by Wil McCarthy
Hobie’s shivering intensified, almost as though he felt the room air swirling against his skin. His eyelids began to flutter.
“Should Derek be here?” Alice asked suddenly. “Aren’t they friends?”
But before Pam could say anything, Hobie opened his eyes and locked gazes with Alice.
“Whoa. Who are you?” he asked, in a weak voice. His accent was Caribbean.
“Alice Kyeong. Air Force medic.”
He struggled vaguely against his restraints. “What . . . Okay. How long was I out?”
“Sixty-five days,” Pam answered. “Just relax. You’re doing fine.”
“It felt like two minutes,” he said. Then, “Jesus, it’s cold.”
“Give it time,” Pam said. “Your whole system is rebooting. It’s a known process.”
But what came next was decidedly off protocol. Hobie’s eyes opened wide, and dilated massively, so he looked like a black-eyed corpse.
“I saw them!” he cried out, in a much stronger voice.
“Saw what?” Pam asked, looking mildly alarmed.
“Iggy’s Beings! I saw them. They spoke to me! They sang to me. My God, they gave me a message!”
“Um,” said Pam, not liking that.
So it was Alice who asked him, “What did they say?”
“To meet them,” he said. “In the dark between the stars.”
“Oh,” said Alice. “Fuck.”
And that, truth be told, was pretty much the last sane day of her life.
Appendix A
Dramatis Personae, in order of appearance:
Alice Kyeong: Twenty-nine-year-old sergeant in the U.S. Air Force Pararescuemen. Sent undercover to ESL1 Shade Station.
Soon-ja (Sonya) Kyeong: Alice Kyeong’s mother. Lives in Burning Man, NV.
Dona Obata: Twenty-eight-year-old operative from France’s Commandement des Opérations Spéciales. Sent undercover to ESL1 Shade Station. Grew up in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo. Posing as a space colonist. Allegedly has two siblings, both in Europe, and two living parents in Africa, although it might be a cover story.
Jeanette Schmidt: Twenty-five-year-old Near Earth Asteroid Resource Utilization expert from Texas, by way of Colorado. Traveling to ESL1 Shade Station as a legitimate colonist.
Christina “Tina” Tompkins: President of the United States, successor to President Yano.
Laurent Patenaude: President of France.
Igbal Renz: Founder and CEO of Renz Ventures. Inventor of Deep Belief Motion Control Networks. One of the Four Horsemen.
Pamela Rosenau: A medical doctor, and pregnant girlfriend of Igbal Renz. Red-brown hair, blue eyes, vaguely Asian features.
Elizabeth “Bethy” Powell: First Sergeant Bethy of the New Zealand Special Air Service. Sent undercover to ESL1 Shade Station. Posing as a hydroponics expert.
Malagrite Aagesen: RzVz space colonist, with aquamarine hair. Chemical engineer and manufacturing process specialist.
Rachael Lee: RzVz space colonist. Medical doctor. Initially left behind at Transit Point Station due to microgravity adaptation problems.
Brother Michael Jablonski: Senior monk and de facto leader of St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery—one of the first wave of monks to settle there. Has a master’s in divinity from Fuller and a master’s in physical chemistry from MIT.
Brother “Geo” Giancarlo: Former Vatican astronomer, and resident of St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery. A member of the first wave of monks to settle there.
Father Bertram Meagher: Abbott of St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery. Has a master’s in divinity from Fuller.
Grigory Orlov: Founder and CEO of Clementine Cislunar Fuel Depot. CEO of Orlov Petrochemical, founded by his father, Magnus Orlov. One of the Four Horsemen.
Daniel Florinovich Epureanu: Moldovan maintenance supervisor at Clementine Cislunar Fuel Depot.
Andrei Morozov: Station commander of Clementine Cislunar Fuel Depot.
Mikhail Voronin: Subcommander of Clementine Cislunar Fuel Depot.
Derek Hakkens: Pilot for Renz Ventures, based out of ESL1 Shade Station.
Charles Oliver: Commander of Transit Point Station.
Dong Nguyen: Worker and astronaut at Transit Point Station.
Nonna Rostov: RzVz colonist, a materials scientist from Eastern Russia. Amateur guitar player, somewhat nervous in zero gee.
Saira Batra: RzVz colonist and mathematician, with a PhD in Topological Transformation Group Theory. Short with frizzy hair.
Pelu Figueroa: Forty-year-old RzVz space colonist. Certified yoga instructor and weightlifting coach, very physically active and fit, with PhDs in mechanical engineering and astronomy.
