On Earth, liquid water means life. Beneath the frozen iron sands of Mars, liquid water melting from the permafrost hosts an underground biosphere of microbial life forms. In the ice-covered seas of Jupiter’s major moons, living organisms abound. In the planet-girdling ocean beneath the eternal clouds of giant Jupiter itself, life teems and flourishes.
But Sirius C was a challenge to the scientists. The planet shouldn’t exist, not by all that they knew of astrophysics. And it couldn’t possibly bear life, Goldilocks notwithstanding, not sandwiched between brilliant Sirius A and its white dwarf star companion, Sirius B. The dwarf had erupted in a series of nova explosions eons ago. The death throes of Sirius B must have sterilized any planets in the vicinity, boiled away any atmosphere or ocean.
But there it was, a rocky, Earth-sized planet, the only planet in the Sirius system, orbiting Sirius A in a nearly perfect circle. Spectroscopic studies showed it had an Earthlike atmosphere—and oceans of liquid water.
Might there be a chance that the planet did harbor some kind of life forms? The astrobiologists worked overtime concocting theories to support the hope that the Earth-sized planet might indeed host an Earth-type biosphere. The popular media had no such problem. They quickly dubbed Sirius C “New Earth.”
For nearly a full century, while governments and corporations all over the world toiled to alleviate the catastrophic results of the climate change, Earth’s eagerly inquisitive scientists hurled robotic space probes toward Sirius C. Even at the highest thrust that fusion rockets could produce, the probes took decades to reach their objective, more than eight light-years from Earth. Yet once they arrived at the planet, what they saw confirmed the most cherished hopes of both the scientists and the general public.
Sirius C was indeed a New Earth. The planet bore broad blue seas of water, its continents were richly green with vegetation. There was no sign of intelligent life, no cities or farmlands or roads, no lights or radio communications, but the planet truly was a New Earth, unpopulated, virginal, beckoning.
Impatient to explore this new world in greater detail, the International Astronautical Authority asked the World Council to fund the human exploration of Sirius C. The Council procrastinated, citing the enormous costs of mitigating the disasters caused by the global climate shift. Then the lunar nation of Selene stepped forward and offered to build a starship. Shamed into grudging cooperation, the Council reluctantly joined the effort—meagerly.
They named the starship Gaia, after the Earth deity who represented the web of life. Gaia would travel to Sirius more slowly than the robotic probes, to protect its fragile human cargo. It would take some eighty years for the ship to reach Sirius C.
Men and women from all around the world volunteered for the mission. They were carefully screened for physical health and mental stability. As one of the examining psychotechnicians put it, “You’d have to be at least a little crazy to throw away eighty years just to get there.”
But the crew of Gaia would not age eighty years. They would sleep away the decades of their journey in cryonic suspension, frozen in liquid nitrogen, as close to death as human bodies can get and still survive.
Gaia was launched with great fanfare: humankind’s first mission to the stars. The explorers would spend five years mapping the planet in detail, studying its biosphere, and building a base for the backup missions to work from.
By the time the ship arrived in orbit around Sirius C, eighty years later, only a handful of dedicated scientists back on Earth were still interested in the mission. Most of the human race was struggling to survive the catastrophic second wave of greenhouse flooding, as the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica melted down. The backup missions had been postponed, again and again, and finally shelved indefinitely by the World Council.
Even the eagerly waiting scientists saw nothing, heard nothing from the explorers, for it would take more than eight years for messages to travel from Sirius back to Earth.
Alone
Alone in the wardroom, Jordan poured himself another cup of tea, then sat at one of the tables and stared in fascination at the planet sliding by in the wall screen’s display.
It certainly looks like Earth, he thought. The data bar running along the base of the screen showed that the planet’s atmosphere was astonishingly close to Earth’s: 22 percent oxygen, 76 percent nitrogen, the remaining 2 percent a smattering of carbon dioxide, water vapor, and inert gases. The biggest difference from Earth was that Sirius C had a much thicker ozone layer high in its atmosphere: not unexpected, since the star Sirius emitted much more ultraviolet light than the Sun.
Jordan shook his head in wonder. It’s like a miracle, he said to himself. Too good to be true. But then he realized that this was the first planet orbiting another star that human eyes had seen close up. What do we know about exoplanets? Perhaps Earthlike worlds are commonplace.
Enough speculation, he told himself. Get to work. Time to go to the command center and see what the mission controllers have to say to us.
Clasping his half-finished mug of tea in one hand, Jordan went back into the passageway and walked to the command center. It was a smallish compartment with a horseshoe of six workstation consoles curving around a single high-backed chair whose arms were studded with control buttons. Display screens covered the bulkheads, most of them showing the condition and performance of the ship’s various systems; others offered views of the planet they orbited.
Jordan slipped into the command chair and frowned briefly at the keypads set into its armrests. He tried to remember which one activated the communications system. The symbols on each pad had always reminded him of children’s sketches. The propulsion system’s symbol was a triangle with wavy lines emanating from it. Life support a heart shape.
Communications was the headset symbol, he recalled. Touching that pad, Jordan called for the latest message from Earth. He reminded himself that the message he was about to see was sent from Earth more than eight years ago. It takes messages eight point six years to travel from Earth to Sirius.
A woman’s face appeared on the main screen, above the row of consoles. She was a handsome woman, with dark hair pulled tightly back off her face. Strong cheekbones and a fine, straight nose. Her eyes were large and so deeply brown they looked almost black—and unutterably sorrowful.
“I am Felicia Ionescu, the newly appointed director of the International Astronautical Authority,” she said, in a carefully measured alto register. “This message is being sent to reach you on the day that your ship attains orbit around the planet Sirius C.”
Recorded more than eight years ago, Jordan repeated to himself.
“I hope that you have all survived the flight to Sirius and that you are well, and ready to begin the exploration of the planet.”
Jordan thought her welcoming message was strangely heavy, bleak. Where’s the congratulations? Where are the clichés about how all of Earth is thrilled that you’ve reached your destination?
“When you departed from Earth,” Ionescu went on, “eighty years ago, we were recovering from the worldwide flooding caused by the global greenhouse warming.” She took in a breath. “Unfortunately, now—eighty years later—a new wave of flooding has struck, caused by the continued warming of the global climate.”
Her image disappeared, replaced by pictures of devastation: cities drowned, coastlines inundated, storms lashing fleeing refugees. Jordan stared in open-mouthed horror.
“Because of these calamities,” Ionescu’s voice said over the views of disaster, “the World Council has been unable to authorize the backup missions that were in the IAA’s original program plan.”