Her Brother's Keeper: A Story of Alpha Centauri

The following day Christiana was typing away on her desk at school. It was the middle of history class and the instructor was droning on and on about events from over two hundred and fifty Colonial Years in the past. Both children were disinterested in the lecture because the womb-mates had already read everything that they could find about the First Wave. After all, the duo had direct connections to the colonists of that era because they were gee-emms. So, to stave off boredom, the girls were having a lively text chat over the school’s network.

While the administration locked out the chat feature for the students during class, this didn’t stop Christiana and Haruhi-nee. Beginning a few grades prior, not long after they began applying themselves in school, the two siblings had competed to see who could break the network’s security the fastest. Plus, teachers only updated the passwords at the beginning of every grade. So once the girls were in, they had access to the texting function for the rest of the Year.

This Year Haruhi-nee had achieved victory by breaking into the system well before the end of second period. Meanwhile, Christiana had cracked it during the break just before third period. Of course, it wasn’t as if they had wagered creds on who would win. Instead, the winner got to have bragging rights over their womb-mate for the rest of the Colonial Year. Since she had given Haruhi-nee grief the previous Year the black-haired girl had been highly motivated to beat her younger sibling. Needless to say, the elder child had reminded her of who had won daily.

In order not to be reprimanded for their illicit activities, the schoolgirls had agreed to never give out the passwords to their friends after they got them. The duo tried their best to hide their chat sessions by claiming that they were taking lots of detailed notes. However, since the system was becoming harder and harder to breach each Year, both girls worried that the network administrators had discovered their hacking. As a result, the children worked hard to cover their digital footprints every time they used chat during class.

‘I wonder how they could have caught on to us,’ she pondered while waiting for a response from her Sister to her last message. It wasn’t as if better anti-hacking software had been developed recently. Unlike on Old Earth, they did not develop computer software and processors in an accelerated fashion. To put it bluntly, the advancement of information technology was not all that important to the survival of the colony.

Instead, the government directed all of its resources for technological development into two fields. The first was the improvement of terraforming techniques. The second was ’bot improvement. While the initial reason was obvious, the other was not. The lack of insects on Cooper’s World forced the colonists to use robots for plant pollination. Since pollination was a key step in growing crops, the more efficient the machine, the more plants that farmers could grow per parcel of arable land. They also used automatic devices for planting and harvesting the produce so ’bot development was very important for food production.

The voice of her lecturer startled the girl out of her musings.

“Hello Christiana, are you in there?” asked her history teacher, Mrs. Dyke.

The laughter of all of her classmates quickly followed, including Haruhi-nee’s distinctive giggle.

“I am sorry, ma’am, but I was deep in thought,” she replied meekly.

“I could tell,” the sensei responded. As usual, the educator appeared to be in a foul mood because she had a slight grimace on her wrinkled face. Meanwhile, the graying light brown hair which framed her frowning countenance swayed in the air conditionings breeze. Suddenly, a malicious smirk grew on the aging sensei’s visage. Mrs. Dyke continued, “Now since you were not paying attention to my lecture, I want you to come up here and tell the class all about The Chosen.”

‘Oh, that’s easy,’ she thought. ‘The question is, where do I begin?’

As she walked up to the teacher’s podium, she did her best to organize the information that she knew concerning The Chosen in her head. Upon reaching the front of the lecture hall, Christiana turned around to face her peers.

There were twenty young ladies in the classroom, and all of them wore different expressions. Since she was somewhat popular, most of the children were smiling at her encouragingly. Of these the most conspicuous was Haruhi-nee, who was not only beaming but who was giving her Sister a thumbs up. However, there were a handful of girls who had neutral looks, and two who were wearing frowns. These were the kids that always took lectures seriously and who tried to compete with the Sisters for the top grades in the class.

Taking a long, calming breath, she started speaking. “The First Wave was made up of the best of the best that the Sol system had to offer. Millions of people replied to advertisements concerning commercial colonies in deep space, mainly because of the high pay that was offered. The list of colonists was made up of female Earthers, Marsies, Lunarians, and Spacers most between the ages of seven and twelve Earth years old. Over six months, they reduced the register to just five thousand applicants. Those left were the smartest, most athletic, and well-adjusted of the candidates. The parents of the remaining aspirants and the girls themselves later underwent several additional tests and interviews. Of the five thousand, they selected only one thousand eighty for the secret trip between the stars, the rest being sent to establish a colony in the Solar system. ”

“During the twenty-four Earth year voyage, they educated the children in many fields by using instructors traveling on the two ships.” Christiana then continued after taking a few breaths, “Later the crews of the starships tested each of the pilgrims when they reached their early to mid-twenties. They did this to see if they could act as crew during the last few years of the journey. The colonists’ educational performance, areas of study, and general aptitude were all assessed. From this, the ship captains selected only about a third of them to work as members of the team.”

