Lieutenant Do-forva noticed an unusual intensity about Heather all day Saturday.
At her dance class, she put so much energy and heart into each movement, even at the barre, that the teacher repeatedly looked on with amazement.
For lunch, Heather ordered several things she had never tasted before, and savored every bite.
During the skating session, she seemed torn between kissing Brian in the game room, and using her best art-skating techniques for every song.
Finally, Heather insisted on paying for all three of them at the finest restaurant in the area, where every meal came in seven courses, with lots of time between each for sipping drinks and sharing intimate conversation.
Ginny, sitting alone at a corner table, wished she could have brought a date, too.
With no topic to prepare on Sunday, Heather slept in, then she and Lisa spent the entire afternoon at Doctor Bo-kamla’s house.
They took turns reading articles and case histories aloud, all shedding light on the human ability — or more often, inability — to handle problems with no solutions. The most troublesome were those where the person or group was under pressure to solve it anyway, and could not just walk away. The result was usually some form of violence, and sometimes temporary insanity.
At first Lisa felt completely inadequate, like a child among intellectual
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giants. But as the afternoon progressed, she began to understand what they were so concerned about. And, she realized, a military command structure was about the worst environment to be in when unsolvable problems —
predicaments — were staring you in the face.
Monday morning was abuzz with thoughts and opinions. Most of the team members arrived early, anxious to chat about the issues that were weighing so heavily on their minds and souls. Maria had a dining room full of people at breakfast.
Heather was in a light but quiet mood, enjoying her reduced responsibilities. She didn’t have to be the main speaker at most meetings now, maybe ever again. A little voice, that only spoke at very quiet moments late at night, told her she still had an important part to play, but that voice didn’t yet give any details.
“Today we’re going to get much more comfortable with the science underlying anthropogenic climate change. Doctor Ko-silma, you have the floor.”
The little lady came forward from the back row of folding chairs. Her keen eyes took in the blackboard and chalk, tape recorder reels turning slowly, and assembled generals, colonels, majors, and professors. “When I agreed to advise this program, two years ago, I thought it would be an easy bit of supplemental income. And it was . . . until we discovered that the Big One would be all about chemistry.”
The room filled with sympathetic laughter that released some of the tension. Susan and Heather made eye contact and exchanged smiles.
Doctor Ko-silma cleared her throat. “I realize I have to keep this on the non-scientist’s level. If you were even first-year chem students, I’d tell you all about the hydroxyl radical and how it’s involved in chemical reactions that can both increase and decrease radiative forcing in the atmosphere, and I’d expect you to get it . . . or switch your majors.”
She saw several smiles.
“Today, I’ll try to restrain myself. Heather already gave you a good sketch of the balancing act that is always going on between sources and sinks of . . .
what did she call them? Oh yes, greenhouse gasses. Interesting term, never
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heard it before, but it fits. There are a number of gasses that help the planet hold in heat. We’d be locked in a permanent ice age, with average global temperature about minus twenty degrees Celsius, otherwise. I’d be giving this talk wearing lots of animal skins and writing on a cave wall.”
Several people chuckled.
“Our most powerful greenhouse gas is water vapor, but it only stays in the air a few days, and is not greatly affected by human activities, so it’s not our concern. On the other end of the scale are a number of rare chemicals that contribute little to the planet’s overall heat-trapping ability. The only ones we need to worry about are Carbon dioxide, CO2, Methane, CH4, Ozone, O3, and Nitrous oxide, N2O.” She wrote the formula for each on the blackboard as she spoke. “Of these four, CO2 is by far the most important. In terms of human sources, the other three come from the same activities — heating, electrical generation, industry, transportation, and agriculture — so they can be ignored in the sense that if we solved the CO2 problem, the other three would also cease to be problems . . .”
After a break, Doctor Tu-feltin the historian stood and spoke from beside his chair. Heather stayed at the blackboard with chalk in hand.
“The conventional wisdom is that civilizations primarily rise and fall based on political and military events. There are always historians who propose alternate theories, but they are generally ignored. While the primary political forces are certainly powerful, in the last week I have come to believe that we would be foolish to ignore other factors.”
