Prologue
Wearing a simple flowing
robe, the old man stared out from his wrought-iron balcony to the quaint
buildings below. “Is everything in place?”
“Yes, Your Holiness,” replied
an eager young man in far more splendid robes.
“Failure is not an option.”
“We will not fail. We have planned for every circumstance.
Project Einstein will not succeed.”
“But it will not come back to
us?”
“No, Your Eminence. No one
will blame us for their demise.”
“How many back-up plans?”
“Seven.”
“Not enough.” His ancient
hand quivered as it rested upon the metalwork. “Fifteen. I want fifteen plans,
each certain to succeed without the blame reaching my feet.”
“I will see it done.”
The old man turned and
studied his devotee. “You have doubts, Thomas?”
“It is not my place to doubt
God’s work.”
“Earth is about to fall into
an ice-age of such duration and frigid temperatures that nothing is expected to
survive. So you wonder why God would wish to destroy one of our chances to
continue mankind on a different planet.”
The man fell to his knees and
pressed his forehead to the floor. “Forgive me, Your Holiness.”
The old man walked around the
prostrate body and returned to his red velvet chair with authentic gemstones
cresting each upholstery tack. He sat with a heavy sigh. “It is better for the
human race to die in its entirety than to survive without God.” He stared up to
the arching ceiling painted with clouds and angels. “The time has come to
choose eternal Heaven or Hell.”
The young man’s head rose. “Yes!”
His face filled with joy and wonderment. “I understand now.”
The old man’s head wobbled,
perhaps in a nod. “Then go, and see God’s will is done. Only Project Chosen can
succeed. Project Einstein must be destroyed, at all costs.”
Destination: Titan
By
Liza O’Connor
Blurb
Excerpt
“So, you’re telling me I was
chosen over every other biochemist in the world because my favorite color is
orange.” Tamara tugged at a strand of her short blonde hair. Her mentor was the
brightest man she knew, but this didn’t make any sense at all!
Maxwell’s eyes sparkled. “I
love the way your brain tunnels in and isolates the key differentiator.”
“The fact I like the color
orange should not be a key
differentiator.”
Her mentor shrugged and paced
the small, open space of the conference room. “Well, when all other things were
equal, it became so. This project requires a top biochemist under the age of
thirty, in excellent health, unmarried, with no constraints that would prevent
traveling. There were quite a few scientists who met those requirements.
Therefore, further differentiators were selected. The ability to work with
teenagers dropped out all but two, and your clear preference for the color
orange put you securely on top of the last remaining candidate.”
“But it’s a meaningless
differentiator unless we’re going someplace that only has the color orange.”
She fell silent as she considered that possibility. “Exactly how far will we be
traveling?”
“Quite a distance.” His eyes
twitched several times.
They only did that when he
was conflicted, which told her she was asking the right question to discover
whatever it was that he was under orders not to reveal. “Will we be traveling
on Earth or away from it?”
The twitches intensified.
“Tam, I cannot tell you
anything until you’ve agreed to go.”
“Jesus! We’re going to Titan,
aren’t we?”
He removed his reading
glasses and pressed his hand over his left eye to still the twitches. “I can
neither confirm nor deny that.”
Titan: Saturn’s orange moon.
Forty percent the size of Earth and rich in life-supporting chemicals. Bedrock
composed of ice, rivers and seas of liquid methane, and enough hydrocarbons to
heat the Earth for a thousand years.
“What is the purpose of the
trip?”
“I cannot tell you anything
until you agree to go.”
“Well, I cannot give you my
answer until I know if we’re going to harvest the hydrocarbons for Earth or if
we’re going to try to colonize it.”
Max now had both eyes covered
with his hands. “Tam, I cannot tell you. You will just have to use that
brilliant mind of yours to figure it out all on your own.”
His response told her that
something he’d said had provided the answer. She focused on the ability to work
with teenagers. You wouldn’t take teenagers on a ship to harvest, but you would
to start a colony. By the time they arrived, they’d be young adults possessing
a full span of child-bearing years.
“I’ll go.”
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Destination: Titan
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About the Author
Liza O’Connor lives in Denville, NJ with her dog Jess.
They hike in fabulous woods every day, rain or shine, sleet or snow. Having an
adventurous nature, she learned to fly small Cessnas in NJ, hang-glide in New
Zealand, kayak in Pennsylvania, ski in New York, scuba dive with great white
sharks in Australia, dig up dinosaur bones in Montana, sky dive in Indiana, and
raft a class four river in Tasmania. She’s an avid gardener, amateur
photographer, and dabbler in watercolors and graphic arts. Yet through her
entire life, her first love has and always will be writing novels.
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