She paused yet again, this time examining each of her classmates. All the girls were giving her their undivided attention, even Haruhi-nee looking absorbed in her mini-lecture. The only one with a sour look on her face was Mrs. Dyke. After all, the teacher had asked this question to punish and humiliate Christiana for not focusing on the sensei. Instead, the class was more interested in the girl’s speech than they had been the teacher’s.

‘Serves her right,’ she thought uncharitably as she resumed her speech.

“Upon reaching Cooper’s World, the commanding officers chose three individuals to become full crew members and to return with them to Earth.” The child went on, “These people were Keiko Kayashima from the starship Destiny, with Christy Harris and Emma Evans from Hope,” Christiana continued. “The trio who we now call The Chosen were the finest of the colonists who were already the best of those selected from a pool of millions. “

She added a touch of excitement to her voice before continuing. “Thus today, two hundred and fifty-eight Colonial Years later, these three have become almost mythic figures within our society. Many view the Chosen as the pinnacle of humanity, a goal that all women must strive to meet. Some even see them practically as demi-gods, people who have the blood of the Divine coursing through their veins, only pretending to be mortal. However, this is something that I do not believe. Because if that is correct, then The Chosen are at a level that we mere mortals can never reach. If this is true, then what is the aim that we, as females, should work towards?”

To her surprise, all the girls in the room started clapping. “I didn’t think that such a ‘boring’ subject would be so well received,” she thought as she walked back to her seat and sat down. Clearly perturbed by her knowledge of the past despite her lack of attention in class, Mrs. Dyke asked, “Christiana, why do you know so much about The Chosen?”

She proudly replied, “It really comes down to our family history.”

“How so?” the instructor retorted, a scowl plastered on her face.

“Both Haruhi-nee and I, myself, are gee-emms from the First Wave. Our geneMothers were intimately connected to The Chosen,” Christiana said while wearing an enormous smile.

She truly appreciated her genetic heritage. However, despite their high pedigrees, the Sisters had never tried to use their ancestry to their advantage. Neither girl had mentioned their lineage in class before, even though everyone knew that the two siblings were gee-emms. It was one thing to have a weird last name; it was another for someone to spell out exactly what that name meant.

This revelation caused quite a kerfuffle amongst her fellow students. In mere seconds, the room went from relative silence to gasps of shock, to exclamations of surprise amidst the girls. Despite Mrs. Dyke’s best efforts to settle things down, she could not quell the disturbance because everyone started speaking at once. Both Christiana and Haruhi-nee were being asked rapid-fire questions by the children sitting at the surrounding desks. So many people were talking to them at once that neither girl could understand their peers’ queries, so the duo also began asking their classmates to simmer down.

After two or three minutes, things finally calmed down enough for the lecturer to be heard above the din. If Mrs. Dyke had been frowning before, at this point, she was scowling.

“Girls, you know better!” the instructor was all but yelling. “If you do not calm down right now, then I will get the headmistress,” the history teacher snarled.

That got the girl’s attention, and the turmoil settled down to whispers in a handful of seconds. No one wanted the headmistress to become entangled in the situation. While Mrs. Dyke was on the strict side, headmistress Perkins was on a whole different level. Just her being summoned to a classroom would lead to a long tongue lashing and a vid’ conference with the Mother of every girl present.

‘The last thing I want is for that woman to get involved,’ Christiana thought as the color drained from her face. Since it was her fault that the disruption began, Mrs. Perkins wouldn’t stop with a call home. Even though she was only answering a question from Mrs. Dyke, she knew from experience that things would only escalate if she tried to explain the current circumstances. Any interaction between a student and the headmistress was a lose-lose situation.

Now that her students were quiet, the educator once again singled her out. “Christiana, it is a well-known fact that all the eggs harvested from The Chosen returned with them to Sol,” she began with a smug smirk on her face. “Thus there is no way that either of your geneMothers could have been one of The Chosen.”

