The End of Eden (Water Worlds 1)

Chapter 5

"This would likely awaken enough of the planet's magnetic field to give the newly forming atmosphere a little protection against the relentless solar wind. Then, oceans would form! There is already a vast amount of water locked below the planet's surface, and the heat and pressure of the cometary impact should release it. The theory is: vaporize enough of the right kind of rock in a condensate corridor and you precipitate oceans. For Mars, there isn't really a need for another moon."

He paused and looked over at me. He was finally getting around to his point.

"Do you know, Young Moon, I have been drawing circles too? Oh yes, all based on the mathematics of my plan. It looks like we are making much the same circles, you and I. Once again, either you are looking inside my mind or I inside yours."

It was true. We did often know what the other was feeling. I could usually guess if he was on his way home and I was mostly right, and he could sense if I was hurt or sad and would reach out to me. I don't know how we knew. We just did, and I cherished that special bond we had.

"Look here. This display shows the various trajectories I have been calculating. Usually the most efficient path takes the longest time, but not always." he said. "Now watch."

He touched his thumb and forefinger together and most of the circles faded out, until only one set was left.

"This is my current best trajectory. The one with the most efficient path to success."

He pressed his fingers together one more time. "And this you might recognize."

My drawing dissolved in! The one I gave him. It was mostly a mass of random circles, but several heavier ones stood out. I had drawn over them, again and again, and the blackness of those lines dominated the page.

"Fifty percent," Father said to the air, and my drawing became translucent, like onion-skin. He rolled his thumb over his fingertip to rotate the drawing layer. With his cupped hand, he reached out and moved my circles to overlap his, then he pinched his fingertips to resize it precisely to scale.

The two sets of circles aligned almost perfectly.

Almost.

"I'm sorry Father," I interrupted quietly. "My circles are a bit different, aren't they?"

"Exactly!" he shouted. Shouted! I never, ever heard Father speak loudly, before. "Your circles were the inspiration to investigate new paths that I had overlooked, using a complex series of gravity assists from the gas giants. The new routes are promising and could bring our ice worlds into the inner Solar System much sooner than I had thought possible. We could be living on Venus and Mars perhaps hundreds of years sooner, thanks to you, my daughter." He smiled at me and the warmth of it filled me with pride.

"But this particular alignment won't happen again for two centuries. To take advantage of it I'd have to launch both craft within the next twelve years or so, and that hardly seems possible. This will all just have to remain a thought experiment, for now."

He sighed and went silent, pondering his grand idea.

Then, speaking in a low voice, mostly to himself, he said, "But if I could launch in time, and if I had a bit of extra force out there. A kickstart of some sort. To get the ice moving really fast, well then we could get there even sooner than that."

"What's a kickstart Father?" I asked, but he was somewhere else now, examining my circles, swiping and rubbing and tapping his fingers, sending his silvery space craft through the Solar System on impossible adventures. I'd never seen him so... alive! And he seemed to think I had something to do with it all.

After a time, he turned to me. He looked right at me — right into me — and I blushed deeply.

"Every day," he said, "the Record is full of news of the latest water wars or riots among refugee groups. Even our simplest games teach us to attack and defend rather than cooperate and grow. It so often seems the world is full of nothing but trouble and death. Until this moment. Now, it looks like it just might be possible for us to move into our new homes before our dear Earth becomes completely uninhabitable. And as destructive as we are, even humans would take millions of years to destroy two new planets."

There was a scale to his vision that scared me, but it was thrilling, too.

"Very well, Father," I said, suddenly feeling very grownup. "I'll let you have my circles, if they'll help. But I want to be there with you. If you find a way to make any of this real, I want to see it happen."

Father was stunned for a second. I don't think he expected any actual demand from his only daughter, let alone a negotiation. It was certainly not the way he raised me. But it was the way Mother did.

His face softened and his thin lips stretched into a smile.

"Agreed!" he said, with a laugh. "Young Moon, you shall be my muse. We will send our Kali to the Kuiper Cliff to sniff out ice worlds, and together we will save Humanity."

"Kali?" I asked.

"Mythology, my dear," Father explained. "Ancient Hindu goddess." He turned and looked straight at me, and some of the demon fire was back in his eyes. "Kali was the destroyer of worlds and the bringer of life."

And with that, he waved off the wall display, rolled the pocket door open wide, and we walked passed the slowly spinning globe Mars, out of his study and into the wonderful smells of supper.