Titan

by Bova, Ben

  It had taken a frustrating three days merely to bring these people into the same small conference room with him. Despite all of Urbain’s promptings and importunings, Eberly had delayed this meeting unconscionably, in Urbain’s view.

  “I’m sorry it’s taken so long to bring this conference together,” Eberly said, by way of opening the meeting. “Getting these three very busy people into the same place at the same time isn’t easy, I assure you.”

  “So it would seem,” Urbain replied stiffly.

  Turning to his department heads, Eberly explained, “Dr. Urbain needs materials and manpower to build new satellite platforms. Twelve of them, I believe?”

  “Twelve,” Urbain confirmed. “At least twelve. The need is quite urgent.”

  “How many technical people will you need?” asked the director of human resources. She had been introduced to Urbain as Holly Lane.

  Urbain picked up his handheld computer and projected his list of requirements onto the blank wall at the head of the conference room. The department heads turned to scan the list; Eberly had to swivel his chair completely around. Good, Urbain thought. Make him do a little work.

  The head of the logistics department shook his head worriedly. “That’s a lot of electronics equipment you’re going to need. It’ll cut into our spares inventory pretty damned deep.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And I can’t just pull people off their existing tasks,” said the manufacturing chief. “Do you have any idea of how thin we’re stretched as it is? Why, I’ve got requisitions for jobs going into the next six months. Just rebuilding those damned solar panel actuators is taking up more than half my resources.”

  And so it went for some forty-five minutes, the department heads complaining that it would be impossible for them to meet Urbain’s needs for at least several months. Urbain sat in growing impatience, trying to keep from exploding, knowing that he needed the support of these blundering oafs and if he told them what he truly thought of them and their attitudes he would never get the help he so desperately needed.

  Only the personnel chief, this young Lane woman, seemed at all helpful.

  “We could shift a few technicians temporarily,” she offered, “and maybe offer overtime pay for those who’d be willing to do the assembly work after their regular shifts.”

  But without the materials and electronics equipment, Urbain knew, the technicians would have nothing to assemble.

  “I must insist,” he said, forcing his voice to remain calm, trembling only slightly, “that this work be given the highest possible priority. The success of this community’s very raison d’etre depends on it.”

  They cleared their throats and shifted uneasily on their chairs. They gave excuses. They waved their hands. It was only after nearly an hour of fruitless wrangling that Urbain realized that the department heads did not look at him when they spoke, they looked at Eberly.

  He holds the strings, Urbain finally understood. They will procrastinate and evade the issue until he tells them to do as I wish.

  Suddenly he shot to his feet. “Bah! This pointless bickering is stupid. If you will not help me I will proceed without you.”

  “Now wait a moment …” Eberly pushed his chair back from the conference table but did not stand up.

  “I have waited long enough,” Urbain snapped. “I will launch our existing satellites into orbit around Titan. That will leave us with nothing in reserve, no satellite platforms in storage. If some need for further satellites arises, then you will understand how stupidly you have behaved.”

  With that, he stormed out of the conference room.

  Eberly made a rueful smile. “Emotional, isn’t he?”

  The other two men got up from their chairs and, after a few words of conversation with Eberly, headed back to their own offices. Holly got up, too, but lingered at the conference room’s door.

  “Can you really get a team together for Urbain?” Eberly asked her.

  “Sure. No prob. And Di Georgio and Williams can make the materials and equipment available, too, if they have to.”

  Eberly half-sat on a corner of the conference table, realizing all over again that Holly was as sharp as they came.

  “You think I should order them to cooperate with Urbain?”

  She looked right into his eyes. “I think that’s what you’re going to do, sooner or later. You just want to make Urbain squirm, make him understand who’s boss.”

  Eberly pretended astonishment. “Why, Holly, what do you think I am?”

  Holly shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. But I don’t think you ought to be playing power-trip games with Urbain. He’s got some strong connections back Earthside to the ICU, y’know.”

  Eberly gave her a long stare. “Perhaps you’re right,” he murmured.

  Standing in front of him, returning his gaze unblinkingly, Holly said, “Malcolm, there’s something else we need to talk about.”

  “Something else?”

  “The ZPG protocol,” she said.

  Eberly said nothing as he slowly got up from his perch on the table’s corner and dropped back into his swivel chair.

  “Sit down, Holly,” he said, gesturing to the chair nearest him. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

  She could see the wheels turning in his head as she took the chair. He’s always trying to figure out how he can benefit from any situation, she told herself. Guess that’s why he’s the chief around here.

  “What about ZPG?” Eberly asked.

  Holly took a breath, marshalling her thoughts. “Remember the Mishimas? The couple that froze their fetus, back when we’d just left Earth? They want permission to have their baby.”

  Eberly pursed his lips.

  “If and when they do,” Holly continued, “a lot of women in this community are going to want to have babies.”

  “Then we’d better not grant permission to the Mishimas. Not yet, at least.”

  “You can’t put this issue off forever,” Holly said. “It’s as natural as breathing, Malcolm. Women want to have babies.”

  “Do you want a baby, Holly?”

