by Brian Smith
“Oh, Dmitri, what is it?” she snapped brusquely at him.
“I was going to save it for a separate presentation, but what the hell—my people are making some breakthroughs,” he said. “As you know, I was able to hire professors Tsong and Hyman into my research department, and we’ve recently added another very smart man as well—I hope to introduce you all to him during the symposium. In any case, we’ve made some progress in the lab, at producing measurable magnetogravitic fields. Give me ten more years,” he said intensely, holding up a hand and pinching his thumb and fingers together for added emphasis, “just ten more, and I think we’ll be able to outfit an interstellar ship with a true gravity drive.” He sat back as if he’d already accomplished this feat, waving his hand dramatically across the table. “It’ll cut the mission time in half, if not more—easily!”
Campbell grinned. “A decade? Last I read, most theoretical physicists are shaking their heads at Tsong. I think fewer than a dozen people in the entire solar system claim to be able to follow his mathematics—I know nobody in this room can. I can’t begin to make heads or tails of it, and I’m no slouch at higher math.”
“Don’t knock it just because you don’t get it, Bill,” Vasquez chided him. “You’re an engineer, not a mathematician.”
“I’m a bloody brilliant engineer, lass,” Campbell bristled, but he didn’t belabor the point once he’d made it.
Nobody doubted that Tsong was a mathematical prodigy, or that both Tsong and Sam Hyman were brilliant physicists, but for the past few years they’d been under constant fire from their peers in the scientific community. People who upset the apple cart tended get that treatment, especially when it came to cosmology.
Federov’s smugness faded slightly. His native Russian accent grew thicker the more intense his argument got. “It is slow, da, and it is difficult, da, but we’ve made measurable progress. I know a lot of people say Hyman and Tsong are crazy, but I believe in them. Both have this bizarre grasp on higher-dimensional . . . Anyway, they claim our understanding of physics is fundamentally flawed. They swear they are on a path to a unified field theory that will, among other things, reconcile quantum mechanics with gravitation once and for all.”
“At this point it’s not even a theory, and what we need is hard engineering,” Drayson argued. “Dmitri . . . c’mon! You know that nobody here will claim anything is impossible—the running joke around here whenever we hit any kind of a snag is ‘It’s just an engineering problem.’ This might be the same thing, but can we really expect your teams to rewrite the laws of physics and then produce, in a reasonable timeframe, a viable working technology—one we’d trust to take a live crew into interstellar space?”
Federov scowled stubbornly. “Ten years. We’ll do it.”
Vasquez shrugged. “If they’re generating fields in the lab, it might be worth postponing Daedalus. Think about it this way: even if it takes thirty years to develop instead of ten, a ship with a drive like Dmitri’s talking about would still beat a torchship back here based on current plans, and by quite a margin as well. What sort of velocities are you projecting?”
Federov shrugged uncomfortably. “We’re not sure yet. It will ultimately be a matter of how power efficiencies translate into drive fields, but the accelerations we’ll get will leave current ships standing still, with no ill effects on the crew. Near unlimited delta-v.”
Unnoticed by the board, Dr. Borodin watched the exchange with interest, acutely aware that she was privy to something rarely seen by outsiders: the Crandall Foundation trustees casually debating matters that would profoundly shape the history of humanity, going forward. It was exhilarating, but she never imagined the group sounding so . . . curmudgeonly.
“Sounds great, but right now it’s just pie in the sky,” Forester grumbled. “We’ve got two green planets just four light-years away, and we’re not going to be able to sit on this discovery forever. The GOI isn’t the only big TPF array looking at Alpha Centauri, you know. If someone else makes the find and goes public with it, hell! It’s gonna blow the lid clean off this thing, and we’ll catch a lot of backlash if the public learns we knew about these planets and withheld the information. The RFP for a torchship is already out there, and a lot of firms are busting hump looking for a working design. At this point, I’m a solid ‘no’ on postponing Daedalus unless there’s a lot more to bite into than math nobody can understand and needles drawing squiggly lines in the lab. Anyway, we’re getting off topic—we didn’t bring little ol’ Eleyna in here to listen to us argue timetables. Carter, have you given the young lady the go-ahead to task more array time on this latest find?”