“Yes, ma’am, that is true,” she replied. “That is why I said that both of our geneMothers were closely associated with The Chosen, not that they were the Chosen.” Then it was the girl’s turn to grin. “For instance, Haruhi-nee’s geneMother was the ‘cousin’ and best friend of Keiko Kayashima,” the girl continued, “Her gee-emm was Kanna Hirohito from Destiny.”

With this, yet another murmur arose among the classmates, but it quieted under Mrs. Dyke’s sharp glare. Before Mrs. Dyke could resume her interrogation, Christiana pressed forward. “It is interesting to note that on Old Earth Miss Hirohito was from the more prestigious clan. That was because she was directly related to the emperor of Nippon. Meanwhile, Miss Kayashima was from a branch family of the Hirohitos. Unfortunately, Ms. Kayashima lost her parents and siblings at a very young age and the main household adopted her to be Ms. Hirohito’s close friend and companion.”

Then, before her instructor had the chance to interrupt her, she continued, “My geneMother was the geneSister of Christy Harris, Mary Harris. Both girls were Spacers from the innermost asteroid belt. While the younger sister Christy Harris was Chosen and returned to Sol on Hope, Mary Harris settled here on Cooper’s World.”

Once again the room erupted with the sound of girl’s voices. While the term “cousin” was virtually unknown to the youngsters in the class, everyone knew what a geneSister was. While uncommon for a girl to run into someone who had the same geneMother as they did, it was not unheard of. In fact, there were many popular vids for children about that very subject. It was common for girls Christiana and Haruhi-nee’s age to contact the Labs to find out if they had any living geneSisters hoping to reach them. The Labs, of course, could not give out that kind of information since it was a breach of privacy.

After contacting the Labs for this data and being turned down, the Sisters had tried to hack their way into the Labs’ systems. By working together, the girls broke into the Washington’s primary security system. They then piggybacked on that computer and used it and its advanced features to breach the outermost firewall belonging to the Labs’ network. However, despite their’ finest efforts, they could not break the data’s encryption without risking detection. As a result, they decided it was best to quit trying if they did not want to get in trouble for tampering with government intelligence.

Since Christiana’s classmates understood what a geneSister was, they could grasp how closely she was related to Christy Harris. To them, it was almost as if they found out that one of their friends was the geneDaughter of the colony’s President.

Mrs. Dyke’s eyes grew large as she appeared to recognize the genetic potentials of the girls she had repeatedly singled out throughout the school Year. Of course, the Sisters being Washingtons should have been enough to make the nagging teacher think twice before harassing them. Even the naïve child understood that getting on the bad side of one of the most powerful families in Simmon’s Town was not in someone’s best interest. That was especially true if she wanted to live a peaceful life and retire here.

She was slightly ashamed because felt a bit of joy at the teacher’s obvious discomfort. Both she and Haruhi-nee had been on the receiving end of Mrs. Dyke’s sharp tongue. While she was not all that worried about herself, she couldn’t forgive Mrs. Dyke for harassing her womb-mate. ‘I don’t care if you are a teacher,’ she thought to herself, ‘You shouldn’t pick on us because we already know the information that you are presenting to the class.’ After all, both girls had given adequate answers to every question the instructor had asked them throughout the term. Besides, it wasn’t as if either child was causing a distraction for their classmates by texting over the network and ignoring the lectures.

After Mrs. Dyke quieted the students down once again, she did her very best to steer the rest of the lecture away from the Chosen. She also totally ignored the two Sisters even though the duo had stopped trying to hide their nonstop typing.

Then, when the class dispersed, the older educator would not meet Christiana’s gaze. Instead, she hurried out of the room right after the period ended. Christiana smiled when she realized that the nasty teacher had fled. The black-haired sibling laughed out loud after Mrs. Dyke rushed into the hallway.

“Looks like she finally understands who we are,” the Haruhi-nee said.

Then Haruhi-nee rose from her desk and walked towards her Sister making slow progress through the students who were milling about. The girls had gym the next period, so they were all heading to the locker room to change. Since their sensei did not give them much time to put on their gym uniforms, there was always chaos in the lecture hall immediately after history class. After all, the faster the pupils made it to the gymnasium, the longer they had to dress.

