by David Brin
“But our solar cells are really more than adequate. We could sell our excess to Earth, if they could only agree on a way to receive it.”
She looked a little crestfallen. “Keep at it, though,” I said for morale’s sake. “Maybe there’s a way to turn these electrical phenomena to our advantage. We ought to have a break coming about now.” I tried to sound as if I believed it. Emily brightened a bit.
The elevator started rising, on its way up here to A Deck. I had about an hour to get ready—to shave and shower away the aroma of my garden. It probably wouldn’t do any good, but I’d want to look presentable to the bad news boys.
4
We had our meeting in the lounge. Susan Sorbanes, our business manager, took her place to my left, Don Ishido to my right. There were no chairs, but we stood at rest in the feeble gravity, a table made of spun aluminum fibers between us and the federal officials. Our backs were to the giant quartz window.
Across the table, Colonel Robert Bahnz, the new DOD representative, floated impassively. He had said hardly a word, apparently content to leave the talking to Henry Woke, the NASA official who had come up in Pacifica with him. Bahnz stood at a slight angle, which had to take a certain amount of work. Was it his way of showing his contempt for the Tank Farm’s famous gravity, so unlike the free-fall conditions in the government’s shiny little Space Stations?
“So you people have decided to hit us on two fronts at once, Dr. Woke?” Susan spoke softly, but her voice had a cutting edge. “You’re going to attack the Farm’s man-rating, and you’re cutting back on our share of the residual propellants and water.”
Woke was a middle-aged bureaucrat who must have convinced himself long ago that space visits were a route to advancement in NASA. I could tell by his faint green pallor that he was doped up against space sickness.
“Now, Dr. Sorbanes,” he said. “Safety’s been an issue ever since a crewman fell from B Deck two years ago. As a quasi-federal institution, Colombo Station must adhere to man-rating policy. That’s all we are interested in.”
“We’ve had a good safety record for ten years, except for that one incident,” Susan replied. “And Congress gave us exemptions back in ’89, you’ll remember.”
“Yes, but those exemptions expire this year. And I think you’ll find this Congress less willing to take chances with the safety of its citizens in orbit.”
“I don’t see why we have to go the gold-plated route NASA and DOD used in the Space Stations,” Susan said acidly. “All that approach accomplished was to slow you down by a decade, and almost turn the country off on space for good!”
Woke shook his head. “Perhaps, Dr. Sorbanes. Indeed, it’s because NASA has seen the value of the Tank Farm approach that we had last year’s unfortunate misunderstanding regarding tank deliveries. Since Stations Two and Three began operating their own propellant recovery units and aluminum smelters, we’ve found that we need the leftover tanks as much as you do. We’re all going to have to share. That’s what it comes down to.”
Don Ishido shook his head. “That’s a load of bull! Our contract only guarantees us a third of the tanks launched, in return for which we use the slingshot effect to boost government and commercial cargoes into higher orbits, and provide shuttles like Pacifica with temporary angular momentum loans. That leaves you with two thirds of the tanks to do with as you wish!
“Let’s face it. It’s not the tanks that are causing the problem. It’s you stealing our water!”
I cleared my throat. It was time to step in, before this broke down completely.
“I think what Mr. Ishido means, Dr. Woke, is that Colombo Station depends on delivery of at least fifty tons of residual propellants a year, for life support, chemistry, and especially to provide oxydizer for our aluminum engines. Without those engines, our orbit will decay, and we’ll be forced to use the extremely inefficient method of flinging away tanks to maintain altitude. The Farm will cease accumulating mass, and our value to our investors will disappear… this just as we were about to show a real profit for the first time.”
Woke shrugged. “Of course we have no intention of cutting off the water and oxygen you need to maintain life support. No one even considered such a thing.”
Damn right, I thought. Nothing would alienate the public like that. But trimming our ration, forcing us to spend tanks as fast as we get them— they could pull that off without trouble.
