Empire Builders

by Ben Bova

  EIGHT

  DEAN INGERSOLL LOOKED up from his desktop display screen and gazed out at the floor of the power plant, two stories below his office window. He smiled to himself. Spend so much time looking at the damned screen, you can forget what the hell the numbers are all about. He got to his feet, a solid square-shouldered man of middle years, slightly graying, his face weathered from spending as much time up in the hills as he could possibly spare from his work and family. The fishing had gone all to hell years ago. Acid rain had devastated the woods and poisoned the lakes. There were the snowmelt streams in the spring, of course, but the state only stocked them once a year and the next day the stream banks were wall-to-wall with once-a-year fishermen who left a midden heap of beer cans and other trash after they drove back to their condos and tract houses. Besides, the past three years in a row there had been so little snow that the streams were too feeble to be stocked. No, Ingersoll went up into the hills to dream about how all the forest and the deer and even the fish would come back one day. He hoped he lived long enough to see it. What was going to make this miracle of regeneration possible was the shining, nearly silent machine he was watching now, smiling like Moses must have when he saw the Promised Land. Beneath his appreciative eyes the fusion power generator hummed to itself as it transmuted deuterium from the sea and helium-three from the Moon into pure energy. Fusion was the hope that made Ingersoll smile. Fusion power was beginning to replace fossil fuels and even the old uranium-based fission plants. The hope of the future, Ingersoll told himself. Maybe my grandchildren will be able to see the woods in bloom again. He took his windbreaker from its peg on the back of his office door and headed out for the parking lot, where his electric bike waited. It was his own design. You pedaled most of the time, using the little electric motor only to help you up hills. Charged up the battery while you were pedaling. Clean and efficient, as long as you lived close enough to the office. The night shift was coming in as he left; all four of them. Ingersoll’s fellow day-shift workers were kibitzing with them as he waved to them all and went out into the late-afternoon sunshine. There’s a fusion generator for you, he said to himself as he squinted through the bare threes at the westering sun, red from the dust and pollution of the city down in the valley. Been shining for five billion years and has at least five billion more to go. Talk about reliability. Don was at the parking-lot gate, trudging slowly back and forth across the entrance with a new sign. NO MORE NUKES, it said, just like the tattered old one Don had carried for so many years that it had become practically illegible. Ingersoll pedaled up to the lone demonstrator and stopped, one booted foot lightly touching the paving. “Hey, Don, how’s it going?” Don Knight was Ingersoll’s age. They had gone to kindergarten together. But Don appeared much older, perhaps because of the long gray beard he had allowed to grow down his chest. He had always looked frail, ascetic, but he had never been sick a day in his life, as far as Ingersoll knew. “Not bad, Dean. Nice day, huh?” Ingersoll looked around at the dead trees and the pale sky beyond them. “Guess it was. I wouldn’t know. Been inside all day.” “Thought I saw a robin,” said Don. “Going home now?” “Might as well. Want a lift in my car? We can stow the bike in the backseat.” Ingersoll shook his head. “You still driving that gas-burner?” “Nope. My royalty check finally came in. I bought a new Barracuda.” “Another gas-burner? Why didn’t you get one of the electrics?” Don made a face from behind his beard. “No zip. No fun to drive.” “Don”—Ingersoll had asked the question hundreds of times before, maybe thousands, but he had never been satisfied with the answer—“why in hell do you still tromp around here? I mean, nobody pays any attention to you at all.” “That’s not entirely so,” Knight replied, not in the least defensive. “Last August the TV news people came out for the anniversary of Hiroshima .” “But this is a fusion generator. It’s got nothing to do with Hiroshima .” “It’s nuclear, isn’t it?” “So’s the Sun, for god’s sake!” Don shook his head. His beard swayed back and forth like a horse’s tail. “My father was anti-nuke. My mother was anti-nuke. I know that there’s hardly any of us left, but somebody’s got to keep the protest going.” “Why? It’s wrong. It’s stupid.” Don did not get angry. Instead, he smiled benignly, like a saint listening to the foibles of a sinner. “Nuclear power is wrong, Dean. Radiation is bad. I don’t care what you think or what the rest of the world thinks. I know what I believe.” Ingersoll shrugged. He had been through this with his old friend since boyhood. “Want to have a beer down at Suder’s?” “Good idea,” said Don. “See you