“No, Giordi. Just remember, the TV studio is going to edit your answers like crazy when they get them. They want to show their viewers a cool astronaut who’s talking exclusively to them. It’s not going to help their ratings to let you come across as some dumb or inarticulate doofus.”
“You mean even if I say total nonsense, they’ll arrange it all somehow to sound good?”
“You can bet your life on it. Of course, if it’s really bad, they might just simply choose not to air it. But try not to let it stress you out. NASA will be insisting on the coverage. Anyway, all our work here is at the cost of the American taxpayer.”
“The Europeans are paying for me.”
“Which amounts to the same thing. They’ll want it on TV in Europe too.”
“Have you been checking the control panel?”
“Yes. Don’t move from your spot. Your position and the lighting are perfect just like that. I’ll check on the messages.”
Giordano felt a grumbling in his belly. He always had digestive system problems when he had to do something he’d rather not be doing. But the internal grumbling seemed disproportionate to this silly interview. He had a sense—a literal ‘gut feeling’—that something was going on that none of them were even aware of yet.
“Sorry,” Judith reported, “the inbox is still empty.”
“Could you send them a message and ask how much longer?”
“I don’t think that’ll do any good, with the time delay and all. They’ll probably have sent the questions long before they answer my question.”
“The delay’s not really that long right now. Please ask them. I’ve got a funny feeling about something.”
“You think they’ve rescheduled the interview without telling us?”
“No, I can’t put it in words. I have this feeling like there’s more to this delay than just that they’re running late.”
“More? The channel’s broke?”
“Something bigger than that. But that doesn’t matter. Please just do me a favor and ask them?”
“Okay, I’ll send a quick message to Capcom and ask for confirmation.”
“Thanks. I’m sure Theresa will know if something is going on.”
Judith bent over the control panel. Everything looked completely normal, except that her feet weren’t touching the floor. Like a hummingbird, she hovered in front of the screen.
You see, Giordano told himself, everything’s fine. What’s wrong with me today? If the questions don’t get here soon, I’ll have to go to the bathroom again.
“Okay, done,” Judith said.
“Thank you.”
“Should we do another test run, maybe?”
“No. I think I’ll use the time to make another quick visit to the lavatory.”
“Then good luck, and I’ll see you soon. I’ll make a note of your position.”
Nowhere was a lavatory as loud as on a spaceship in zero-gravity conditions. It had pumps to suction away your waste products. The ventilation system replaced the smell in the small space with supposedly fresh air that smelled like machine oil. And just now, his highly agitated gut added to the cacophony. François and Michael were lucky to be sleeping in their cabins just then.
Giordano pulled his pants back up, buttoned and zipped, and fastened his belt. Then he washed his hands, dried them, and left the lavatory. He had spent almost five minutes in there. Surely JR would have received an answer from Capcom Theresa in that time.
He returned to the control center with renewed courage. He would complete the short interview just fine. Judith was floating above the control panel and typing something. She’d been using the short break for her work. He cleared his throat. Visibly in shock, she turned around to look at him. All color had drained from her face. What was wrong?
“Did the questions finally arrive?”
“The questions?”
He could see in her face that she didn’t know what he was talking about.
“For the interview.”
Judith slapped her forehead. “Oh, that, of course. No, they haven’t come. We’ve got a problem.” She looked at him with a deep seriousness that filled him with fear.
“What?”
“Earth isn’t answering.”
“You mean Capcom’s come down sick or something?”
“No. Earth! It’s not answering. There are no signals from it at all. Not NASA, not ESA, not the Russians, not the Chinese. Earth has gone silent, completely. The last radio signal we received was two minutes ago. We haven’t received any signal from it since then.”
“But that’s impossible.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too. But that’s the way it is. No doubt about it.”
“Our antennas?”
“Functional.”
“The receivers?”
“Diagnostics show no faults at all.”
“Then the diagnostics module must be faulty.”
“And the rear camera too?”
Judith waved for him to come closer and pointed to a camera image. It showed the moon, which looked the same as usual, except considerably smaller than a week ago, and at a short distance from the moon, the Earth. It was also there. But it looked different. The oceans and the clouds and the entire face of the Earth were monochromatic, a uniform white color.
“A white disk, essentially a wall,” he said.
“Well, it’s not a defect of our camera.”
No, the true-to-life moon was the best proof of that. But what was it? This wall? Where was the Earth as they knew it?
“I ran a very quick spectrum analysis,” Judith said.
“Wow, you’re fast. I was only gone for five minutes!”
“It’s just a very rough analysis.”
“And?”
“It’s identical to a spectrum of light from the sun.”
“You mean the light that we’re seeing is being reflected one hundred percent?”
“That’s what it looks like. You’re the astronomer. You have any idea what’s going on?”
“You mean, could that be some natural phenomenon, Judith?”
“I’ll admit it might make me feel a little better.”
