Earth

She’d tried to remain civilized about it, but in the end Teresa let him go to space that last time with barely an acknowledgment of his farewell. For weeks their telemetered messages were terse and formal.

Then came that fatal day. As she was docking her shuttle, unloading her cargo and preparing to send Spivey’s peepers across the transitway, Teresa had been emotionally girding herself to make peace with Jason. To begin anew.

If only—

Teresa pushed away memory. It probably wouldn’t have worked out. What marriage lasted these days, anyway? All men are pigs. She missed him terribly.

One glance told Teresa she wasn’t alone in mourning. Meeting June Morgan’s eyes in that brief moment, she knew the other woman’s pain was akin to her own. Damn him. He wasn’t ever supposed to fling with anyone he liked. Especially someone like me! Someone who might compete for his love.

That instant’s communication seemed to cause the blonde scientist to stumble briefly in her address. But she quickly recovered.

“… so for… for most of the twentieth century, Earth’s total magnetic field weakened at an… average rate of four hundredths of a percent per year. And the decline has steepened recently. That, combined with a greater than expected drop in the Earth’s ozone layer, leads to a growing suspicion we may be about to experience a rare event — a complete geomagnetic reversal.”

The man across from Teresa raised his hand. “I’m sorry, Dr. Morgan. I’m just a poor mineralogist. Could you explain what you mean by that?”

June caused the display to zoom in upon a long, jagged, S-shaped range of undersea mountains, threading the middle of the sinuous Atlantic Ocean. “This is one of the great oceanic spreading centers, where older crust is pushed aside to make room for new basalt welling up from the mantle. As each fresh intrusion cools and hardens, the rock embeds a frozen record of Earth’s magnetism at the time. By studying samples along these ridges, we find the field has a habit of suddenly flipping its state… from northward to southward, or vice versa. The change can be quite rapid. Then, after a long period of stability, it flips back the other way again.

“Way back during the Cretaceous, one stable period lasted almost forty million years. But in recent times these flip-flops have taken to occurring much more rapidly — every three hundred thousand years or so.” June put up a slide showing a history of peaks and valleys crowding ever closer together, ending with a slightly wider patch near the right-hand edge. “Our latest stable interval has exceeded the recent average.”

“In other words,” Pedro Manella suggested, “we’re overdue for another flip.”

She nodded. “We still lack a good explanation of how geomagnetism is generated, down where the core meets the mantle. Some even think sea level has something to do with it, though according to the Parker model…” June stopped and smiled. “The short answer? Yes, we do seem overdue.”

“What might be the consequences, if it flipped today?” Another woman at the table asked.

“Again, we’re not sure. It would certainly impair many navigational instruments—”

Teresa’s nostrils flared. She’d known this. Yet hearing it said aloud felt like a direct challenge.

“ — and it might eliminate some protection from solar proton storms. Space facilities would need shielding or have to be abandoned altogether.”

“And?” Manella prompted.

Isn’t that enough? Teresa thought, horrified.

The speaker sighed. “And it might wreck what’s left of the ozone layer.”

A murmur of consternation spread among those assembled. Pedro Manella loudly cleared his throat to get their attention. “Ladies, gentlemen! This is serious of course. Still, it’s only background to our purpose here today.” He turned to regard June. “Doctor Morgan, let’s get to the point. How might your geomagnetic data help us track down any illegal black hole singularities on or near the Earth?”

“Mmm, yes. Well it’s occurred to me there’ve been some recent anomalies, such as this new drift in the South Pacific…”

Teresa listened attentively. Still, she couldn’t help wondering. Why did Manella insist I come here today? I could have sent my data by courier.

Not that she had anything better to do. Perhaps Pedro wanted her to tell the others about the subjective sensations she’d experienced during the catastrophe, or to recite the story of Erehwon’s destruction one more time.

No matter. Teresa was used to being a team player. Even in a quasi-illegal band like this one, most of whose members she didn’t even know.

Damn it, she thought. I just want to know what’s going on.

For now that meant cooperating with Manella, and even June Morgan, putting aside personal feelings and helping any way she could.

□ Like most other religious special interest groups on the Net, we in the Friends of St. Francis Assembly [□ SIG.Rel.disc. 12-RsyPD 634399889.058] have been discussing the Pope’s latest encyclical, Et in Terra pax et sapientia, which sanctions veneration of the Holy Mother as special protector of the Earth and its species. Some say this stands alongside his predecessor’s acceptance of the population oath as a breakthrough concession to common sense and the new worldview.

Not all take this attitude, however. Consider the manifesto published yesterday on the Return to the Robe Cha

I just had a voice-text exchange with the Monsignor Nassan Bruhuni [$ pers.addr. WaQ 237.69.6272-36 aadw], leading author of the manifesto, during an open question session. Here’s a replay of that exchange.

Query by T.M.: “Monsignor, according to the Bible, what was the very first injunction laid by the Lord upon our first ancestor?” Reply by Msgr. Bruhuni: “By first ancestor I assume you mean Adam. Do you refer to the charge to be fruitful and multiply?” T.M.: “That’s the first command mentioned, in Genesis 1. But Genesis 1 is clearly just a summary of the more detailed story in Genesis 2. Anyway, to ‘multiply’ can’t have been first chronologically. That could only happen after Eve appeared, after sex was discovered through sin, and after mankind lost immortality of the flesh!”

Msgr. B.: “I see your point. In that case, I’d say the command not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. It was by breaking that injunction that Adam fell.”

T.M.: “But that’s still only a negative commandment… ‘Don’t do that.’ Wasn’t there something else? Something Adam was asked actively to do?

“Consider. Every heavenly intervention mentioned in the Bible, from Genesis onward, can be seen as a palliative measure, to help mend a fallen race of obdurate si

Msgr. B.: “Let me scan and refresh my… Ah. I think I see what you refer to. The paragraph in which the Lord has Adam name all the beasts. Is that it? But that’s a minor thing. Nobody considers it important.”

T.M.: “Not important? The very first request by the Creator of His creation? The only request that has nothing to do with the repair work of mortality or rescue from sin? Would such a thing have been mentioned so prominently if the Lord were merely idly curious?”

Msgr. B.: “Please, I see others queued for questions. Your point is?”

T.M.: “Only this — our original purpose clearly was to glorify God by going forth, comprehending, and naming the Creator’s works. Therefore, aren’t zoologists, crawling through the jungle, struggling to name endangered species before they go extinct, doing holy labor?

“Or take even those camera-bearing probes we have sent to other planets… What is the first thing we do when awe-inspiring vistas of some faraway moon are transmitted back by our little robot envoys? Why, we reverently name the craters, valleys, and other strange beasts discovered out there.

“So you see it’s impossible for the end of days to come, as your group predicts, till we succeed in our mission or utterly fail. Either we’ll complete the preservation and description of this Earth and go forth to name everything else in God’s universe, or we’ll prove ourselves unworthy by spoiling what we started with — this, our first garden. Either way, the verdict’s not in yet!” Msgr. B.: “I… really don’t know how to answer this. Not in real time. At minimum you’ve drawn an intriguing sophistry to delight your fellow Franciscans. And those neo-Gaian Jesuits, if they haven’t thought of it already.

“Perhaps you’ll allow me time to send out my own ferrets and contemplate? I’ll get back to you next week, same time, same access code.”

So that’s where we left it. Meanwhile, any of you on this SIG are welcome to comment. I’ll answer any useful remarks or suggestions. After all, if there’s anything I seem to have on my hands these days, it’s free time.