There must be something, damn it, Siobhan snapped.
She looked around at the softscreens that lined the walls of the room. The faces that peered back at her, her senior project managers, were projected from various corners of the Earth, the Moon, and L1 itself. The expressions of Bud and Mikhail Martynov as always radiated sympathy and support. Rose was wearing her usual it-cant-be-done scowl. Many of the others were more reserved. Some may actually have been grateful to Rose and her showstoppers, as she gave them something to hide their own issues behind.
They just didnt get it, Siobhan thought. There was a failure of imagination, even among her people, some of the smartest engineers and technologists around, who were closer to the project than anybody else. They werent just building a bridge here, or just flying to Mars; this wasnt just another project, another line on a curriculum vitae. This was the future of humanity they were dealing with. If they fouled up, whatever the cause, there would be no tomorrow in which to hand out blame: there would be no careers to wreck, no new directions to seek. Siobhan ought to welcome Roses bluntness, she thought; at least from her you got the straight skinny, whatever the consequences.
Im not going to give you a pep talk, she said. Let me just remind you what President Alvarez said. Failure is not an option. It still isnt. We are going to work on this until our foreheads bleed, and we are going to find solutions to both these problems of ours today, come what may.
Bud murmured, Were with you, Siobhan.
I hope thats true. She stood, pushing back her chair. She said to Toby, I need a break.
I dont blame you. Just a reminderyour ten oclock is outside.
Siobhan glanced at a softscreen diary page. Lieutenant Dutt? The soldier who had, it seemed, spent more than a year trying to get access to Siobhan, with grave news she wouldnt divulge to anybody else, and had finally drifted to the top of the in-tray. More problems. But at least different problems.
She stretched, trying to dissipate the ache in her upper neck. If anybody cares Ill be back in thirty minutes.
22: Turning Point
Lieutenant Bisesa Dutt, British Army, was waiting for Siobhan in the City of London Rooms. She was drinking coffee and studying her phone.
As Siobhan crossed the room she was distracted by a peculiar shadow. Looking out the window, she glimpsed a gaunt framework rising beyond the rooftops of London: it was the skeleton of what would become the London Dome, the citys own effort to protect itself from the sunstorm. It was already the mightiest construction project in Londons long history, although predictably it was dwarfed by still mightier shelters being raised over New York, Dallas, and Los Angeles.
From the beginning they had always known, just as Alvarez had announced, that the shield was not going to save the Earth from one hundred percent of the suns rage, even assuming it got built at all. Some of it was going to get throughbut the shield would give humanity a fighting chance, a chance that had to be taken. The trouble was that nobody knew how much pain the world below, and cities like London, would have to absorb.
The Dome was merely the most visible of the changes befalling the city. Across London the government had begun a program of laying up stores of nonperishable food, fuel, medical supplies, and the like, and the prices of such items were escalating. Even water rates were increasing as the authorities siphoned off supplies to fill immense underground tanks under the citys parks. It was like preparing for war, Siobhan thought. But the necessity was very real.
Certainly the building of the Dome, a physical manifestation of the danger to come, had started at last to make people believe, deep in their guts, that the sunstorm was real. Across the city there was a sense of apprehension, and the medical services reported upsurges in anxiety and stress. But there was excitement too, in a way, even anticipation.
Siobhan had been traveling extensively, and shed found that things were much the same everywhere.
In the United States especially she thought there was a sense of determination, of unity; America, as always, was having to bear a disproportionately heavy weight of the global effort. Across the nation, even where domes were impractical, there was a neighborhood-level drive to prepare, as the National Guard, the Scouts, and a hundred volunteer drives dug shelters into their own backyards and their neighbors, filled underground tanks with rainwater, and collected aluminum cans to be filled up with emergency rations. Meanwhile there was a less obvious but equally dramatic effort to archive as much knowledge as possible, in digital and hardcopy forms, in great storage facilities in deep mine shafts, wells, Cold Warera bunkers, and even on the Moon. This was after all the true treasure of the nation, indeed of humankindbut this program gathered more controversy from those who argued that you should save people first and last. President Alvarez was proving expert once more in guiding her nations spirits; she was planning a program of celebrations of World War II centenary events, leading up to Pearl Harbor in 2041, to remind her fellow citizens of great trials they had faced before, and overcome.
There was dissension, all over the world. Aside from genuine differences of opinion about how to respond to this emergency, there were plenty of devout types who thought it was all a punishment by God, for one crime or anotherand others who were angry at a God who had allowed this to happen. And some, the radical green types, said humankind should just accept its fate. This was a kind of karmic punishment for the way we had messed up the planet: let the Earth be wiped clean, and start again. Which might be a comforting idea, Siobhan thought grimly, if you could be sure there would be anything left after the sunstorm to start again with.
But even so there was still an unreal sheen to things. With the sun shining brightly over London, the Dome seemed as inappropriate as a Christmas tree in July. Most people just got on with their liveseven those who thought it was all a scam by the construction companies.
And in the middle of all this, here was Lieutenant Bisesa Dutt, and another mystery for Siobhan.
She reached Bisesas table and sat down, asking an attendant for coffee.
Thank you for seeing me, Bisesa began. I know how busy you must be.
I doubt if you do, Siobhan said ruefully.
But, Bisesa said calmly, I think youre the right person to hear what I have to say.
As she sipped her coffee Siobhan tried to get a sense of Bisesa. As Astronomer Royal she had always been expected to deal with peoplesometimes thousands of them at once, when she gave public lectures. But since being press-ganged by Miriam Grec into this position of extraordinary responsibility, as a sort of general manager of the shield project, she believed she was acquiring a protective skill in sizing people up: the quicker you understood what faced you, the better you could deal with it.
And so here was Bisesa Dutt, Army officer, out of uniform, far from her posting. She was of Indian extraction. Her face was symmetrical, her nose long, and her gaze was strong but troubled. She was above medium height, with the physical confidence of a soldier. But she was gaunt, Siobhan thought, as if she had been hungry in the past.
Siobhan said, Tell me why I need to listen to you.
I know the date of the sunstorm. The exact date.
Because the authorities, guided by teams of psychologists, were continuing to work to minimize panic, that was still a closely guarded secret. Bisesa, if there has been a security leak, its your duty to tell me about it.
Bisesa shook her head. No leak. You can check. She lifted one foot and tapped the sole with her fingernail. Im tagged. The Army has been monitoring me since I turned myself in.