Drayson redirected the question to Dr. Borodin, who smiled brightly.
“Da. The team is really torn on this one, though. We’ve already spent an inordinate amount of time looking at Alpha Centauri, and there are plenty of other candidate systems worthy of study. Given that we’ll probably have people on their way to Centauri in another ten or fifteen years, we’d really like to focus on some other spots, like this latest find at 47 Uma. The ‘green’ line spectrographs we’re seeing there are frankly even better than the ones we’re getting off Rigil K-4.”
“I see your point, lass,” Campbell told her, “but let’s remember that we won’t be going to any of those other places anytime soon. We’re going to need the best data we can get on the Centauri system before we send people there. In the meantime, we can turn the focus groups loose on this new information and have them start modifying existing proposals to account for the second planet. I’d like to add that I’m with Ty—I’m against any delay in going forward with Project Daedalus,” he concluded, casting an apologetic look at Federov.
Vasquez shook her head. “It’s a mistake, I’m telling you. Sometimes you have to take the long view for a better result.”
“Yeah, and there’ll always be a good reason to put it off, won’t there?” Forester shot back.
“Well, then, that’s a tie vote,” Vasquez said, turning to Drayson. “Right? Dmitri and I in favor of waiting on an emerging science, with Bill and Ty wanting to bull on ahead? Carter, which way do you lean on a delay?”
“No delays—we move forward,” Drayson replied without hesitation. “If we build a torchship and then Dmitri has a breakthrough, we can retrofit before a launch. If she’s already on her way, we can catch her on the far end and retrofit for a return trip. We might even consider a hybrid design—leaving the torch as a backup drive and installing any new propulsion system in parallel. Would it be expensive? Yep. Is it worth doing anyway? Definitely, in my book.”
Federov nodded thoughtfully and Vasquez shrugged, taking it in stride.
“Eleyna, thanks for your time. Please pass our highest regards to your team—excellent work.”
“Spasibo,” she replied with an excited smile.
***
The closed session continued into the early evening, with Bill Campbell finally calling in a team of engineers to show them how the torchship project was shaping up. No other firm had even come up with a true preliminary design yet; they were all still in the conceptual phase. The others were impressed with the rapid advances made by Aberdeen Astronautics, but not really surprised. They were all highly competitive in their respective fields, Campbell more so than most. They knew he’d been driving his people hard and that they were delivering. What they didn’t know (because he didn’t tell them) was that OURANIA had done the lion’s share of the work.
When they finally broke for the day, most of them ended up at an invitation-only social hour. Bill Campbell spotted Ty Forester standing with a relatively young, sandy-haired man whose build and carriage suggested he was Terran-born. The man was dressed in business formal, but there was no mistaking the heavy solid-gold seal ring with the faceted ruby stone he wore—a Crandall Academy class ring.
Torchship officer, then, Campbell surmised, making his way over. Probably one of Ty’s employees.
He confirmed it a moment later, when Ty i
ntroduced them. Up close, Campbell noticed two miniaturized gold pins stacked on the man’s lapel: one a USN Space Warfare Officer (SWO) insignia, the other a set of naval aviator’s wings. The two men shook hands, and the officer introduced himself as Michael Ashburn.
“A pleasure, lad,” Campbell replied, glancing sideways at Forester. “One of your up-and-comers?”
“Yes, he is!” Forester boomed with a toothy grin that contrasted brightly with his ebony skin. “Dakota here is a rare bird: endo/exo qualified in navy fighters and spaceplanes, qualified deck officer in navy torchships, and a Crandall graduate on top of all that. I scooped him up back when he graduated, after I saw his brag sheet. Thought I’d bring him in to the symposium this year and let everyone put a face to a name—we’re going to be looking for folks like this before too long, eh?”
