after which they will slowly fall as the gases react with ocean and rain waters and are removed."
There was flash of soft light and the image vanished to be replaced by the grim visage of the Astronomer Royal. "The Committee has been studying what we need to do to survive and Agrabah does have a chance to survive but actions must be taken immediately. Here are our recommendations. Seeds for cooler weather crops must be brought here and planted to get through the cold spell. Then they must be replaced by seeds for our traditional warm weather crops to keep food coming. All of this will require planning and rationing and it must begin now."
He looked at Jasmine and if he saw her arm around Razoul and Razoul's around her waist, he forbore to comment. "Now you know why we called you here, Princess. You must become Sultanas immediately."
General Ayverli interjected. "I'm afraid we are going to have to increase the size of the army too. Once word gets out that we have food, then those who don't are going to try and take it from us and if they do we all starve."
There was a long silence as each man and woman just looked at the others and saw the same shock and determination on each other's faces.
The silence was broken by Jasmine who asked. "I'm curious, Astronomer Royal, how did you happen to discover this, this calamity? You certainly didn't mention it when I was here before. Was it some alerting spell?"
The Astronomer Royal shook his head. "It was no spell. I was warned by a man who'd had a near death vision and I didn't believe him until I had a vision myself. I apologize for not believing you, Razoul."
General Ayverli slapped his forehead in disgust and glared at the Astronomer Royal. "Idiot." He muttered as the Astronomer Royal blanched at his gaff.
Jasmine unwound her arm from about Razoul's waist and stared at him. "I'd be very interested in hearing about this vision, Razoul."
He sighed. 'Why now?' He thought. 'She's almost safe.' "I'll tell you the whole thing, Princess. As soon as we're back at the palace."
She glared at him. "You'd better."