"But you understand now,” Richard said.
"I acknowledge the impulse to find joy in another's defeat. I still do not understand why the loss of brave men is a cause for celebration."
The ambassador's language was formal, his face unsmiling, but Richard had a sense that the man was sincere. Richard had to remind himself that a diplomat's job was to seem sincere, even when lying for his government.
But Richard wasn't sure what the ambassador had to lie about.
"I have been instructed to inform your government of our discovery. I am to ask for several things in trade in regards to the whereabouts, things I know your government will not grant. It is a propaganda ploy on the part of my government. They can go to the media in both of our countries, claim criminal disinterest on the part of the United States, and say that your country is unwilling to bargain with the Chinese even when something valuable is at stake."
Richard threaded his hands together, mimicking the ambassador's position. “The location, while a curiosity, isn't of value to my government."
"You and I both know this, and so does my government, but our people do not. The propaganda ploy would work in our favor."
Richard nodded. He could see that.
"I have come to you, ex parte, to see if you can make a real and valuable trade to my government for this information. A bit of technology, perhaps, or permission to study the blueprints of one of your larger ships. We would give you the coordinates of the lost astronaut and, should our governments agree, we would send one of our own people with you, to learn with you."
Richard felt unusually warm. His staff had been right and he had been wrong.
"Ambassador,” Richard said, “I must clear any such trade through my government."
"They will deny you permission."
"Yes, I know. I'm not even supposed to discuss business with your people. We have no formal trade agreement."
The ambassador nodded. “We can keep this between us."
"We can't,” Richard said. “Particularly if one of your people joins us on the mission."
"Perhaps we can drop that point,” the ambassador said. “And work through mutual friends."
Mutual friends. Richard had heard of that kind of approach before. Working with a neutral country that would negotiate the deal on both sides.
"Why weren't you willing to take this to my government?” Richard said. “They could have contacted me."
"Ah,” the ambassador said. “But I did. I went to the government first and asked them to contact you, claiming time was of the essence. At first they refused. Then they promised they would take care of things. When I did not hear from you within the week, I called you directly."
A drop of sweat ran down the side of Richard's face. “Whom did you contact?"
The ambassador named names.
"I'll see if they contacted me and somehow I did not get the message."
The ambassador smiled. “There is no need to save face for your government. We do not trust each other. I doubt they contacted you."
"Still,” Richard said. “I'd like to check. I'd also like to work through official channels wherever possible."
"Do what you must,” the ambassador said. “But we know where your man is now. We cannot guarantee knowledge of where he'll be six months from now. We have no real interest in tracking him."
"I understand,” Richard said.
Time was of the essence. The ambassador had not lied.
* * * *
Of course no one had called any of Richard's companies or had contacted his own personal staff. But then, Richard had only the ambassador's word that the man had even contacted the U.S. government. And while Richard had believed the ambassador about his memories, he was not willing to believe him in business.
Richard had an assistant track down the person whom the embassy had contacted within the U.S. Government. She was able to confirm that the contact had occurred and been ignored. She asked him if he wanted to make an appointment with the State Department Undersecretary who had handled (or at least received) the contact.
"No,” Richard said. “Make me an appointment with the President."
* * * *
The President wouldn't see him. She had pressing business elsewhere, probably aware of the fact that he hadn't contributed as much to her campaign as he had to her predecessor's.
Still, he was the richest man in the country. He couldn't be ignored.
So the next day, he sat in the office of the Secretary of State. The National Security Advisor sat to his left. The head of NASA to his right.
Richard told all three about his meeting with the Chinese ambassador, and after hearing the expected rigmarole about protocol, they got to the heart of the matter.
"I am going to retrieve this astronaut,” Richard said. “The question is whether or not I'll do it with your approval."
They had already jousted over the Espionage Act and the Favored Nations Agreements. Richard hadn't budged from his position.
The Secretary of State, a slender woman of Japanese-American descent, pretended sympathy. The National Security Advisor, a tough older woman with a touch of Margaret Thatcher in her bearing, had already decided Richard was an enemy of the state. And the head of NASA, a thin former astronaut who helped build the Moon Base, was, surprisingly, on Richard's side.
"What can you give them that's not proprietary?” he asked.
Richard shrugged. “They haven't really made a specific request. I figured they would on my next visit."
"You can't give them any space-related technologies,” the National Security Advisor said. “And you most certainly can't have one of their people on board your ship."
"Even if they have the specs for that ship?” Richard asked. “What else could they learn?"
"Have you given them the specs for the ship?” she snapped.
Richard turned his chair slightly so that he wouldn't have to look at her. Instead, he focused on the Secretary of State.
"I'm not a diplomat,” he said, “but the ambassador seemed sincere when he approached me. He—"
"They always do, Mr. Johansenn. That's their job,” the National Security Advisor had a way of sounding extremely condescending.
