Zaphenath Paneah and I listened while Kabir lectured us on how life first evolved on Charon. “It began over 400 million solar orbits ago with chemiosmosis, a process in which the chemical adenosine triphosphate was broken down and re-formed to release energy. Biological evidence indicates the first living organisms on Charon were not self-replicating molecules, but a byproduct of a chemical combination that contained the instructions for processing energy and replicating. Incredibly, the enzymes required for this specific metabolism were not found on our planet; they were delivered by meteorites. Ribose, adenine, and cytosine were the key ingredients lined inside these space rocks, which most likely metabolized into bacteria after coalescing in hot, acidic pools of liquid that contained phosphorus chemicals.”
“Kabir, in order to save our people, we need to seed the ingredients of Charon’s life matrix on another world. Just for argument’s sake, let’s say you could package this biological soup aboard a conventional rocket and crashland it. Which planet or moon in our solar system represents the best candidate for life to take hold and develop as it has on Charon?”
“At present? The answer is none.”
“I realize that. But what about in the future or distant future?”
Communicating with his control console via thought wave, the exobiologist powered on a holographic map of our star system revealing our sun, orbited by four inner worlds and four outer, the divide separated by an asteroid belt.
“The two innermost planets, Nekudim and Akudim, are far too close to the sun for life to ever evolve. The outlying gas giants beyond Charon aren’t suitable either. That leaves Berudim.”
The hologram zoomed in on the third planet from the sun. Charon’s neighbor was a hostile world, its surface obscured behind a dense layer of gray atmospheric clouds. “If we’re speaking strictly in terms of a planetary lifetime, then Berudim would be my choice. Although its atmosphere is presently toxic to life as we know it, our probes indicate that the cloud cover obscuring the planet’s surface contains massive layers of moisture and that it is in fact raining on Berudim. Water, as you know, is a necessary ingredient for life on Charon. Berudim’s atmosphere is in flux, and probability models suggest a breathable air in approximately ten to fifteen million years. What I also like about Berudim is that it’s twice the size of Charon, with a much larger magnetosphere to protect it from the solar wind.”
Zaphenath Paneah turned to me. “The magnetosphere is an issue the Council has hidden from the masses since the revolution. It has been steadily eroding for centuries. Another fifty to seventy years and we’ll have no atmosphere. No atmosphere means no air and no greenhouse effect to maintain temperature stability. With or without the Miketz, Charon is destined to become a cold, desolate world.”
Kabir never liked being interrupted while he was in mid-gust. “Listen to me, Avi Socha. We can engage in hypotheticals between now and doomsday, but there’s a difference between seeding the ingredients of life on Berudim and expecting it to one day become an intelligent race of beings. Evolution has its own catalysts — asteroid strikes, ice ages, runaway genetic mutations. Duplicating an abiotic process to produce RNA or RNA precursors that result in a species suitable to communicate with is a one in a million shot.”
“One in a million is better than no chance at all,” Zaphenath Paneah said. “Kabir, how many probes are available to launch to Berudim?”
Kabir used his thought waves to review the institute’s inventory of space drones. “Seventy-two vessels still remain under the institute’s control. As fate would have it, the journey can be completed in six days, because the two planets are rapidly approaching their maximum perihelic opposition, the closest they’ve been since life first took hold on Charon. Before you go congratulating yourself, Avi Socha, you should know that this isn’t just a coincidence. Berudim is actually the cause of the Miketz. The third planet’s gravitational pull on Charon is what is increasing the pressure in the calderas. Sometime before the maximum perihelic orbit is achieved, Charon’s magma pockets will erupt, unless we take the necessary course of action.”
Kabir’s tone caused the back of my skull to tingle. “What does that mean? Zaphenath, what is he referring to?”
The rebel leader was not happy with his scientist’s lack of discretion. “It’s a course of action that has been proposed. When the Council discovered that Berudim’s gravitational pull was causing the calderic pressure increases, they instructed the Science Institute to develop a means of destroying it. Our scientists succeeded where theirs failed.”
Zaphenath Paneah focused his thought waves on the hologram of Berudim until three drones were positioned around the planet. “The device is called a scalar weapon. Unlike conventional electromagnetic waves that propagate outward in ripples through our physical dimension, scalar waves travel through space longitudinally in the higher dimensions. When fired simultaneously from drones orbiting Berudim, the scalar waves shall cause every molecule on the planet to broil at a temperature hotter than the sun, vaporizing everything into plasma. Berudim’s atmosphere will expand until it explodes, the entire event lasting less than a second.”
He nodded, causing three electric-blue beams to ignite on the holographic simulation, yielding a massive white explosion that expelled rings of plasma across the vastness of space.
By the time my eyes adjusted, the third planet from the sun was gone.
41
“The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
Whether to destroy an uninhabited planet in order to save your own might seem like an easy decision for the rebel leaders representing the twelve tribes, but there were complex variables in play. If Berudim was destroyed and Charon spared, the Council would return to enslave the people. As for using the scalar weapon on the Council’s orbiting ships, if fired from Charon the anti-gravity burst could potentially set off the calderas.
Then there was Charon’s decaying magnetosphere. Destroying Berudim only represented a temporary solution, for at some point during the next decade the atmosphere would collapse. At least my plan offered us a chance to begin over in a new world, without being dominated by an oppressive regime.
But some didn’t want to crawl out from the shadow of oppression. They had been servants for so long that the thought of being free actually frightened them. Even if transdimensional travel could be achieved in the coming weeks, there were too many unknown variables for tribal leaders to even consider a mass exodus.
How long would our people have to venture across the cosmic desert before a suitable planet could be found?
What if this new world was ruled by a hostile force far worse than the Council?
Under the Council’s rule the tribes had been housed and fed, trained and employed. Yes, there were inequities derived from power and pain inflicted upon our people, but sometimes the safer option is the devil you know.