“Well, I’ve never heard of anything like this happening before. There used to be some crazy people who wanted to maybe try something similar, as a geoengineering experiment. They wanted to install some kind of shield around the Earth that could control the solar radiation. They wanted to use it to try to stop climate change.”
“But certainly, word would’ve gotten around if someone had actually built such a thing.”
“Of course. Plus, such a thing wouldn’t even be possible with current technology.”
“And yet, there it is—the shield,” Judith said.
“Something like that is impossible.”
“Didn’t you just say that the trajectory for the interstellar object had changed suddenly?”
That was true. Two impossible events within such a short amount of time made him doubt his sanity.
“Tell me, Judith, could we be part of some kind of psychological experiment?”
“You mean, like we never left Earth, and this whole Mars expedition is some kind of fake, like all the conspiracy theorists claim?”
“Maybe there’s a kernel of truth in their ideas.”
“Then tell me why the camera is still floating there where I left it.”
“Okay, then we’re in space, but in orbit. Or maybe we really are underway to Mars, but the administrators are subjecting us to one final test to see if we can handle the stress of the Mars landing. Judith, now would be the moment to tell me the truth. Otherwise you might soon see my head explode.”
Judith laughed, but it didn’t sound like a laugh of relief, but instead a laugh filled with doubt.
“It’d be nice if I could reveal the big secret to you now, but there’s nothing to reveal. If you don’t believe me, take a look through your own telescope,” she said.
That was a good idea, anyway.
He’d already disassembled his telescope once to clean it. He was sure it was made only of optical elements. Whatever he saw through it was part of reality. Nobody could modify what he observed or show him something that wasn’t there, which he couldn’t say for sure with the image from the digital camera on the rear of the ship or the signals that the radio receiver supposedly received, or not. He needed to look through his telescope as soon as he could.
“Thanks for the idea,” he said, and floated downward into the workshop module.
He still had a bad feeling about something. It seemed to him as if he had just entered the first phase after an all-encompassing loss, and he hadn’t even realized its full scope yet. And this first phase consisted only of denial, not wanting to accept the loss at all.
This time he didn’t need to check any coordinates. He often liked to zoom in very closely on the Earth. It was a nice change from the blackness of space, a sparkling blue sapphire. It always looked a little different, and thus it was always unique in its own way.
That was history.
The telescope showed him what he didn’t want to see—a structureless, white disk. It was one of the brightest objects in the universe. Its albedo, the reflecting power of its surface, was perfect. But it no longer fit into the solar system at all. While every other celestial body had a face shaped by mountains, craters, and in some cases an atmosphere, the Earth now orbited the sun anonymously, hidden behind a veil. The cacophony of voices that it emitted had fallen silent. His eyes grew watery. They’d lost it. He didn’t know what had happened, but they’d just suffered an unbelievable loss.
Only then did he think of his son... his wife... and then his parents. They had been living behind the faceless disk. Maybe they were still living there. It was impossible to say. Had some unknown force replaced the Earth with this shiny marble? Then all of its inhabitants would have also disappeared with it. But perhaps the situation was more complicated than that. Life was seldom as simple as it looked at first glance. That gave him a little hope. Was what he saw there the new Earth? Maybe he could figure that out. Maybe.
He moved his eye from the telescope and stood up. Then he turned around, opened a compartment in the shelves on the wall to the right of him, and looked for the camera. It had to be here somewhere. He needed it to be able to take near-exact photographs. There it was!
He removed the camera’s lens cover and let it hang by its thin cord, mounted the unit on the telescope, switched the camera on, and folded its screen upward. There was the white, shining marble again. He adjusted the optics so that whatever was left of the Earth filled the field of view. Just a minute. He still had to switch to RAW format output so that the camera’s electronics didn’t process the image. He’d decided to let the computer handle that.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Then he swung the telescope toward the moon. Its face was seldom reassuring to him—it wasn’t the same face that he knew from his childhood, because from here he saw the side facing away from the Earth, but at least its coloring was still very familiar.
Click.
Click.
Click.
That should be enough. He unscrewed the camera and floated back to the control center.
“Why didn’t you wake me right away?” Michael yelled. The American waved his hands around excitedly. It looked like he was about to let loose on Judith.
“I woke you up, just like François.”
“But not right away, JR, not right away! I’m second in command, and I have a right to know what’s going on around here!”
Michael pushed off from the floor with one foot, floated across the room, and stopped above their commander. Judith sighed loudly. She was sorry. Giordano was also guilty of not thinking to go and get their two colleagues from their capsules.
“I’ve got something here for you all,” he said.
Maybe Michael would calm down if he felt included now. François came floating closer very slowly. Giordi could tell by looking at him that he’d been crying. No. He was still crying. Hadn’t he said once that he’d met the love of his life during training?
Michael forced himself between them. “Make room, crybaby,” he said.
