by Greg Chase
Too much of the plan was out of Emily’s hands. Joshua would find a warm welcome with Sara on a planet that had embraced her father. Lillian might receive a very different greeting. She was a strong Tobe, though, one who’d proved helpful in keeping the human population’s unrest under control. Not that it mattered anymore. Emily couldn’t allow herself to be distracted by the growing chaos outside her view screens.
“And we have full ownership of those planets?” Liquidating Rendition’s assets, and those of the family, had been a juggling act of rapidly diminishing results. If Earth really did die, what use would anything be? Businesses, possessions, money—none of it would have any value. The trick was to leave the Moons holding the bag.
“With Jess’s contacts among the pirates, we were able to transfer enough goods, mostly works of art and antiques, out to the moons. It was enough to secure the two moons, but we’ve kept quiet about you as the real owner. We’ve got enough of Rendition’s technology loaded onto Leviathan that we can quickly restart the company.”
It wasn’t that Emily had been inattentive to the plan regarding the Tobes, but with Sara and Jess doing all the legwork out on the moons, and Joshua organizing Earth’s Tobes, Emily had been free to worry about the human component. And that, unfortunately, had been her daily nightmare. “Where are we at with rounding up spaceships? Have those fucking pirates from the Kuiper Belt delivered on their promises yet?”
Joshua transitioned the wall view screen to a scene of the fleet in orbit around Earth. It looked like a massive school of fish interspersed with sharks—way too many tiny craft with the larger ones looking more militant than welcoming for humanity’s new civilizations. “The last convoy from Uranus showed up this morning. There’s still no sign of the Kuiper Belt spaceships, but again, I suspect the pirates oversold what they had to offer. Not everyone who’s trying to curry favor with you has anything worthwhile to exchange. When the deep-space scavengers first found Leviathan adrift at the edge of the solar system, it was little more than an empty, lifeless hull. I’m still in awe of how your grandfather managed to keep the village going in the agro pod during those years of isolation.”
Finding another antique, monster space freighter like Leviathan at the outskirts of mankind’s reach into space had been a long shot. But with Lev’s history of being one of the early spaceships to help terraform the various moons and planets among the solar system, seeking out another like her had been worth the cost even if the results weren’t promising. “We’ll have to make do with what we’ve got. What’s the current discrepancy?”
Joshua brought up the familiar three-dimensional hologram of the solar system. Each of the existing terraformed moons, planets, and asteroids had been color coded to indicate the likelihood of accepting additional residents and how many might be able to relocate to each one. No matter how many times they ran the numbers, there just weren’t enough destinations or ships to accommodate Earth’s ten billion people. “Including the various shuttles—which even with Rendition’s supplemental energy pods can only make it to Mars—we can transport slightly more than six billion people. And that’s temporarily loading down Mars by more than a billion more people than they’ve agreed to. So once the big ships have off-loaded, they’ll have to return to Mars to pick up the excess.”
Emily ran her fingers through her hair as she looked at the figures. “But there won’t be anywhere to take those additional people because we will have already overpopulated every rock we can find. We may not even be able to completely offload the spaceships. Which means the Martian Consortium is going to have a hissy fit. And if that happens—argh!”
Her head felt the way her father used to describe his own when the Tobes were looking to him for answers. Mars expected to keep its wealth and decadent lifestyle. Having refugees move in, even if they were the elite of Earth, would diminish the exclusivity of the planet playing the role of the solar system’s power hub. They’d only begrudgingly agreed to accept a million people, no more, and they wanted to choose whom to accept. Even Mars wasn’t the biggest problem, though. Without official contact with the Moons of Jupiter, there was no way to determine how many people might be able to relocate to the biggest area of human habitation outside of Earth. If Sara and Jess couldn’t conquer that area of the solar system with their Tobes and pirates, an interplanetary war seemed inevitable. As Emily scanned all the other minor planets, which could only handle a couple thousand new people each, she wondered if anything could defuse the growing tensions.
Then there were those who wouldn’t even be able to get off Earth.
Joshua held his hand up to a computer terminal—his way of preventing a demand for Emily’s attention from blaring across every view screen. “It’s Michael Baldwin again. He’s getting a little irate about you ducking his requests for a conversation.”
Fuck. She knew avoiding any of Rendition’s board members was risky, even if they no longer had much of a say in anything the company did, but even more dangerous was ignoring the board member who also represented North America’s branch of the world government. “Put him through.”
The man appeared to have blood vessels exploding across his cheeks. “I know you’re a very busy woman, but damn it, Emily, you can’t keep avoiding me. This is serious. Your latest estimates only have us saving slightly more than half of Earth’s population. You must know this is unacceptable.”
She desperately wanted to scream at him that this was hardly her fault. “I’m scrambling to find every available ship capable of space flight and fix those that aren’t. There’s only so much that I can do.”
He calmed down slightly, though she could tell from the strained neck muscles that his emotions were putting up a fight against his attempts at personal control. “We need to talk about Leviathan. If we empty out the agro pod, we could easily fit in another—”
“Out of the question,” Emily interjected. “You have no rights to Leviathan or that pod. I’ve done more than my fair share trying to save the people of Earth. Forget it.”
