Not to worry
We all have worries, big and small. It’s in our nature. With most, we do something for them to go away (to be replaced by others). More than a few are unjustified. They cover a wide range. Not only individuals, governments also have them. A lot of what-ifs? What can be done to prevent bad things from happening?
Health and security are the chief concerns. Efforts are made to control nature — to prevent famine, drought, global warming, disease. Wars worry us. The economy. Teachers. Employers. Bullies. Troublemakers. Liars. The Sun flickering out. Contamination. Invasion by aliens.
A wit said: “I have met the enemy and they are us.” Philosophers have written more and said less. Our intelligence has built weapons of mass destruction, which, when unleashed, will leave few if any survivors. Perhaps devastate our planet.
This is Yank author Clive Cussler’s theme in Nighthawk. The title is the name given to a US state of the art spacecraft speeding along at 5,000 miles an hour. Its special fuel is explosive if not changed in a week. And by explosive, I mean more powerful than the H-bomb.
Its multi-electronic controls notwithstanding, Nighthawk crash-lands in the South Pole region. America means to recover it, but finds that it has two rivals with the same intention: Russia and China. Kurt Austin’s National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) goes all out to win the race.
Russia and China, not working together, have assigned their top scientists and engineers to the job. Carrying weapons, they mean business. The Yanks are also loaded. The story’s chapters alternate among them.
The plot has twists and turns, one being that one of the Chinese is less than patriotic. Though there are shoot-outs, Russian sympathies are more towards the U.S. than towards the PRC.
When the explosion occurs, felt 2,000km away, is all life doomed? The answer is near the book’s finish.
It would be too much to say that end-of-the-world novels and movies are “a baht a dozen”, yet they are the rage. Nighthawk is par for the course. Suffice to say that it isn’t high in my list of worries.