Komarr

Etienne Vorsoisson's bureaucratic domain occupied two floors partway up a sealed tower otherwise devoted to local Serifosa Dome government offices. The tower, on the edge of the dome-sprawl, was not housed inside any other atmosphere-containing structure. Miles eyed the glass-roofed atrium with disfavor as they ascended a curving escalator within it. He swore his ear detected a faint, far off whistle of air escaping some less- than-tight seal. 'So what happens if somebody lobs a rock through a window?' he murmured to the Professor, a step behind him.

'Not much,' Vorthys murmured back. 'It would vent a pretty noticeable draft, but the pressure differential just isn't that great.'

'True.' Serifosa Dome was not really like a space installation, despite occasional misleading similarities of architecture. They made the air in here from the air out there, for the most part. Vent shafts spotted all over the dome complex sucked in Komarr's free volatiles, filtered out the excess carbon dioxide and some trace nasties, passed the nitrogen through unaltered, and concentrated the oxygen to a humanly- bearable mix. The percentage of oxygen in Komarr's raw atmosphere was still too low to support a large mammal without the technological aid of a breath mask, but the absolute amount remained a vast reservoir compared to the volume of even the most extensive dome complexes. 'As long as their power system keeps running.'

They stepped from the escalator and followed Vorsoisson into a corridor branching off the central atrium. The sight of a case of emergency breath masks affixed to a wall next to a fire extinguisher reassured Miles slightly, in passing, that the Komarrans here were not completely oblivious to their routine hazards. Though the case looked suspiciously dusty; had it ever been used since it had been installed, however many years ago? Or checked? If this were a military inspection, Miles could amuse himself by stopping the party right now, and tearing the case apart to determine if the masks' power and reservoir levels still fell within spec. As an Imperial Auditor, he could also do so, of course, or take any other action which struck his fancy. When a younger man, his besetting sin had been his impulsiveness. In the dark doubts of night, Miles sometimes wondered if Emperor Gregor had quite thought through his most recent Auditorial appointment. Power was supposed to corrupt, but this felt more like being a kid turned loose in a candy store. Control yourself, boy.

The mask case fell behind without incident. Vorsoisson, as tour guide, continued to point out the offices of his various subordinate departments, without, however, inviting his visitors inside. Not that there was that much to see in these administrative headquarters. The real interest, and the real work, lay outside the domes altogether, in experimental stations and plots and pockets of biota all over Serifosa Sector. All Miles would find in these bland rooms were . . . com-consoles. And Komarrans, of course, lots of Komarrans.

'This way, my lords.' Vorsoisson shepherded them into a comfortably spacious room featuring a large round holovid projection table. The place looked, and smelled, like every other conference chamber Miles had ever been in for military and security briefings and debriefings during his truncated career. More of the same. I predict my greatest challenge this afternoon will be to stay awake. A half a dozen men and women sat waiting, nervously fingering recording pads and vid disks, and a couple more scurried in behind the two Auditors with murmured apologies. Vorsoisson indicated seats set aside for the visitors, at his right and left hand. With a brief general smile of greeting, Miles settled in.

'Lord Auditor Vorthys, Lord Vorkosigan, may I present the department heads of the Serifosa branch of the Komarr Terraforming Project.' Vorsoisson went round the table, naming each attendee and their department, which under the three basic branches of Accounting, Operations, and Research included such evocative titles as Carbon Draw-down, Hydrology, Greenhouse Gases, Tests Plots, Waste Heat Management, and Microbial Reclassification. Native-born Komarrans, every one; Vorsoisson was the only Barrayaran expatriate among them. Vorsoisson remained standing and turned to one of the newcomers. 'My lords, may I also present Ser Venier, my administrative assistant. Vennie has organized a general presentation for you, after which my staff will be happy to answer any further questions.'

