“Okay,” he made sure the video was off. “Gentlemen, we’ve received reports from our probes that the Sun’s activity is dropping dramatically. We’re trying to figure out what happened, but the brightness of the Sun…” Jean-Jacques couldn’t find the words. “I think it would be better if Dr Pierre Edo explain what we are observing now.”
A gray-haired but very young man sat down next to the head of the ESA and turned on his microphone. He calmly began to explain:
“We are observing a decrease of solar activity right now. This is represented by a decrease in brightness, but in the near future, climatic anomalies await us. The normal brightness or absolute stellar magnitude of the Sun is 4.7. An hour ago, this value fell to 4.2. The dynamic of the decline is very fast. We assume that by the end of the day, the value will be 2.”
The people in the room didn’t know how to react to this. They whispered, but did not decide to ask a question.
The doctor waited a second and asked himself:
“What does this mean for us? A drop in the Sun’s luminosity, and therefore in heat output, by more than half would create a new ice age on Earth.”
The audience erupted in shouts. Questions poured in from all sides about how the data had been obtained, who had confirmed it, and what it might be related to.
The doctor turned to someone at the table and said nonchalantly.
“Exactly,” he waited until everyone at the table had calmed down. “What has it to do with?” he repeated. “We got a signal from Voyager, then we found out it malfunctioned, and now the Sun is fading. My opinion,” he looked at the head of ESA. “We must find the connection between all these events as soon as possible.”
“We thought it was the way out of the cave: we were blinded by the light, it felt like there was a storm around,” David told Van the story of their journey while the little creature floated through the air beside him.
“Yes, yes,” Van squeaked expertly, “you changed bodies.”
“What?” said Dr Capri, looking at his hand.
“Changed bodies,” Van repeated. “In new planets, you have to change bodies in order to get there. And how did you think it would work?”
“We didn’t think anything,” Jean-Pierre grinned. “We didn’t really expect that there are little…” he thought for a second, “little men walking around on the Sun.”