Chapter Eight

Eva held Rosa’s hand under the desk, sitting side-by-side at their curved computer screen. The pixilated faces of Edmund and Aura, along with a panel of scientific community members, lined up in organized blocks across the screen.

She adjusted her smart glasses, allowing her to control the display with the movement of her eyes, up the bridge of her nose.

“When running these simulations, we accounted for the slight changes in orbit and trajectory already observed, as well as the vast increase in ice coverage at the poles,” she said as she changed the chart that she was displaying with a double-blink.

“As you can see, TITAN is failing, and catastrophically so.”

“And you’re saying we can’t just turn it off and pump more matter up into the atmosphere?” a voice from the crowd of peers interrupted, the program zooming in on his face automatically.

She tightened her grip on Rosa’s hand, their secret code that she was too frustrated to respond to the question. She had answered that particular one at least three times in her presentation already. Clearly, that person was just a single-cell.

“Thank you for your question,” Rosa said, somehow, always so calm in those situations.

He rubbed his thumb on her hand, and she released her tight hold.

“Unfortunately, that is much too simplistic. By actively expelling some of the greenhouse gases into space, we have reduced the amount of matter on the planet.”

Eva took a deep breath and jumped in to continue.

“The TITAN calculations showed no signs that this would be an issue. We believe it will be impossible to correct the orbital trajectories by adding mass. In essence, this could yank Earth around like a Yo-Yo onto a new trajectory. We could hope for a better alignment but could end up with one that may, in fact, prove worse than the state we are in. The stress of pushing and pulling the planet around in such a way could literally crack it to pieces. We’ll keep slipping off our native path, and we do not know the impact to the mantle, crust, and core from this sort of interference.”

“And how do we verify the current trajectory and orbital changes are not just regular deviations—they happen, over time, you know?” one man in the screen’s corner shouted.

More questions from participants chimed in. “Why don’t we just get the gases from Mars? We can fix this. I have run the calculations; I have added them in the addendum section A7. We must be able to transport matter home!”

“Do you have any real data? Or just calculations?”

“Should we turn TITAN off?”

Eva held her breath, her eyes wide, darting to each new speaker in the session. Her heart pounded as her mouth dried. She held Rosa’s hand while the bombardment of questions continued.

“People! People!” Aura spoke. The familiar voice put her more at ease.

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Eva glanced to the corner of the display where her friend’s face hovered, the ringlets of her hair bouncing ever so slightly.

She was thankful to have at least one person in their corner.

She tapped the side of her smart glasses and centered Aura in the view.

“Eva and Rosa have already circulated the report, and if any of you had taken the time and actually read this beforehand, as was requested, you wouldn’t spend your time asking these ridiculous questions! We could use this time to come up with solutions, for goodness’ sake!” Aura said, criticizing the crowd. Eva pressed her lips tight, repressing a smile.

“Aura—please,” came Edmund’s low voice.

Eva expected him to interrupt further, but after a moment of silence, realized he had just been trying to temper Aura, not derail her.

That was perhaps a good sign that he understood their side.

Aura rolled her eyes. “Fine, Edmund, I’ll play nice.

“We don’t know the exact quantity of gases expelled from Earth, so how could we get the precise quantity we need if we cannot calculate the volume? We have incorporated as much real data into the simulations as possible—everything since the launch of TITAN. And yeah, while it won’t stop any of what’s happening, keeping TITAN on will only accelerate it, so we should probably cut the cord on the damned thing!”

Aura folded her arms over her chest. “Now, does that answer your questions?”

Whispers rumbled through the crowd on screen, each scientist consulting with their peers in their rooms.

Eva cleared her throat and said, “Edmund?” Watching her friend have the gall to stand up to the group motivated her to do so as well.

Edmund simply stared at the screen for too long.

“Edmund? What say you to all of this?” Eva repeated.

The screen grew silent, everyone waiting for Edmund—their Halikkon leader and board member of iNASA-Climate—to respond. They could only move forward if their work had his blessing.

“There may be another option. I know it is a long shot, a near-impossible task, so to speak, but it is another option at any rate,” Eva whispered.

“What kind of impossible task are you proposing, Eva?” Edmund asked.

She thought for a moment, before raising her head again to meet Edmund’s stare.

“We could make for planet HH190 and…”

“HH190? Have you gone completely insane, Evata? It is not only impossible; it is most assuredly impossible to make such a journey!” he shouted, waving his hands in the air.

“And no spaceship will get any of us there, not in one piece. Imagine just the size, and we don’t even have viable stasis capabilities for such a preposterous journey! And what of the worldwide ban on freezing embryos, or do you have some other way of getting the human race there? No, you are laying out a plan to destroy human life, not save it. Focus on this, the task at hand, not some impossible, unreachable goal. Am I clear?”

Edmund slumped into his chair, not even waiting for an answer.

“But back to TITAN, it’s… This is difficult,” he said from the other side of the screen, eyes distracted from the camera, while Eva presumed he was looking over the data again. “While this is most impressive, conflicting data is coming from TITAN itself.”

“But—” Aura interrupted.

Edmund quickly raised a finger, silencing her.

“Wait, Aura! Just be silent for a moment, if that is even possible. That’s not to say it is wrong. But from where I sit, everything looks perfectly in order.”

Eva squeezed her partner’s hand. While Edmund was cryptic, that was as close to approval as they would find. He sat in silence for a few more moments.

“It took the UiN convention to get TITAN up there,” he said, turning his attention back to the camera.

“It’ll take another to take it down—or at least have it turned off. I’ll pass your report on, but it is much too early to declare anything official. Good work, Kuzlands, though I reasonably hope you’re wrong on this.”

Rosa chuckled, looking at Edmund on the screen. “So do I, boss; so do I!”

“Thank you!” Eva said, though a knot twisted in her stomach. A UiN convention—even an emergency one—would take too long to prepare. And they needed all the time they could get.

She hated the bureaucracy of it all—you would think world-ending news would require less paperwork.

“We’ll adjourn for now,” he finished. “Kuzlands, please set up a regular call to keep us appraised of developments.”

“Yes sir,” they said in unison, and then the screen went blank.