L Modesitt - Empress of Eternity

Helkyria admitted. "With essentially no compensating feedback on any subsurface systemic level, there?s just not enough planetary core radioactivity remaining. The solar cycle is at a minimum, and the projections are that it will be another ten thousand years, at a minimum, before received solar radiation returns to past estimated baselines."

"Past estimated baselines? How reliable are they?"

"Not so reliable as we?d like. You know what happened when the Jhaenists tried entangled fermionic solar manipulation from Mercury…"

"That?s still a theory. We don?t know."

"The results of whatever they were trying seared half the planet and disrupted the deeper solar processes enough to reduce the amount of solar radiation emitted," replied Helkyria. "They succeeded, by chance or accident, or the sun just obliged them on its own, but that fractional reduction of radiation left us with less than we need for a stable envirosystem, and for the millennia since then we?ve been teetering on the edge of ice age after ice age."

"Where is global warming when we need it?" Duhyle added quickly, "Isn?t that what the Aesyr would ask?"

"They?ve asked it enough, without any real understanding. You know that, Kavn. Most important, the ancients burned so much of the Earth?s fossil fuels that we couldn?t replicate that even if we wanted to and if we could deal with the polluting by-products. The green house gases that we could create are too long-lasting, and we?d be back where the Jhaenists were. A compounding green house effect is almost always a runaway process over any length of time-something the most distant ancients didn?t understand, even with the obvious example of Venus. Neither did too many of their successors. That?s why the Jhaenists were so desperate. Life in the universe appears to be balanced on the edge of a very sharp and unforgiving blade, and in the end entropy will always win." She offered a sardonic smile, enhanced by a momentary flash of green in her eyebrows. "But only eventually, and not until after the sun becomes a red giant."

"Not before Earth freezes solid again."

"That probably won?t happen. Unless we can discover something less catastrophic, the advocates of enhancing the green house effect will win out, backed by the Aesyr, and our descendants will face another seared Earth. This time, there?s not likely to be any way to recover."

"Haven?t scients said that before?"

"When the clock finally stops, it?s usually the wrong time."

Duhyle didn?t ask about the applicability of that metaphor. She was convinced that the clock was all too likely to stop when it melted in the furnace of a runaway green house. From the recent comm-system disruptions staged by the Climate for People and the Warm Clean Earthers, both Aesyr fronts or sympathizers, it was also clear that too many humans wanted the ice gone-now. They wanted it to vanish without any untidy or unpleasant complications. That had never been possible, and it wasn?t likely to happen this time, either. That also was why his tech status had been reactivated and why Helkyria had been called up, again, as a scient-commander. He had asked if she?d really been assigned, but she?d always evaded the question.

"What about terraforming Mars again?" he asked after a moment.

"With what? It takes water, and the previous efforts scoured the easily available ices from the Kuiper Belt. Those remaining are farther out and smaller. That takes time, resources, and energy. We?re short on all three."

"Even if…?"

"Enhancing thorium for a breeder program would require massive energy concentrations as well, and it?s politically unthinkable, except for the most radical of the Aesyr. Besides, even if we could do that, we don?t have the resources to move four hundred million people."

"The distant ancients numbered billions…"

"When everything fell apart, most of those billions died. You?ve seen enough of the fossils and all the evidence of total societal collapse. The Hu-Ruche apparently evaded one collapse, and they?re the only ones who did…and that only postponed the inevitable."

"Are you certain?"

"Every simulation I can run predicts Iceberg Earth. So does every other simulation attempted by the Department."

"With no rebound?"

"I wouldn?t say that the probability of no rebound is unitary, but it?s so close that…"

Helkyria offered a sad smile, and the tips of her silver-gold locks flickered the off-blue of disappointment. Her eyebrows did not shift hues, suggesting that her discouragement was perhaps not so deep as her words conveyed.

"That it might as well be," Duhyle finished.

"That?s why I?m here. The Stats center has calculated a ten percent chance that detailed study of the canal will reveal data or information not presently known."

"Based on what?"

Helkyria smiled. "An array of inputs that would take far too long to even summarize over breakfast."

"How about one?"

"The fact that the apparent density of the canal, as measured by indirect gravitational distortion, suggests a structure that could not hold itself together for more than fifty years, let alone millions."

"Indirect distortion?" He already knew the answer.

"Do you know a direct way to measure something embedded in a planetary crust?" A faint twinkle of gold glittered from the tips of her eyelashes and eyebrows. "We did work out an even more indirect method, since the traditional means showed nothing at all."

"Indirection is everything," bantered Duhyle.

"No one?s ever measured the material of the midcontinent canal before," Helkyria continued as if he had said nothing. "How could you measure or determine the properties of a substance you can?t sample? It?s essentially impervious to all forms of energy. It either reflects or scatters anything focused on it, or both, depending on the wave form and amount of energy involved."

"What did you discover?"

Both her irises and the tips of her hair turned a blackish purple.

Duhyle had never seen that, and he swallowed.

A crooked smile followed. "The results were…mixed. It has no mass; it has the same average mass as the Earth?s crust; its mass is independent of the Earth." She rose from the table.

"How is your scanning project coming?" He also stood.

"I?ll know when the last equipment arrives. It might work…and it might not. I?ll need your help with the equipment."

"You?re worried."

"They?re sending a spec-ops team and weapons with the equipment. They should be here tomorrow."

"Why?"

"Several days ago, the Aesyr extremists launched a stealth submersible from Urda-that isle under the northern ice. They?ve learned about the project, and they?re afraid our probing will unlock immense forces and devastate the entire globe." Her laugh was soft, ironic, and bitter, and the tips of her curls flickered cold silver. "That?s a cover. They think that we?re doing weapons research. As if the ancients would have made all the effort to create and plant the canal into the crust just to leave a doomsday weapon for the future. If they?d wanted to destroy the world, they had far better options."

"The Aesyr don?t understand," he temporized.

"Extremists never have. That?s because they don?t want to." She shrugged. "Time to get back to work."

"Refining the control programming while you wait for the rest of the equipment?"

She nodded, offered a brief smile, and turned.

As she left, Duhyle wondered if he?d ever understand more than the basic theory of fermionic ghost diffraction imaging. He certainly had had more than a little trouble when Helkyria had tried to explain quantum ghost imaging and the differences between it and fermionic diffraction imaging. As for fermionic ghost entanglement…and he was an electrical engineer. He shook his head and picked up her dishes.