“Yes, sir. Also, the Building Board has put a hold on the T8 project. There doesn’t appear to be sufficient demand for a project of that size; seems that construction in the smaller population centers is enough for what is laughingly called our current growth rate.”
She lowered the pad, “Since Forest, we’re a nice place to visit but no one wants to live here. I’ve heard Wexton-Hanna is relocating their branch to Barrimore.”
Wills sat down facing the tranquil scene of Temple Bay and leaned back, “You can’t blame them; it’s a wonder they’ve hung on this long.”
He swung his chair back toward CeCe, “So, how are Jeff and the kids?”
She brightened as one of her favorite subjects came up, “Jeffery spends almost all of his time in his shop. He just got a big order from Earth for a conference table and forty matching chairs made of Archer Rosewood. Andy and Arlene are growing like weeds, running through the woods around the house like they were born there, and doing well in school. So far, so good.”
After she had arrived on Archer as Lieutenant Cicely James, it didn’t take her long to start chewing on a young construction engineer and woodworker for his wanton destruction of the pristine woodlands of Archer. When he had finally managed to get a word in, he showed her that a tree only lives a certain number of years, and that a mature tree nearing the end of its life can be made into something of great beauty that can last another century or two. They were married a year later.
Wills and CeCe just stared out the open glass wall for a minute, absorbing the beauty of the view and the silence that filled the building and grounds. Finally, Wills sat upright and pushed himself to his feet, “Well, I’ve put in my day at the office. I’m going to wander around town and see if I can find something that needs my attention. I suppose I’ll wind up at Stoker’s office and see if he has anything critical.”
They both smiled at that; “critical” was a word used more in jest than in serious discussion for the last fifteen years. Wills almost made it to the office door when his pad started beeping. He stopped, stuck a finger in the air, and grinned, “Ooh, something critical; either that or my wife needs me to pick up something on the way home.”
He pulled his com pad out of the belt pouch and flipped it open; his eyebrows went up, and he looked at CeCe, “It’s Stoker!”
She moved closer as he accepted the call, “How’re things, Doc?”
Doctor Roland Stoker had an anxious look on his face; it was the first time in the fourteen years that Doctor Stoker had been on Archer that Wills had seen that expression.
“Governor, the Santana just broke out and transmitted the latest Forest Monitor recordings; you’d better get over here.”
Years of being a figurehead governor of what had become a planetary backwater and mild tourist attraction slowed his response time, “Ahhh . . . something’s happened?”
“Governor, we’re still analyzing the data, but it looks like it might be time.”
His mind finally focused and a long unused sense of urgency and clarity took over, “I’ll be right there.” He snapped the pad shut and took off down the hallway at a run.
“I’m coming too.” yelled CeCe, and took off after him.
Nanci could only gape in surprise as they ran past her and out to the floater-bike parking area. She hadn’t seen anyone run in this building in--she couldn’t remember.
Wills grabbed the nearest floater-bike, checked the charge, and unplugged it. He was swerving around the nearest tree as CeCe got to the next bike. Everyone they passed stared in surprise as the Governor and his top aide zipped through the city toward the spaceport well above the customary speed limit and over any stretch of open ground that shortened their route.
#
The buildings at the spaceport were made of the same faux marble as the rest of Michigan City. The non-standard addition attached to the back of the admin building housed Doctor Stoker’s team; it was the last thing constructed at the spaceport.
Wills found Doctor Stoker and the other three members of his team in the main analysis room staring at the large central screen where, what he recognized as a stellar function analysis from the Forest Solar Watch System, was displayed. He walked up next to Stoker who grunted in acknowledgement but said nothing. The display was saying it all.
The bottom right of the screen had an emissions spectrum with a flashing red border. To the left was a looping ten hour magnetic field graphic. The scrolling data stream that covered the top of the screen looked almost normal--for Forest--but there were occasional red circled areas. What caught Wills’ attention was the emissions spectrum with the abnormal lines in the green and yellow regions.
“Doc, is that carbon?”
“Yes,” Doctor Stoker reached to point at a small area of the magnetic field graphic, “it came from here.”
Aside from the usual dense magnetic lines displayed around the highly active sunspot environment of the G3 Forest primary, there was a small but extremely powerful magnetic field orbiting the star deep inside its photosphere.
“Doc, how does a middle-aged G3 star with billions of years of hydrogen left start fusing carbon?”
Doctor Stoker turned away from the display and sat on the edge of the nearest desk. He looked at Wills with a worried expression, “The Anomaly has dropped another 5,000 kilometers into the photosphere, and its magnetic field is starting to exert a local pinch that is enough to increase temperatures to the required level. But that isn’t the big problem.” He pointed at the magnetic line graphic, “Look carefully at the magnetogram.”
The display of the roiling magnetic fields around the star was playing through a ten hour loop. Doc Stoker’s point was obvious; the Anomaly was dragging