  She smiled at him. “Don’t try to put me off by making the issue personal. Sooner or later you’re going to have a tidal wave bearing down on you, Malcolm. This ZPG protocol could bury you.”

  He steepled his fingers and tapped their tips lightly in front of his face. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “You surely better,” said Holly. “You can’t keep this genie in a bottle forever.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Holly laughed. “That’s what a father tells his child when he doesn’t want to face the consequences of saying no.”

  “I understand what you’re telling me, Holly,” Eberly said in his sincerest mode. “I appreciate your bringing this to my attention.”

  Holly knew that what he was really saying was: I don’t want to deal with this. Not now. Maybe not ever, if I can get away with it.

  Getting to her feet, Holly realized that if Eberly wouldn’t deal with this issue, she would have to.

  TITAN ALPHA

  Slowly, with an unwavering patience that only a machine could exert, Titan Alpha extracted itself from the quickly refreezing lake. Its biology program reviewed the available sensor data and concluded that the protocellular organisms in the water were being immobilized as the water crystallized into ice. It routed this information to the central processor’s master program. For nine billion nanoseconds the master program halted Alpha’s drive engines as it compared this information against its major objectives and restrictions, and then reviewed its conclusion three times, as required by its programming.

  The organisms were not being killed, it concluded: merely frozen into immobility, their life functions suspended, not extinguished. Even if they were being killed, there was nothing that Titan Alpha could do about it. The action that precipitated this environmental crisis was entirely involuntary. The best plan of action, consistent with all the master program’s
objectives and restrictions, was to exit the area with as little additional environmental damage as possible. Organisms at deeper levels of the lake would be protected from environmental harm once the surface of the lake refroze completely.

  Its drive gears in dead-low reverse, Alpha inched out of the lake, recording sensor data nanosecond by nanosecond. The biology program checked and rechecked the status of the samples obtained from the lake. Satisfied that the samples were safely stored, the biology program reverted to its normal passive review of incoming sensor data.

  Free of the lake at last, Titan Alpha pivoted forty-seven degrees right, engaged its forward gearing, and began a slow, purposeful circumnavigation of the ice lake. The jagged breach it had smashed into the icy surface was quickly refreezing. Off beyond the low rounded hills of ice on the other side of the lake, sluggish dirty orange clouds were precipitating fat drops of liquid ethane onto the rough dark landscape.

  Titan Alpha surged ahead, gathering data, trundling purposively across the rolling, spongy ground as the ethane rainstorm slowly enveloped it.

  7 JANUARY 2096: EVENING

  Urbain received two messages just as he was rising from his desk chair after another exhausting day of frustration and delay.

  His chief of engineering appeared at the door of the office, the expression on his face morose and apprehensive at the same time. Urbain could see it was bad news before the man said a word.

  Dropping back down into his padded desk chair, Urbain uttered a weary, “What now?”

  Without stepping into the office, the engineer said from the doorway, “All twelve satellites are ready for launch, Dr. Urbain.”

  Then why the long face? Urbain wondered. Before he could ask, the engineer added, “But the chief administrator has refused to permit their launch.”

  Urbain could feel his blood pressure zoom. “Refused? He can’t refuse! He hasn’t the authority to prevent the launchings!”

  “I’m afraid he does, sir. Our hands are tied without permission from the habitat’s maintenance and safety departments.”

  Visibly trembling with rage, Urbain glowered at the engineer, who immediately ducked back through the doorway. Urbain could hear his footsteps practically racing away down the corridor outside.

  Before he could think of what to do, his phone chimed and Malcolm Eberly’s handsome face smiled from its screen.

  “We need to talk,” Eberly said, as if he were speaking to some underling. “Please meet me at the entrance to the administration building in ten minutes.” And, click, Eberly’s image winked off before Urbain could reply or even growl.

  Ten minutes later Urbain stood fidgeting impatiently at the entrance to the administration building, some two hundred meters down the main street of Athens from his own science headquarters.

  Eberly appeared at the double-doored entrance, flanked by two other men. One of them Urbain recognized from his meeting in Eberly’s conference room a few days earlier; the other was a stranger to him.

  While Urbain seethed on the sidewalk, Eberly chatted with his two flunkies up at the top of the entrance’s stairs, all smiles and nods and pleasantries. At last the two underlings took their leave and pattered down the four steps of the entranceway, passing Urbain with barely a nod. He’s orchestrated this, Urbain thought, to humiliate me. To put me in my place. To rub my nose in the fact that he has power and I do not.

  Finally Eberly descended the stairs, all smiles, and extended a hand to Urbain. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. Pressing business.”

  Urbain did not deign to take the man’s hand. “You have refused permission to launch my satellites,” he said with cold fury.

  “It’s only a temporary hold,” Eberly said easily, starting to walk down the street. Urbain had no choice but to follow after him.

  “I know it’s upsetting to you,” Eberly said, as they headed down the gently sloping street. “But I’m sure you’ll be able to launch your satellites tomorrow, right on schedule, more or less.”

