STAR OF EPIPHANY

by OMAR FINK

  Nabith rose to leave the room. His mother turned and said, “Oh, and please call Doctor Gupta and tell him what has happened and ask if he can come certify the death certificate for us.”

  +37 days, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

  Andy Watson stood up and reconvened the meeting by saying, “The catering service will be clearing away our debris from dinner, but we need to continue on with no delay. Please place your trash at the edge of the table, so they can reach it easily.”

  He motioned toward Marco and explained, “Marco and his team have laid out our direction with their analysis of what won’t work and what will work and their introduction to space elevators. They have an expert on space elevators in their group, and we’ll be hearing more from Ed later. But first, we need a broad outline of what will be needed.” He paused briefly, then continued, “Marco pointed out that in addition to figuring out how to move eight billion people up the space elevators, we will have to plan for the logistics of moving them around on the ground to get them to the bottom of the elevators, and perhaps more importantly, they will need somewhere to live permanently when they arrive in space. This means the construction of some form of space habitat and all the necessary infrastructure to make that work.”

  Marco raised his hand and interrupted without waiting for Andy to call on him, “And don’t forget, we also need to determine how much this will cost and how to pay for it all.” He smiled at Andy.

  Andy smiled back at Marco and replied, “Yes Marco. I’d like you to lead a team that will propose design elements, construction needs and final costs for space habitats that can house eight billion people.”

  He smiled again, “We understand that this will be sketchy at first, but we’ll need some preliminary reports within a few days.”

  Some objections were voiced and Andy interrupted them, “It is essential that we work as fast as possible and with the understanding that the operations we are considering will take years to design and build and complete, but we need some idea of what we’re dealing with in total within the next few days. You’ll all just have to do what you can in a short amount of time, then we’ll see if we should continue into the details.”

  Andy held up his hands to suppress any more comments, “I’d also like to ask Ed Grigorian to lead a similar team on space elevators and provide a similar report in a few days. Most importantly, we need to know how strong the ribbon cables can be made.”

  Ed started to interrupt, but Andy cut him off with, “We know that will be a best guess projection, but we must have at least a realistic range because the next step will be to calculate how many elevators will be needed to move eight billion people over a span of several years and how long it will take to build them and how much they will cost.” Ed looked a little flustered, but nodded his understanding.

  Andy spread his hands wide and addressed the entire room, “Look people, this is hard and it’s likely to get worse, but the fate of the entire human race is what’s at stake. We have ten years to figure out how to do this, or we all die.” The room fell into silence.

  Andy continued but spoke more directly into the speaker phone in front of him on the table, “Eileen Gillespie works with Disney corporation and has a reputation for being a wizard at handling crowds and moving people around in their theme parks. Eileen, I want you to expand your horizons a bit and work with some others to create a plan to move eight billion people around the planet to the bases of the space elevators and tell us how much you think that will cost and how long it will take.”

  Eileen voiced her agreement and Andy continued, now addressing the group more than the phone, “Okay, is there anything else?”

  Rich Feldman said, “Yes. I know we’ve eliminated the option to use rockets to evacuate and rightly so. But we’ll still need an array of lift rockets to get the elevator construction jump started. I’m volunteering to lead that team.”

  Andy responded, “Excellent.” Before he could say anything else, Bill Rosen raised his hand and Andy called on him.

  Bill said, “We will need a lot of construction materials to build the habitats and the two main sources we need to consider are the Moon and the asteroid belt. Since it will take some time to reach the asteroid belt, we should plan on establishing a base on the Moon to mine construction materials and get them out into space for the habitat construction effort.”

  Andy smiled then asked, “Is there anything else we’ve missed?”

  Somebody in the back of the room spoke up, “Has anybody considered just moving the Earth out of the way?”

  There was a pause, then somebody else responded, “Gregor, that’s the worst idea you’ve had since you suggested that global warming could be offset by nuclear winter.” The room laughed collectively.

  When the laughter subsided, Andy Watson spoke, “Okay folks, let’s go get some sleep. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

  3 Plan Exodus

  “Why must we fight for the right to live, over and over, each time the sun rises?”

  — “Exodus” by Leon Uris

  +38 days, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

  Andy Watson raised his voice and tried again, “Hello. Hello. We need to get started. Everybody please take a seat.” The din of the conversation began to subside and several people busied themselves with refilling a mug of coffee or grabbing another pastry from the trays in the middle of the table.

  When the room was nearly quiet and everybody was in a chair, Andy began, “Thank you for being here so early. In about ninety minutes, we’ll be served a full breakfast right here in the conference room and there should be plenty of coffee, tea, and juice over on the side tables.” He paused, then continued, “Here’s where we left things last night. I’ve assigned some team leaders for a list of subjects. They will recruit their teams from this group and anybody is free to serve with any team they wish and can work with more than one team if you think you can still contribute while doing that. The teams are tasked with investigating their subject area and bringing a report back to this large group within the next two to three days. When any team has a report ready for the group, we’ll reconvene to hear it and discuss it.” He looked around the room. All eyes were clearly focused on him.

