Perpetual Winter: The Deep Inn (23 page)

              They then had to tell President Cardoso in secret that Mars, too, was going get zapped and that the only solution was now Ganymede so he would approve the massive investment in rockets to transport people from Jupiter to Venus in the future and abandon the illusion they could put half a million people on Mars, especially if chosen at random. They would need the rockets later to precondition Mars, but things got more complicated every time the story changed.

              The Son—who represented the aerospace group, among others—insisted that the Holy Ghost had jumped the gun by launching the mirrors because the last word was technical and that he would give it. The Holy Ghost did not forget that the Son had introduced unexpected computer improvements at the last minute, without telling those in charge, and it was they who were in charge. That which is excellent is the enemy of that which is merely good. The Secret Services were so furious that they did not eliminate Crane only due to the Father’s special request. They distanced themselves from him, but it was too late.

              They were now entering into their plan’s vertiginous acceleration phase which would occur if the “threat” was made public. Unfortunately, the new model for Crane’s simulation, instead of putting the probability of Earth’s destruction at fifteen percent, had given a probability of seventy-something percent. Worse, the new model did not allow for the alternative of simulating Theia’s hitting Saturn since their trajectories were too distant. Thus, they could only use Jupiter. The new system could be invisible in terms of computer science, but it was less flexible and removed their control over time. They had to wait for Jupiter.

              After losing Cardoso, the new President Magnuson had called early elections, something never seen in the United States, and Trinity had not had time to promote their own candidate for the presidency. Magnuson proved to be less easily influenced than anticipated. They even tossed about the possibility of aborting the entire process, but they could not sustain the risk. If the phantom planet suddenly disappeared from telescopes, without an explanation, all countries would join forces to discover how it was possible to fool so many scientists and they would discover the deception. No one wanted to have the FBI after them--it was better not to awaken a sleeping dog. They would all be arrested and some would run the risk of receiving the death penalty.

              This thing had gotten too big. Making the “threat” public would multiply investments by a factor of two or three and the profit of those making a living off the phantom threat by a factor of ten. On the other hand, there would be not one hundred but ten thousand new independent initiatives launched to follow the black simulation. There was no guarantee that NSA and their allies within NASA could place computerized mirrors in all the new observatories that would spy on the sky or at least be able to sabotage them. They could launch more orbital balloons to fool the medium-sized telescopes, but there wasn’t enough smoke to cover the myriad small ones that would be in different locations, if not mobile. They would need more—and more sophisticated—computerized intervention from the NSA. Happily, the celestial body was so black that some not being able to see it wouldn’t be surprising.

              They had to wait until the specter reached Jupiter.  Then it would be easy to mimic its hitting the giant gas ball and, immediately, turn off the computerized intervention and annihilate the orbiting mirrored spheres.

              They were going into the bluff’s so-called hard phase.

* * *

At an international forum sponsored by the new American president, with support of the UN Security Council, the governments of the great developed countries and those of Russia and China had announced to the world they had proof that Theia, an enormous black cosmic object, was on a collision course with the earth’s orbit and that nations with technology in that area were preparing a response to impede the disaster. The States did not commit themselves to concrete probabilities of collision. The nations not involved, namely many small European and Asian countries, and Brazil and India, were outraged because they had not been alerted, now that they had no time to prepare missions.

              The predicted vertiginous acceleration in the production of goods and services took place. The world went into a true war economy. Every developed country experienced double digit growth while unemployment disappeared. The space industry was growing everywhere. Countries with a technological base allied themselves with Europe and the United States in a joint effort, signing an Entente. Later, due to the pressure of public opinion, the Entente, Russia and China created a trilateral to increase the terrestrial orbital projects.

              The possibility of placing a very high number of people in orbital stations to repopulate the earth was real, if the threat were confirmed. There would be at least two hundred thousand people in orbit.