Campbell took another look at Ashburn, trying to decide if the young man was old enough to have done everything Forester claimed. “How old are you, lad? Give me the rundown.”
“Thirty-three,” Ashburn replied, and went on to explain how he’d made it to this stage of his career.
A Minnesota native, he’d convinced his parents to let him enlist early, at age seventeen. During his initial four-year stint, he’d completed his Level-Three (baccalaureate-equivalent) coursework and applied for endo/exo combat flight training. He was made a warrant officer upon graduating from that course, and then flew Moray fighters for a few years before applying to the Naval Academy. That was a one-year trade program following the Defense Reorganization Act of 2047, as all officers were now drawn from the ranks. Upon earning his commission, Ashburn spent three more years serving in torchships and qualifying as a SWO. After that he faced a potential fork in his career path: either remain on the standard track for torchship drivers or return to the tactical flying world with the goal of commanding a squadron, perhaps eventually an aerospace wing.
Ashburn had talked the navy into a third choice: sending him to the reserves for the remainder of his service obligation and letting him attend the Crandall Academy at his own expense. Ashburn was the first (and only) USN officer to request anything like that; it was considered odd, given that, technically speaking, it was academically redundant. The truth was that the navy was curious about the Crandall course: it was heralded as the best torchship school in existence—a painful blow to the pride of Annapolis.
Ashburn completed the course with honors and sent the navy a writeup with an honest comparison of the two schools and their curriculums. The navy allowed him to transition to civilian life, although he retained a reserve commission as a lieutenant, junior grade. Forester had hired him into his company straight out of the Crandall course, just as he’d intimated.
When Ashburn finished explaining it all, he couldn’t tell if Campbell was even slightly impressed, or not at all.
“Have you ever gotten laid? had a drink?” Campbell quipped, only half joking.
Ashburn forced a tolerant chuckle. “Guess I’d rather go to Alpha Centauri, sir.” Campbell glanced at Forester, who shrugged.
“Well, I had to offer him at least the chance of something besides just filthy lucre,” Forester joked in his drawl. “He was getting offers faster than I could keep up! Dakota is shipping as second mate on Dejah Thoris at present. He’ll promote to first officer before too long, and if he doesn’t step on his crank, I’ve got him penciled in as Thuvia’s captain—provided your Aberdeen crew ever gets around to building her. If we can get that Project Daedalus torchship designed and built on the kind of schedule we were talking about earlier, Mike and a few others I’ve been grooming will be seasoned up and ready to toss their hats in the ring for the chance to fly her to Rigil K.”
Campbell nodded thoughtfully. He realized he’d been so preoccupied with hardware that he’d barely given a second thought to the human element. Forester’s Barsoom Traders was one of the best commercial shipping companies in the solar system—all his deck officers and captains were Crandall Academy graduates, just like the two trustees themselves. Forester had gotten his professional start as a commercial torchship deck officer, while Campbell had opted for the engineering route. Here they both were now, half a lifetime later. If anyone was likely to have a solid read on the quality of the bridge and engineering officers they’d eventually need for Daedalus, it was Forester. Campbell mentally resolved to leave that issue to his colleague and continue focusing on the technology and engineering sides of the project.
Two more men joined them midconversation, Dmitri Federov and a soft-spoken dark-haired man of Japanese descent. He was introduced as Kusaka Shiguro, with his surname spoken first, in the Japanese tradition. Kusaka considered astronautics his primary calling, but he was equally gifted in the realms of astrophysics and mathematics. As Federov liked to joke, Kusaka and those like him in the Federov research labs were “thinkers and tinkerers.” Federov wasted no time in pointing out that Kusaka was one of the few people alive who understood the complex branch of mathematics labeled “the Tsong calculus,” or “Tsong transforms.”