Yeah. We had almost closed a deal with some big Earthside chemical houses to produce large amounts of low-g biochemicals on B Deck, when NASA Station Two undercut us by $2 million. But the killer had really been the rumors over our water situation. The investors had shied away from the uncertainty.
It hurt like hell. We were just short of making it. We had gobs of solar power, but the Earthsiders couldn’t agree on how to receive it. With water and our giant tanks we could run a tremendous chemical plant, but timid companies stopped just short of buying in. We’d planned to set up a space hotel and sell vacations for scores of tourists at a time, but we were stymied by this “man-rating” straw man.
Our ecological recycling system had us ninety-five percent independent of Earth resupply. Our smelter was operational and waiting for customers: We had developed the aluminum engine.
But all anyone wanted to buy was the slingshot effect. We were a glorified switching yard in orbit. And the new government clearly wanted us to stay just that.
Woke kept up his soothing apologia. I had heard it all before. I wasn’t the one to fight him, anyway. That was up to our lawyers back in Washington. My job was to come up with miracles. And right now they appeared to be in short supply.
The crewcut DOD man, Bahnz, was staring at something over my shoulder. I shifted a little to look.
Out on A Deck they were readying a Defense cargo for launch. They had peeled away the blue shrouding and set the cylinders near the edge of the deck. At the right moment the package would slip off into the starry field below us, falling away from Earth in a steep ellipse. At apogee a motor would cut in, carrying the spysat the rest of the way to geosynchronous orbit.
Bahnz had a gleam in his eyes as he observed the preparations.
You want my Farm, don’t you? I thought. You peepers fought us in the beginning, but now you see we’re the one thing keeping us ahead of the other nations in space. Now you want my Tank Farm for your own.
Two years ago, they had tried to get us to store “strategic assets” in the A Deck tanks. I threatened to resign, and the Foundation found the guts to refuse. That’s when the troubles had started.
Bahnz noticed my look, and smiled a knowing smile.
He thinks he holds all the aces, I thought. And he might be right.
There were some old SF stories I read when I was a kid, about space colonies rebelling against Earth bureaucracies. I had a brief fantasy of leading my crew in a “tea party,” and kicking these two jerks off our sovereign territory.
Bahnz saw the peaceful smile on my face, and must have wondered what caused it.
Of course the rebellion idea was absurd. It wasn’t what any of us wanted, and it wasn’t practical. We might be ninety-five percent free of Earth logistical support, but that last few percent would be with us for a hundred years. Anyway, without either water or new tanks every year, Mother Earth’s atmosphere would quickly pull us down.
While Don and Susan kept our side of the charade, I looked out the window, thinking.
Next year would be solar maximum, when the coronal ion wind would come sleeting in from the active sun. The upper atmosphere would heat up and bloat outward, like a high tide dragging at our knees. At solar max we could lose twenty kilometers of altitude in a single year. Maybe much more.
Our investors would be caving in within eighteen months. Even the Italians would soon be begging the U.S. administration to make a deal.
For an instant I saw the Earth not as a broad vague mass overhead, but as a spinning globe of rock, rushing air, and water, of molten core and invisi
ble fields, reaching out to grapple with the tides that filled space. It was eerie. I could almost feel the Tank Farm, like a double-ended kite, coursing through those invisible fields, its tethers cutting the lines of force—like the slowly turning bushings of a dynamo.
That was what young Emily Testa had compared it to. A dynamo. We could draw power from our motion if we ever had to—buying electricity and paying for it in orbital momentum. It was a solution in search of a problem, for we already had all the power we needed.
The image wouldn’t leave my mind, though. I could almost see the double-ended kite, right there in front of me… a dynamo. We didn’t need a dynamo. What we needed was the opposite. What we needed was…
“I think we should recess,” I said suddenly, interrupting Dr. Woke in the middle of a sentence. It didn’t matter. My job wasn’t diplomacy. It was miracle-working.
“Susan, would you show our guests to some rooms? We’ll all meet again over supper in my cabin, if that’s okay with you gentlemen?”
