The Precipice

by Ben Bova

  “That was some performance you put on,” said Pancho.

  She was sitting in the command-pilot’s seat at the instrument panel. Dan was in the right-hand seat, beside her, separated by a bank of control knobs and rocker switches. He saw that half the touchscreens on the panel had been personalized by Pancho: they showed data against backgrounds of the Grand Canyon, sleek acrobatic aircraft, even muscular male models smilingly reclining on sunny beaches.

  “The interview?” Dan laughed softly. “I could’ve predicted three-quarters of the questions they asked. Maybe more.”

  He stared out at the view through the wide glassteel port that ran the length of the instrument panel and wrapped around its sides. To his left, behind Pancho, was the Sun, its brilliance toned down by the port’s heavy tinting but still bright enough to dominate the sky. It made Pancho look as if she had a halo ringing her close-cropped hair. The zodiacal light stretched out from the Sun’s middle clear across the width of the port; dust motes scattered the sunlight, leftovers from the solar system’s early days of creation. Beyond was darkness, the deep black infinity of space. Only a few of the brightest stars shone through the port’s tinting.

  “You really think the stock price’ll go up?” Pancho asked, her eyes shifting back and forth among the displays on the panel.

  “Already has, a couple of points,” Dan said. “That’s one of the reasons I did the interview.”

  She nodded. “From what I heard afterward, the IAA wants to slap your butt in jail the instant you get back into their jurisdiction.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been in jail,” Dan muttered.

  “Yeah, but that wouldn’t do the stock any good, would it?”

  “Pancho, you talk like a worried stockholder.”

  “I’m a stockholder.”

  “Are you worried?”

  “What, me worry?” she joked. “I got no time for worryin’. But I would like to know exactly where we’re heading.”

  “Would you?”

  “Come on, boss, you can razzle-dazzle the reporters but I know you got an asteroid all picked out. Maybe a couple of em.

  “I want to get to three of them.”

  “Three?”

  “Yep. One of each type: stony, metallic, and carbonaceous.”

  “How deep into the Belt will we hafta go?”

  “We’d better bring Fuchs into this; he’s the expert.”

  In a few minutes the four of them were seated around the table in the ship’s wardroom: Amanda and Fuchs on one side, Pancho and Dan on the other. A computer-generated chart of the Asteroid Belt was displayed on the bulkhead screen, a ragged sprinkling of colored dots between thin yel-Jow circles representing the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

  “So you can see that the metallic asteroids,” Fuchs was saying, in an almost pedantic drone, “lie mostly in the outer areas of the Belt. This is a region that hasn’t been explored as well as the inner zones.”

  “Which is why we haven’t picked a specific metallic rock as yet,” said Dan.

  “What’re we talkin’ here?” Pancho asked. “Three AUs? Four?”

  “Four astronomical units,” Amanda replied, “give or take a fraction.”

  “And you want to head out there and scout around?” Pancho clearly looked incredulous.

  “We have enough fuel for some maneuvering,” Dan said.

  Pulling her palmcomp from her coverall pocket, Pancho said, “Some maneuvering. But at that distance, not a helluva lot.”

  “I need a nice chunk of nickel-iron,” Dan said. “Doesn’t have to be big: a few hundred meters will do just fine.”

  Fuchs broke into a smile. It made his heavy-featured, normally dour face light up. “I think I understand. A nickel-iron piece a few hundred meters across would contain enough iron ore to feed the world’s steel industry for a year or more.”

  Dan jabbed a forefinger in his direction. “You’ve got it, Lars. That’s what I want to show them, back home.”

  Amanda spoke up. “Didn’t someone bring a nickel-iron asteroid into the Earth-Moon vicinity?”

  “Gunn did it,” Fuchs answered. “He even named the asteroid Pittsburgh, after the steel-producing center in the United States.”

  “Yeah, and the double-damned GEC tossed Gunn off the rock and damned near ruined him,” Dan recalled sourly.