When she reached Christiana’s desk, Haruhi-nee had an enormous grin plastered across her pretty face. “I can’t believe that Mrs. Dyke left the classroom that quickly,” Haruhi-nee declared. “Usually she keeps one or two girls after class ‘to talk.’ I suspect that she just likes to make us suffer.”

She burst into giggles. “Do you think it was something I said?” she quipped as she rose to her feet. On this occasion, it was Haruhi-nee’s turn to laugh as the duo exited the classroom.

—

She was tired, and her stomach would not stop gurgling. Every time it did, the surrounding students would snicker. ‘You all are the reason I am hungry,’ Christiana thought as she did her best to focus on the lecture.

Lunchtime had been a nightmare for Haruhi-nee and her. It was as if the entire class descended on the Sisters like vultures did corpses back on Old Earth. After sitting down in the cafeteria with their trays of food, everyone bombarded the duo with questions about the girls’ heritage. It was so bad that neither of them could eat a quarter of their meal. When the surrounding gaggle of children ran out of queries and she was able to ingest a few bites of her salad, the bell chimes rang, marking the end of lunch period.

Somehow Haruhi-nee had eaten more than Christiana, but over half her provisions remained when the two had to stop dining. In a moment of inspiration, the dark-haired girl wrapped up her fish sandwich in a napkin and then motioned for her to do the same. Then, while the younger sibling was still wrapping her meal, her oneechan took both of their trays up to the lunch lady at the washing station.

Returning just as Christiana was putting her freshly wrapped sandoitchi in her pocket, Haruhi-nee flashed her sister a smile. Then she grabbed her hand and said, “Let’s go before we’re late.”

So, thanks to the older sibling’s quick thinking, the two girls had some food that they can eat once the school day finally ended.

‘Thank goodness that it’s last period,’ Christiana thought as her stomach rumbled once again. Doing her best to ignore the snickers of her classmates, she looked over at her Sister’s desk.

Haruhi-nee was peering at the teacher, appearing calm and collected. ‘She has to be even more tired than I am,’ she worried as she glanced away. While not as introverted as Sophie-oneechan, the dark-haired girl did not do well at being the center of so many people’s scrutiny. Therefore, if their lunchtime ordeal drained the more extroverted womb-mate, then it had to have exhausted her oneechan. ‘She always puts up a good front, though,’ she realized, impressed by her sibling’s strength.

While stifling a yawn, she turned her attention to what their sensei was saying. Last period was Mrs. Parker’s science class. Both Sisters liked science, so they focused on her lectures. Today, however, Mrs. Parker seemed a bit distracted, and the teacher kept looking away whenever Christiana met her gaze.

‘Wow, Jessica and the rest of security work fast,’ she speculated. ‘Well, either that or word has already spread about what happened earlier in history class.’

She could not help but feel bad about the situation. Unlike Mrs. Dyke, Mrs. Parker was nice to her pupils. She would always answer her students’ questions and even provided free tutoring sessions to underprivileged schoolgirls. That was part of the reason Christiana had hesitated to inform her Okaa-sama about the issues caused by the well-liked instructor.

‘However, if it had been Mrs. Dyke…’ she muttered under her breath. The normally nice girl knew deep in her heart that she would have turned the harsh teacher in to her Mother with no hesitation.

Realizing that she was getting lost in her thoughts once again, Christiana slapped her own cheeks. ‘Wake up!’ she thought, while looking around to see if anyone had noticed her uncharacteristic behavior. ‘Looks like I’m okay,’ she realized as she turned her attention back to the teacher who had short, curly hair.

“So when the ships arrived carrying the Founders in the First Wave, they found a planet that differed greatly from what they expected,” Mrs. Parker was saying. “They could spot some differences even before they crossed the circum-binary asteroid belt. Can anyone tell me how they might have done this?”

As soon as she asked, a few hands went up. Christiana did not bother to raise hers, since she believed that the middle-aged instructor would not call on her.

After a few incorrect answers from the students, the chocolate-skinned sensei continued her lecture. “If you remember from last week, we discussed how telescopes can measure the reflectivity of an object from a very long distance away. Scientists on both Hope and Destiny measured the albedo of Cooper’s World, and they could see that it had significantly increased.”

Christiana immediately became interested upon hearing this. ‘I remember reading about this in a history book, but it mainly talked about the person who made the breakthrough. It didn’t go into any detail about the actual discovery,’ she thought. That was the problem with some historical accounts. Historians spent so much time explaining who did what when that sometimes they did not explain why that event was so important.

