Be Careful What You Wish For

At the end of most years, residents of the Northern Hemisphere looked forward to throwing off their layers of winter clothing and romping in the water with as little attire as possible. They didn’t realize that, this year, the sun they so fervently wished for could become the instrument of their destruction.

As Mother Nature began to bring 2300 to a close she decided to play a cruel joke, starting on one of the most desolate places on earth, Oymyakon, Russia, by having the sun shine 24 hours a day. Medical personnel working in the area’s emergency rooms failed to get the punchline. Third-degree sunburn cases began to overwhelm their hospitals, and they feared that death-toll records would soon follow.

Most of the patients received their burns from only a half-hour exposure in the middle of November.

Oymyakon, the epicenter of the weird climate reversal, normally was the most frigid inhabited place on earth. This area had set a record of negative 126.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Its daily temperature in the penultimate month of 2300 averaged positive 120 degrees Fahrenheit for a solid week.

As the illnesses and deaths began to pile up, the world’s scientists began to realize that dire consequences could loom for the entire planet.

Oceans around the globe soon could dry up--putting even the most plentiful water supplies in danger.

Even though researchers outside Oymakon saw some signs that the temperature increases could spread, most of the world’s political leaders continued to delay taking united action because they encountered no immediate danger to themselves.

In another chapter of the story, in the Russian region’s traditional fur trapping and fishing occupations, gold mining had developed into a more profitable, but very difficult way of producing additional income.

Normally in winter the region would get so cold that metal would snap.

When the weather got warmer people would make a living sifting the earth for fragments of gold in the district.

After the unusually rich deposits of the alluvial gold near the surface ran out, producers had to switch to the more expensive process of digging mines to extract gold ore. Because of its remote location the cost of bringing more advanced technologies to the area still proved prohibitive, so miners still relied a great deal on human labor.

Normally accustomed to working at full tilt in gold mines for five hours a day in the barely tolerable warmer months, the laborers now began to faint after working an hour in the scorching temperatures. Hundreds of workers filled every available ambulance that transported victims to the district’s hospital to prevent burns from becoming sun poisoning.

Demetrius, the 10-year foreman of the most rugged mining crew in the district, halted the largest extraction operation in this area because he feared all of his crew members might eventually perish in the solar heat.

Mining company executives and government officials alike began breathing down the neck of Demetrius to increase his production, but they saw the devastation mounting in their own homes.

Dr. Ivan Makalevich, head dermatologist in the district’s hospital, tried desperately to find a treatment for the apparently incurable sunburn in a region previously plagued chiefly by frostbite.

Also, Igor Federych, Russia’s chief meteorological expert, pushed his small, sunburn-decimated staff to their limits to discover a cause for the startling climate reversal, but they saw no possibility for a solution to the crisis in the near future.

Centuries of international aggression by Russia had also virtually eliminated support for a global rescue operation.

Despite the head-in-the-sand attitude of many outside his district, the gold mine foreman firmly believed the climate crisis inevitably would spread outside his homeland. He felt the only path left open to him was to take his family and close friends and get as far away as possible before getting trampled in the stampede of those fleeing what eventually could be the end of the world.

Demetrius scoured the Internet for an alternative to the possible apocalypse of the entire earth.

His research brought him to an article on ScientificAmerican.com about exploration of a newly-discovered planet, Huchoron. Apparently this planet had a climate and atmosphere very similar to that of Earth and it existed only a day’s travel time via space vehicles available to Russians of the socioeconomic level of Demetrius in the dawn of the 25th century.

He also had begun pursuing a doctorate in cybertechnology as a possible pathway out of gold mining. He now tapped into his educational background to build an intergalactic communications system.

Although it took some time to reach Huchoron because of that planet’s clunky network, he managed to establish relations with the Governing Council and pave the way for the future domicile for himself and his family.

The Huchoronians also saw an alliance with Demetrius as their best opportunity to tap into his knowledge of gold supply extraction in order to more easily reach reserves buried beneath their planet’s surface.

Although the Huchronians did not have the technical backup or resupply capacity to guarantee a return trip to earth for the present, Demetrius saw this alliance as his only hope.

He plotted his course for Huchoron, prepared his crew for the intergalactic voyage and swore those in his small circle to top secrecy. No use tipping off the rest of the world and causing a massive exodus and panic that could sabotage their voyage.

Finally, the day of the takeoff came and Demetrius and his crew blasted off for their new world. A day later, they touched down on Huchoron.

A month later, as they continued to adapt to their new life, they looked at a horrifying image on the Internet as the only world they had ever known exploded into a huge black hole in the vast darkness of space.

Demetrius and his family believed their new dream home in Huchoron would offer them a new and exciting opportunity and a hopeful future as vast as the area of space between their extinct planet and their new solar system.