  “You simply can’t have people bringing potentially dangerous objects into the Earth-Moon region,” Amanda said. “Suppose this Pittsburgh thing somehow was perturbed into an orbit that would impact Earth? It could have been devastating”

  Dan scowled at her. “It’s been more than four centuries since Newton figured out the laws of motion and gravity. We can calculate orbits with some precision. Pittsburgh wasn’t going to endanger anything. It was just the double-damned GEC’s way of maintaining control.”

  Pancho looked up from her palmcomp. “We’ve got fuel enough to maneuver for three days, out at the four AU range.”

  “Good enough,” Dan said. “We’ll be scanning all the way out there. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a nickel-iron baby right away.”

  Fuchs shook his head gloomily. “There is vast emptiness out there.” Pointing to the wallscreen display, he went on, “We think of the Belt as crowded with asteroids, but really they are nothing but infinitesimal bits of matter floating in an enormous sea of emptiness. If that chart was drawn to true scale, the asteroids would be too small to see, except in a microscope.”

  “A few needles in a tremendous haystack,” Amanda added.

  Dan shrugged carelessly. “That’s why we have radar and telescopes and all the other sensors.”

  Pancho brought the conversation back to practicality. “Okay, so we have to go huntin’ to find a metallic rock. What about the others you want, boss?”

  “Lars has already picked them out”

  Tapping on his own palmcomp, lying on the table before him, Fuchs highlighted two particular asteroids on the wall display. Bright red circles flashed around them. With another touch of his stylus on the palmcomp’s tiny keyboard, the trajectory of Starpower 1 appeared on the display, with the ship’s current position outlined by a flashing yellow circle.

  “The closer object is 26-238, an S-type asteroid.”

  “Stony,” Amanda said.

  “Yes,” Fuchs agreed, smiling at her. “Stony asteroids are rich in silicates and light metals such as magnesium, calcium and aluminum.”

  Dan stared at the display. The dot showing Starpower i’s position was noticeably moving. Christ, we’re going like a bat out of hell. He had known the facts and figures of the fusion-driven ship’s performance, but now, seeing the reality of it on the chart, it began to hit him viscerally.

  “Our second objective,” Fuchs was going on, “will be 32-114, a C-type, chondritic object. Chondritic asteroids contain carbon and hydrates—”

  “Water,” said Pancho, getting up from the narrow table and heading for the food freezer.

  “Yes, water, but not in the liquid form.”

  “The water molecules are linked chemically to the other molecules in the rock,” Amanda said. “You have to apply heat or some other form of energy to get the water out.”

  “But it’s water,” Dan said, watching Pancho as she pulled a foil-wrapped prepackaged meal from the freezer. “Selene needs water. So does anybody working in space.”

  “’You will do your work on water,’” Amanda murmured. “’An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ‘im that’s got it.’”

  “What’s that?” Dan asked, puzzled.

  She looked almost embarrassed. “Oh… Kipling. Rudyard Kipling.”

  ‘“Gunga Din,’” Fuchs added quickly. “A very fine poem.”

  “By a white European male chauvinist,” Pancho quipped as she slid her meal into the microwave oven.

  “How can you be hungry?” Amanda asked. “You had a full meal only a few hours ago.”

  Pancho grinned at her. “I don’t have to watch my figure. I
burn off the calories just like that.” She snapper her fingers.

  “But those prepackaged meals,” Amanda said. “They’re so… prepackaged.”

  “I like ‘em,” said Pancho.

  “Anyway,” Dan said, raising his voice slightly to cut off any disagreements, “those are the two rocks we’re going after. We’ll take some samples to solidify our claim and then head for the outer region of the Belt and find ourselves a metallic body.”

  “I’ve been wondering,” Amanda said slowly, “about the legal status of any claims we make. If the IAA considers this flight to be illegal… I mean, if we’re deemed to be outlaws—”

  “They could disallow our claims to the asteroids,” Dan finished for her. “I’ve thought about that.”

  “And?”

  A single, sharp, clear ping sounded from the open hatch to the bridge. Pancho sprinted from the microwave oven and ducked through the hatch.

  She came back into the wardroom a moment later, her face taut “Solar flare.”

  Amanda got to her feet and pushed past Pancho, into the bridge. Fuchs looked concerned, almost alarmed.

  Dan said, “I’ll check out the electron guns.”