“You know the government could seize the ship. It’s taking all of my negotiating skills to keep them off your back, but that’s one big freighter just sitting empty.”
Joshua toyed with a computer screen, tempting her with a link to Doc in the pod. She shook her head slightly. This wasn’t their battle. “Leviathan doesn’t fall under Earth’s governing rules. The last legal owner was some pirate my father worked for out in the Kuiper Belt.”
“You know that’s not true. He sold his stake to your company. That makes it the property of Rendition, and as that corporation exists on Earth, that puts Leviathan under our set of laws.”
It wasn’t a new argument, but Emily had talked enough with Dr. Elliot Shot to know the government didn’t have a leg to stand on. “We can argue the legalities all you want, but it comes down to one very simple fact: Lev created Rendition. So when she was sold, she in essence purchased herself. Then when Dr. Shot relinquished his rights to the patent that created the Tobes, she became fully autonomous. Even I don’t have a say in what happens with her, but if you’d like to argue the point with her, I’m sure she could set you straight.”
The blood vessels that exploded into miniature red veins along the man’s cheeks were met with others along his neck and forehead. “We’re talking about saving people’s lives. Nothing is more important than that single goal. You have a responsibility.”
That was the last straw. “I’ve been head of this corporation for less than two years. Rendition is less than two decades old. Earth has suffered under governments forever. What the hell have you done other than sit idly by while the planet’s destruction has been a foregone conclusion for hundreds of years? I refuse to be the scapegoat here for your own lack of foresight. Why don’t you do something productive for a change instead of just finding other people to blame?”
The man’s face—initially so red—blanched, leaving him looking deathly ill. “I’m sorry, Emily. It’s not fair of me to lay
so much of Earth’s collapse on your young shoulders. There are just a lot of very powerful forces looking to take everything you and your family have built. I can’t hold back the flood for much longer.”
She too settled down as she remembered how much Michael had done to keep those powerful forces at bay. “I’m sorry too. We really are doing our best to find every spacecraft within reach, and some that aren’t. It’s not just the transport, though. Earth is a pretty big planet compared to the number of terraformed rocks in space.”
Earth had never been much of a home for Emily. Even while the rest of her family made the penthouse on top of the Rendition building their sanctuary, she’d preferred to spend her time with the village on Leviathan. Inheriting the family business, and all of Earth’s problems, had never been her desire. Too many days she’d spent speculating on what had driven her father into taking on the monster task of running this planet’s biggest business. Even taking the Tobes into consideration, she couldn’t see the effort as having been worth the sacrifice.
Stepping back on Persephone was like moving backward in time, and strange as it seemed, she couldn’t help but see it as the right direction. Sophie’s embrace was accompanied by small red glittery hearts that sprung up around Emily’s arms. “You know this is a little more cartoony-cliché than sweet and caring, right?”
“Shut up. You used to love my displays of glitter.”
Emily well remembered their first meeting when Sophie walked in covered in a robe made of purple glitter just to delight her and Sara. “I was just a little girl back then. Why is it every time I see you I’m running away from a dying world, and you’re always here to catch me and make me feel better?”
“That’s what we do for the people we love.”
Emily hadn’t just moved to Persephone for the emotional support, though. Being smaller than Leviathan and better connected, the elegant space yacht could orbit closer to Earth—close enough that Ellie, Joshua, and Ed could materialize aboard the vessel. All three sat on the bridge couch, looking like students called to the principal’s office. Of the Tobes that made up Emily’s family, Ellie was taking Earth’s impending destruction the hardest.
As Emily pulled away from Sophie’s embrace, playful red hearts chased after her. “You can stay up here, El. Sophie will do all she can for you. I don’t think it’s healthy for you to go back to Earth.”
Joshua put a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “Emily’s right. I can see that all your artwork is packed up and transferred to Leviathan, though I still wish you’d listen to me about moving out to the Moons of Jupiter with me. Lev won’t be able to support you.”
Ellie turned her glistening eyes to her brother. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want to be aware anymore. I just want to go to sleep. We worked so hard to change people’s lives. They didn’t have to work at meaningless jobs, there was no economic despair—they could finally be those higher beings they’d always hoped to be. We made that future possible for them. But once word got out about the impending doom, instead of continuing on that path toward enlightenment, they turned on each other. I don’t want to be a part of human life anymore. Put me into suspended sleep, and wake me up when Emily’s created a better utopia for us all.”
The Tobe woman’s despondency was infectious. Emily had a front-row seat to the devolution of human nature. Like the storm-driven ocean that continually tried to drown New York, once people found out about what was to come, they’d started beating against everything humanity had spent one hundred thousand years building, trying to destroy it all. Had it been a result of their anguish, Emily might have been more sympathetic, but as Ellie had pointed out, it was more often a result of taking all they could even though possessions and money would no longer matter.
