Claire Holroyde - The Effort

The elevator doors parted with her synchronized exit.

“Janus was the Roman god of gateways… Also of beginnings and endings, and duality. He was depicted with two faces, one young and one old.”

There were closed, double doors at the end of a short corridor. The assistant director opened the doors and nodded to the newcomers. Ben was the first to step into a large conference room with long tables forming a square studded with chairs around the sides, all facing center. Two of these chairs were occupied by men sitting side by side. Both rose, but only the man on the left was quick about it. The man on the right battled gravity as he fought to stand. Photos of him on the internet were all dated by several decades. Amy wasn’t prepared for Professor Ochsenfeld’s current state of steep decline.

“Sir,” Ben said. “I mean Professor. It’s such an honor…”

Ben blathered on. Amy had never seen him offer such respect to the living. The Professor had to be a true legend—not that he looked the part. The dapper cane with mother-of-pearl handle that supported his stooped weight was the only outward sign that he was an eminent Oxford don. Otherwise, his clothes were drab and dated.

“Professor, let me introduce you to Chuck Maes,” Ben said, motioning back to his friend. “Chuck is from my JPL crew.”

Chuck nodded with a nervous smile and fidgeted. Ben looked to Amy next. He had to fight for her inclusion.

“Amy Kowalski,” she said, walking over to the men.

Introductions were important; she always handled her own with a smile, direct eye contact, and a firm handshake—but not too tight. As Amy got close, the smell of sickness hit her nostrils. Some organ or internal process had gone foul, but Amy still took the Professor’s gnarled hand into her own. Old age and sickness were absent from the army bases where she spent the first eighteen years of her life. While these mortal reminders were still strange and frightening, Amy would never let them get the better of her.

“It’s such an honor,” she repeated, following Ben’s lead just as he followed hers in the right situation.

Thick spectacles magnified red-veined eyes draped with lids like unfolded origami. The Professor’s face held no expression but moved with an occasional tremor. It was only his pause that spoke to his momentary surprise; no one would pick her out of a lineup to be Ben’s girlfriend.

The assistant director stood beside Director Durand after securely shutting the doors. Amy found him handsome for his age; sixties with a strong body, thick white hair, and startling blue eyes. It was only as she studied his expression very closely that she sensed danger.

“What’s wrong?” she asked immediately.

The director took a halting breath and introduced both himself and the assistant director as Marcel Durand and Anneke Janssen.

“But what’s wrong ?” Amy demanded.

The Professor cleared his dry throat and announced, “The comet is accelerating even faster than expected.”

Ben was no longer smiling, no longer giving deference. He was back in crisis mode. He stood protectively by Amy and stared into the Professor’s unblinking eyes.

“How many years do we have, Professor?”

Ben could well have said decades, that was his hopeful estimation, but the Professor shook his head.

“What do you mean, ‘No’?” Ben asked, raising his voice.

They didn’t have years, the Professor explained. JPL’s Sentry impact monitoring system and the European Space Agency’s CLOMON system had calculated three very approximate, possible trajectories between them. The shortest of these estimated a potential impact as early as June.

“June,” Ben repeated. “As in this June?”

The Professor wrapped his cane on the thin carpeting and yelled back.

“Yes, this June! You must initiate your plan. Now!”

Ben took a breath and made several mental calculations with the speed and accuracy of a pocket calculator. He told the room they needed a February 1 launch for a spacecraft with solar power. Both of the spaceport directors protested at the same time.

“Is it even physically possible?”

“We’ll find that out, won’t we?” Ben said. “Now set the clocks.”

SLEEP GRANTED JACK a reset. Worrying was tiresome, after all, and he needed a break from it. The curtain to Gustavo’s top bunk was still fully closed, so Jack quietly grabbed his towel, toiletry bag, and a pair of flip-flops. The shower in the passageway bathroom was the size of a small closet and had a printout taped up on the wall with instructions. All passengers had to make do with a “sea shower” no more than once a day using only two bursts from the showerhead: one to get wet and one to rinse. Jack understood that heated, drinkable water on demand was still a luxury to the majority of the world’s population. On top of that, he didn’t mind getting dirty and smelling like the mammal he was; it was another form of freedom and truth.

At 0730 hours, freshly shaved with his short, light hair gelled up in stylish tufts, Jack found the cafeteria-style galley. Crewmembers and scientists sat in the mess deck at long tables chatting and chewing. It was easy to spot which group was which: the Coasties wore navy sweatshirts or work shirts, and the scientists sported plaid button-downs, jeans, facial hair, thumb rings, and fleece vests.

As a guest passenger, Jack was the odd man out. He helped himself to a stack of chocolate-chip pancakes and sat alone. Flipping open the welcome aboard packet, Jack read an introduction by the ship’s own Captain Weber:

Welcome aboard Healy . Please review the enclosed materials. The inherent hazards of life at sea require that we all understand and follow the basic safety practices which are described…

Jack skimmed the rest. Mostly, he looked for instructions on getting access to his Healy email account. Once the ship reached 75°N latitude, bandwidth would be so limited that only the bridge would be authorized to access the internet. The computer labs in the lounges would only provide email through Healy ’s server onboard.

The Coasties and scientists surrounding Jack made more haste with their breakfasts. Their mornings were booked with scheduled activities listed on the plan of the day posted throughout the ship. Safety drills occupied the crew and one unlucky man-overboard dummy named Ralph. The scientists were to split their numbers in half to inventory equipment lockers and lab spaces while also testing the cranes on deck. Jack was left to his own devices.

The weather was warmer than he expected; high sixties, set to creep up to 73°F, according to plan of the day posts. Jack stuffed his hat and gloves into the pockets of his parka and thought it unusually warm for Alaska. Or maybe not so unusual, considering that the previous year brought the hottest global temperatures on record by the largest margin to date. The current year was already set to break more records. Jack often remembered the allegory of the frog plopped in water that was slowly brought to a boil—no cause for alarm until you’re already served up on a plate with garlic and lemon.

The mist had burned off, and Jack could see Seward’s mountains clearly. He walked aft and back again to the bow, checking different vantage points with the viewfinder of his camera. There were more dead eagles in the water, many more, and yet the air was full of healthy, obnoxious gulls that swooped and drafted large ships in the bay.

Jack craned his head up to the three boxlike structures rising from Healy ’s hull.

The structure closest to the bow housed living quarters: staterooms, lounges, mess deck, gym, laundry, and so on. It was the widest and tallest of the three structures with small, evenly spaced portholes dotting its sides all the way up to a crown of windows and satellite antennae at the bridge, Healy ’s central command. Sprouting from the bridge, like a mast and crow’s nest, was a small lookout. No doubt those windows afforded the best panoramic view.