  “Might not hit us,” Pancho said. ‘The plasma cloud’s still too far away to know if it’ll reach us or not.”

  “I’ll check out the electron guns anyway,” Dan said, getting up from his chair. “I’ve taken enough radiation to last me a lifetime. I don’t need any more.”

  EARTHVIEW RESTAURANT

  The instant Martin Humphries saw Kris Cardenas, he realized that she was suffering pangs of guilt. Big time. The scientist looked as if she hadn’t slept well recently; dark circles ringed her eyes, and her face looked bleak.

  He rose from his chair as the maitre d’ escorted her to the table and smiled as the dark-clad man held Cardenas’s chair for her while she sat down. Cardenas was not smiling.

  Gesturing with an outstretched arm, Humphries said, “The finest restaurant within four hundred million kilometers.”

  It was an old joke in Selene. The Earthview was the only true restaurant on the Moon. The other two eateries were cafeterias. Ten years earlier, the Yamagata Corporation had opened a top-grade tourist hotel at Selene, complete with a five-star restaurant. But Yamagata was forced to shut down their restaurant as the greenhouse warming throttled the tourist trade down to a trickle. Now they sent their few guests to the Earthview.

  At least Cardenas had dressed properly, Humphries saw. She wore a sleeveless forest-green sheath decorated tastefully with accents of gold jewelry. But she looked as if she were ready to attend a funeral, not an elegant dinner.

  Without preamble, she leaned across the table so intently she almost touched heads with Humphries. “You’ve got to warn them,” she whispered urgently.

  “There’s plenty of time for that,” he said easily. “Relax and enjoy your meal.”

  In truth, the Earthview was a fine restaurant by any standard. The staff were mostly young, except for the stiffly formal maitre d’, who added an air of grave dignity to the establishment. Carved out of the lunar rock four levels below the surface, the restaurant lived up to its name by having broad, sweeping windowalls that displayed the view from the lunar surface. It was almost like looking through windows at the barren, gauntly beautiful floor of the great ring-walled plain of Alphonsus. The Earth was always in the dark sky, hanging there like a splendid glowing blue and white ornament, ever changing yet always present

  There were no robots in sight at the Earthview restaurant, although the menus and wine list appeared on display screens built into the tabletops. Instead of tablecloths, each place setting rested on a small mat of glittering lunar honeycomb metal, as thin and flexible as silk.

  Humphries ordered wine from their waiter. As soon as the young man walked away from their table, Cardenas hunched forward again and whispered, “Now! Tell them now! The sooner they know the safer they’ll be.”

  He gave her a hard look. Apparently the nanobugs in her bloodstream can’t deal with the effects of too little sleep, he thought. Or maybe she has nightmares. She’s on a royal guilt trip, that’s certain.

  “We agreed, Dr. Cardenas,” he said softly, “that we would warn them just as they approached the outer fringes of the Belt. That won’t happen for another day and a half.”

  “I want you to warn them now,” she insisted. “I don’t care what we agreed on.”

  With the barest shake of his head, Humphries said, “I’m afraid I can’t do that. We must stick to our plan.”

  “I was insane ever to agree to this,” Cardenas hissed,

  “But you did agree,” Humphries pointed out. “In the long run, you’ll be glad that you did.”

  It had been so easy to turn her. Humphries considered that his one major talent was finding the weak spot in other people’s personalities, and then playing on their weaknesses to get what he wanted. It worked with Dan Randolph and his ridiculous crusade to save the Earth. It worked with Dr. Cardenas and her burning anger against the Earth and the people who had separated her from her husband and family.

  The wine came. Humphries tasted it and sent it back. There was nothing really wrong with it, but Humphries simply felt like asserting himself. Subtly. Cardenas probably doesn’t understand what’s going on, not at the conscious level, he thought. But down in her guts she’s got to know that I’m the one in charge here. I make the decisions. I mete out the rewards and the punishments.

  She sat in stony silence while the embarrassed waiter took away the wine and swiftly returned with another bottle. Humphries sipped at it. Not as good as the first one, really, but he had established his point.

  “This is fine,” he murmured. “You may pour.”

