Today's Reading

Sheila handed her a printout, and Lavonia raised her eyebrows. Hard copies were extremely rare. "This is significant enough that I didn't want to forward a digital file. It's currently isolated within our department, as per protocol on communications received from outside," said Sheila.

"Right. Smart." Lavonia glanced over the data. "I can see that all the values are inside what the computer is giving as expected ranges, so all the component elements are in line. Other than that, what am I looking at?"

"The key numbers are methane at 0.00013 percent and CO2 at 0.0341 percent, though to really gain everything we need from that data we'll need iterative readings across multiple seasons, especially due to the high axial tilt of the planet, which will likely exacerbate the seasonal impact on the—"

"Okay," said Lavonia, cutting her off. "But what's it mean?"

Sheila paused and bit back her frustration before speaking again, purposefully slowing herself. Sure, she was excited, and maybe talking a little faster than normal, but this was important data, and as the head of science Lavonia should understand that. But Sheila didn't want a confrontation. And besides, most days she appreciated her boss not involving herself in space exploration. "Sorry. Where should I start?"

"Break it down for me in layman's terms. I'm going to have to go to the governor with this, so he needs to be able to understand it."

"It looks good. Really good." Sheila braced herself for more criticism.

"We'll probably need to give him more than that. Can you explain in basic terms what the methane and CO2 levels mean for us? Focus on the implications to the mission."

Sheila hesitated, wondering if her boss didn't know. "Uh... sure. At 0.00013 percent and 0.0341 percent respectively, the methane and CO2 levels are lower than those recorded back on Earth—"

"Hold on. Methane is 0.00013 percent of the atmosphere?"

"Right."

The other woman studied her, one hand holding the paper, the other on her hip. "And something that small is the key takeaway?"

Sheila hesitated again, unsure where to go with the question. "I mean...there are other things. Helium is a touch high at 0.0016 percent, but it's still within acceptable parameters."

"But you mentioned methane first, because it's the most important."

"Yes," said Sheila. "In conjunction with the CO2, it presents the best evidence that the planet supports life. That it probably already does support life."

"Intelligent life?"

"There's no way to know that yet," said Sheila, her hands moving with increasing enthusiasm.

"But it will definitely support us."

"Well," she hedged, "there are still factors beyond the atmosphere. We need a temperature study by region in conjunction with a geographic survey to make sure that the extremes that are likely due to the axial tilt will support human life in any regions also conducive to agriculture and horticulture."

"When will we have that?"

"Well..." After finally seeing some excitement from her boss, Sheila hesitated at telling her the bad news.

"Go ahead. Tell me." Lavonia handed the printout back.

"I don't know when we'll have more data. There was an anomaly—"

"What kind of anomaly?" It said something about Lavonia that she immediately seemed more focused at the mere hint of a problem.

"There was an error message at the end of the data...a loss of connection. I don't know whether that means that it cut off that transmission, or if we've lost comms with the probe altogether."

"When will we know?"

"The next scheduled message would be in about twenty hours. If we hear from it, we'll know a lot."

"And if we don't?"

Sheila considered it carefully. She hated speaking off the cuff without all the facts, but Lavonia didn't have the patience for her to run all the different permutations. "If we've lost connectivity, I can't be sure when we'll get more information. This is our first probe, and I don't know if this problem is isolated or indicative of a wider issue, but..." She paused, waiting for her boss to interject, but she didn't, so Sheila continued: "At a minimum, if we've lost this one—and again, we aren't sure we have—we're looking at a couple of weeks at least until the next one arrives. But after that, more should arrive in pretty short order, so we'll have redundancy."
...

Join the Library's Online Book Clubs and start receiving chapters from popular books in your daily email. Every day, Monday through Friday, we'll send you a portion of a book that takes only five minutes to read. Each Monday we begin a new book and by Friday you will have the chance to read 2 or 3 chapters, enough to know if it's a book you want to finish. You can read a wide variety of books including fiction, nonfiction, romance, business, teen and mystery books. Just give us your email address and five minutes a day, and we'll give you an exciting world of reading.

What our readers think...