“It wasn’t until almost a Year later that they could figure out why the albedo increased,” the teacher explained. “Because the ships were slowing down in relation to both a-cent-b and Cooper’s World itself, the brightness created by the fusion thrust overwhelmed the light from the far away globe. When the vessels finally came to a relative stop, inserted themselves into orbit around the star, and powered off their thrusters, the scientists got another unobstructed view of the planet. That was when they discovered that the size of Cooper’s World’s ice caps had quadrupled when compared to the planet’s initial discovery.”

She became so engrossed by what she had just learned that Christiana momentarily forgot that she was in class, and she blurted out, “How could that happen?” It was only when she heard the laughter of her classmates that she realized where she was. In moments, her face blushed a bright crimson.

Ignoring the girl’s outburst and her resulting embarrassment, Mrs. Parker continued. “It wasn’t until the ships were in orbit of Cooper’s World that the scientists pieced together what had happened. It took a long time because the growth of the ice caps had caused an enormous amount of snow and ice to pile up at the poles. Since all that water had to come from somewhere, it made the ocean levels sink. Then, because of the drop in sea level, a lot of lands that had been under the oceans emerged and changed the continents’ shorelines. To put it bluntly, the experts had to redraw most of the maps of the planet.”

By this point, stillness had settled over the classroom. All the normal squirming, shuffling, and fidgeting that is usually present in a room of children had quieted. Christiana subconsciously sensed the strange atmosphere, glancing around the lecture hall only to see that everyone was giving Mrs. Parker their undivided attention. ‘Well, this is really interesting,’ she thought as she returned to listening, forgetting both her hunger and fatigue.

“Geologists eventually discovered a series of three new medium-sized impact craters. They detected the craters by carefully comparing more recent photos of the planet’s surface with those from its initial discovery. Because the impacts weren’t in the old photographs, it meant that those collisions had happened after they created the first pictures. Since they took those pictures forty-five Earth years apart, those meteor strikes couldn’t have taken place naturally,” Mrs. Parker explained.

“Another strange thing was that all the craters were within five degrees of the equator,” the teacher continued. “Even if a single asteroid or comet were to break up in the atmosphere, the chances of the pieces making an almost perfect line was impossible. Of course, since the impacts were thousands of kay-emms apart, there was no way that they could have been an individual object.”

“One astronomer acted on a hunch after learning about the craters. He calculated the current position of ten water-rich bodies that scientists had discovered during the first voyage of Hope to the Alpha Centauri star system. By the time that the scientist learned that all the objects were missing, he realized the answer to the mystery,” the teacher explained.

“During the discovery mission, astronomers aboard the starship did a sweep of the a-cent-b planetary system for small icy bodies. It surprised them to discover that, unlike the Sol system, this star system had very few asteroids. Icy targets were even harder to find,” Mrs. Parker said. “This was a major problem for Hope. In order to return to Earth, the ship needed a lot of aech-too-ohh. This is because the ship used super-heated steam to propel itself through space like the air escaping a balloon makes it fly around the room.”

“The ice-rich asteroids were spread out throughout the system and traveling to each of them would use up most of the water that they were trying to collect. Of course, the alternative was to travel to the circum-binary belt and mine the bodies there. However, the deep cold and lack of light that far away from both stars would cause the mining to go slowly. It was also much more dangerous for the crew,” the instructor revealed to the silent class.

“Luckily, the ship carried ten automated mining rigs. Admiral Duflot commanded the drones to be sent to the ten innermost water-rich asteroids. He then ordered Hope to explore the area around a-cent-a while the tugs got to work,” the science teacher reported.

“They designed automated ships to travel to bodies about fifteen kay-emms in diameter, land on them, and mine the ice found there. After it mined enough aech-too-ohh, the rig super-heated it with its on-board fusion reactor. Then it funneled the resulting steam through the rig’s main thruster as reaction mass. By doing this over and over, the drone would slowly change the asteroid’s orbit. Duflot planned to nudge the asteroids until they gathered at a rendezvous point. However, this method would use up a lot of the water that they hoped to mine. It would also take years to complete,” Mrs. Parker explained. “Even with these drawbacks, the Admiral felt this plan posed the least threat to Hope and its crew.”

