<h2>Planet 5 / Ch. 42: Epilogue</h2>


    </a>Mars university, forcefield lab


    The solution started as a doodle on a napkin at a departmental birthday party, which had partly been suggested as a break from the week of head-scratching and brain storming that had preoccupied the lab. Or maybe it started with an apple pie with a lattice crust, (arable crops still being a very rare use of anyone''s claim on Mars, the flour had been imported and there was far more potato in the recipe than in most earthling pastry recipes).


    The napkin, however, while it had started around the pie, had been repurposed quite quickly.


    “I think we can do it!” the excited physicist said, leaping up and trying to show his colleagues his napkin. “We don''t need to make it full size from the get-go if we start small and grow!”


    “What do you mean, start small and grow?” another, across the room, asked.


    Partly for the guests, he explained “We know we can''t just make some kind of umbrella that''s big enough to protect Planet Five''s sun, the numbers don''t work out. And we also know if we let the particles hit the star then really bad things happen.”


    “Tell us something we don''t know already. What''s the sketch?” Tina, whose birthday had sparked the party, asked.


    “Your Buzzard ram-jet idea, Tina,” he started.


    “Doesn''t work,” she interrupted, “the magnetic field just can''t compete at scale with the solar wind.”


    “But if we start small and grow it, then I think it does work. Not just one, but net of Buzzard ram-jets, at low power, basically just fusing enough hydrogen to keep position and letting most of the dust and stuff bypass the reactor, with a bit of deflection. Those should work and be manageable. We can make a lattice, a mesh, knitting the reactors together by spikes. Then we can build a funnel or whatever other shape we want, direct the stream past the sun, and let it go past. Redirecting the streams is easy once you''ve shrunk it down to a manageable size, like Tom calculated. Every extra node will reduce the problem, and by he time the scary levels of dust start arriving we should have time to build enough nodes to fully protect their sun.”


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    “They''re losing atmosphere already.”


    “What if we put the first batch at the planet, diverting the solar wind as a proof of the concept?” Tina suggested.


    One of the mer added, “and maybe do some atmospheric replenishment from the fusion products if we decide it''s worth the effort.”


    “It does sound plausible,” the head of department agreed. “Let''s code it up and look at numbers.”


    <hr>


    “Hwalf, why the big sigh. You miss the camels?”


    “My chin still itches.”


    “I like your music, I like your mind and your kindness. Your beard I can live without, as long as it doesn''t mean I loose you.”


    “You say the nicest things.”


    “So, do you want me to shave it off?”


    He looked at her in shock. “Do you know what you ask, Princess?”


    “Probably not, no. But I am being bold and decisive, grand vizier.”


    “Only a man''s wife or mother shaves him.”


    “Well, I absolutely refuse to be your step-mother,” She looked at the flash as another node came on line in the web being spun in space. “It''s pretty, isn''t it? Do you think it will work?”


    “They say it has far more chance of working than trying to move sea-monsters to another planet.”


    “That doesn''t sound hard. And, what about my cutting off your beard? Or to I need to put some itching powder in it until the itch really isn''t bearable?”


    “I am working on a new piece of music. It is called ''the impatient princess.''”


    “Do... do you think we should not marry?” She asked, worried.


    “I hope that we will. But...”


    “I should not be impatient?”


    “Patience is a good thing.”


    “I will try. What are we waiting for?”


    “The right time,” he said enigmatically.


    “Fine! Then, will you play me at Inek?”


    “Do you want me to let you win?”


    “I will count it as a proposal if you do. I am not saying that is the only way you can propose, of course. But like this, I know that I have a lot of your attention either way.”


    “You always have a lot of my attention. But it is not the time for Inek now.”


    “Why not?”


    “There are visitors coming.”


    “Oh? Who?”


    “Princesses are supposed to be patient, aren''t they?”


    “Whatever gave you that idea?” she exclaimed. “Does Esme somehow strike you as patient?”


    “See? I have wrong ideas about what you should be like. How can we marry?”


    “You could decide to know me as I am, perhaps, and not try to fit me into ideas I don''t fit into?”


    “Back in the village, life was much more complicated than Inek. Here it is even worse,” Hwalf said.


    “As you teach me Inek, I will be happy to teach you about life here, Hwalf.”


    <hr>