Woke nodded resignedly. I think he had hoped to go back down right away in Pacifica. Colonel Bahnz smiled. “Dr. Rutter, will you be serving Slingshot with dinner?”
“It’s traditional,” I replied, anxious to get rid of the man.
“Good. It’s one of the reasons I came up today.” Bahnz’s grin seemed friendly enough, but there was an undertone to his voice that I understood only too well.
I waited until they had left, then turned to Ishido. “Don, go fetch Emily Testa and meet me in the power room in five minutes.”
“Sure, chief. But what…?”
“There’s something I want to try. Now shake a leg!”
I kicked off down the hallway, looking for a computer terminal. I don’t think I touched the floor twice in fifty yards.
5
For all of our Spartan lifestyle, there are a few places the crew had tried to make “posh.” One is the main lounge. Another is the “Captain’s Cabin.” My digs were given that name when the Foundation first had the idea of setting up a tourist hotel. They figured making a big deal out of dinner in my quarters would give a visit more of the flavor of a Caribbean cruise.
The aluminum walls had been anodized different pastel shades. The gold carpet had been woven from converted tank insulator material. And in wall niches there stood a dozen vacuum-spun aluminum-wire sculptures created by Dave Crisuellini, our smelter chief and resident artist.
The Captain’s Table was made of oak, brought up at six hundred dollars a pound for one purpose only, to look impressive.
Henry Woke sat to my right as the volunteer stewards served us from steaming casserole dishes. Next to Woke sat Susan Sorbanes. Across from them were Emily Testa, nervously fingering her fork as her eyes darted about the room, and Ishido. Colonel Bahnz sat across from me.
Woke looked considerably less green around the gills. His eyes widened at the soufflé a waiter laid in front of him. “I’m impressed! I’d heard that a hundredth of a gee is enough to enable the inner ear to come to equilibrium, but I hadn’t believed. Now, to be able to eat from plates! With forks!” He spoke around a hot mouthful. “This is delicious! What is it?”
“Well, most of our food is prepared from termite flour and caked algae…”
Woke paused chewing. Susan and Ishido shared a look and a smile.
“…however,” I went on, “recently we have begun raising our own wheat, and chickens for eggs.”
Woke looked uncomfortable for another moment, then apparently decided to accept the ambiguity. “Ingenious,” he said, and resumed eating.
“We have a number of ingenious people here,” Susan said. “Many of our crew served aboard the Space Stations, and came here when NASA went through cutbacks and furloughed them.
“Others were hired by the Foundation because of their varied talents. Emily here,” she said, smiling at young Testa, “is a fine example of the sort of colonist we’re looking for.”
Emily blushed and looked down at her plate. She was very tired after the last few hours, as we had furiously experimented with the Farm’s power system.
Colonel Bahnz squeezed an aluminum-foil beer bottle, his second. “You’re right about one thing, Dr. Sorbanes,” the DOD man said. “The U.S. government has subsidized this venture in many hidden ways. Most of your personnel got their training at taxpayer expense.”
“Have we ever failed in our gratitude, Colonel?” Susan spoke with pure sincerity. And to Ishido and I, the answer was obviously no. We tank farmers think of ourselves as custodians of a trust.
But Bahnz clearly disagreed. “Do you call it gratitude, using lawyers’ tricks to put restrictions on your country’s use of valuable resources when she needs them most?”
“We believe,” Susan said, “that need will be greatest in the future. And we plan to be here, with the key to a treasure chest, when the time comes.”
“Dreams of glory.” Bahnz sneered. “I know all about them. Tell me about lunar mines and space colonies and other fairy tales, Dr. Sorbanes. And I’ll tell you about Low Earth Orbit, now filled with garbage and bombs and little cameras from half a hundred bickering, hungry little nuclear powers, all blaming each other for a world economy in a thirty-year skid!
“Have you any idea what would happen if even one of these arrogant little ‘spacefaring nations’ decided to ignite a small enhanced radiation device in that cloud of communications satellites overhead? You know as well as I how dependent we are on orbital datalinks. And you know the only way to defend those links is to put our satellites inside big Faraday cages.”