He ignored her. “The ambassador said he had a memory of the day those astronauts were lost. He seemed intrigued by what I was doing. Maybe they have some astronauts of their own to retrieve?"
"They do,” the NASA head said. “They lost several astronauts in the early 1980s, after they acquired the Soviet Union's technology and scientists at bargain rates. But they didn't have the trained astronauts and they lost a lot."
"How come we haven't heard of this?” the Secretary of State said.
"We did,” the NASA head said. “It was in reports at the time, but it never hit the media. You know how secretive the Chinese can be."
Suddenly the National Security Advisor was interested. She moved her chair forward. “How many did they lose?"
The NASA head shrugged. “I can get the exact figures for you later. But I'd wager they lost two or three dozen astronauts in those early years."
"Because they wouldn't ask for help.” The Secretary of State tapped one long painted fingernail against her lips. “Do you think they're trying something new now?"
"The space race is, for all intents and purposes, over,” Richard said. “They can buy their way onto our ships. They lost the Moon to us, and have to cooperate with us to get to Mars. They have their own program, but it's not as advanced as Europe's. Theoretically, China's is only designed for asteroid mining."
"I thought it was for defense,” the National Security Advisor said.
"I said theoretically,” Richard said. “That's what they claim. But yes, it's for defense."
"Rumors throughout the scientific community say they're planning their own Moon Base. They doubt we can stop them. We're not geared for a war on the Moon,” the NASA head said.
Richard nearly sighed, but managed to control hi
mself at the last minute. “What if what they want is as simple as it sounds? What if they want to see how we're recovering our own people?"
"If they've lost so many,” the Secretary of State asked, “how do they know this is one of ours?"
"The suits are different,” the NASA chief said. “They'd reflect differently."
"Or,” Richard said, “they've already got a recovery program, and they've seen him up close."
"I wonder,” the Secretary of State said slowly, a twinkle in her eye, “if they can bring him to us."
* * * *
Richard argued against it. He wanted to be on the ship that recovered the next astronaut. But he had set the events into motion by being above-board.
When he left the White House, the Secretary of State had already called for a closed-door meeting with the congressional leadership to see if they could have a space-trade agreement with the Chinese, a short-term exchange of information that would allow space scientists to share as much knowledge as possible.
The National Security Advisor loathed the idea; she said the Chinese would get a lot more out of it than the Americans would. But the head of NASA wasn't so sure. His program had stagnated with the rise of private enterprise in space. NASA needed new ideas. Besides, he wanted to know if all the rumors about the various Chinese programs were true.
Richard didn't care about any of that. He had an astronaut to rescue, and he wasn't going to do it from a distance. He left the White House, and went to the Chinese Embassy alone.
The ambassador met him immediately. This time, they went to a more formal room, with red silk wallpaper and delicate carved chairs. No guards stood inside the room, and no one brought tea.
"I had heard you were on Capitol Hill,” the ambassador said.
"I saw the Secretary of State,” Richard said. “They don't want me talking to you."
"And yet you are here,” the ambassador said.
"I realized something while talking to them,” Richard said. “I never asked how you knew where our astronaut was."
The ambassador smiled slowly. “They put you up to this."
"Believe me, they did not,” Richard said. “If all goes according to their plans, someone will work with you on recovering that body. Only I won't be able to go along."
"And you feel you must go along,” the ambassador said.
Richard nodded.
"So we are back where we began."
"Yes,” Richard said. “What would you like in trade for the information about where our astronaut is?"
The ambassador smiled slowly. “This information is very important to you."
That was obvious. Richard had lost any negotiating point on that by returning so quickly.
"Yes, it's important,” he said, “and time is of the essence."
* * * *
It wasn't one of his better negotiations. Usually Richard was a shrewd businessman and a champion negotiator, but he was in new waters here. Not in dealing with the Chinese—he'd dealt with representatives of cultures he didn't entirely understand before—but because he really and truly wanted something.
In the past, he'd always had the ability to walk away.
This time, he could not.
He sold the Chinese government two of his own dart-like ships, the kind he designed after the Lovell mission, along with the specs. He didn't care if the U.S. government came after him for doing so. He had already informed his lawyers that he had chosen not to take the Secretary of State's advice. If the U.S. government wanted to try him under the Espionage Act or fine him for violating various Fair Trade Agreements, fine. He just wanted the time to get to the astronaut and back.
The lawyers had to tie the government up in court.
Then Richard put his P.R. people on the deal. They talked to the media, and suddenly he was the next world-class diplomat, a man who could negotiate with the difficult Chinese and walk away with what he wanted. He broke the story through Helen Dail, promising her another exclusive on his trip to find the second astronaut.
Through it all, he finally understood how Tolemy felt. He hadn't even asked for proof. The great negotiator had missed one of the essential rules of negotiation: he should have made certain the item he desired was what he desired.