Forester looked a little bored and exasperated when Federov brought up the topic again, but Campbell was interested. While he wasn’t willing to deliberately postpone Project Daedalus, he wasn’t about to take Federov’s claims lightly. Campbell had close business and personal relationships with both men, even if they weren’t close with each other. Every fusion-drive system installed in Aberdeen-built torchships these days was a Federov design, and almost three-quarters of Forester’s commercial fleet came from the Aberdeen shipyards at Phobos. Federov was more into concepts than nuts and bolts—he was a dreamer. While Campbell could tear down a ship’s systems with his bare hands and Forester could run off brachistochrone trajectories in his head, Federov tended to surround himself with people smarter than he was, supplying them with what they needed and turning them loose. The results over the years had borne Federov out, and if he said he could bang together some kind of gravity drive within a decade, it was a safe bet he could do it within at least twice that much time. After all, it was “just an engineering problem.” That was the way the Crandall Foundation had approached every past hurdle, and consistently persevered.
Campbell thought back on his own mental example of putting Columbus into a nineteenth-century tea clipper instead of a fifteenth-century carrack. What Federov was talking about was putting Columbus into a steamship—if Federov’s people could deliver. Hmm, if only there was a way to help speed things along, he thought to himself, and grinned.
“What’s so funny?” Federov asked. Campbell started slightly, blushing just a bit when he realized everyone was looking at him.
“Funny? Nothing,” Campbell replied. “Dmitri, what do you think about getting out of here and having dinner—just you and me? I may have a resource that can help your research along, but it’s a topic to be discussed in private.”
“Really? Who?”
“That sounds like a yes. Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse us,” Campbell said genially. “Dmitri, let’s walk,” he added, putting an arm around his friend’s shoulder and steering him away from the group. That left Forester standing with Ashburn and Kusaka; he watched with amused interest as Campbell and Federov left.
“Well, hell,” Forester breathed, almost to himself. “I think Bill believes old Dmitri can do it.” He turned a frank, appraising gaze on Kusaka. “Can he?”
Kusaka’s eyes narrowed, as if he were mentally calculating the odds, for himself. “Hai, in time, although there’s a long way to go,” he replied.
Forester snorted. “We’ll see.”
“I’m sorry, gentlemen, but what exactly are we talking about?” Ashburn asked.
“Pie in the sky, son. Pie in the sky. Listen, I’m gonna go rub some more elbows. Ask Shiguro-san here to explain Tsong math to you. Hell, with your schooling you might even understand it. I’ll catch you later, Dakota. Enjoy the shindig.”
Once Forester, the third of three of the most powerful and influential men on Mars, took his leav
e as well, the two younger men visibly relaxed; they spontaneously laughed aloud as they caught each other doing it. The two exchanged short, Japanese-style bows followed by a western-style handshake. “I’m sorry—I didn’t catch your name . . . ?” Kusaka said, smiling easily. Even though both men were ID-tagged in the others’ ocular AR overlays, older social conventions were still to be followed.
“Mike Ashburn—I work for Barsoom Traders.”
“Why does Mr. Forester call you ‘Dakota’?”
“I’m part Sioux by blood,” Ashburn explained. “It was a nickname I picked up in the navy. It sorta stuck.”
“So ka.”
“So, what’s all this talk about a gravity drive?” Ashburn asked. “Is that for real? Tsong transforms I’ve heard of, but only in passing. New branch of math, from what I’ve read, and not well developed.”
“Actually, it’s fairly well developed—just not well understood,” Kusaka replied. “As for gravity drives, that wouldn’t be an accurate term for the concepts we’re looking at, but close enough, I suppose. In any case, all of it is still a long way off. In truth, it’s probably further off than Dmitri-san wishes it were. I heard a rumor earlier that Mr. Campbell has a preliminary torchship design in line with the foundation’s RFP. Hard to believe we might be on our way to Alpha Centauri within a decade, isn’t it? I wonder if it’s even worth the trip. It’s the closest star system to us, and none of those big arrays out there have found a thing.”
Neither man noticed Dr. Borodin, who had paused within earshot and was hiding a secretive, knowing smile behind her wine glass. “Imagine spending half a lifetime getting there and back, all for the privilege of saying you got there first?” Kusaka added.