Bahnz struck the nearby aluminum wall. “This is what your country needs, Dr. Sorbanes. This tank and others like it! And the propellants for upper-stage launches. And we need this station, for the momentum transfer you now almost give away to anyone who wants it!”
Susan was gearing up for a major rebuttal. I hurried to interrupt. “People, please! Let’s try to relax, if only for a little while. Colonel Bahnz, you seem to like Slingshot. That’s your third helping.”
Bahnz had plucked another bottle from a passing steward. “Why not?” He shrugged. “It costs a hundred bucks a pint on Earth. It’s damn fine beer.”
“Dr. Ishido is our brewmaster.”
Bahnz lifted the bottle and bowed his head in silent tribute to Don. An aficionado of beer need say no more; Ishido nodded at the colonel’s compliment.
“Director Rutter,” Bahnz said as he turned to me, “Dr. Woke and I will be leaving within two hours. I have held Pacifica to please you, but our business here is done. If you have anything more to say, you can speak through your Foundation’s Washington office.”
Bahnz was obviously the type that got straight to the point, especially when he had had a bit to drink. He showed no trace of that irreverent streak I had known in the officers and officials of the early nineties. Those fellows had been almost like co-conspirators, helping nurture the Farm along in a time of tight budgets and dubious senators.
“Two hours, Colonel? Yes. That should be enough time. Just remind Pacifica’s crew to check their inertial tracking units before drop-off. There may be a few acceleration anomalies.”
Bahnz snorted. “So? You plan to fire up your famous aluminum engines to impress us? Big deal. Go ahead and use up your reserve water, Rutter. You’ve got enough oxidizer to run them for maybe two months; then you’ll start flinging mass away to keep orbit.”
Ishido started to rise. At a sharp look from me he subsided.
“Why, Colonel,” I said smoothly. “You sound down-right happy over our predicament.”
The crewcut officer slapped the oak table. “Damned straight! Let’s lay it out, Rutter. I think you’re a bunch of unpatriotic dreamers who’d do anything rather than serve your country. July’s court judgment was the last straw.
“We’re going to live up to the contract, all right. You’ll get your tanks, and enough water to keep from making martyrs of you. But you’ll start spending more mass to stay in orbit than you take
in. You profits will disappear. Then see how fast your investors force you out as director!
“Pretty soon, Rutter, you’ll be buying Slingshot at a hundred clams a pint!” Bahnz emptied the squeeze bottle with a flourish.
I shrugged and turned back to my meal. The second worst thing you could do to a man like Bahnz was to ignore him. I intended to do the very worst thing within an hour and a half.
6
The face on the screen was flushed and angry. In the dimness of Arnold Deck Control Room, I could tell the man was upset.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Rutter?”
I had made Pacifica wait for fifteen minutes while the control crew made a show of looking for me, then appeared, to look back at Bahnz with an expression of beatific innocence.
“What seems to be the problem, Colonel?”
“You know damned well what the problem is!” the man shouted. “Colombo Station is under acceleration!”
“So? I told you over dinner to have your crew check their inertial units. You knew that meant we would be maneuvering.”
“But you’re thrusting at two microgees! Your aluminum engines can’t push five thousand tons that hard!”
I shrugged.
“And anyway, we can’t find your thrust exhaust! We look for a rocket trail, and find nothing but a slight electron cloud spreading from A Deck!”
“Nu?” I shrugged again. “Colonel, you force me to conclude that we are not using our aluminum engines. It is curious, no?”
Bahnz looked as if he wanted some nails to chew—threepenny, at least. Behind him I could see the crew of Pacifica, crouched over their instruments in order to stay out of his way.
“Rutter, I don’t know what you’re up to, but we can see from here that your entire solar cell array has been turned sunward. You have no use for that kind of power! Are you going to tell me what’s going on? Or do I come back up there and make myself insufferable until you do?”