there.” The nuclear engineer got on his bike. The protester ambled to his shining new convertible, tossed his sign in the backseat and took off with a roar and a cloud of exhaust gas. The Yamagata family estate was set on a rugged hillside high above the towers and apartment blocks of Kyoto . Built like a medieval Japanese fortress, the solid yet graceful buildings always made Dan think of poetry frozen into shapes of wood and stone. Much of the inner courtyard was given to an exquisitely maintained sand garden. There were green vistas at every turn, as well: gardens and woods and, off in the distance, a glimpse through tall old trees of Lake Biwa, glittering in the sun. The helicopter settled down, screeching, turbines in the outer courtyard. Dan unbuckled from his seat and was through the hatch before the pilot was able to stop the rotors. Squinting through the dust kicked up by the downwash, Dan saw Nobuhiko waiting at the gate to the inner courtyard. Saito Yamagata’s only legitimate son was wearing a Western business suit of pale blue. His lean, angular face looked solemn as Dan approached him. By damn, he must be nearly thirty-five by now, Dan thought, struck all over again by how much Nobo looked like his father did when they had been building the first solar power satellite. But almost a foot taller. It always surprised Dan to realize that Nobuhiko was taller than he was himself, by several inches. The two men bowed simultaneously, then grasped each other’s hand. “Nobo, how is he?” The younger man made a tight smile. “Drinking sake and complaining about the GEC’s new tax ruling.” “He’s not in pain?” “He doesn’t show any pain.” They walked along a path of stones set in the carefully raked sand garden. Dan noticed that a few new rocks had been placed off in one corner of the garden, by the miniature olive tree he had given Sai many years earlier. Half the year the tree was covered by a transparent plastic dome, heated and protected from the winter wind. “How are you?” Dan asked. Nobo’s nostrils flared slightly. “I am going to miss him.” They removed their shoes at the open door to the main house. A woman in a carnelian red kimono silently took Dan’s travel bag the instant they stepped inside: a servant or a family member, Dan could not tell which. Doesn’t matter all that much, he knew. The servants have all been part of the Yamagata family for generations. He heard Saito from halfway down the hall. The old man’s rasping voice made the shoji screen walls quiver. “Stop looking so morose! I want to see happy faces, not these long sad frowns. Must I bring in a band of geishas to please me? Can’t I have pleasant looks around me on my final day?” Women were scurrying along the hall, some bearing trays of food, others jars of sake. They all looked distressed, close to tears. Two men in business suits backed out of the room at the end of the corridor, bowing so deeply Dan thought they could wipe their noses on their kneecaps. “Where is that idiot who calls himself my personal attorney?” Saito was shouting. “With all these papers I have to sign, why isn’t he here to witness my signature?” The two business suits nearly bumped into Dan and Nobuhiko, they were in such a hurry to get away from their master. Flustered, they bowed again, bobbing up and down several times. Nobo gave them a single curt nod of his head; Dan bowed with more respect. Then they stepped through the open doorway. “Ah! My son and heir,” said Saito. “And Dan, you are here at last.” Saito Yamagata scrambled to his feet and came around the low, paper-cluttered table at which he had been sitting to grip Dan’s outstretched hand. His kimono was deep blue, decorated with white herons. Strangely, Sai looked ten years younger than he had the last time Dan had seen him. The cancer had burned
away the fat that had accumulated over the years of rich living. He was almost as lean as his son, though considerably shorter. Dan searched his old friend’s eyes. There was no pain there, not even anxiety. “Sai . . .” Dan’s voice nearly broke. Surprised at his own emotion, he swallowed tears and forced a cheerful “By damn, Sai, you look better than I do.” “I feel well,” Saito said, gesturing Dan to the low lacquered table. The three of them sat on the tatami floor mats. Saito pushed aside a small mountain of paper and poured sake into delicate little cups that had tiny whistles built into their lips so the drinker could show his appreciation by making as much noise as possible. “Is there anything I can say,” Dan asked, “that will talk you out of this?” Sai drained his cup, whistling thinly, then banged it down on the table. “You would prefer that I die in agony?” “But if you feel so good, why end it now?” “It is only a matter of time before the damnable tumors begin to torture me to death.” Saito’s face showed no fear, only resolution. “I must make an orderly transition of all my holdings, so that my son can step into my place with a minimum