  Andy glanced down at a sheet of paper in front of him and resumed speaking, “Here’s the list of team leaders we have at the moment. Rich Feldman will lead the team on lift rockets. The focus of this team will be on helping to jump start the space elevator project, the Moon mining project, and the habitat construction effort. Bill Rosen from NASA will lead the team on the Moon base. Since this will come early in the timeline, we need to know how fast this can be begun, when it can go into production, and some realistic estimates on how much it can produce and when. Ed Grigorian will lead the team on the space elevators. Key focuses include manufacturing a ribbon cable long enough and strong enough to do the job. Also then, how many people can be lifted into space in how much time and a timeline to complete the evacuation in less than ten years. Marco will lead the team on the construction of space habitats.”

  Marco interrupted with a grin, “Yes. And don’t forget that we all must include cost estimates. This is going to be a large concern once we get the engineering aspects under control.” He concluded with another smile directing attention back to Andy.

  Andy continued, “And finally, Eileen Gillespie will lead the team investigating the logistics of moving people to the base of the elevators. Eileen has asked me to add that her team will also be looking into any needed education process before migrating into space and any preliminary medical screening. Is that it Eileen?” He leaned toward the speaker phone.

  The voice of Eileen came from the speaker phone, “Yes, that’s it. Thanks.”

  Andy stood up from his chair, “Okay. We’re ready to begin.”

  Rich Feldman raised his hand, “Andy, I can give you my report now.”

  Andy sat back down, “Okay Rich, go ahead.”

  Rich stood up and announced, “Hi, for those who we
ren’t part of the deflection sub team a few days ago, I’m Rich Feldman and I work for Rockets Unlimited. I can give my report now because we’ve already covered most of it. Basically, my company and several competitors have developed re-usable boost stage rockets that can push payload containers to orbital altitudes and beyond. Depending on the altitude and final destination a second stage may or may not be required, and how that is integrated with the payload vehicle depends on the circumstances. Being able to re-use the boosters many times greatly reduces the cost. As Marco correctly pointed out in his report on evacuation alternatives, it simply is not possible to use lift rockets for a complete evacuation. However, we can use rockets to position platforms for the elevators, to put a mining base on the Moon, and to get the habitat construction effort started. There are no difficult engineering problems involved with this, but there may be production issues. Since we won’t know how many rockets we’ll need until some requirements are established by the space elevator team and the base on the Moon, we don’t have much to work with at this time. The problems will lie in the area of getting several different companies to work together using different basic designs and how much the lift rocket component will cost. Once the other teams have established some requirements, I can quickly produce numbers for rocket and fuel production. There are no unsolvable problems in front of us in this area. That’s about it for now, Andy.” Rich sat back down.

  Andy said, “Thanks Rich. Does that mean you don’t need a team working with you?”

  Rich replied, “Basically, yes. I’ll sit in with Ed on the elevator team and Bill on the Moon base team as needed, but I’m guessing most of the lift rocket effort will be needed for habitat construction, so I’ll be working closely with Marco on that team. Of course, that will depend on what is coming up from Earth and what is being supplied from the moon. Most likely, we’ll supply all the raw materials from the Moon, but some finished machines will need to be lifted from Earth. As the project moves along, more and more can come from the Moon. Once we have the requirements, I can feed my numbers back to each team for them to look over and double check.”

  Andy stood up again and announced, “Okay, let’s get to work. We have breakout rooms assigned to each team and this room will remain as a central hub for collaboration and will be where our meals are served. We’ll let you know when breakfast is ready.”

  +39 days, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

  Gitane Levesque sat up in the bed and propped a pillow behind his back. He reached over to the side table and drew a cigarette from a pack then used a lighter to light it. He sucked in some smoke, sat the lighter back down, leaned back against the pillow and blew a column of smoke out across the bed.

  A naked Lee Martin rolled over against his side and traced a finger across his ribs and asked, “So, was it good for you?” She chuckled.

  Gitane took another drag on the cigarette, blew out smoke, then looked at Lee and answered, “Yes, yes it was. Would you like a smoke?” He offered the burning cigarette to her.

  Lee smiled broadly, “No, I was just trying to make a joke. Smoking is a disgusting habit. And you’re naked.” She pointed at his crotch and kept smiling.

  Gitane pulled the sheet up to his waist to cover up, and waved the cigarette toward Lee, “You’re naked too.”

  Lee retorted, “Yes I am. Nakedness didn’t seem to bother you at all a little bit ago.”

  Gitane put his hand on the sheet like he was going to push it back down, “It doesn’t. Do you want to go again?”

