Mercury gt-14

by Ben Bova

  “I know,” he repeated. “I know.” But what he heard in her words was, If it weren’t for Mance I could fall in love with you, Victor.

  Elliott Danvers knew that the elders of the New Morality were testing him. He had sweated and struggled through divinity school, accepting the snickers and snide jokes about a punch-drunk ex-prizefighter trying to become a minister of God. He had kept his temper, even when some of his fellow students’ practical jokes turned vicious. I can’t get into a fight, he would tell himself. I’d be accused of attempted manslaughter if I hit one of them, and they know it. That’s why they feel free to torment me. And I’m not clever enough to outwit them. Be silent. Be patient with those who persecute you. Turn the other cheek. This nonsense of theirs is a small price to pay for setting my life on a better path.

  He graduated near the bottom of his class, but he graduated. Danvers was a man who drove doggedly onward to complete whatever task he was burdened with. He had learned as a child in the filth-littered back alleys of Detroit that you took what came and you dealt with it, whether it was the punches of a faster, harder-hitting opponent or the thinly veiled contempt of a teacher who’d be happy to flunk you.

  His reward for graduating without getting into any trouble was a ministry. He was now the Reverend Elliott Danvers, D.D. His faculty advisor congratulated him on bearing all the crosses that his playful classmates and vindictive teachers had hung on his broad shoulders.

  “You’ve done well, Elliott,” said his advisor, a pleased smile on his gray, sagging face. “There were times when I didn’t think you’d make it, but you persevered and won the final victory.”

  Danvers knew that his academic grades had been marginal, at best. He bowed his head humbly and murmured, “I couldn’t have made it without your help, sir. And God’s.”

  His advisor laid a liver-spotted hand on Danvers’s bowed head. “My blessings on you, my son. Wherever the New Morality sends you, remember that you are doing God’s work. May He shower His grace upon you.”

  “Amen,” said Danvers, with true conviction.

  So they sent him to this strange, outlandish place in the mountains of Ecuador. It’s a test, Danvers kept telling himself. The elders are testing my resolve, my dedication, my ability to win converts to God.

  Ciudad de Cielo was a little prefab nest of unbelievers, scientists and engineers who were at best agnostics, together with local workers and clerks who practiced a Catholic faith underlain with native superstitions and idol worship.

  Worst of all, though, they were all engaged in an enormous project that smacked of blasphemy. A tower that reached into the sky. A modern, high-technology Tower of Babel. Danvers was certain it was doomed to fail. God would not permit mortal men to succeed in such a work.

  Then he remembered that he had been placed here to do God’s work. If this tower is to fail, I must be the agent of its destruction. God wills it. That’s why the New Morality sent me here.

  Danvers knew that his ostensible task was to take care of people’s souls. But hardly anyone wanted his help. The natives seemed quite content with their hodge-podge of tribal rituals and Catholic rites. Most of the scientists and engineers simply ignored him or regarded him as a spy sent by the New Morality to snoop on them. A few actively baited him, but their slings and barbs were nothing compared to the cruelty of his laughing classmates.

  One man, though, seemed troubled enough to at least put up with him: Victor Molina, a close assistant of the chief of this tremendous project. Danvers watched him for weeks, certain that Molina was showing the classic signs of depression: moodiness, snapping at his coworkers, almost always taking his meals alone. He looked distinctly unhappy. The only time he seemed to smile was on those rare occasions when he had dinner in the restaurant with the project chief and the woman he was living with.

  Living in sin, Danvers thought darkly. He himself had given up all thought of sex, except for the fiendish dreams that were sent to tempt him. No, he told himself during his waking hours. It was the desire for women and money that almost led you to your destruction in the ring. They broke your hand, they nearly destroyed your soul because of your indecent desires. Better to pluck out your eye if it offends you. Instead, Danvers used modern pharmacology to keep his libido stifled.

  He approached Molina carefully, gradually, knowing that the man would reject or even ridicule an overt offer of help.