of difficulties.” “Yes, but ...” Saito made a noise that might have been a grunt. “The only regret that I have is that my son has not yet seen fit to present me with a grandson. It would be a great relief to me to know that the family will go on for another generation.” Nobuhiko kept his face immobile and said nothing. “However,” Saito sighed heavily, “there are some things that even the most devoted father cannot do for his son.” Dan felt a slight nervousness inching through him. “Sai—what am I supposed to do here?” “There are several documents you must sign. Do you realize we are still in partnership on three separate operations?” “Three? I know there’s the solar power company and the water production factory at Alphonsus. What’s the third?” Saito rummaged through the stack of paper on the corner of the table, muttering, “With all the advances in computers and information storage, still the lawyers demand signatures in ink on sheets made by killing trees.” Dan felt himself grinning. The paperless office had been promised for more than a century, yet there was always more paper. “Ah, here remember this?” Dan took a stapled sheaf of papers from his friend’s hand and flipped through the first two sheets. “By double damn! The asteroid retrieval operation. I haven’t even thought about that since ...” “Since all that trouble with Malik was resolved, ten years ago,”Yamagata said. Nodding, Dan said, “That chunk of rock is still in the orbit we left it in; maybe we ought to go out and start mining it, after all.” “There is not much of a market for asteroidal metals,” Nobo said. “Lunar resources are cheaper.” “Yeah, sure,” Dan said, growing excited. “But the Moon doesn’t have anything heavier than iron except where meteorites have hit, and most of them are buried too deep to be profitable.” “You would like to mine the asteroids?” Saito asked. “We’ll have to, one day.” Dan kneaded his thighs; he was unaccustomed to sitting cross-legged. “There ought to be enough gold and platinum in that one asteroid to pay for a dozen flights.” “The GEC has set a firm price on precious metals,” Nobo pointed out. Dan felt his spirits sink again. “The goddamned GEC. What a pain in the butt those bastards are.” Saito laughed. “You haven’t changed at all, Dan.” Dan grinned back at him. Then he remembered why he was here. “Okay,” he said. “What do you want me to sign?” Ruffling through the papers again, Saito replied, “Our partnerships are personal arrangements, legally. Since Nobuhiko is going to take charge of Yamagata Industries, it will be necessary for you to sign new agreements with him.” They spent the next several minutes in silence, Dan signing almost blindly where Saito indicated, Nobuhiko adding his signature with a felt-tipped pen both in Roman script and Japanese hiragana characters. “Good,” said Saito, when they finished. He glanced out the window at the miniature garden and the reddening sky beyond. “Now we can have dinner and then . . .” “What am I supposed to do?” Dan asked. “How are you going to do it?” Saito smiled at him. “There is nothing for you to do except to wish me a pleasant journey. The doctors will take care of every thing. All is prepared and ready.” Feeling somewhat relieved, Dan asked, “You’re not going to slice your belly open?” For the first time in all the years that Dan had known Saito Yamagata, the man looked surprise. Stunned with Nobuhiko said, “What do you think my father is going to do?” “End it,” Dan replied. “That’s what you told me. Harakiri.” Saito burst into uproarious laughter. Even Nobo laughed until tears streamed down his cheeks. Dan felt like a dolt, staring at them. “You mean you’re not...?” Shaking his head, barely able to control his voice, Saito said, “Dan, my old and dear friend, you’ve always had a flair for the dramatic. I am honored that you were willing to help in a ceremony that is so far removed from your own culture. You are truly a brave man, Dan. And an honored friend.” “Well, what in hell’s going to happen?” “Cryonics,” said Nobuhiko. “I am going to have myself frozen,” Saito explained. “I have not worked in high-technology industries all my life without absorbing some faith in the future.” “Frozen.” Dan felt as numb as if he were on ice. “Yes! My condition is incurable today. But tomorrow, perhaps ten thousand years from tomorrow, medical science will conquer cancer. Then I can be revived and returned to health.” Dan sank his head in his hands. “Cripes almighty. I thought maybe you wanted me to whack your head off with one of those Samurai swords.” Father and son laughed. But after several moments the laughter quieted. “I will be leaving you,” Saito remarked. “Just as though I were going to die. I might never be revived. Or it might be so far in the future that neither of you will be alive. We are truly departing from one another, my friend.” Dan let a grin creep across his face. “I’ll be waiting for you, pal. If it comes to that, I’ll have myself