If the Chinese were lying—if this wasn't the second astronaut—they were playing him for a fool. They probably thought he was one already. He had given them proprietary technology. If the astronaut—the whatever they had found—wasn't from Apollo 8, they would have won.
From the moment he accepted the agreement, he had a knot in his stomach. He wasn't even looking forward to the trip, and the past two times he had.
On those trips he felt that even failure would be a success: at least he tried.
He didn't feel that way this time. Just scared and a little sick.
His mood colored the entire trip.
* * * *
He took the same team that he had two years before. The Chinese gave him the coordinates when he was in orbit, knowing that he would inform the U.S. government when he had them. The Chinese were in a sector of space they shouldn't have been in if their technology was designed for asteroid mining or defense.
Something else was going on, something the astronauts on his ship speculated about.
But Richard didn't. He'd felt a little relieved, able to give the U.S. government something in exchange for this mission. He should have been even more relieved. His lawyers informed him that the Chinese had vehicles similar to the dart on their drawing board, meaning they had either gotten his or his competitors’ proprietary information through some illegal back channel, but that didn't make him feel better.
He hadn't realized until this mission how truly single-minded he'd been. How great his focus was on these astronauts. It wasn't healthy.
He was no longer even sure it was right.
They were dead. Really and truly dead. There was no rescuing them, and what little he'd learned from Lovell and the capsule hadn't really made up for the effort he'd expended over decades to find them.
He wondered what they would have thought of him, these men who had launched themselves into space on a rocket, protected only by a tin can. Would they have thought he was foolish? Or would they have applauded his audacity?
He used to think they'd understand, but not even he understood any more.
Fifty years was a long time to focus on one thing. Maybe it was time to focus on something else.
* * * *
They discovered the object not far from the coordinates the Chinese had given him. That was a surprise, given the amount of time it had taken to get here. Clearly, the object was moving very slowly.
The reflection was right; the build was right; the position was familiar. It took Richard one look through the viewscreen and he knew that the Chinese had played fair with him.
He had another Apollo 8 astronaut.
The team cheered, and he cheered with them. He slid into the rescue as if he'd done it a thousand times before instead of just once.
This time, he braced himself properly as he guided the body into the bay. He smiled for Dail's camera—he'd allowed her to suit up and come inside as well—and he carefully moved the frozen astronaut to the back of the bay to a berth designed for him.
McFerson hadn't complained about not operating the grappler. He'd laughed, as if he were having the time of his life. None of them were scared this time. Even if they damaged this corpse, they succeeded. They already had brought one intact astronaut to Earth.
This one was just a bonus.
Richard hated how his thoughts ran. Even as he held the man's arm in his gloved hands, he wasn't thinking of this astronaut as a person, as someone to be rescued, but as an item, as a commodity.
And wasn't that what he'd been? Something to be haggled over, an item for trade? Something that might cause a great loss or a great win?
Certainly not a human being, not any longer.
He tried to keep these feelings to himself�
��and managed to lose them only briefly, when he learned this one's identity. The name etched along the suit was almost gone, but he could still see its shape, and the first three letters. B. o. r.
Borman. The commander.
McFerson speculated about the order of evac, just as Richard had the last time, but Richard wasn't playing that game any longer. Borman was in a part of space that wasn't on Tolemy's map—not in the red section or the green section.
It was as Tolemy had said—impossible to predict where these men would be.
Borman was here, in a place that had no logic at all that Richard could see. And he doubted that anything on Borman's suit would give them real clues about how he got here.
Someone would try to map the trajectory. Someone would make semi-educated guesses, but it wouldn't be Richard.
He was, for all intents and purposes, done.
* * * *
He didn't say that, of course. In public, he sounded the mantra: they still had one astronaut to find—the junior man on the mission, Bill Anders.
The Anders family got involved. They asked to help in the search. Publicity stunts—the Anders family looking through telescopes, viewing star charts—abounded. Newspapers carried headlines Family Still Hopes Missing Astronaut Will Come Home, and the twenty-four-hour news channels did specials. Websites appeared as amateur astronomers tried to figure out, based on all the points that Richard had discovered, where Anders would be.
Richard supported all of this and more. He kept ACP-S running, and he made sure that anyone with information about the last astronaut should feel free to come to him. He kept the best minds in the business searching, and he even tried to get Tolemy out of retirement.
But Tolemy's heart wasn't in it, and neither was Richard's. Something had changed for him at the last. Maybe he was afraid of success too—or afraid to complete the project. Maybe all that self-examination was just a way to prevent himself from finishing the job.
Because, if he found Bill Anders, what else would drive him? The entire crew of Apollo 8 would be home. The capsule was already here and on display in the Smithsonian, with his private company credited for the donation. Children climbed in and out of the couches where, essentially, three men had died.
Asimov's SF, February 2007 Page 19