  During lunchtime the city’s only restaurant offered a buffet. After thinking about it for weeks, Danvers used it as an opening ploy with Molina.

  “Do you mind if I sit with you?” he asked, holding his lunch-laden tray in both hands. “I hate to eat alone.”

  Molina looked up sourly, but then seemed to recognize the minister. Danvers did not use clerical garb; he wore no collar. But he always dressed in a black shirt and slacks.

  “Yeah, why not?” Molina said. He was already halfway through his limp sandwich, Danvers saw.

  Suppressing an urge to compliment the scientist on his gracious manners, Danvers sat down and silently, unobtrusively said grace as he began unloading his tray. They talked about inconsequential things, the weather, the status of the project, the sad plight of the refugees driven from coastal cities such as Boston by the greenhouse flooding.

  “It’s their own frigging fault. They had plenty of warning,” Molina grumbled, finishing his sandwich. “Years of warning. Nobody listened.”

  Danvers nodded silently. No contradictions, he told himself. You’re here to win his confidence, not to debate his convictions.

  Over the next several weeks Danvers bumped into Molina often enough so that they started to be regular luncheon partners. Their conversations grew less guarded, more open.

  “Astrobiology?” Danvers asked at one point. “That’s what you want to do?”

  Molina grinned wickedly at him. “Does that shock you?”

  “Not at all,” Danvers replied, trying to hide his uneasiness. “There’s no denying that scientists have found living organisms on other worlds.”

  “Even intelligent creatures,” Molina jabbed.

  “If you mean those extinct beings on Mars, they might have been connected in some way with us, mightn’t they?”

  “At the cellular level, maybe. The DNA of the extant Martian microbial life is different from ours, though, even though it has a similar helical structure.”

  Danvers wasn’t entirely sure of what his luncheon companion was saying, but that didn’t matter. He said, “It doesn’t seem likely that God would create an intelligent species and then destroy it.”

  “That’s what happened.”

  “Don’t you think that the Martians were a branch of ourselves? After all, the two planets are—”

  “About sixty million kilometers apart, at their closest,” Molina snapped.

  “Yes, but Martian meteorites have been found on Earth.”

  “So?”

  “So Mars and Earth have had exchanges in the past. Perhaps the human race began on Mars and moved to Earth.”

  Molina guffawed so loudly that people at other tables turned toward them. Danvers sat silently, trying to keep a pleasant face.

  “Is that what you believe?” Molina asked at last, between chuckles.

  “Isn’t it possible?” Danvers asked softly.

  “Possible for creatures with a stone age culture to build spacecraft to take them from Mars to Earth? No way!”

  Molina was still chuckling when they left the restaurant. No matter, Danvers thought. Let him laugh. I’m winning his trust. Soon he’ll be unburdening his soul to me.

  As the weeks flowed into one another, Danvers began to understand that winning Molina’s trust would not be that easy. Beneath his smug exterior Victor Molina was a desperately unhappy man. Despite his high standing in the skytower project, he was worried about his career, his future. And something else. Something he never spoke of. Danvers thought he knew what it was: Lara Tierney, the woman who was living with Bracknell.

  Danvers
felt truly sorry for Molina. By this time he regarded the biologist as a friend, the only friend he had in this den of idolaters and atheists. Their relationship was adversarial, to be sure, but he was certain that Molina enjoyed their barbed exchanges as much as he himself did. Sooner or later he’ll break down and tell me what’s truly troubling him.

  Many, many weeks passed before Danvers realized there was something about Molina that was jarringly out of place. What’s Victor doing here, on this damnable project? Why is a biologist involved in building the skytower?

  NEW KYOTO

  Nobuhiko Yamagata stood at his office window gazing out at the city spread out far below him. Lake Biwa glittered in the distance. A flock of large birds flapped by, so close that Nobu inadvertently twitched back, away from the window.

  He was glad no one was in the office to see his momentary reaction. It might look like cowardice to someone; unworthy weakness, at least.