Vorsoisson sat down. Venier nodded to each Auditor and murmured something inaudible. He was a slight man, shorter than Vorsoisson, with intent brown eyes and an unfortunate weak chin which, together with his nervous air, lent him the look of a slightly manic rabbit. He took the holovid control podium, and rubbed his hands together, and stacked and restacked his pile of data disks before selecting one, then putting it back down. He cleared his throat and found his voice. 'My lords. It was suggested I start with a historical overview.' He nodded to each of them again, his glance lingering for a moment on Miles. He inserted a disk in his machine, and started an attractive, i.e., artistically enhanced, view of Komarr spinning over the vid plate. 'The early explorers of the wormhole nexus found Komarr a likely candidate for possible terraforming. Our almost point-nine-standard gravity and abundant native supply of gaseous nitrogen, the inert buffer gas of choice, and of sufficient water-ice, made it an immensely easier problem to tackle than such classic cold dry planets as, say, Mars.'

They had indeed been early explorers, Miles reflected, to arrive and settle before more salubrious worlds were found to render such ambitious projects economically uninteresting, at least if you didn't already live there. But . . . then there were the wormholes.

'On the debit side,' Venier continued, 'the concentration of atmospheric CO2 was high enough to be toxic to humans, yet insolation was so inadequate that no greenhouse effect, runaway or otherwise, captured the heat needed to maintain liquid water. Komarr was therefore a lifeless world, cold and dark. The earliest calculations suggested more water would be needed, and a few so-called low-impact cometary crashes were arranged, hence we can thank our ancestors for our southern crater lakes.' A colorful, though out-of-scale, sprinkle of lights dusted the lower hemisphere of the planet-image, resolving into a string of blue blobs. 'But the growing demand topside for cometary water and volatiles for the orbital and wormhole stations soon put a stop to that. And the early downside settlers' fears of poorly controlled trajectories, of course.'

Demonstrated fears, as Miles recalled his Komarran history.

He stole a glance at Vorthys. The Professor appeared perfectly content with Venier's class lecture.

'In fact,' Venier went on, 'later explorations showed the water-ice tied up in the polar caps to be thicker than at first suspected, if not so abundant as on Earth. And so the drive for heat and light began.'

Miles sympathized with the early Komarrans. He loathed arctic cold and dark with a concentrated passion.

'Our ancestors built the first insolation mirror, succeeded a generation later by another design.' A holovid model, again out of scale, appeared to the side, and melted into a second one. 'A century later, this was in turn succeeded by the design we see today.' The seven-disk hexagon appeared, and danced attendance on the Komarr globe. 'Insolation at the equator was boosted enough to allow liquid water and the beginnings of a biota to draw down the carbon and release much-needed O2 . Over the following decades, a full- spectrum mixture of artificial greenhouse gases was manufactured and released into the upper atmosphere to help trap the new energy.' Venier moved his hand; four of the seven disks winked out. 'Then came the accident.' All the Komarrans around the table stared glumly at the crippled array.

'There was mention of a cooling projection? With figures?' Vorthys prodded gently.

'Yes, my Lord Auditor.' Venier slid a disk across the polished surface toward the Professor. 'Administrator Vorsoisson said you were an engineer, so I left in all the calculations.'

The Waste Heat Management fellow, Soudha, also an engineer, winced and bit his thumb at this innocent ignorance of Vorthys's stature in his field. Vorthys merely said, 'Thank you. I appreciate that.'

So where's my copy? Miles did not ask aloud. 'And can you please summarize your conclusions for us nonengineers, Ser Venier?'

'Certainly, Lord Auditor . . . Vorkosigan. Serious damage to our biota in the northernmost and southernmost latitudes, not just in Serifosa Sector but planetwide, will begin after one season. For every year after that, we lose more ground; by the end of five years, the destructive cooling curve rises rapidly towards catastrophe. It took twenty years to build the original soletta array. I pray that it will not take that many to repair it.' On the vid model, white polar caps crept like pale tumors over the globe.

Vorthys glanced at Soudha. 'And so other sources of heat suddenly take on new importance, at least for a stopgap.'

Soudha, a big, square-handed man in his late forties, sat back and smiled a bit grimly. He, too, cleared his throat before beginning. 'It was hoped, early on in the terraforming, that the waste heat from our growing arcologies would contribute significantly to planetary warming. Over time, this proved optimistic. A planet with an