  They ordered dinner. Cardenas barely picked at hers as, course by course, the dishes came and were taken away again. Humphries ate heartily. He was almost enjoying Car-denas’s discomfort.

  At last, after the waiter had left their desserts and walked away from the table, Cardenas said, “Well, if you won’t tell them, I will.”

  “That’s not what we agreed on,” Humphries said tightly.

  “To hell with what we agreed on! I don’t know why I let you talk me into it”

  “You let me talk you into it because I can get you back to Earth, back to your ex-husband and your children and grandchildren.”

  “He’s remarried,” she said bitterly. “There’s no point in messing up his life any more than I have already.”

  Humphries almost smiled. She’s really riding the guilt train, he said to himself.

  Aloud, he coaxed, “But your grandchildren. You do want to see them, don’t you? If you prefer, I could arrange to have them come up here, you know.”

  “I’ve asked them to come up, just for a visit Begged them,” Cardenas said. “They won’t do it. They’re terrified that they’ll be refused re-entry back to Earth. That they’ll be exiled here, just as I am.”

  Smoothly, Humphries said, “I can arrange a visit for them. Outside normal channels. I can guarantee that they’ll be allowed to return to their homes.”

  He saw new hope kindled in her eyes. “You could?”

  “No sweat.”

  She sat in silence while her dessert slowly melted. Humphries spooned his up, watching her, waiting.

  “But don’t you understand how dangerous it is?” she blurted at last “They’re going out past Mars, for god’s sake. There’s no one out tere to help them.”

  “Randolph’s no fool,” he said sharply. “When the ship’s systems start to fail he’ll turn around and come back here. In a big hurry.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “And his pilot’s an expert. She won’t do anything foolish.”

  Cardenas either wasn’t listening to him or not hearing. “Once those nanos kick in,” she said, “there’s no stopping them. They’ll take the radiation shield apart, atom by atom, and then—”

  “They won’t have the time,” Humphries insisted. “Y
ou forget how fast Starpower goes. They’ll zip back here in a few days.”

  “Still…” Cardenas looked utterly unconvinced.

  Trying to sound unconcerned, Humphries said, “Look, I know this is a dirty trick to play on Randolph. But that’s the business world. I want his mission to fail so I can buy out his company on the cheap. I don’t want to kill him! I’m not a murderer.”

  Not yet, he added silently. But I’m going to be. And I’m going to have to silence this woman before her guilt trip makes her warn Randolph.

  Unbidden, the thought of Amanda came to him. It only hardened his resolve. He’s making me kill her. Randolph deserves to die. He’s forced me to kill Amanda.

  As he looked across the table at Kris Cardenas, so troubled, her eyes focused on god-knows-what, Humphries nodded to himself. If I leave her alone she’ll warn Randolph. She’ll ruin everything. I can’t let her do that.

  SOLAR STORM

  The Apollo missions to the Moon in the mid-twentieth century were timed to avoid periods when the Sun was likely to erupt with a flare that would drench the solar system with killing levels of hard radiation.

  Later, spacecraft shuttling between the Earth and the Moon simply scurried for shelter when a solar storm struck. They either returned to the protection that the Earth’s magnetic field provides against the storm’s lashing hail of protons and electrons, or they landed on the Moon and their crews sought shelter underground.

  The earliest spacecraft to carry humans beyond the Earth-Moon system had no such options available to them, for their transit times to Mars were so long that they would inevitably encounter a solar storm while weeks or months away from a safe haven. Thus they were outfitted with storm shelters, special compartments in which the crew could be protected from the intense radiation spewed out by a solar flare. The first explorers sent to Mars spent days on end cooped up in their spacecraft’s cramped “storm cellar,” until the high-energy particles of the storm’s plasma cloud finally passed them by.

  Starpower 1 had no storm cellar. The entire crew module was protected in the same manner that a storm shelter would have been. The module was lined with thin wires of an exotic yttrium-based compound that formed a superconducting magnet which generated a permanent magnetic field around the crew module, a miniature version of the Earth’s magnetic field. Yet the superconductor could not produce a magnetic field strong enough to deflect the solar storm’s most dangerous killers, the high-energy protons.