Utopia

“A great deal of difference. Water absorbs heat energy far more efficiently than the atmosphere can. Water can circulate, carrying that heat along with it. Temperatures in the southern hemisphere are much more moderate and stable than they are in the north, because warm water can flow over the south pole and the polar regions, warming them up. Cold polar water can move toward the temperate zones and cool them off. I am oversimplifying things tremendously, of course, but that is the basic idea.”

“And that can’ t happen in the north, because there is no water,” Fredda said, glancing toward her husband. But his face was completely expressionless. He was watching this game, not playing it.

Lentrall nodded eagerly. “Precisely. Terra Grande is a huge, monolithic continent. It completely covers the northern third of the planet’s surface. Because no water can flow over the North Pole region, there is little chance for temperatures to moderate themselves in the northern hemisphere. The tropical regions of the northern hemisphere are too hot, while the polar regions are too cold. If you look at a map, you will see that the southern edge of Terra Grande-where most of the people live-more or less borders the northern edge of the north tropical zone. Right here, in Hades, we should be right in the center of the temperate regions. But the temperate regions are shrinking, and we are very near the northern border of the habitable zone, at least by some standards. Actually, there are a few rather stringent Settler measures by which the city of Hades is, technically, uninhabitable. Because of insufficient rainfall, I believe. Be that as it may, the habitable zone of this planet is already little more than a narrow strip, five or six hundred kilometers wide, along the southern coast of Terra Grande. And that strip is still shrinking, despite our best efforts, and despite local successes.”

“I thought the terraforming project was gaining ground,” Fredda said, looking toward her husband.

“It is,” said Alvar. “In places. Mostly in the places where people live. We are losing ground elsewhere-but we are doing much better around Hades and in the Great Bay region generally. Once we have this part of the world under control, we hope to expand outward.”

“If you get the chance,” Lentrall said. “Current projections show it could go either way. You’re relying on a high-point balance. It’s unstable.”

“What’s a high-point balance?” Fredda asked.

Lentrall smiled as he reached into the breast pocket of his tunic and pulled out a large coin-a Settler coin, Fredda could not help but notice. He had it so ready to hand that Fredda assumed he had put it there deliberately, just to be ready to make his point.,

“This is a high-point balance,” he said. He held his left hand with the index finger pointed straight up, and carefully placed the coin on the tip of his index finger. “In theory, I could hold this coin here indefinitely,” he said. “All I have to do is keep my finger completely steady, keep my arm from moving, keep from being jostled-while, at the same time compensating for any minute gusts of air, any very slight tremor in the building. And of course, I have to be sure I don’t overcompensate while trying to correct for some very minor-”

But at that moment, the coin suddenly fell from his finger and landed ringingly on the stone floor of the office. Somehow the sound of it striking the floor was much louder than Fredda had expected.

“I’ve just given you a pretty fair metaphor for the present state of Inferno’s planetary climate. It is stable for the moment, but if there is the slightest perturbation, there will be trouble. There is no negative feedback in the system, nothing working against a perturbation to push the system back toward stability. Ever since the first climate engineer started to work here, the balance point for Inferno’s climate has been a high point tottering between two extremes, with the slightest shift capable of sending the whole thing crashing down into overheating or supercooling. We have to get everything exactly right every time, or else…” He nodded toward the coin on the floor.

“But you have a solution,” Fredda said, her voice not entirely friendly. Lentrall was making no effort to convince, or explain, or discuss matters. He was lecturing, dictating, instructing her. He was speaking in tones that were a strange combination of arrogance and condescension. He was talking down to her, as if she were a child, explaining to her why doing things his way, the sensible way, was for her own good.