The blind historian smiled without looking directly at anyone, and several people chuckled.
“I found five articles that analyze the correlation between human fortune and climate, and brought the best two for you to read. Were you able to make copies, Colonel?” He turned this way and that, but didn’t know where the executive officer was seated.
“Lieutenant Do-forva is at the air base doing that,” Colonel Ma-soran assured, “and will be back by lunch.”
“Thank you. The correlations are strong, although human efforts sometimes result in successful adaptations to minor climate changes, such as
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the aqueduct system built almost two thousand years ago. But in the long run, climate cannot be ignored. We, in the modern age, might think we have disconnected ourselves from weather and climate with our heating and air conditioning, but that, I now see, is an illusion.”
A rumble of concern coursed through the room. Doctor Tu-feltin waited.
“But the most interesting article was a study that looked at anthropogenic climate change in the past. Three times in recorded history, the human population has been greatly reduced in a short span of time — once by plague, once by genocide, and once by a combination of the two. In all three cases, after examining ice cores, tree rings, and lake sediments, the researchers concluded that with many fewer people around, large areas of forest were able to grow back, the Carbon dioxide level dropped, and the climate cooled . . .”
A few minutes remained before noon when Doctor Tu-feltin sat down.
Ginny was behind the office counter, quietly collating papers. Heather stood to take questions or announcements.
“It seems,” General Ba-kerga began with his suspicious frown, “that we have been told, several times now directly or indirectly, that people are bad and trees are good.”
Heather tried very hard not to smile. “Only in the current context. With a heating trend about to make our beautiful planet into a desert, anything that breathes or burns is bad, anything that absorbs CO2 and keeps it out of the atmosphere, like trees, is good. If an ice age was looming, the roles would be reversed.”
George reluctantly nodded.
After a long silence, General Bo-seklin cleared his throat and stood up. “It goes without saying that the notes from Doctor Ko-silma, and the articles from Doctor Tu-feltin, are required reading. Enjoy your lunch.”
Heather tried very hard to keep to her usual activities between sessions, but it felt forced. However, she wasn’t yet ready to give in to the temptation to curl up on a bunk in the bomb shelter and never come out.
Both the chemist and the historian had to answer many questions on Wednesday morning after everyone had a chance to ponder their talks and
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read the handouts. Eventually, Doctor Bo-leden the philosopher stood.
“Both Heather and I have talked about the nature of knowledge on several occasions. It’s useful to keep in mind what the word means in the strict, philosophical sense. But since we have finally come face to face with something we might want to do something about, we need to remember . . .
that’s not how most people think.”
Heather smiled to herself.
“We almost need a political scientist,” Doctor Bo-leden continued, “but I’m not sure one of those could ever get umbra clearance . . .”
Several people chuckled.
“. . . and we’ve also realized how incredibly hard it would be to get new team members caught up with our process at this point. They might have to listen to five hundred and . . . how many?”
“Fifty,” Lieutenant Ta-nibon, sporting a new tan, answered.
“That’s a lot of tapes! So I’m going to do my best to play political scientist today. I want you all to think back to the early days, in the fall of 3662, when Heather had little or no track record. Until the president was assassinated, everyone, except General Ko-fenral who knew about the rocket, thought this was a big joke. The only reason we put up with this brash little girl . . .” He winked at her. “. . . was because Congress had mandated that the Department of Defense close the . . . um . . . psychic gap we had with the Beklans.
“That’s what it would feel like for everyone not on the team if we went public with this, or any, warning about the future. Heather’s track record would mean nothing to them, and it wouldn’t matter how many generals or professors vouched for it. Human beings, in large groups, simply do not see that as knowledge. A few individuals would, and maybe a few small groups, but not society as a whole, and certainly not the government as a whole.”
Heather could see Susan nodding.
“So what I’m getting at is . . . whatever we decide to do about Heather’s warning of anthropogenic climate change and population crash, we’re going to have to do, in a very real sense, without Heather, regardless of whether she loses her memories or not . . .”
