Every child born on Charon since the time of the Great Uprising was required to be submitted for G.A.T.—Genetic Aptitude Testing—within two solar years of conception. DNA and brain chemicals determined where each offspring would be raised and educated. Only the children of the Council were exempted, a ruling which virtually assured our militaristic rulers to be among the least educated populace inhabiting the planet.

We landed in the Biological District, where the regent’s top exobiologist, Dr. Kabir Parker, had been summoned to his lab for our meeting. I had studied under Kabir until I’d had a near-death experience during my pre-pubescent years. Upon recovering from the drowning incident, my psyche had changed, my logical mind evolving into one that was more intuitive. When my studies faltered, my G.A.T. was retested, the results sending my education into a free fall.

There is no place in an autocratic society for a free thinker, especially one who claims he can communicate with the dead.

Zaphenath Paneah and I listened while Kabir lectured us on how life first evolved on Charon. “It began over 400 million solar orbits ago with chemiosmosis, a process in which the chemical adenosine triphosphate was broken down and re-formed to release energy. Biological evidence indicates the first living organisms on Charon were not self-replicating molecules, but a byproduct of a chemical combination that contained the instructions for processing energy and replicating. Incredibly, the enzymes required for this specific metabolism were not found on our planet; they were delivered by meteorites. Ribose, adenine, and cytosine were the key ingredients lined inside these space rocks, which most likely metabolized into bacteria after coalescing in hot, acidic pools of liquid that contained phosphorus chemicals.”

“Kabir, in order to save our people, we need to seed the ingredients of Charon’s life matrix on another world. Just for argument’s sake, let’s say you could package this biological soup aboard a conventional rocket and crashland it. Which planet or moon in our solar system represents the best candidate for life to take hold and develop as it has on Charon?”

“At present? The answer is none.”

“I realize that. But what about in the future or distant future?”

Communicating with his control console via thought wave, the exobiologist powered on a holographic map of our star system revealing our sun, orbited by four inner worlds and four outer, the divide separated by an asteroid belt.

“The two innermost planets, Nekudim and Akudim, are far too close to the sun for life to ever evolve. The outlying gas giants beyond Charon aren’t suitable either. That leaves Berudim.”