  Lee laughed at him and put her hand over his on the sheet, “The last hour was enough for now. Besides, it looks like you need some recuperation before we go again.” She grinned.

  Gitane chuckled back at her and blew some more smoke down the bed, “You approach sex with an unusual enthusiasm. I like that.”

  Lee stroked his hand with hers and ran her fingers up his arm and back down again and said, “Don’t worry. You performed well Gitane. I enjoyed fucking you, and will enjoy doing it again in a few hours after we both recuperate, take a shower and get something to eat. Okay?” She grinned again.

  Gitane smiled too. He said, “Okay.” Then he tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette into the ash tray on the side table. He leaned over toward Lee and asked, “So what are you really doing here in Switzerland?”

  Lee pulled her hand back and replied, “I told you. I was asked to join a conference of scientists here to tell them what I know about the comet. You were right. All of a sudden, everybody wants a piece of me.”

  She smiled again and used her fingers to trace down her own side and across the curve of her hip, then she spread her legs a little wider open, “But you are the one who actually got a piece of me.” She laughed.

  Gitane frowned a little, “Close your legs, you silly girl. As you said, we can resume that later. But now, I need to know what is really going on with your comet. Your group of astronomers have said the pieces of the comet will return in ten years. But they are being very close lipped about what happens then. Every time somebody asks, they just say they are doing calculations. What’s going on?”

  Lee laughed a little more and swung her legs off the side of the bed, turning her back on Gitane. She stood up then reached over to the side table and picked up a white robe and began putting it on.

  While she robed, she spoke, “Look Gitane, you know how long it takes to do these calculations. We run them once, and they say the comet train is coming back to the Solar System. Then we watch through our telescopes and collect more data and then run them again and the supercomputer this time says the comet train will be coming somewhere near the orbit of Earth when it returns. Then we watch some more and collect some more data and run them again. Each time we run them, we expect to know a little bit more about the actual trajectory. But you have to remember, these are just predictions, or extrapolations, and there is always some error factor built into them.”

  She finished adjusting the robe on her shoulders and turned around to face Gitane holding the robe closed with one hand but with the top gaping apart to her waist. She had a serious look on her face.

  Gitane frowned back at her, “You’re stalling. You’ve already told me all of this. At least three times now.”

  Lee shook her hair and ran her fingers through it and beamed her best smile at Gitane. She said, “Don’t be silly dear. I’ve told you the same thing three times because that is what is happening. Each time we run the numbers, we know a tiny bit more about how dangerous this comet event ten years from now will be. We know that it may be dangerous and that’s a fact. But we can’t just come out publicly and say that until we know exactly how dangerous it will be, and we need to be absolutely sure about what we’re saying.”

  She turned and headed toward the bathroom, then stopped at the bathroom door and turned back toward Gitane with her robe gaping open all the way down. She bent a knee slightly under the robe to make it open a few inches more and smiled and asked, “Are you coming to the shower?”

  +40 days, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

  Andy Watson stood at the head of the table and announced, “Lunch will be served shortly. In the meantime, Bill Rosen is ready to give the whole group the report from the team that’s been working on the Moon base. Bill?” Andy sat back down.

  Bill Rosen stood and began to speak, “The purpose of the base on the Moon is to supply building materials to the habitat construction areas. The surface of the Moon has endured a constant pounding by meteorites for billions of years. This has fractured and smashed most of the bedrock that was originally formed from lava flows and contains a lot of basaltic rock. Now, most of the surface is covered by a meters thick layer of loose rock and dirt or dust-like material that we call ‘regolith’. The regolith will be the primary source of most resources we need and it can be simply scooped up and processed. We know we’ll need lots of basalt rock, aluminum, iron, silicon, and more. We’ll need oxygen and other frozen volatile gases. Elements that are rare on Earth like titanium, scandium,
and neodymium, are more available on the Moon and can play a significant role in alloys with aluminum and steel.

  First of all, several nations have already been developing plans to build bases on the Moon, and we should be able to change those designs and adapt them to fit our purpose. We’ll need to select a landing site that is near to a location suitable for a human habitat, a location that will support major processing operations, and a good location for a linear accelerator to throw payloads into space. We have a list of suggestions and eventually will end up wanting to build at more than one location because of mining material requirements. It may not be practical to determine the other locations until the first base is actually operational, and we can get some on-site evaluation, but we need to keep it in mind during our planning.”

  Bill paused to take a drink from a mug, then continued, “The initial landing can be made by automated equipment that will perform excavations for both a future landing site and some underground human dwellings. The landing site needs to be surrounded with blast berms made from available surface materials. This is simple and can be fully automated. The human dwelling site will be dug out, then fitted with inflatable basic structures which will be reinforced, then covered up. Once life support functions are established, human crews will arrive. While the first excavations are being done, other robotic equipment will be performing prospecting trips around the area to find good dig sites.”