“Mike, you’re an asshole,” Giordano said and turned away from him. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Michael extend his middle finger downward—upward from Michael’s vantage point. He needed to use the computer in front of Judith’s command seat. “May I?” he asked.
She nodded and floated to the side. He placed the camera into a recess next to the screen, activating a wireless transfer of the data stored in the camera’s memory. Giordano sat down in the commander’s seat and called up the scientific calculator. How large would the Earth’s disk be from their current position at the telescope’s magnification? He calculated the values and then, for comparison, also the values for the moon. Then he brought up the first of the three moon photos in the image processing program. The calculation was amazingly precise. The diameter of the moon appeared on his images just six kilometers larger than in reality. Now it was the Earth’s turn. The single-color disk displayed on the screen looked unreal, as if someone was trying to play a mean joke on them.
“I can’t believe that thing is the Earth,” Michael said quietly.
He had calmed down again. Would he stay that way? Giordano overlaid a circle with the converted, actual diameter of the Earth over the image. The circle was smaller than the white disk. Giordano breathed in and out. His heart was beating so hard that he was sure everyone else could hear it. “It looks like someone put a shell around the Earth,” he explained. “Its diameter is 240 kilometers larger than the Earth’s diameter.”
“And there’s no chance there’s a mistake somewhere?” Judith asked.
“No, it’s definitely outside the margin of error. What you’re all looking at is an optical photograph of this shell, digitized in a camera that I brought from Earth myself. If that is supposed to be a simulation, then the entire universe is in there.”
“Then we’re all going to die,” François said quietly, but very clearly.
The loudest sound in the control center was the noise of the life-support system.
“You all have got to stop this moping. It’s starting to get me down,” Michael said after a while.
Did he really not have any loved ones on Earth, no one who meant anything to him? Maybe there were advantages to being Michael. The person who was most important to him was always with him. Or was he being unfair? He mustn’t become bitter. It was far too early to fall into despair. They had no idea what was happening on Earth, but there had been no measurable energy bursts associated with the shell’s appearance. Apparently it just appeared in the sky. His family would now be living in the deepest darkness, that is, if they were still alive. He hoped they were, at least.
“I think there’s a great deal to be sad about,” François said. “Just think of your family down there. Without light from the sun, the Earth will become uninhabitable. It’ll grow cold. The plants will die, then the animals, and finally, the people.”
“Yes and no,” Judith said. “I measured the spectrum. It’s consistent with a pure reflection spectrum. The shell is not emitting any of its own radiation. Without the sun, it’d be completely black in all frequencies. That also means that the Earth is not losing any energy. It won’t grow colder. It’ll start warming up if they continue burning fossil fuels inside that thing. With the sun removed as the energy source for weather, the global temperatures will start evening out over time. It’ll be about eight degrees at both the poles and the equator. The poles will melt, air circulation will weaken. Yes, all the plants will die. Creatures that use other forms of energy will survive. Humans can adapt.”
“Ah, I think that’s putting a rosy outlook on it,” Giordano said. “Wouldn’t fungi become the new dominant lifeform?”
“Sounds almost romantic the way you tell it, Judith,” François said. “But there’d be hu
ge changes, and there’s always violence with huge changes. The means of existence for billions of people would disappear within a year. Supplies could never be built up fast enough or compensate for such a quick change. Humans don’t easily accept that sort of thing. There’d be those who would deny anything was even happening and would incite violence and revolutions. At least half of all humans would probably die.”
“Three-quarters,” Judith said without emotion. “Three-quarters would be more realistic.”
“Come on, what happened to all the happy optimists I knew before?” Michael asked.
Is he somehow happy about what has happened? Giordano couldn’t imagine that being true. He couldn’t be that selfish.
“We’ve got every reason to be happy,” Michael said. “Just think about it. We’re sitting in a covered wagon full of provisions and equipment on a trail out west into a new, unknown world. Mars is ours. We have orders to prepare for a settlement, to set up an outpost. Now we’ll be the first settlers ourselves. Do you think the pioneers way back when could’ve had any idea that California or Oregon or Washington would later become some of the most important states in the whole USA?”
Michael was nuts. Did he really think they could just leave the Earth to its fate? Just stubbornly continue to follow the plan? And not only that, but to expand it into some grandiose mission? And how was it even supposed to work at all? Should they impregnate Judith once a year, always taking turns in order to best broaden the future gene pool for their descendants? Judith, the new Eve, together with her three Adams as the ancestors of the new humanity? The concept was so absurd that Giordano had to laugh out loud.
“What’s so funny?” Michael asked.
“The four of us as the origin for a new humanity? Please. Three men, all white and considerably over 30, and one woman.”
“So? Adam and Eve were only two.”
“That’s a myth... a story.”
“Which wasn’t that far from reality, don’t you think?” François said. “Don’t all maternal DNA lines originate from a single woman who lived 100,000 years ago in Africa?”
The Wall: Eternal Day Page 8