frozen, too. We’ll see the future together, Sai.” “I would like that.” “Damned right!” Dinner was long and filled with laughter and reminiscences. Saito regaled his son with tales of Dan’s first days on the Moon, his battles with his fellow workers, his pursuit of the few women living on that rugged frontier. “Do you still chase the women?” Saito asked. Dan shrugged. They were sitting at a Western-style table on elegant chairs of Philippine mahogany:Yamagata ’s concession to the comfort of his friend. “From what I hear,” Nobuhiko joined in, “the women now pursue you.” Grinning, Dan replied, “They love me for my money.” “You must send a few of them my son’s way,” Saito said, his lips smiling but his eyes more serious. “I despair of the boy ever marrying.” “Wouldn’t you want him to marry a good Japanese woman?” Dan asked. “I want a grandson! I don’t care who the mother is, as long as the child is legitimate.” Nobo said to Dan, “My father doesn’t realize that men of my generation tend to marry much later in life than he did. The women, too. We have plenty of time.” “But I don’t!” All the smiles around the table faded. Saito huffed unhappily. “I apologize,” he said in a low voice. “I have ruined the spirit of felicity with my selfishness.” “I will make you a grandson, Father,” said Nobuhiko. “You may depend on it.” Nodding, Saito said, “I know, my son. I was merely trying to be humorous. I was not cut out to be a comedian.” “As long as we’ve gotten so damned serious,” Dan said, “there’s something that you can check out for me, Nobo.” He told them about Zach Freiberg’s calculations of the greenhouse cliff. “That could be disastrous for Japan !” Saito exclaimed once he understood what Dan was saying. “Half our population lives on the seacoast. If sea levels rise abruptly—a catastrophe? Dan grumbled to himself, Great going, guy. His last damned night on Earth and you tell him half his countrymen are going to be drowned or driven from their homes. Nice way to send off an old friend. Aloud, he said, “It’s only numbers in a computer, Sai. It might not mean anything at all in the real world.” Turning to Nobuhiko, “But I’d like to see if your scientists come up with the same numbers, given Zach’s input.” Nobo said, “I will have the chief of our research section contact Dr. Freiberg first thing tomorrow.” “Good.” Saito pushed his chair back from the table and got to his feet. “It is time,” he said. Wordlessly, Dan and Nobuhiko followed the eld
er Yamagata out into the courtyard. A bright, nearly full Moon was scudding in and out of silvery clouds. Dan could make out pinpoints of light at Aristarchus and Copernicus. Alphonsus, almost dead in the center of the Moon’s lopsided face, was lost in the natural glare. “A beautiful night,” Saito said as they approached a building Dan did not recognize. “If I were a poet I would write a haiku about this night.” They entered the new building. Inside it was like a hospital: shadowless lighting from overhead panels, dry cool atmosphere, a faint antiseptic odor, silence except for the slightest whisper of air coming through the screened ducts up near the ceiling. “My mausoleum,” Saito explained, as he pushed open another door. A team of green-clad medics sprang to their feet and bowed deeply. In the middle of the room stood what looked to Dan like an operating table, with a cluster of big lamps above it and tables of surgical instruments to one side. Along the far wall rested a large metal canister, a dewar big enough to hold a man. A twenty-first-century sarcophagus, Dan thought. Next to it stood a row of cylinders: liquid nitrogen, for freezing Sai’s body. A nurse helped Dan and Nobo into green surgical gowns and sterile masks while the rest of the team stripped Saito naked and laid him on the table. Dan saw the chief doctor bend over his old friend and inject him in the left arm with a hypodermic syringe. Sai beckoned to Dan with his other hand. “These are my last moments,” he said when Dan was beside him. “At least, for a while. Take care of my son, will you, old friend? I ask nothing more of you.” Dan gripped Saito’s hand as if it were his only lifeline. “I’ll look after him as if he were my own son.” Saito smiled weakly. “Good. Good. Perhaps you can find him a suitable wife, too.” Despite himself, a grin broke across Dan’s face. “I’m probably not the best man in the world to give marriage advice.” “Better than you think, Daniel. You have always been a much better man than you believe yourself to be.” Dan felt at a loss for words. “Please . . . send Nobo to me now.” Dan stepped away and gestured Nobuhiko to his father’s side. The two spoke briefly in tones too low for Dan to make out. Then the son let go of his father’s hand. It dropped to the sheeted tabletop lifelessly. “It is done,” said the chief medic. “I declare him clinically dead.” One of the assistants bowed deeply to Nobuhiko and presented a legal form attached to a clipboard for his signature.