              Biotechnology was another area showing explosive growth. The need to adapt microorganisms and other beings to diverse environments led interest in extremophile genetics to double. Seeds were produced and stored to help reconstitute a post-apocalyptic civilization with a modified climate. One of the areas finally freed from all restrictions was genetic and embryo animal experimentation.

              “There are no vegetable planets; the planet itself is an animal,” insisted Hendriks buried under a sea of microphones and television cameras.

              Eggs weren’t enough. They needed reserves of in vitro embryos of innumerous species of mammals and he took on the mission of collecting those embryos so there would be a future. It was still important to quickly obtain modified animals, even hybrids between animals and plants. All YouTube and Vimeo videos were showing Hendriks’ green bat.

              Whether it was the need for future implantation of mammal embryos in pluripotential uteruses or the notion that the crisis was discouraging pregnancy, it led to the implementation of embryonic transplant programs between species and to the development of animals that, after immunological and angiogenic conditioning, would accept xenopregnancy—the embryo of one species growing in the uterus of another.

              In Hendriks’ lair, between genetics and the scalpel, not only did fusion animals reappear, for which he had been the object of disciplinary proceedings in the past, a Pandora’s box of all damned beings was opened, with no vestiges of leashes or muzzles.

              Suspended animation also benefitted from considerable investments. Not only did good luck come from Mars, a lot of money was made available hand over fist. The Entente created an international agency, the Biogenic Agency for Reconstruction of the Biosphere, to coordinate this effort.

              Hendriks, the collector, was preparing a Noah’s Ark with animals that had never seen the light of day and no one suspected that the hand constructing the Ark was the same one that had ordered the coming of the Great Flood.

              With the support of Congress and the Supreme Court, Magnuson, who had risen to the Presidency of the US, called early and exceptional elections to reinforce his legitimacy, and Senator Tyrell Hendriks wound up chosen as the team’s number two, a candidate for the vice presidency after scandals drove off Magnuson’s first two choices. Victory of the Magnuson-Hendriks duo was tangential since the president had been accused of collaborating with Cardoso to hide the coming disaster, and there were rumours about Hendriks health.

              The Entente accepted the vice president’s name to lead the Biogenic Agency.

              Tyrell Hendriks removed suspended animation from the agency and integrated it into an autonomous group collaborating with the Pentagon that was dedicated to the long term preservation of conscience. It would have two divisions, the old one dedicated to transferring the human mind to a solid, computerized support and a new one for the conservation of native support, with or without preserving the afferent limb, the euphemism used for keeping either the brain or the entire body frozen in a state of suspended animation. The Pentagon, however, removed the division for transferring the mind to solid support from the collaborating group, integrating it into its artificial intelligence division. Hendriks was infuriated with the military but Magnuson yanked the rug out from under him, saying that the troops also needed toys to entertain themselves. The vice president detested sprockets, robots, and artificial intelligence programs. If they needed to improve intelligence, why not human intelligence?

              Later, he got over it. His collaborators convinced him that a transfer of the mind to solid support was a dead end file, a cemetery of data. If they wanted to make it functional, they’d need biological support and that’s where Hendriks came in again. What they recommended against was antagonizing Magnuson. He forgot his rage and took up his old enthusiasm once more in great style. The politician’s enthusiasm was hard to understand for some. Why is it that the gentleman, who had a seventy-three percent chance of dying, kept interminable pressure on the development of technologies that would bear fruit too late?

              “If we’ve lost everything, we’re lost; if there is some chance that we won’t all die, I have orders from the President to guarantee that we use that window of opportunity to save ourselves in one way or the other,” responded the Vice President Tyrell Hendriks. “And any step we can take now will be one step we will have already advanced in the future.”