Sandy Lincoln: Physicist and RzVz space colonist. Has a PhD in theoretical physics from MIT, and a master’s in mechanical engineering from Purdue.
Yuehai Ming: RzVz astronaut and space colonist.
Sienna Delao: RzVz astronaut and space colonist, sometimes known as Dee.
Lek Szczepanski: An ethnically Polish worker at Clementine Cislunar Fuel Depot.
Brother “Puke” or “Porpoise” Purcell: Resident of St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery. A member of the first wave of monks to settle there.
Eduardo Halladay: Space pilot for Harvest Moon Industries.
Brother “Fox” Ferris: Resident of St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery. A member of the second wave of monks to settle there.
Brother “Bear” Bryant: Resident of St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery. A member of the second wave of monks to settle there.
Brother “Huey” Hughart: Resident of St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery. A member of the second wave of monks to settle there.
Brother “Dewey” Durm: Resident of St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery. A member of the second wave of monks to settle there.
Brother “Dopey” Duppler: Resident of St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery. A member of the second wave of monks to settle there.
Brother “Grumpy,” Groppel: Resident of St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery. A member of the second wave of monks to settle there.
Brother “Ham” Hamblin: Resident of St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery. A member of the second wave of monks to settle there.
Brother “Eggs” Ovid: Resident of St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery. A member of the second wave of monks to settle there.
Huntley Millar: EVA crew foreman at Shackleton Lunar Industrial Station (aka “Moonbase Larry”).
Doctor Sergei Chernov: Physician onboard Clementine Cislunar Fuel Depot.
Dan Beseman: Founder and CEO of Enterprise City LLG, and owner of both the Mars colony ship H.S.F. Concordia and the soon-to-be-populated Mars base known as Antilympus Township. One of the Four Horsemen.
Howard Glass: Interviewer for Mars Today.
Oliver Wang: Mars colony applicant, bidding $4B for a janitorial job. CEO and founder of his own company, which he is selling to fund his Mars seat.
Carol Beseman: Wife of Dan Beseman, with a guaranteed spot in the Mars colony.
Hobie Prieto: RzVz pilot, originally from Jamaica, now resident at ESL1 Shade Station. First human to be placed in full-freeze hibernation.
Miyuki Ishibashi: Personal assistant to Dan Beseman, and Mars colony applicant.
Eldad Barzeley: Harvest Moon’s chief solar radiation scientist.
Sir Lawrence Edgar Killian: Founder and CEO of Harvest Moon Industries, and a major financial backer of St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery. One of the Four Horsemen.
Gill Davis: Personal assistant to Lawrence Edgar Killian.
Fernanda Harb: Commander of Shackleton Lunar Industrial Station.
Vick Chambers: Vice President of the United States of America.
Appendix B
NOTES
Notes from Thread 1:
A number of ideas in this section, including the ESL1 Shade and the idea of “freezing” or “shrink-wrapping” stars, come from Dr. Gary E. Snyder, a noted aerospace consultant and longtime personal friend.
For information about low
-thrust trajectories, I’m grateful to Stephanie J. Thomas of Princeton Satellite Systems.
The ESL1 Shade weighs roughly 2,000 kg per square kilometer, or 300,000 metric tons overall. Its total volume is about 150,000 cubic meters. If that same volume were arranged as a solid sphere, it would be 62 meters across. At 1% efficient photovoltaic conversion, the Shade provides 150 gigawatts of continuous electrical power, and blocks 0.1% of the sunlight reaching Earth.
Lithium deuteride (LiD) is a nuclear fuel used in hydrogen bombs that undergoes a vigorous exothermic reaction when heated to thermonuclear temperatures. Only a tiny fraction of its mass is converted to energy, but the explosion creates an expanding sphere of superheated lithium-deuterium plasma in which every individual atom is exposed. The antimatter version of this material is perhaps the most dangerous substance twenty-first-century technology could plausibly create, because it’s not only capable of converting to pure energy upon contact with normal matter, but of doing so very rapidly.
The uniform for Transit Point Station is a red jumpsuit.
Notes for Thread 2:
The gamma mirror is another idea that originated with Gary Snyder.
For theoretical information about Mach-effect drives, I’m indebted to Professor Heidi Fearn of Cal State Fullerton, who is not responsible for my (deliberate) mangling of the concept in search of new physics for Sandy Lincoln to explore.
I have never taken DMT, but I am fascinated by the accounts of people who have, and particularly by how common it is for them to report contact with beings of some sort. So I thought: what if that were true?
