Caliban

Suddenly the simulation froze. “You see this world as it will be, approximately seventy-five standard years from now. For all intents and purposes, by that time there will be no other life on this planet but ourselves. Some small remnant populations of this and that species might well survive in isolated pockets, but the world as a whole will be dead.” Alvar heard a grim graveyard chuckle in the darkness. “By the time the world is as we see it here, I suppose we humans ourselves could be regarded as a remnant in an isolated pocket.”

“I don’t understand,” Alvar protested, speaking to the faceless voice of the Governor somewhere in the dark. “I thought the danger was from the deserts growing, the planet getting too hot, the ice caps baking off.”

“That was what we all thought,” the Governor said bitterly. “Whatever desultory, token efforts my predecessor made to correct the situation were based on calculations and predictions to that effect. The deserts were supposed to grow, the ice cap to vanish completely, the sea levels to rise. There are plans in my files for dikes to be built around the city and hold back the rising water!”

Alvar heard the Governor step out from behind the console. He came around the side of the simglobe to stand by Alvar’s chair and look at the half-frozen world. “Perhaps I am being unfair. The situation is remarkably complex. If one or two variables shifted slightly, itwould be the sea, and not the ice, that would overwhelm the city. In fact, stage one of our revised terraforming plan is to tip the scales backtoward the collapse-into-desert, coastal-flooding scenario-it is a less drastic catastrophe than the ice age we otherwise face. You have not seen the worst of the ice age yet.”

“But why push toward the desert scenario? Why not work toward a stable middle ground?” Alvar asked.

“An excellent question. The answer is that our current situation is aresult of aiming for that middle ground, a middle ground we may well not be able to achieve.”

“I don’t understand.”

The Governor sighed, his face dimly lit by the image of a dying world. “The groundwork for a stable ecology comfortable to humans was never properly laid in the first place, and we are paying the price for it. A properly terraformed world, when disturbed in some way, will always tend back toward that comfortable middle ground. Not here. Life is supposed to be a moderating factor in a planet’s environment, smoothing out the extremes. But life’s hold on Inferno is getting weaker, and a weakened system moves toward extremes. What we would view as a ‘normal’ terrestrial ecology has, on Inferno, become the abnormal,unstable transition point between two stable states-ice age or an overly arid continent with high sea levels. Of the two stable states, we are heading for the ice, and that will kill us.

“Creating an Inferno with a mostly desert, half-flooded Terra Grande may be the best we can do. It will only leave us halt and lame. You see, if we can force the trends back toward desert-spreading, then life would at least survive on this planet even when our civilization collapses!”

“When our civilization collapses!” Alvar cried out in astonishment. “What are you saying? Is that really going to happen?”

Grieg sighed, a tired-sounding noise of resignation. “I suppose I should say ‘if’ instead of ‘when,’ but I have been reading a whole series of classified reports that suggest that collapse is far more likely than anyone imagines. When it gets bad, people will start pulling out. Not everyone will be able to afford it. There will be too few ships available. Prices will be high. Some people will die, and many more will leave. I doubt there will be a large enough population left to keep society functioning, even with the robots. Maybe all the people will die off, but the robots will survive. Who knows?”

The Governor seemed to come back to himself a bit. He drew his shoulders up and looked down at Alvar and spoke in a firmer, more controlled voice. “Forgive me. There is a great deal on my mind.”

Chanto Grieg paced back and forth in front of Alvar once or twice, clearly working to collect his thoughts. At last he spoke. “We are in a knife-edge situation, Sheriff, in more ways than one. Political and social issues are intertwined with the ecological problems. In looking at the ecology, we therefore must plan for the likelihood that whatever survivors there are will not be able to do anything to save the planet, beyond whatever effortswe make. The ice age result is not survivable. The desert result is. So we force the planet back toward the desert pattern, and, if we get the chance, we can try and reterraform from there. That will certainly be preferable to our current future,” Grieg said, gesturing toward the simglobe.

“But the ice age doesn’t look that bad,” Alvar objected.