  Urbain said nothing. It seemed obvious to him that Eberly was after something and he had no intention of saying anything that might give the man an opening. So they walked in leisurely silence as the habitat slowly turned to its night mode, the wide solar windows shuttering, street lamps and windows lighting up. Other people passed them on the street, couples and individuals who smiled and nodded their greetings. Eberly beamed at each and every one of them; Urbain kept a tight-lipped silence.

  At last he couldn’t stand it anymore. As they neared the shore of Athens’s pretty little lake, Urbain said between clenched teeth, “My wife is expecting me for dinner.”

  “Ah,” said Eberly. “Yes, of course. Your wife. Mrs. Urbain is quite a lovely woman. Very lovely.”

  “Why have you refused permission to launch my satellites?” Urbain demanded.

  “Not refused,” Eberly said, looking out across the lake instead of at Urbain. “Delayed permission. And only for a few hours, actually. Only until we’ve had a chance to talk together.”

  “Talk together? Talk about what?”

  Eberly turned back toward the scientist, then seemed to look past his shoulder. Urbain got the impression that the man was searching the area to make certain that no one was close enough to overhear them.

  “My people tell me that it’s a violation of the safety rules to launch all the satellites we have in store and leave nothing in reserve, in case of an emergency.”

  “That is why I asked for the personnel and materials to build an additional dozen satellites!” Urbain snapped.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “And your people have been dragging their feet on my request.”

  “Regrettable,” murmured Eberly.

  Urbain stopped walking and crossed his arms over his chest. “What is this all about?” he demanded. “Why are you opposing me?”

  Eberly turned to face him, his usual smile gone, his face cold and hard. “You want to launch your satellites into orbit around Titan and—”

  “And build another dozen to serve as backups,” Urbain interjected.

  “Yes,” said Eberly. “And I want to mine Saturn’s rings.”

  Urbain blinked with surprise. “Mine the rings?”

  “For ice. Water ice. It’s the most precious commodity in the solar system.”

  “I know,” muttered Urbain, remembering that Eberly had used the idea of mining Saturn’s rings as a ploy during the election campaign. He held out to the habitat’s citizens the glittering promise of becoming wealthy by selling water ice to the other human communities in space.

  “You and the other scientists opposed the idea,” Eberly said. “Especially that Wunderly person.”

  “She discovered indigenous life forms in the rings,” Urbain said, more to himself than to Eberly.

  “I’m told that most of the scientists back on Earth don’t believe her claim.”

  “Nonetheless, the mere possibility that living organisms may exist in the rings means that all commercial activities are forbidden.”

  “The ICU hasn’t issued any prohibition,” said Eberly. “Neither has the IAA.”

  “The International Consortium of Universities has asked for my estimation of the matter before they make a recommendation to the International Astronautical Authority.”

  “I thought as much.”

  “Now I understand,” Urbain said. “You want me to recommend to the ICU that you should be allowed to mine the rings.”

  “We wouldn’t make a dent in them. There’s gadzillions of tons of ice in those rings. We would only take a minuscule fraction of it.”

  Urbain glowered at Eberly with undisguised revulsion. “You want to blackmail me. You will withhold permission to launch my satellites unless I allow you to mine the rings.”

  Eberly smiled thinly. “That isn’t blackmail. The correct word is extortion.”

  “Nevertheless—”

  “Nevertheless, if you want to get those satellites down to Titan where they can search for you
r wandering probe, you’ll have to tell the ICU that it’s perfectly all right for us to mine the rings.”

  Urbain could see from the hard set of Eberly’s jaw that he had no third option.

  8 JANUARY 2096: MORNING

  Malcolm Eberly did not sleep well that night. He awoke slowly, feeling dull and aching, as he did those mornings when he had been in prison in Austria. The vague memory of a bad dream haunted him; the more he tried to remember its specifics the more the details slipped away from him, leaving only a dark sense of dread.

  Why? he asked himself. You have nothing to be afraid of. The Holy Disciples can’t reach you anymore, they can’t send you back to prison. You’re safe here. The people of this habitat respect and admire you.

  But do they? That was what troubled him, he realized. They could vote me out of office in a few months and then where would I be? I’d have to find an ordinary job and live on an ordinary wage.

  That was what had troubled his sleep, Eberly decided. The reelection campaign. He had won the election in the first place on the promise that Goddard’s inhabitants would get rich from mining the rings of Saturn. The scientists—led by Urbain—had opposed the idea, of course. But the voters had supported it wholeheartedly.

  Now it was almost time to register candidates for the next election, and Eberly knew he had done nothing about mining the rings. He’d allowed the idea to fall into hibernation while he set up the new government and got it running with a modicum of efficiency. But now the voters would remember that promise of wealth and demand that Eberly make good on it. And still the scientists opposed him. They were backed by the powers-that-be on Earth.

  My reelection is not assured, Eberly told himself. Urbain won’t run against me, and I’m sure that I’ve neutralized Timoshenko. But someone will stand up to oppose me. Who?

  As he brushed his teeth, showered, shaved, and dressed for the day’s work, his mind kept coming back to the inevitable answer: Pancho Lane. She didn’t come to this habitat merely to see her sister. She coyly refuses to tell anyone how long she intends to stay. Within the week she’ll apply for citizenship and then register as a candidate to oppose me.