When Doctor Bo-leden concluded his talk and answered some questions, it
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was close to lunchtime. Heather stood.
“Although I think Larry is right about where my track record counts and where it doesn’t, I want you to know that I’ll help in any way I can, at every step. Bringing you this . . . warning . . . is not just some little thing I do on the side. It’s my life purpose, and I have the feeling in my bones that it’s my only life purpose.” She glanced at the clock. “Chris, can I bump you to Friday?”
“I’ll be here!” Doctor Po-selem promised.
“Thanks. I know we all feel a sense of urgency, and if my memories are correct, there is great urgency, but that doesn’t mean we’d do a good job if we tried to rush.”
She glanced at her note pad. “There’s a handout from Larry on the office counter. Also, many team members are starting to get here for breakfast to have more discussion time, and you’re all welcome. Transports are available from the air base starting at seven o’clock. Sam?”
“Generals and colonels in my office . . .”
The dining room was packed with people Friday morning, with eight at each table instead of the usual six. Heather helped Maria constantly, then perched on the counter by the sink to eat her eggs and sausage.
The twelve-year-old could feel an air of expectation in the room as she stood to open the session. Everyone fell silent.
“I’m nervous too.”
Several people grinned back at her.
“The pieces of the puzzle are starting to fall into place. Please remember that even though I know what’s coming, I do not know what we should do about it. If I knew of a solution that worked, I wouldn’t have these memories, and we wouldn’t be here.”
Doctor Po-selem the physicist threw back his head and laughed. Doctor Bo-leden the philosopher grinned.
Heather smiled. “Chris, you have the floor.”
The physicist stood and ruffled his already-wild hair. “I’m sorry to have to announce that my favorite topic, the whole time-travel question, is at the same place it’s been for a year or more. I put a hypothetical question to another physicist once in a while, but nothing new has come to light.
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Everyone is convinced that if some kind of information came back in time, and we did something to change it, it would, at very least, disappear.
Opinions differ on how much we’d have to do — some say that anyone in the present just knowing the information would cancel it — but most think some definite action would be necessary. The problem is, it’s almost impossible to do any sort of experiment. The only possible experiment is right here in this room, and that has already disproven the first possibility I mentioned.”
He saw understanding nods, even from the military people, so he moved on.
“When Heather dropped the Big Bomb on us two weeks ago . . .”
Everyone in the room chuckled nervously or smiled.
“. . . I decided I should do what a physicist is supposed to do. I should crunch some numbers. I picked a willing grad student and we set up a modeling system that can juggle a hundred variables and give us a plot over a period of time. He set it up so I can put in my own data cards for the starting values, and my own program cards with formulas, and no one but me will ever know what the variables mean, or even what the time scale is . . .”
Doctor Po-selem took a few minutes to convince General Ba-kerga that his modeling system would not create any security risks, then went on to explain the very simple model he tried on his own. With only four variables for animals, plants, Carbon dioxide, and temperature, and some starting values he pulled from a biology textbook, his plot had the planet heating slightly after about a thousand years.
He sensed his model was too simple, so all during the previous weekend, he worked with Doctor Ko-silma to improve the formulas.
“Even though she promised not to drag the rest of you through it, she did make me include the hydroxyl radical, Methane breakdown, and Ozone concentration. We were soon up to thirty variables!”
The team chuckled in sympathy. The chemist, in the back row, grinned.
“I’m afraid the results might hurt someone’s feelings, but as a scientist, I have to share them anyway.” He glanced at Heather, then grabbed a large roll of paper from beside his chair and held it up for everyone to see. “Our model reaches the plus-two-degree point in about three hundred years.”
The room erupted in a rumble of confusion and frustration. Heather
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stayed in her seat with a relaxed smile on her face. Lieutenant Do-forva stepped into the circle to get a photograph of the sheet the physicist was holding.
Eventually Doctor Po-selem rolled his paper back up and the room fell silent. “And as scientists, we have to be open to improvements in our models.
I give the floor back to Heather.”
The twelve-year-old saw everyone looking at her, and could see tender concern in both Susan’s and Sarah’s eyes.
