“The ice age,” he murmured.
“Yes. And when Earth found a stable orbit the ice melted, and Earth entered an age where grasslands and forests flourished where there are now nothing but deserts, temperate belts extended up into what today is the Arctic, and animals of every kind flourished in millions. The axis was more perpendicular to the orbital plane. We think those times lasted about five or six thousand years, through to three and a half thousand years ago.”
“And then Venus happened,” Keene said. The axis was tilted more. The climatic bands shifted and became narrower.
“Well, maybe. Some of our scientists have suggested that it could have been the Venus encounter that detached Earth from Saturn—which might explain why astronomy didn’t reemerge as a science for nearly two thousand years. All kinds of things become possible once you free yourself from the insistence on gradualism that has been stifling science here for two centuries.” Sariena moved forward to grip his arm. “These are the things we will be working on through the years ahead, Lan. A new science of Earth, written around a new history of humankind and its origins. Who knows what more it may turn up? The old, sterile ideas are dead. They were the products of a world that’s over. A new world is being born out there. And one day Kronia will rebuild Earth, but that might be generations away. It first has to build itself. There’s nothing for you to do here in the meantime. The place where you can do something that will matter is with us.”
Keene looked across at the children playing among the piping. He still didn’t feel at ease and wasn’t sure why. “I don’t know. . . . Somehow it feels like running out. A lot of people are going to need help,” was the best he could manage.
Sariena stopped short of scoffing. “From doctors and priests. And maybe later, anyone who can catch a fish, grow a potato, or throw together a shack that will stand up. But it’s going to be a long time before they need nuclear engineers again.”
Cliff, the Rustler’s young Flight Electronics Officer, who along with the pilot, Dan, made up its two-man crew, appeared at the top of a metal stairway nearby. He looked down over the machinery bays, spotted Keene and Sariena, and waved to get their attention. “You’re wanted upstairs,” he called to them. “They’ve just got a connection to the Osiris. There’s no telling how long it might last.”
* * *
The global satellite system had suffered appalling attrition, causing havoc with the official networks. A connection had eventually been established via the ground line to NORAD and Space Command’s underground city at Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs, and a still-operational AWACS flight, to Amspace’s tracking facility, which was still managing to get through when the Osiris was above the horizon.
Idorf was on a screen in a local control room in the OLC complex, patched through from the main communications center. Colby and Charlie Hu were there with a group of comtechs and engineers, watching infrared views, taken from orbit during a temporary thinning of the haze, of the devastation farther down the coast from Los Angeles to San Diego and beyond. Marina Del Rey, Venice, and Long Beach no longer existed. Whole waterfront districts had been washed away, with street after street of wind-flattened houses farther inland looking as if they had been carpet bombed. LAX looked like an aircraft breaker’s yard, and JPL was a mess of collapsed buildings, upended and scattered vehicles, and demolished communications hardware—which explained why there had been no success in getting a link in that direction.
By the time Keene and Sariena arrived, Idorf had been updated on the freeing of the hostages and had confirmed that the Osiris would be able to accept the the two Boxcar loads of additional evacuees. “But you should begin boarding them now,” he advised. The wind you are getting is part of a general pattern that’s developing across the north-eastern Pacific, but a calmer center is moving south toward you right now. As soon as it gets there, you should be ready to go. We’ll transmit a beacon for you to home on.”