The uniform for Renz Ventures/ESL1 Shade Station is a blue jumpsuit.
Notes for Thread 3:
Information about growing plants in Lunar soil comes in part from the August 2014 PLOS One article “Can Plants Grow on Mars and the Moon: A Growth Experiment on Mars and Moon Soil Simulants,” by Wamelink et al., with considerable additional assistance from Wikipedia and assorted plant catalogs.
Shackleton Lunar Industrial Station and St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery are located near the Lunar south pole, at approximately 88S, 70E, on a 175-kilometer-wide strip of land connecting the Shoemaker crater with the Faustini crater.
Numerous details of life on the Moon are purely invented, or pieced together from the accounts of Apollo astronauts. Other details come from the excellent (though eclectic and sometimes disorganized) resources at Lunarpedia.org.
The uniform for St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery is a traditional monk’s habit.
Notes for Thread 4:
Composition of a typical carbonaceous chondrite asteroid is 3-20% nickel-iron, 0-20% water, 0-6% carbon, 0-0.5% nitrogen, and assorted minerals from which a certain amount of hydrogen and oxygen may be extracted, with effort. Since Clementine is in the business of selling fuel and breathing gases, target asteroids are chosen to maximize the presence of these materials, and minimize the amount of metal and dead rock. Nevertheless, the refining process generates a lot of slag, which is sold off as radiation-shielding material. The relative values of each material depend not only on how difficult they are to find and extract, but also how plentiful they are elsewhere in the solar system. For example, the Moon has large deposits of water ice (and therefore hydrogen and oxygen), but is notably deficient in carbon and nitrogen. These two elements are therefore among Clementine’s most valuable exports, since shipping from Clementine is still cheaper than shipping from Earth. Since nitrogen is also a small minority component of the target asteroids, it is by far the most expensive substance Clementine sells.
The uniform for Clementine Cislunar Fuel Depot is gray spandex.
Notes for Thread 5:
I came up with the name Antilympus Township because Mt. Olympus is the highest point on Mars, and the lowest point on Mars is a crater that is, very approximately, on the opposite side of the planet from (i.e., antipodal to) Olympus. And because “township” is both a pun and a good way of describing its anticipated governance style. Sound reasoning, I thought, but I did this before realizing that National Geographic’s TV drama MARS had already named its Mars colony Olympus Town. I wrestled with changing my own colony’s name, but finally decided not to, because dang it, NatGeo’s base has no reason to be called that. It isn’t on Mt. Olympus, and it isn’t a town. So, whatever.
Although “Antilympus crater” is a name I made up, the place itself is real, and is more than 8 kilometers below areoid, which really does give it the most Earthlike conditions anywhere on the planet. It’s roughly 28 kilometers wide and reasonably flat on the bottom, so there’s plenty of room for human settlements to form and sprawl. For anyone who’d like to find it on a map of Mars, it’s located at 38.89169 S, 62.16064 E. The equivalent spot on Earth is in the southern Indian Ocean, east of Johannesburg and southeast of Madagascar.
Concordia crew members and Antilympus colonists wear two-piece tailored beige uniforms.
Notes for Thread 6:
Yes, Sir Lawrence could lift the airship Lepidoptera with pure hydrogen, if he were willing to risk Hindenburging it. He isn’t. 3He, or tralphium, has about 25% more lifting power than normal helium, and a mix of 5% deuterium-depleted hydrogen and 85% tralphium has about 30% more. For a gasbag volume of 5,500 cubic meters, this equates to an increased payload of 1,800 kg, or roughly the weight of a midsized SUV, circa 2020.
The uniform for Shackleton Lunar Industrial Station is a mustard-yellow jumpsuit.
Acknowledgments
As has happened before, this book would not exist without the constant nagging of my friend, Dr. Gary E. Snyder. I’m also extremely grateful to my wife, Evangeline, for forcing her way through early drafts of the manuscript. Other early readers include Pete Collins, Megan Richardson, Cully Salehi, and Wayne-Daniel Berard, who helped with details in their various areas of knowledge. Most of this book was actually written on commuter trains and park benches, using predictive typing in an email application with an on-screen smartphone keyboard, so I’d like to thank Samsung, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, and the City of Richardson, TX, for providing this critical infrastructure. Other sources of technical help are thanked in the Appendix, but I would like to extend particular thanks to David Brin for inviting me to a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts conference, where the rough outlines of this story took shape over a period of about three days.
