...And We Will Have Snow

Interregnum-2

Interregnum-2

It wasn't easy. It didn't happen overnight. Months and years went by.

Marian worked with Ray to refine the deployment of sensors that would feed data to the biocontrol system, and the responses the computer would initiate to stabilize any aspect of the farm loop that began to drift out of its ideal range. As their understanding of the possibilities of the Q link grew, they realized that the placement of these sensors was critical. Not so much for the data they would provide, but for the link with the Q that they would provide to the computer model. In the absence of sensitive and committed human farmers to maintain the plan of the operation, the farm would literally go wild, expressing the range of possibilities available. The sensors would help lock the system into a coherent whole. With that in place, the system could employ the full range of data available from the Q link to maintain that coherent response throughout the farm.

Rosita, Naga and Juan continued to focus their support efforts on this all-important aspect of the project, contributing their perceptions of the most critical biological factors as they all gained experience with its operation. They also worked to include in the records the biomedical properties and uses of the plants being grown, so that any future resident could use the Q link to retrieve that knowledge as well.

Karen worked on her global climate model, using feedback from the Q to establish the probability peaks for every important variable, and the six sigma limits for the variations the model would explore.

Cheryl continued to work hand-in-hand with Karen, improving the accuracy of the way both atmospheric and oceanic effects were incorporated. Through the Q she gained new understanding of the atmospheric rivers that carried vast quantities of oceanic moisture inland, and how consequent fresh water surface runoff would float above the denser seawater even though it might be colder, then mix and sink in complicated patterns as it gained salinity. She examined the way these effects varied with latitude, particularly in polar regions where the salt water could be cold enough to freeze the freshwater that flowed in above it, creating a layer of ice that would not sink and mix no matter how cold it then got.

She worked with Karen to include the delayed feedback effects of deep ocean currents. Unlike fast-moving winds and surface currents, these could take many decades to relay changes from where the cold polar waters sank and joined the deep currents to regions where these waters would warm enough to rise again.

They both concluded there were just too many variables for their model to make reliable climate change predictions. Instead they used it to test the conclusions drawn by others from less sophisticated models, and point out the inevitable uncertainties.

Ray was kept busy with work on the farm system, but he managed to find time to spend with Jack on the flight controls for the balloon. They decided that the most effective scheme, giving the best flight control torque, would be to mount six big electric turbofans, equally spaced around the periphery of the dome. The mounts would telescope up to where when the folded blades began to spin they could extend inertially without danger of clipping the surface of the dome.

Jack, Ray and Ryan experimented endlessly with self-inflating solar balloons and domes, pressure tube configurations to hold the shape of the dome without a lot of internal air pressure, and combining those with radio-controlled six-motor electric drones. They could often be found out in the open, putting their models through take-off, flight, and landing maneuvers. The girls accused them of playing, but the boys insisted it was serious research. They scaled up the models as they gained experience, until they were confident that the design, materials and flight systems would all work at the envisioned scale of the actual structure.

Cern and Dema found their niche working with Tengri on the details of how best to present the whole scheme to the world, via the WBI organizers. It was settled that WBI would fund development of at least one prototype of a complete full scale domed community farm system, including the essential sun bottle power source. The organizers assured Tengri that the Gates Foundation would be interested in the possibility of funding domed communities for third-world populations whose very existence was threatened by the combined disastrous effects of rising temperatures, falling water tables, crop failures and desertification of their homelands. But the necessary follow-through was less than certain until it was demonstrated that such populations would accept this solution to their problems. So it would depend on how the world responded to Tengri's model as a solution to the survival problems they were encountering. And such problems were indeed mounting.

Cern and Dema found time to take an occasional break and explore the wilds of the Olympic peninsula. They liked their island community, but when it began to feel too confining they would take the passenger ferry from San Juan Island to Port Angeles on the north shore of the peninsula. From there they usually followed the Elwha River into the mountains. Dema loved the way Cern's spirit would expand and engage with the wild surroundings. She felt it too, the spirit of the forest. On these intimate occasions he would sometimes lament the physical constraints their new domed communities would put on the existence of the occupants. Dema agreed, but pointed out that for city-dwellers its comparative openness could be liberating, and proposed that they should make this a feature of the VR experience.

The special intimacy of these wilderness adventures reminded both of them that Dema wanted to have their baby. They agreed there could not be a more ideal place for raising children than the island. When they announced the prospect the islanders were thrilled.

In fact she had twins. Dema of course was intimate with them both before they were born, but she refrained from naming them. The first was a girl. Kore promptly announced that this was Sedna, and she was now just Kore. The second was a boy. Rosita, acting as midwife, was the first to hold him, and everyone heard her whisper el Niño, so Niño he became. The twins grew up on the island, rarely left it, experiencing the rest of the world mostly by VR. Aunt Kore retrieved her own forgotten childhood in the process of minding them. Little Sedna seemed to have retained her namesake's access to the shaman lore, although she loved to listen while Kore recounted the old stories to her. Uncle Ryan taught both children to love the water, kayaking together among the islands. Cern and Dema often took them hiking in the Olympic mountains, and sometimes on Vancouver Island, so they learned to be at home in the vast open wilderness.

Meanwhile the rest of the world was changing. Cheryl's prediction of snows in the north came true, as the warming Arctic waters kept Hudson Bay open long into the Fall. The increased depth of snow meant shorter summers for much of Canada. Some of the first solar domes were installed there, to keep small northern towns from being buried.

Elsewhere surging coastal waters inundated many towns, while heavy rains dumped by atmospheric rivers carrying many times the water of the Mississippi did similar damage to interior flatlands. Complete domed communities began to be deployed to accommodate the refugees. It became common to see Sun Domes replace farm towns that had been desolated by floods. The spectacle of them arriving by balloon became an internet sensation, each new event watched avidly to see the balloon become a climate-proof dome. Community members enthusiastically reported every detail of the experience, and new internet software combined them all into a nearly seamless VR event, so people everywhere could experience it as if they were there. With encouragement from the WBI organizers, FEMA and similar government agencies, including the United Nations Disaster Relief Coordinator, began to adopt Sun Domes as a primary resource. Builders of the systems saw a booming business as dome deployment became widely accepted as the best response to emergency needs. 

Tengri was very pleased, as this made his whole program self-promoting, exactly as he had hoped. But his team was kept busier than ever, off on missions helping to guide new start-ups and ensure the people mastered the VR training on how to manage their facilities and trouble-shooting unexpected difficulties. It was not many years before the twins were left virtually alone to manage the facilities on the island. This they quickly proved completely capable of doing, and soon they began volunteering for missions of their own.