* * *

The eight mutants had changed from kidnap victims to volunteers, not because they were suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, but because their ties to the world were such that their fate was more useful if they went than if they stayed. They knew three spacecraft would leave from Houston to join a military vessel with eight young Marine officers, one of whom was a general and another was a precocious major, as well as an engineering vessel, that had already been on Mars for some time. Initially, Steven had tried to escape in order to visit his youngest sister, Alicia Boyd, who was sick. In order to not destabilize the polar team, as they were called, he had been separated and assigned to the second engineering ship. Before leaving, they learned that the polar group would include two NASA pilots, Commander Peter Bryant, from Texas, and copilot Diane Nishimura, a Brazilian sansei. Neither was a mutant.

              On the eve of their departure date, after their final individual medical exams, Lucas Zuriaga was taken by a uniformed operative to a comfortably furnished decontamination compartment. The clear colors, rug on the floor, indirect lighting, contrasted with Houston’s techno-minimalist environment. Before leaving, the operative told him, smiling, that he was going to get a very special visit from people who would like to hug him without the isolation equipment, which was not possible.                                                                                   

              A door opened and his parents and his brother Luís came in. Because the threat had been made public, they could see their families. In spite of the biological protection suits, the four hugged each other for a long time. The three adults knew they would probably not survive, but, even if the improbable did occur, they’d never see each other again. It was a conclusive goodbye. They sat down and his father wanted to know all the details of his life from the moment those two whacked out policemen had entered their house at dawn and sealed his room. “You’re strong and you’re well-educated, son. Be just and you will be happy.”

              Lucas had not expected his father to use the adjective well-educated to describe him. His mother wanted to know who was going with him—specifically, who his female companions were—and wished him happiness in the new world. His brother asked him not to go. Luís wanted everyone to stay together like in the past. He told Lucas that he always did his homework and that he was now an orange belt in judo. Lucas promised that he would return some Christmas and that he knew his brother would be a black belt someday. They told him that they had begun secretly training to be put on an orbital station and that Luís had been able to finish all of the exercises before everyone else. “Why secret?” Lucas asked. “No one knows that you were selected to go,” his father told him. “The police are still looking for you, to arrest you. Imagine that.”

              They described how waves of solidarity had crossed Portugal and how Fátima had been flooded with two million pilgrims. The human mass had been so great that NASA published a photograph taken from space of the light from two million candles. Despite the fear, there had been a frenzy of friendship, with people getting closer to others and making new friends every day.

              They embraced one last time and Lucas was taken away.

              Sofia was able to see her parents and her grandmother Suren. She learned that Eric, the young man who liked her, had been killed in a car accident. Her grandmother told her a family secret: the first princess of the Suren dynasty suffered a terrible deception in love on the Earth. A physical passion so intense that it had overshadowed her so that she brought a monster in the form of a man to her palace. He destroyed her family and threatened the entire city of Tabriz. Seeing her city collapse, betrayed by her passion, with a grueling pain, the princess ordered that her own hands be cut off so she would never want to feel another man’s skin. She left with a large entourage for the true heaven above the blue sky in search of exile and perhaps a divine love that would touch her with his heart and not his hands. Nevertheless, she got lost in the heights because the darkness was total and the horses in her entourage, looking for a way out, traversed the sky
,
piercing the celestial vault one hundred thousand times. After months without a route, one day in the sky she discovered that the love of her life was not a god but a common man who had always been at her side, serving her invisibly in her entourage and her heart glowed, lighting the world. She fell in love with her heart so totally that she wanted to love him with all her being. That was when the miracle happened: she grew new hands. That miracle has occurred since then in every other generation of Surens. Her love’s light strengthened her because it brought together the body’s fire with the heart’s light and traversed the cosmic dome’s myriad orifices—and that is the light we see in the firmament. As long as that passion endures, clear nights will sparkle. Centuries passed. The princess grew old at her prince’s side and, despite their hands still clasping with that eternal adoration, they felt ready to depart for another heaven that existed above this one. But they knew that, on that day, the stars would stop shining, which is why they counted the hours for another princess Suren to arise, above the stars, and to fall in love like them, lighting her heart and her skin, letting them depart in peace.