“There was a major problem with his plan. All the mining rigs successfully traveled to their destinations and stopped the asteroids from spinning. However, not a single drone fired their main thrusters when ordered to nudge their targets towards the rendezvous point.” the teacher said.

“None of them?” one girl in the back of the class exclaimed.

“I can’t believe it either,” Christiana announced. “The chances of all ten rigs breaking at the same time had to have been very low.”

Unlike before, her classmates did not protest her interruption. ‘Everyone else must think the same thing,’ she concluded under her breath.

Mrs. Parker acknowledged Christiana’s statement. She responded by saying, “It was later concluded that the design of the mining rigs had to have been defective. That was the only reasonable explanation that the crew could come up with.”

“However, the astronomer I pointed out earlier disproved this explanation,” the sensei explained with a smile. “Remember how I mentioned that the ten asteroids he was looking for were missing? He realized those planetoids caused the impact craters on Cooper’s World.”

“How did that happen?” a girl in the class’s front inquired.

“Well, he concluded that the mining rigs didn’t actually malfunction,” Mrs. Parker responded. “It turned out that someone reprogrammed the drones. Instead of moving the minor planets to the rendezvous point, they dropped them onto our planet.”

This time it was Haruhi-nee who asked a question. “Who could have done that, and why?”

“Well, we can only speculate who repurposed the rig,” the instructor explained. “Only three people on Hope had the authority to override the mining vessels’ coding. Those individuals were Admiral Duflot, Captain Simmons, and Commander Cooper. We have no way of knowing which of the commanding officers of the mission changed the tugs’ programming.”

“But that doesn’t explain why,” her womb-mate pointed out.

An enormous grin formed on Mrs. Parker’s face. Her initial response was a single word, “Terraforming.”

Christiana glanced around the room when the teacher responded to Haruhi-nee’s question. Everyone looked just as confused as she felt.

“Let me point out some things,” Mrs. Parker said. “The Founders chose this planet because it wasn’t too cold, nor did it have a rich and teeming biosphere. The only native life is a few dozen species of algae. With nothing to eat the microscopic plants, it multiplied and produced enough ohh-too to make the atmosphere breathable. That factor, combined with an atmospheric pressure only slightly less than that of Terra, and our world is infinitely more habitable than Mars.”

“However, our planet had one major drawback,” she explained. “Because of the high see-oh-too levels, it was much warmer than Terra. The planet’s average temp was ten degrees see higher than Old Earth. The increased temps meant that people would have to settle towards the poles since the equator was too hot for humans to live above ground.”

“The First Wave colonists were also expecting to have a lot of problems farming the dirt. With no land-based life, the sterile dust had no organics mixed into it,” the teacher explained. “Thus, the muck would be nothing like the soil on the homeworld. Even with the ability to produce nitrogen fertilizers, the Founders worried about food production.”

“When the ships approached Cooper’s World they learned their concerns had been unfounded. The larger ice caps reflected more of the heat from sunlight back into space. That made the average temp drop considerably,” she went on. “Plus, the lowering of ocean levels revealed large mats of dead algae. Since there were no microorganisms around to break down the lifeless plants, they just piled up and slowly weathered away. All the early colonists had to do was burn the deceased microorganisms, mix the ashes into the dirt, and add some nitrogen fertilizer. With those few steps, the First Wave caused the ground to become fertile enough to raise all the food they needed.”

“But that doesn’t explain how the impacts produced bigger ice caps,” the schoolgirl next to Christiana asked.

She rolled her eyes at this query. ‘Didn’t she listen to the lecture about mass extinctions back on Old Earth?’ she wondered.

However, Mrs. Parker took the question in stride. “Whenever an asteroid hits a rocky world with a thick atmosphere, it throws up an enormous amount of debris. The dust can be so thick that it takes months or even Years to settle out. During that time, the powder blocks out some, if not all, of the sunlight hitting the planet. This causes the planet’s surface to cool. Some scientists call this phenomenon an ‘Impact Winter’ since the coldest part of the Earth year occurs during the winter.”

While Christiana understood the concept of the hottest and coldest parts of the Year happening during Summer and Winter respectively, most of her classmates did not. After all, on this planet, the seasons had to do with the positions of the two suns. It had nothing to do with the axial tilt of Cooper’s World. Besides, the nine-degree inclination of the globe meant that the periods of hot and cold were much milder than on Old Earth. Also, a Colonial Year passed fairly quickly. So those temp variations happened in quick succession.

