Jonas shouted for order, but it took a few minutes for the meeting to simmer down.

“I know you’re all anxious to hear about the supply pod,” he said.

“That’s an understatement, mate!” growled Bentley. “If I don’t get a new ion converter soon we’ll lose about thirty percent of our water generation capacity.”

“My thermal gas levels are rock-bottom,” complained the head of engineering, Maria Sommer.

“Humans die pretty fast without water, Maria,” said Bentley, the gruff Australian.

“Try freezin’ your balls off in minus one-hundred-and-seventy degrees, Bentley, you’ll wanna die!” replied the Costa Rican caustically.

They started bickering, triggering several other heated debates around the makeshift town hall. Tensions in the colony had risen noticeably recently, fueled by poor harvests and several other setbacks.

“People, please! This won’t solve our problems!” shouted Colony Director Jonas.

Order was gradually restored.

“So, what about the supply pod, Jonas?” shouted botanist Helga Svorssen.

“Right,” said Jonas, and scratched his unkempt gray beard. He paused to collect his words. “There’s no easy way to say this, people, so I’ll just say it flat out. There are no supplies on the supply pod.”

Pandemonium broke out. The pod’s arrival from Earth was long overdue. To make matters worse, the regular deliveries the colony was supposed to receive from Mission Command had become sporadic. Urgent messages to the home planet had gone largely unanswered.

“The bastards have forgotten us!” shouted someone from the communications team.

A tide of anger swept through the assembled colonists. Jonas waited for the hubbub to die down.

“I know how you feel. And I wish I had better news,” he said.

“We can’t eat wishes, Jonas,” said Bentley, generating a wavelet of anger. “We’re busting our arses on this damn snowball.”

Again, Jonas bided his time.

“So why the hell did they send the pod?”

“Good question, Maria,” replied the Director. “The pod is not empty.”

His words grabbed their attention.

“So what did the idiots send us this time? More bug repellant!” shouted an attendee from the back.

“No, thankfully,” replied Jonas, ignoring the chorus of laughter and curses.

A year previous a pod landed on the planet loaded with miscellaneous items, few of which had actually been requested by the colonists. They received an apology and a message that the pilotless supply ship’s mission had been hastily organized and launched. There was no mention of the climate catastrophe that Earth was battling – and had provided the impetus for the mission to settle Saturn’s moon Titan – but the colonists assumed that it had something to do with the bungled delivery.

“The pod’s cargo is a lot more substantial than bug repellant, believe me,” continued Jonas. His weighty words captured their attention. He paused to make sure everyone was listening. “Command has sent us children.”

A veil of stunned silence fell over the assembly.

“Eight to be precise, four girls, four boys, between the ages of eight and 10. They are all in good shape. We have not woken them up yet.”

Jonas waited for them to process the information.

“I think we all know what this means,” he said at last in a subdued voice.

They did. Before departing Earth the colonists and Mission Command had discussed what would happen if the crisis-ridden mother planet became so debilitated it could no longer support the distant space colony. If conditions became desperate, it may become necessary to send children to Titan to increase the chances of the species surviving. It appeared that Planet Earth had reached that point of desperation.

“How are we going to feed these kids?” asked Helga.

“And how many more will they send?” chimed in Bentley.

“These are good questions,” said Jonas. “But there’s a more important one: Are we going to meet this challenge and stand on our own feet, or complain about being abandoned and wave a white flag?”

His entreaty gave rise to murmurs around the hall.

“The future of the human species is in our hands, people. If we can’t handle it, maybe we deserve extinction,” Jonas added.

He gave his audience a few moments to chew over his words.

Bentley was the first to speak up. “I can jury-rig a replacement ion converter.”

Maria told them her team would step up their efforts to generate large volumes of thermal gases from local chemical deposits. Other colonists threw ideas on the table.

“And I will need Personnel to put together a task force A-S-A-P to figure out how we integrate these kids into the colony,” said Jonas. “God knows what the little mites have already been though.”

The Director watched as the discussions intensified. His rarely seen smile blossomed. Hope was kindling around the colony for the first time in a long while.