Emily looked out the office view screen. Being out in space wasn’t much better. People clambered aboard every available vessel like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Emily had hoped that once they knew salvation was at hand, maybe they’d abandon their animalistic natures. That hadn’t been the case. Mutinies were breaking out with increasing frequency—people thought they should have a say in where they were headed and when they got there. It just wasn’t possible to give over six billion people the option of choosing their own destinies. Rendition had rounded up the ships. Rendition had negotiated the treaties that would allow the people of Earth to move to other planets. And Emily was Rendition.
If it hadn’t meant absolute chaos, she would have left everyone to their own brand of destruction. I have to stop thinking like that. “You’ll stay with me, Ellie. Together, we’ll create something you can be proud of again. Until we move to Leviathan, I’d like you to save as many historically significant works of art and culture as you can. Buy them if possible, and if not, you have my permission to beg, borrow, or steal what you consider worth the risk. I’ve got an entire pod on Leviathan devoted to saving the highest of human endeavors. I can’t think of a better curator than you.”
Time took on a kaleidoscopic feel for Emily. So many competing interests screamed for her attention: the Tobe contingents preparing to leave Earth, her task of liquidating what she could of Rendition while saving its essence to one day be reborn on another world, and humanity. People seemed to think they had a right to demand she drop everything to hear each of their complaints. Her time on Persephone with her dear Tobe friends had been way too short, but she was no longer in charge of events. The moment had come for her to move her small office even farther from Earth and its demands, leaving Joshua and Ellie to finish up the few remaining details.
The old space freighter never ceased to amaze her. Having met Lev as the rescuer of the village on Chariklo—and hearing stories from her parents and grandfather about the ship’s history—Emily had devoured every bit of information she could discover about the old ship. So much sounded more like legend than fact. As she stepped onto the main bridge, she was shocked to find it uncluttered. Dr. Elliot Shot’s typical array of books on astronomy, physics, and a variety of other scientific disciplines were missing as was his confusing computer system made up of multiple display screens, both real and virtual. With all of the control consoles uncovered, the bridge once again looked like an antique operating platform for the old space freighter. She knew once Lev had become sentient, the room no longer had a use, but between her father and Dr. Shot, it hadn’t gone to waste—until that moment.
She nearly plowed into the old scientist as she turned around. “There you are. What’s with the cleaned-out office?”
Dr. Shot put his ever-present note pad on a desk he’d set up on the bridge and took a seat in the captain’s chair. “Sit with me a moment.”
She didn’t like the serious sound of his voice. He had bad news. Remembering how he’d delivered Earth’s death sentence, she fell more than sat on the curved couch that took up one side of the bridge, preparing to hear his latest tale of doom. “What now?”
“I’m not going with you. I’ve rounded up a small shuttle that will give me a front-row seat for our moon’s destruction. There’s one last experiment I want to run, but it means I need to be present for the big event.”
It didn’t come as the huge surprise he must have envisioned. He’d been speculating on what would happen for as long as she could remember. The conversations between the scientist—some tall tales had him so old he’d designed Leviathan over one hundred years ago—and her father were legendary. Most of those speculative discussions involved the effects of an energy event so large it could distort time itself.
“What’s your plan?” she asked.
“Your father and I used to speculate that time moves backward along the same path as what we experience. The friction of those two forces creates energy vortices we know as matter. At one end of that stream is, of course, the big bang. As time ends in black holes, our theory was that would be at the other end. Our question was: if we could find a black hole in the making, could we send information back in time? I believe the moon will create such a black ho
le.”
Dr. Shot delivered the news so calmly she wondered if he understood the ramifications.
“If that happens, what will become of Earth?”
“Relative to galaxy-sized black holes, this one would be tiny,” he said. “The gravitational mass would remain the same, so it’s not like the Earth would get sucked into the moon hole, at least not right away. Now, an explosion powerful enough to compress the moon into a black hole is another story. I can’t come up with a better definition of apocalypse.”
She wasn’t sure how much attention he’d paid to her rescue plans. “You know not all people and Tobes will get off the planet.”
He nodded as he leaned forward. “We’re all just ideas expressed in energy.”
“A lot of people will end up freed from that energy.”
His smile reminded her of her father’s when he was proud of her and couldn’t find the words. “You remind me of Sam. I miss him. My mind’s never been as sharp without him. I’ve lived too long, Emily, and now I think I know why. I once told your dad I was like the kid with his hand out the shuttle window, dragging my life against the winds of time. Now I know how to do that. But if standing in front of the upcoming black hole extended my life, imagine what would happen to someone like a Tobe.”
He started drawing in his notebook. Next to a small circle he wrote “moon black hole” then next to a larger circle “Earth” and between the two he drew a space ship with a smiling face in the port window.
“As the moon explodes, backward time will start spreading out like a wave after a rock’s been tossed into a pond. But it’s not time like we understand it. You have to think of it in opposite terms. Instead of the wave growing weaker the farther out it gets, it would actually be growing stronger. If I’m here, closer to the explosion, my life gets gently pushed backward, but someone on Earth would get a much stronger wave.”