“However, a single ‘Impact Winter’ could not explain the increase in the size of the poles. Scientists have calculated that they spread the ten collisions over twenty to thirty Years. That way the snow and ice formed by the prior collision did not have sufficient time to melt before the next one,” the sensei explained. “Also, by spacing out the impacts, enough light periodically reached the surface to keep the algae from dying out.”

“Wow! Whoever set this up was really smart,” Haruhi-nee said. Most of the girls in the class nodded in agreement with her statement.

“What happened with Hope?” Christiana asked. “I know they made it back, or we wouldn’t be here. I’m just wondering how they got the water they needed to return home.”

Mrs. Parker answered the question, pleased by the lively and spontaneous open discussion. Her face was wearing a brilliant smile as she responded, “It took them five Earth years to mine the aech-too-ohh. Of course, they did this in the cold and dark of the sparse circum-binary asteroid belt. Luckily, the crew did not report any major injuries. Nevertheless, it delayed the return trip by four Terran years.”

Haruhi-nee jumped in again. “A delay of five Colonial Years in exchange for a more habitable planet. That sounds like a good deal to me.”

The class burst into laughter in response to Haruhi-nee’s joke. However, Christiana was the one that laughed the loudest. ‘That is a fantastic deal,’ she understood as her laughter died down to a chuckle.

‘The person who planned all of this thought in the long term,’ she realized. Because of the length of the voyage, the crews’ children gradually replaced them during their long voyage home. Eventually, all the original crew members died of old age before reaching Earth. Despite knowing that they would never see the results of their plans, they still set them in motion. “We should thank Cooper, Duflot, or Simmons for making our lives much easier,” the thoughtful young lady recognized. However, even she, an avid history buff, had never heard of this important achievement before today. “What other significant events from the past aren’t widely known?” Christiana wondered as she shifted her attention back to the here and now.

“Currently we are running into problems because the atmospheric terraforming process isn’t going fast enough,” Mrs. Parker was saying. “The icecaps are slowly melting with every Colonial Year that passes. We must remove as much see-ohh-too from the air as quickly as we can. Otherwise, the rising oceans will eventually flood most of our farmland and the increasing temps will force us to move towards the poles.”

“Then why aren’t we building more carbon precipitation towers, or raising a lot more trees?” a girl in the very back of the class asked.

“Well, I am afraid that the situation is very complicated,” Mrs. Parker explained. “While the government is constantly planting more saplings, there only so much fertile land available. Most of it is being used to grow food for us. Another issue is that carbon precipitation towers use a lot of power. That’s why most towns and cities only have one. There is also the issue of hauling the synthetic coal they make somewhere. We simply do not possess enough trains to carry more carbon away. We likewise don’t have sufficient burial sites to put the coal in. However, there is a more important reason for the delay in terraforming efforts.”

Here the teacher paused until one student asked, “What is it?”

“We have too much time,” Mrs. Parker responded.

‘Huh?’ Christiana thought of this unexpected revelation. ‘What does she mean?’

Luckily, the class did not have to wait long for the answer. “It will be centuries before the melting of the ice caps significantly outstretches our terraforming efforts. Unfortunately, most people in Congress only think in terms of their five to eight Colonial Year election cycles. They are so worried about today that they don’t seem to care about events in two or three hundred Years. After all, they have voters who have problems they need to solve now if they want to be re-elected.”

“That’s just wrong!” Haruhi-nee exclaimed. “What about their Aftercommers? What about their own Genelines?”

‘Wow, she’s really upset,’ Christiana realized about her Sister. While this information did not thrill her, she wasn’t as unsettled as her womb-mate. Both Sisters were Initials, so they took their Genelines and Aftercommers very seriously. Both girls knew that if they genuinely messed up, then their Geneline would end with them. Screwing up meant the death of their identical twins before they ever lived.

“Sometimes a person has to balance their own position with the good of their twins who have yet to be born,” the teacher explained. “If a woman who is running for office loses an election, then they can’t make any changes for their fellow colonists today. They have to weigh the needs of the many people who are currently living with those of forthcoming generations. It is very complex.”

“I understand they need to look out for one another,” Haruhi-nee replied, her anger clear in her voice. “But if the planet will eventually become less habitable if they don’t do something today, then they are not really thinking about the future.”

