Sunstorm by Arthur C. Clarke

glanced around the table. She caught just one friendly eye, a sympathetic half smile from Mikhail Martynov.
Follow that.
    “Good morning. I expect to do more listening than talking today, but I’d like to make some introductory remarks. My name is—”
    “We know who you are.” The speaker was evidently one of the geologists, a stocky, big-armed woman with a square face. Her glare was about the most hostile in the room.
    “Then you have me at a disadvantage, Doctor—”
    “Professor. Professor Rose Delea.” She had a broad Australian accent. Siobhan had been briefed; Rose was an expert on the emplacement by sunlight of helium-3 in the lunar regolith. This helium isotope, a fuel for fusion reactors, was the Moon’s best economic prospect, and so Rose was a weighty figure here. “All I want to know is when you’re going to leave so I can get back to some real work. And I want to know the reason for all this secrecy. Since June 9 outgoing comms has been restricted, some areas of Thales’s databases and other information stores have been proscribed—”
    “I know.”
    “This is the Moon, Professor McGorran. If you hadn’t noticed, we’re all a long way from home and our families. Links to Earth are essential for our psychological well-being, not to mention our physical safety. And if you don’t want morale to fall farther—”
    Siobhan held up her hand, a gesture of quiet command. To her relief, Rose fell silent. “I quite agree.” So she did. Secrecy didn’t come instinctively to her any more than to these Moon-folk, Siobhan suspected; openness was an essential component of the endless conversation that underpinned good science. She said, “The security blackout is difficult for all concerned, and would be unacceptable—in normal times. But these are not normal times. Please bear with me.
    “I’m standing before you today as an emissary of both the British Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of the Eurasian Union. When I get home I’ll also be expected to brief other world leaders, including President Alvarez of the United States. And what they want to know is what to expect of the sun.”
    She was met by mostly baffled stares. Her briefings by various world-weary politicians’ aides had warned her to expect a certain insularity up here on the Moon, where the Earth could seem a long way away, and not very important. So she had prepared a show-and-tell. “Thales, please . . .”
    She gave them a five minute summary, in images, graphics, and words, of the devastating impact of June 9 on the Earth. This was watched in somber silence.
    At the end she said, “And that’s the reason I’m here, Professor Delea. I need some answers—we all do.
What’s wrong with the sun?
Is June 9 going to hit us again? Can we expect something less—or worse? On the Moon—in this room, in fact—you have some of humankind’s top solar scientists.
And
the one person who made an accurate prediction of June 9 itself.”
    Eugene didn’t react; his gaze unfocused, it was as if he was barely aware of the others around him.
    Mikhail said dryly, “And of course the ease of controlling information from the Moon is purely coincidental.”
    Siobhan frowned. “We have to take security seriously, sir. The governments really have no idea of what they’re facing yet. Until they do, information, unfortunately, must be managed. A panic could be vastly damaging in itself.”
    Rose subsided, but she was glowering, and Siobhan hoped beyond hope that she hadn’t already made an enemy.
    As brightly as she could she said, “Let’s start by making sure we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet. Doctor Martynov, I wonder if you’d be good enough to tell a mere cosmologist how the sun is
supposed
to work.”
    “It will be a pleasure.” With a showman’s sense of theater Mikhail stood and made his way to the front of the room.
             
    “All cosmologists know that the sun is fueled by fusion fire. What most