Reconciled

I am ever so pleased when I see you, Julian: you look well. You have left behind the worried eyebrows you wore for some time. I know Melissa and you are reconciled. I can tell from your look, and hers. And I know what you think, she’s perfect, isn’t she? She’s no ghost from the past, that young woman, but someone who cares for you, who admires your work, who follows your progress. She reads what you write, she’s made comments on her page. She’d follow you everywhere if you were alone. I’m smiling as I say this. She cannot and would not compete with Sarah; they also love each other very much…

Memories

I now think that the past matters very little. Yes, of course, you have your memories, but you live in the present, don’t you? At best, those images – for that is what they are – are a mere backdrop, perhaps material for your writing. Your life is now. 

Sarah says what you learnt from Gabrielle and Helga has made you think again. I am glad. Hopefully this will find its way in your writing, too. Not as a remembrance of things past, but as a tale of our futures. 

Puzzlement

You know that Melissa and I are lovers. Looking back at our first meeting on Chi, it was inevitable. She cannot love you as she no doubt wanted, so there is me, your sister. I sense your puzzlement, but, this way, she won’t trouble you. And I must say I don’t regret anything. She’s a wonderful companion. She loves Sarah, and, yes, she still thinks of you as the unattainable young man she, or whoever preceded her, knew long ago.

Nanometer

But let’s not stir the nostalgia. We enjoy our relationship, Melissa and me, and I love you deeply, brother. Melissa says that Helga was impressed by Sarah and you, the way you listen. I understand that she – Melissa – and Helga are often corresponding. She also said that to understand the science the Coven has at their disposal, you need to think of nanotechnology, the art of minuscule molecule-level engineering. They are working at the pico level, making engines from particles, building new assemblies with those electrons and pions our physicists are still struggling with. 

You know the recent asteroid, the one that crashed in the Urals, breaking a lot of glass? Melissa said that, while she could not be sure, she thought the Coven uses asteroids to spread planets with small “observers,” tiny recording devices that feed back all sorts of measurements, not only in the visible light spectrum, to their labs…

 Amazing, isn’t it? I can see that Melissa admires them, with reason. By the way, Helga will pay a visit here soon. Melissa will let us know when and where. I love you.

Your sister, Jane.

What they said

Are we reconciled about what hangs above us?

“On Friday the 13th of April 2029, an asteroid large enough to fill the Rose Bowl as though it were an egg cup, will fly so close to Earth, that it will dip below the altitude of our communication satellites. We did not name this asteroid Bambi. Instead, it’s named Apophis, after the Egyptian god of darkness and death.

If the trajectory of Apophis at close approach passes within a narrow range of altitudes called the ‘keyhole,’ the precise influence of Earth’s gravity on its orbit will guarantee that seven years later in 2036, on its next time around, the asteroid will hit Earth directly, slamming in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii. The tsunami it creates will wipe out the entire west coast of North America, bury Hawaii, and devastate all the land masses of the Pacific Rim. If Apophis misses the keyhole in 2029, then, of course, we have nothing to worry about in 2036.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“On average, once every few hundred years the Earth is hit by an object about 70 meters in diameter; the resulting energy released is equivalent to the largest nuclear weapons explosion ever detonated. Every 10,000 years, we’re hit by a 200-meter object that might induce serious regional climatic effects. Every million years, an impact by a body over 2 kilometers in diameter occurs, equivalent to nearly a million megatons of TNT—an explosion that would work a global catastrophe, killing (unless unprecedented precautions were taken) a significant fraction of the human species.

A million megatons of TNT is 100 times the explosive yield of all the nuclear weapons on the planet, if simultaneously blown up. Dwarfing even this, in a hundred million years or so, you can bet on something like the Cretaceous-Tertiary event, the impact of a world 10 kilometers across or bigger. The destructive energy latent in a large near-Earth asteroid dwarfs anything else the human species can get its hands on.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

Picture: Floating Dimensions, by Karen

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