♂: The Novel

How does one lose an entire planet?

Earth had always had a sentimental love affair with her depraved brother, a romantic notion of seeking an embrace with our star’s prodigal son—to make him right, bring him into the fold, change his wayward life to good health and make him productive.

In the 25th Century it was generally accepted that terraforming of the fourth planet had succeeded. Now, some time after this, on Earth we wonder: how does one lose an entire planet?

One moment it is there, the next it is not. In a twinkling of an eye it vanishes. After all of the plausible explanations are ruled out—obscuring gas, gravitational lensing, intervening dark matter, eclipse by a Near Earth asteroid, and the many others—the only answer that remains is the implausible one that the Lagrange 1 outpost reported: that it is simply gone. As if it were a private thing between Mars and someone else.

As if no one on Earth were permitted to know why.