As Mrs. Parker responded to the black-haired girl’s outburst, the chimes showing the end of the class and the conclusion of the school day rang. “I’m sorry, but we’ll have to continue this tomorrow,” the teacher said.

Christiana could recognize that her Sister was doing her best to control her emotions and to keep her mouth shut. It surprised her to observe the complex march of feeling going across Haruhi-nee’s visage. She could see her frustration turn into anger. Then anger gave way to distress. Finally, distress changed into consternation.

She was so engrossed in her Sister’s face that she did not realize that Haruhi-nee was quickly packing up her stuff. It was only when the dark-haired child suddenly rushed out of the room that Christiana grasped the situation.

Grabbing her things, not even checking to see if she had everything, she set off to find her Sister. After how the sensei had acted during class, she knew that the teacher wouldn’t hold her late anymore. That gave her a few free minutes to check on Haruhi-nee, rush to the cafeteria to inhale her fish sandwich, and still get to practice on time.

It turned out that she was wrong. Before she got halfway to the door, Mrs. Parker called out to her, “Christiana, I have something to talk to you about.”

‘Oh crap, not again!’ she thought as she spun around to face her instructor. ‘What does she need now? I have to rush and catch Haruhi-nee.’

“I won’t keep you,” the educator began. “I know you are in a hurry. I just wanted to let you know I want to meet with you tomorrow before school. So please drop by the teachers’ office when you get here.”

“Yes ma’am,” she replied. Then, after a quick bow, she ran out the door to catch up with her Sister.

As she left the classroom and went into the hallway, her stomach rumbled loudly. Embarrassed, the child sped up. Then, in a very swift walk, she headed towards the cafeteria. Since Haruhi-nee had eaten little lunch, that was the first place that she could think to look for her. After all, she had to be as hungry as Christiana felt.

This time, her gut feeling was right. She found Haruhi-nee sitting on one of the lunchroom benches. She was picking at her sandwich with a soft drink from the vend’ machine on the table next to her. However, her mind did not seem to be on her cold seafood.

‘She’s still really upset,’ she realized, as she quietly got her own beverage from the machine. Then she approached her elder Sister, gently placing a hand on Haruhi-nee’s shoulder.

“Hey,” the black-haired girl said as she flashed her womb-mate a weak smile before half-heartedly returning her attention to her meal. “You need to get to your training.” After taking a bite of her snack, her mouth still full, she mumbled, “Don’t worry about me, I’m okay.”

“What I need to do,” she responded, “is to eat my sandwich before going to practice.” With that, she sat down on the bench across from Haruhi-nee. “I also have to cheer up my favorite Sister.” With that, Christiana flashed Haruhi-nee a brilliant smile before biting off a piece of the fish sandoitchi she pulled from her pocket.

Even the still upset dark-haired girl couldn’t hold back a snicker, which gave way to a chuckle, and finally evolved into a full-on giggle.

“I thought that would make you laugh,” she admitted, a proud grin forming on her own face.

Then, after a moment of silence, while both girls ate and drank, Christiana asked, “Have you calmed down?”

“Yes,” Haruhi-nee replied after she hungrily finished her seafood in a few bites. Then, after taking a gulp of her carbonated fruit juice, she continued. “I don’t know why that made me so upset,” she admitted. “When I thought about people in our government putting the continuing welfare of the colony in jeopardy for short-lived gains, I just became angry.”

After another swig of her drink, she went on. “Mother has taught us to think of the long-term results of our actions before we do anything. If that’s what we kids are supposed to do, shouldn’t adults do the same?”

“You’re right,” her sibling replied. “But we both know that adults aren’t perfect.”

“You can say that again,” Haruhi-nee quipped in return. Then, before the dark-haired girl could continue, Christiana cut her off.

“But we both know that adults aren’t perfect,” she interjected. In response to the puzzled look on Haruhi-nee’s face, she explained, “You said ‘You can say that again’… so I did.”

Haruhi-nee started giggling uncontrollably and her younger Sister happily joined in. After a minute or two of laughter, Haruhi-nee glanced at the clock. She exclaimed, “We both need to get going!” before quickly rising and threw her napkin and empty drink container into the recycling.

Christiana stuffed the rest of her sandwich into her mouth. Then, while still chewing, she strapped on her mask and properly secured it. After a quick wave, the two siblings split up. Haruhi-nee rushed off to catch her ride home while she sped through the nearest ’lock on her way to the middle school.

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