  The birds were black gulls, returning from their summer grounds far to the north. A sign that winter is approaching, Nobuhiko knew. Winter. He grunted to himself. There hasn’t been enough natural snow to ski on since my father died.

  Nobu looked almost like a clone of his illustrious father: a few centimeters taller than Saito, but stocky, short-limbed, his face round and flat, his brown eyes hooded, unfathomable. The main difference between father and son was that while Saito’s face was lined from frequent laughter, the lines on Nobu’s face came from worry.

  He hadn’t heard from his father for more than a year now. The elder Yamagata had gone into a fit of regret over the killings out in the Asteroid Belt and become a true lama, full of holy remorse and repentance. It’s as if he’s died again, Nobu thought. He’s cut off all contact with the world outside his lamasery, even with his only son.

  The clock chimed once. No matter, Nobuhiko thought as he turned from the window. I can carry my burdens without Father’s help. Squaring his shoulders, he said to the phone on his desk, “Call them in.”

  The double doors to his office swung inward and a half-dozen men in nearly identical dark business suits came in, each bearing a tiny gold flying crane pin in his lapel, each bowing respectfully to the head of Yamagata Corporation. They took their places at the long table abutting Nobu’s desk like the stem of the letter T. No women served on this committee. There were several women on Yamagata’s board of directors, but the executive committee was a completely male domain.

  There was only one item on their agenda: the skytower.

  Nobuhiko sat in his high-backed leather desk chair and called the meeting to order. They swiftly dispensed with formalities such as reading the minutes of the previous meeting. They all knew why they were here.

  Swiveling slightly to his right, Nobu nodded to the committee’s chairman. Officially, Nobuhiko was an ex-officio member of the executive committee, present at their meetings but without a vote in their deliberations. It was a necessary arrangement, to keep outsiders from accusing that Yamagata Corporation was a one-man dictatorship. Which it very nearly was. Nobu might not have had a vote on this committee, but the committee never voted against his known wishes.

  “We are here to decide what to do about the skytower project,” said the chairman, his eyes on Nobuhiko.

  “It is progressing satisfactorily?” Nobu asked, knowing full well the answer.

  “They are ahead of schedule,” said the youngest member of the committee, down at the end of the conference table.

  Nobuhiko let out a patient sigh.

  “When that tower goes into operation,” fumed one of the older men, “it will knock the bottom out of the launch services market.”

  One of Nobu’s coups, once he took the reigns of the corporation from his father, had been to acquire the American firm Masterson Aerospace Corporation. Masterson had developed the Clippership launch vehicle, the rocket that reduced launch costs from thousands of dollars per pound to hundreds, the doughty little, completely reusable vehicle that not only opened up orbital space to industrial development, but also served—in a modified version—as a hypersonic transport that carried passengers to any destination on Earth in less than an hour.

  By acquiring Masterson, Yamagata gained a major share not only of the world’s space launching market, but of long-distance air travel, as well.

  “One tower?” scoffed one of the other elder members from across the conference table. “How badly can one tower cut into the launch services market? How much capacity can it have?”

  The other man closed his eyes briefly, as if seeking strength to deal with a fool. “It is not merely the one tower. It is the first skytower. If it succeeds, there will be others.”

  Nobu agreed. “And why pay for Clipperships to go into orbit when you can ride a skytower for a fraction of the cost?”

  “Exactly so, sir.”

  “The skytower is a threat, then?”

  “Not an immediate threat. But if it is successful, within a few years such towers will spring up all along the equator.”

  “Fortunate for us,” said another, smiling, “that most of the equator is over deep ocean instead of land.”

  No one laughed.

  “How much of our profit comes from Clippership operations?” Nobuhiko asked.

  “Not as much from space launch services as from air transportation here on Earth,” said the comptroller, seated on Yamagata’s left.

  Nobu said softly, “The numbers, please.”

  The comptroller tapped hurriedly on the palmcomp in his hand. “It’s about eight percent. Eight point four, so far this year. Last fiscal year, eight point two.”

