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forecasting systems are big numerical-prediction suites based on magneto-hydrodynamics, plasma physics, and the like. We have a complete chain of theoretical modeling from the surface of the sun to the surface of the Earth—”
    But Eugene wasn’t listening. He tapped a hydrogen-light image. “
That
is the problem,” he said.
    It was the new active region. Visibly darker than the surrounding photosphere, it was an ugly S-shaped scar. “I admit it’s a puzzle,” Mikhail said. “At this stage of the solar cycle you wouldn’t expect something like that.”
    “
I
expected it,” Eugene said. “And that’s the whole point.”
    Carefully Mikhail said, “The end of the world?”
    “Not today. Today is just a precursor. But it will be bad enough. That’s why I’ve come here. You have to warn them.” His eyes were huge and dark, haunted. “I have time-stamped predictions.”
    “You told me that.”
    “Even so they won’t pay any attention to me. But they will listen to you. After all, this is your job. And now that you’ve got proof, you’ll have to do it, won’t you? You’ll have to warn them.”
    Eugene really had no social skills at all, Mikhail thought, with a mix of resentment and pity. “Who are
they
? Who exactly do you want me to warn?”
    Eugene spread his hands. “For a start, everybody vulnerable. On the Moon. On the Space Station. On Mars, and aboard
Aurora 2.
”
    “And on Earth?”
    “Oh, yes. And Earth.” Eugene glanced at his watch. “But by now Earth is already being hit.”
    Mikhail studied his face for a long moment. Then he called for Thales.
    7: Mass Ejection
    Siobhan worked the screens in the conference table, seeking information.
    It wasn’t easy. Solar studies and space weather simply weren’t in Siobhan’s domain of specialty. Aristotle was able to help, though he seemed somewhat absentminded at times; she realized uneasily that the erosion of the world’s interconnectivity, on which he was based, had to be affecting him, too.
    She quickly discovered that there were solar observatories all over the world, and off it. She tried to get through to Kitt Peak, Mauna Kea in Hawaii, and the Big Bear observatory in southern California. She didn’t reach a human being in any of these sites, predictably enough; even if the comms systems weren’t down, they were no doubt already overwhelmed with calls. But she did learn of the existence of a “Space Weather Service,” a network of observatories, satellites, data banks, and experts that monitored the sun and its stormy environs, and tried to predict the worst of its transgressions. There was even a weather station at the South Pole of the Moon, it seemed.
    Despite decades of watching the moody sun, though, only one person had predicted today’s unusual events, a young scientist on the Moon called Eugene Mangles, who had logged quite precise forecasts on a few peer-review sites. But the Moon was out of touch.
             
    Thirty minutes after last speaking with her, Siobhan called Phillippa Duflot again.
    “It’s all to do with the sun,” she began.
    Phillippa said, “We know that much—”
    “It has given off what the sungazers call a ‘coronal mass ejection.’ ”
    She described how the corona, the sun’s extended outer atmosphere, is held together by powerful magnetic fields rooted in the sun itself. Sometimes these fields get tangled up, often over active regions. Such tangles will trap bubbles of superheated plasma, emitted by the sun, and then violently release them. That was what had happened this morning, over the big sunspot continent the experts were calling Active Region 12688: a mass of billions of tonnes of plasma, knotted up by its own magnetic field, had been hurled from the sun at a respectable fraction of the speed of light.
    “The ejection took less than an hour to get here,” Siobhan said. “I understand that’s
fast,
for such phenomena. Nobody saw it coming, and nobody was particularly