Chapter No. 85. Adjustment.

Janet was at her credit union job, James, Sylvia and Amy were showing Vincent and Sally how they create gems and jewelry for sale on the internet, and Sparky and Baby Jack were doing their thing. Robert was creating more additions to the house. He needed to make a few new bedrooms and baths.

His work was interrupted by a call from Jason at JPL. "We have an idea that might help terraform Venus," Jason said.

"Good," Robert replied. "I'll come there to discuss it with you."

He appeared at the JPL mission room where he found Jason and Kim Wu waiting.

"There's a comet that is currently passing through our section of the solar system. It's approximately twenty kilometers in diameter."

"Is it going to hit Earth?" Robert asked.

"No, but it will pass close enough to be easily seen with the naked eye. We were wondering if you could divert it to strike Venus."

Robert rubbed a hand through his hair. "Wouldn't that cause destruction?"

"If you could slow it just before collision it would add water to the planet," Kim said. "Comets are essentially dirty snowballs. They are comprised of mostly water combined with organics and rock."

"So, what you're saying is that it would add water to the surface."

"We think it would, but it won't be enough to terraform the planet. We were thinking that it would be a good experiment to see if it could be done. There are probably billions if not trillions of comets out in the Oort Cloud, more than enough to make Venus a water planet."

"What about the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? Won't that cause the water to essentially evaporate?"

"Our observations indicate that the planet has already absorbed a lot of carbon dioxide and has begun to convert water in the atmosphere to oxygen. It's not enough to terraform but a good start."

"Well," Robert said. "I'll get my family together and we'll go see if we could do this."

After he vanished, Kim turned to Jason. "You realize that this is not a sanctioned NASA project."

"True, but It might end up as one if they're successful."

Kim nodded.

Robert assembled his troops to inform them about the new NASA mission. "What we're going to try to do is divert a large comet that's in our solar system and slow it so that it gently collides with Venus. What they want to know is if we could add water to Venus by that method."

"Wouldn't it take a large number of comets to add enough water to Venus to terraform it?" James asked.

"I believe it would. But there are lots of them out in the Oort Cloud."

"There's probably trillions of them out there," Sylvia said.

"Why do they want to terraform Venus?" Vincent asked.

"It would be a possible habitable planet in case Earth becomes uninhabitable," Robert replied.

"But it's closer to the Sun. Wouldn't that make it too hot?"

"There is the possibility that a shield could be placed in orbit to block sunlight."

"Why don't they do that with Earth?"

Robert smiled. "Humans would complain about something like that. There are no humans on Venus to complain."

"Very funny, Dad," James retorted.

"Wouldn't it make more sense to leave the comet that's traversing our soler system alone and just bring comets from the Oort Cloud down to Venus?" Sylvia said.

Robert rubbed his jaw. "Yes, that would make more sense. We could go to the Oort Cloud directly above the solar system's ecliptic, collect a bunch of comets, and bring them to Venus, avoiding dragging them through the Kuiper belt and the outer solar system planets."

"Here we go again, playing god," Janet said.

"Nah," Robert retorted. "We're just going to rearrange some cosmic furniture."

James laughed.

The superhero gang teleported to the Oort cloud, an expansive spherical collection of icy planetoids that extend out to almost a light year from the Sun. They decided to go to the closer in section of the cloud to avoid disturbing the orbits of most of the objects.

"Man!" James exclaimed. "The Sun looks like a flashlight out this far."

"Yeah," Robert said. "We're about 3000 AU out from the Sun. That's a far piece!"

"How are we going to move a bunch of these things down to Venus?" Amy asked.

"We'll treat them like cattle and allow Sparky and Baby Jack to round them up before we do the heavy moving. That way we'll only cause a slight disruption of the cloud's main residents."

Sparky and Baby Jack flew off to do their thing while Robert assembled the rest of his pack into a ring formation to begin the process of moving what they corralled down to Venus.

"We have about three hundred of them," James said. "I think we can teleport them to near Venus if we all concentrate."

"Yes, but we'll have to make sure we slow them before they enter Venus' atmosphere," Robert said.

"You must realize how crazy this idea is," Janet told her husband.

"Yeah, but if it works, it'll make a big improvement in Venus."

The process took several hours, but with their coordinated work, the superheroes got the comets to Venus and then slowed them so that they flew into the atmosphere intact to collide with Venus' surface."

"Those comets blasted up a lot of dust," James said. "It's blocking the sunlight form hitting the planet's surface."

"That's the effect we wanted," Robert said. "It's helping cool the planet."

The superheroes returned to the JPL mission room where they found Jason and Kim there with a lot of other technicians staring at a screen that was displaying Venus from their probe orbiting it.

"What did you guys do?" Jason asked, his face exhibiting both curiosity and surprise.

"We decided to leave the comet that came into our solar system alone and went to the Oort Cloud to bring a couple of hundred comets down to Venus. We also increased Venus' spin to match the Earth and improved its magnetic field. The comet collisions blew a lot of dust up into Venus' atmosphere, cutting off the sunlight."

"Good heavens!" Jason reacted. "You've done more in a few hours that would have taken decades for us."

"I was thinking," Robert said. "What if we could drag a large moon sized object out of the Kuiper Belt and make it orbit Venus. Would that remain stable or not?"

"I don't know. We would have to do computer simulations to determine that."

Robert smiled. "That's your homework assignment. Let us know what you come up with."

With that, they teleported back home where they eventually settled into the men sitting on the patio next to the pool drinking beer and the woman having fun in the pool.

"How often do you get NASA projects?" Vincent asked.

"Not that often," James said. "But we've done quite of few of late."

"How far can we go into space?"

"We can go anywhere as long as we can visualize it. We went to a habitable moon orbiting a gas giant and above and below our galaxy, I would say twenty thousand light years."

"Actually, we could go across the universe," Robert said. "But we didn't get powers to just play."

Vincent looked over at the women who were screeching and laughing as they enjoyed the body slide. "Why don't they wear swimsuits?"

"We think it's because they love to tease us," James said.

"I assume you have sex," Vincent said.

"Yes," Robert replied without revealing any signs of mirth. "I handle my wife and Amy. James here does Sylvia. That leaves you to take care of Sally."

"I don't know if she would be okay with that."

"She will," James said. "Trust me."

"I would think that if you are doing all of these good works for God that He would not be happy with sexual activity out of marriage."

James chuckled. "If He is, I would be in big trouble. Sylvia is my sister by adoption, and we had a child together, and Dad here is servicing Amy, his wife's sister who we made his sister."

Vincent exhibited a subtle grin. "That sounds complicated, especially when it comes to sex."

"I think that it's okay as long as we don't get into a tiff about it," Robert said. "Sex isn't on our play card. It's just a recreational activity. We have to keep that in mind that we're not here to seek pleasure. We're here to save mankind."

Vincent nodded his approval. He realized that he was the new kid on the block and needed to blend into the group.