  “It’s pretty constant.”

  “Rising slightly.”

  Nobu folded his hands across his vest, a gesture he remembered his father using often.

  “Can we afford to lose eight percent of our profits?” asked the youngster.

  “Not if we don’t have to,” said the comptroller.

  “We own part of this skytower project, don’t we?” Nobu asked.

  “We bought into it, yes. We have a contract to supply engineers and other technical staff and services. But it’s only a minor share of their operation, less than five percent. And the contract will terminate once they begin operations.”

  Nobu felt his brows rise. “We won’t share in their operating profits?”

  The comptroller hesitated. “Not unless we negotiate a new contract for maintenance or other services, of course.”

  “Of course,” Nobuhiko muttered darkly. Sweat broke out on the comptroller’s forehead.

  The office fell silent. Then the director of the corporation’s aerospace division cleared his throat and said, “May I point out that all of our discussion is based on the premise that the skytower will be successful? There is no guarantee of that.”

  Nobuhiko understood him perfectly. The skytower could be a failure if we take action to make certain it fails. Looking around the conference table, he saw that each and every member of the executive committee understood the unspoken decision.

  CIUDAD DE CIELO

  Elliott Danvers was not brilliant, but he was not stupid, either. And he possessed a stubborn determination that allowed him to push doggedly onward toward a goal when others would find easier things to do.

  Why is a biologist working on the skytower project? When he asked Molina directly, the man became reticent and evasive.

  “What’s a New Morality minister doing here, in Ecuador?” Molina would counter.

  When Danvers frankly explained that his mission was to provide spiritual comfort to all who sought it, Molina cocked an eyebrow at him. “Aren’t you here to snoop on us, Elliott?” Molina asked, good-naturedly. “Aren’t your superiors in Atlanta worried that this project is a modern Tower of Babel?”

  “Nonsense,” Danvers sputtered.

  “Is it? My take on the New Morality is that they don’t like change. They’ve arranged North America just the way they like it, with themselves in control of the government—”


  “Control of the government!” Danvers was truly shocked at that. “We’re a religious organization, not a secular one.”

  “So was the Spanish Inquisition,” Molina murmured.

  Despite their differences, they remained friends of a sort. Bantering, challenging friends. Danvers knew quite well that the only other man in Sky City that Molina regarded as a friend was the project director, Mance Bracknell. But something had come between them. No, not something, Danvers thought. Someone. Lara Tierney.

  Molina invited Danvers to have dinner with him from time to time. Once, they joined Bracknell and Lara on a quick jaunt to Quito and dined in the best restaurant Danvers had ever seen. It didn’t take long for Danvers to understand Molina’s problem. Before the main courses were served he realized that Molina was in love with her, but she loved Bracknell. The eternal triangle, Danvers thought. It has caused the ruin of many a dream.

  For himself, Danvers treasured Molina’s company. Despite his atheistic barbs, Molina was the only close friend Danvers had made in this city of godless technicians and dark-skinned mestizos who worshipped their old blood-soaked gods in secret.

  Yet the question nagged at him. Why is Molina here? What can a biologist do for this mammoth project?

  After many weeks of asking everyone he knew, even men and women he had barely been introduced to, the path to understanding suddenly came to him, like a revelation from on high.

  The woman. Lara Tierney. She is the key to Molina’s presence here. To get him to tell the truth, Danvers realized, to open up his inner secrets, I must use his love for this woman. That’s his vulnerable spot. Still, he wavered, reluctant to cause the pain that he knew Molina would feel. Danvers prayed long hours kneeling by his bedside, seeking guidance. Do I have the right to do this? he asked. The only answer he received was a memory of his mentor’s words: Remember that you are doing God’s work.

  And then the revelation came to him. The way to promotion, the path to advancement within the New Morality, was by stopping this godless project. That’s why they sent me here, he realized. To see if I can prevent these secularists from succeeding in their blasphemous project. That’s how they’re testing me.