“My feelings are not hurt at all, Chris. I would love it if someone could convince me this thing wasn’t going to happen in my lifetime. But I remember it too clearly, and I also remember many computer models that said the same thing as yours.”
“Can you help us improve the model?” he asked from his chair.
“Only with concepts. You’ll have to dig up the numbers and figure out the formulas.”
The physicist and the chemist both nodded.
Heather stepped to the blackboard. “Let’s start with deforestation.” She began to write on the board. “It goes on constantly, especially in the tropics, until 3720 when it becomes illegal to cut down any living tree.”
She turned and saw many eyes open wide.
“Ocean acidification. As the pH goes down, the oceans can absorb less CO2. That will reverse someday in the far future, once the oceans have dissolved all the calcium deposits and killed all the shellfish, but that’s much too late for us.”
Both the chemist and the physicist wore frowns as they took notes.
“Next, a huge volume of Carbon and Methane is trapped in the permafrost of our vast arctic tundra. It starts thawing about 3710, and is a positive-feedback loop with a tipping point about 3715.”
Both scientists furiously scribbled.
“Just a little farther south, after the heating climate allows insect pests to move in, the boreal forests will start burning, and their peat bogs will release massive amounts of stored Carbon.”
Chris moaned, but kept writing.
Heather waited a moment for the two scientists to catch up, then went on.
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“Out-gassing of Methane hydrates on the ocean floor . . .”
“Oh my God, I didn’t think of that either,” the chemist muttered while writing.
“Another tipping point.”
General Ko-fenral cleared his throat. “Would you explain that term, please?”
Heather turned to her listeners. “A positive-feedback loop is any situation in which the movement of a variable causes the system to move the variable even further in the same direction. A wobbling wheel on a car is a good example. The wobble only gets worse the further it progresses. A tipping point is when a positive-feedback loop becomes self-perpetuating and can’t be stopped, like when the wheel falls apart even though the driver may be slowing down.”
Several people looked at Doctor Po-selem for verification.
“Perfect,” he said, “although in that example, the car will eventually come to a stop, even without one of its wheels. A tipping point could also send a system into some kind of critical mass that goes BOOM.”
Heather laughed, then went on to mention several more factors the two scientists might want to include in their model. Eventually she gave the floor back to the physicist.
He stood and looked at the chemist. “What are you doing this weekend, Betty?”
She chuckled. “I think I’ll be in the computer room at the University with you!”
Heather was very quiet all weekend, spending as much time as possible with Brian on Saturday, and with Susan on Sunday. Both her boyfriend and her therapist came to the same conclusion — Heather was steeling herself for some dire fate. They just didn’t know what it was, and when they asked, Heather claimed not to know, either.
She seemed to be her cheerful self again on Monday, dancing for a solid hour before anyone arrived, chatting with people at breakfast, and opening the session as if they were about to discuss some minor treaty.
“I see that Chris has another big roll of paper.”
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The physicist was grinning from ear to ear.
“You have the floor.”
Doctor Po-selem stood. “Come on up, Betty. You deserve more credit than me, and you can help me hold this thing.”
The chemist reluctantly came up from the back row. “It took us about twenty hours to set up all the formulas, and about ten minutes to get the results.”
Chris nodded. “When you’ve got ninety-three variables, the interactions are quite complex!”
Several people moaned in sympathy.
“We kept everything very conservative and by-the-book,” Betty explained.
“But even so, using different estimates of some items that came from different scientific studies, we could get a temperature curve heading for the moon anywhere from the year 3700 to 3780.”
A rumble of voices filled the room. The two professors waited for it to die down.
“You guessed it,” Chris confirmed. “Heather’s warning is smack in the middle.”
Betty nodded. “We printed the one that almost exactly matches what Heather says is coming, and the numbers and formulas we used to get it were all very reasonable. You can’t get any closer with a mathematical model.
What this tells us is simply that Heather’s memories are solidly within the realm of reality.”
Chris unrolled the large printout, Betty took the opposite corners, they held it up for everyone to see, and Lieutenant Ta-nibon took a picture.
“Damn . . .” Heather grumbled with a frown.