Anson leaned forward to the camera. “You know I’m not a scientist, but I’ve got one other idea you haven’t mentioned. What about gravitational swing-by? The way I’ve heard about it, you can put a ship past a big mass, and if the positions are right you can pick up speed doing it. They used to use it to get ships past Jupiter and Saturn to the Outer System, when they didn’t have reaction mass available. Wouldn’t that be the way to speed up a passage in to Earth?”
“Yes — but no.” Rob saw Anson’s frustration. “Don’t blow yet, Howard. I’m giving you a serious answer, and I know you want to sort this thing out as much as I do. You are right in a way. Gravitational swing-bys are a good method of picking up free momentum, if you happen to be going past a big mass. But when I say a big mass, I mean a big mass. There’s nothing between here and Atlantis that could possibly do it.”
“You mean nothing that we know about. But what about the possibility of a black hole? That could do it. It would be very small, and we couldn’t see it. And Morton says that the Halo—”
He stopped. Rob was shaking his head again.
“Sorry to spoil your idea, Howard, but if there were a decent-sized black hole — one with significant mass — anywhere in the System, we’d have found it long ago. Its gravitational effects would perturb all the other bodies. Same applies to an unknown planet. There just can’t be an undiscovered mass in the Inner System. Not one big enough to have an appreciable gravitational field.” He shook his head. “Sorry, Howard, but we won’t find an explanation so easily. Anyway, your idea wouldn’t fit with what Pascal said about the way that the Goblins died.”
Rob noted again the way in which Anson’s eyes lost all expression when he was receiving new information of a factual nature. It was as though he became an object without feelings or personality, a blank tablet on which the facts would be permanently stored. As soon as the storage was finished, the other Howard Anson turned back on, the pleasant and sympathetic gentleman with his own strong personality. That Howard was again in control, and frowning at Rob’s last comment.
“What do you mean, wouldn’t fit with what Pascal said? You’d get big forces if you swing by a black hole — the acceleration ought to be fierce.”
“It would be.” Rob nodded. “But you wouldn’t feel a thing. The gravitational and dynamic accelerations would balance exactly. You’d feel tidal forces if you were near enough, but they fall off very fast with distance. Before they were a factor you’d have to get really close. For most swing-bys, you’d feel as though you were in free fall all the way. It’s no good, Howard, you might as well forget about gravitational forces. They can’t explain what Pascal told you.”
“That’s it then.” Anson shrugged. “That was my last arrow. You’re the expert, so you tell me. What did happen to the Goblins, and where did they come from? You’ve ruled out the only things I can think of.”
“It’s worse than you realize.” Rob smiled ruefully. “I’ve ruled out the only things I can think of, too. Let me stew on it for a while. At the moment I’ve got my head so full of beanstalk movement and new mining methods, there’s not room for anything else.”
“Do you have to go out to Atlantis to observe the mining of Letitia?”
“It uses my Spider. And I promised Regulo that I would.”
“Maybe. But is either of those the reason why you’re going? Are you sure it’s not obsession with the Goblins, and learning more about them?”
Rob did not answer. After a few moments Anson shook his head and said, “I don’t know why I bothered to ask. All right, you’re going. Be careful, and come back quickly.”
“No question of that. Regulo won’t delay me — he’s as keen to see the beanstalk landing and tether as I am.”
“You’ll be able to get me a seat for the landing?”
“A front seat. I can’t allow you into the Control Center itself — it’s over-full already. But I can promise the outside room, and you’ll be seeing all the same displays that I’ll be using.”
“I’m looking forward to it. I guess you wouldn’t have time to talk to me, even if I was in the Control Center with you.”
“Certainly I would. Howard, all my work will have been done before the beanstalk landing begins — finished, checked, and checked again. I would never give a go-ahead otherwise. I have to be in the Control Center, but my plan is to sit, relax, and enjoy the action.”
“I don’t believe the relax part. But the action?” Curiosity replaced concern in Anson’s voice. “What ought we expect to see? Something spectacular?”
“That’s a great question. I know what I hope you’ll see. If something goes wrong, your guess is as good as mine — but it would sure be spectacular.” Rob smiled. “The better it goes, the less fireworks we’ll have to watch. I’ll make sure there are passes for you and Senta, for the Control Center in Santiago.”
“That’s one of the things I don’t understand. Why Santiago ? Why not at the tether point down in Quito ?”
“You can’t afford to put the control where it might get wiped out if things go wrong. If the stalk snapped, or if we can’t attach the ballast correctly at the upper end, nowhere along the equator will be safe. In the worst case, we might have to sacrifice Tether Control to save worse damage. We’ll have more than enough cable to wrap it round the Earth a couple of times.”
Anson was silent for a moment. A startled look came on his face. “You’re not joking, are you? I’m beginning to realize how much a hundred thousand kilometers of cable really is. Lordie. You and Regulo have built a monster, haven’t you? It’s bigger than Ourobouros — twice around the world instead of once.”
“Regulo insists that this is just the beginning. As soon as we have easy mass transfer from Earth we can really go to work on the System. We’ll put some of Earth’s water out on Mars, or bring asteroids down to the surface, bit by bit.”
“You’d need a Martian beanstalk, too.”
“That’s easy. We could have put one there long ago if we wanted one. You don’t need anything like as much strength in a Mars beanstalk — you could build one using ordinary graphite whiskers for the load-bearing cable. Anyway, Howard, I wasn’t serious about shipping Earth water to Mars. That wouldn’t be economical. It’s cheaper and easier to fly a comet in from the Outer System.”
“Could you do that?”
“I don’t know, but I expect so. I’m playing Regulo’s game, speculating in all directions.” Rob leaned back in his seat and rubbed at his reddened eyes. “I find I do that better when I’m tired out.”
“Of course you do.” Anson saw Rob take a quick look at his watch, and realized that the beanstalk’s schedule would control everything in Merlin’s life until the fly-in and tether. “It’s only when you’re tired out that you can let your mind run free. After this job is over, Rob, you’d better plan on a long holiday. You need a re-charge.”
“We can talk about that after the beanstalk is in position and working. Twenty more days. I leave for Atlantis in just a few hours. Will you look at a couple of other things for me while I’m away? I just don’t have time to follow them myself.”
Rob’s manner was becoming increasingly restless. His schedule was calling.
Anson nodded. “Tell me what you need.”
“I’m not quite sure. More about Cancer pertinax, that’s one item. I need to know how many people suffer from it, what the treatments are, and how close we are to finding a cure. It tends to be hereditary, but I’d like you to find out if there’s an infection possibility, too.”
“That should all be easy. The information will all be in public data banks or in research programs. Hmm. Unless Morel has treatments that he hasn’t reported yet. He might have. He always preferred to wait until his techniques were perfected before he would talk about them. But I’ll see what I can find. Anything else?”
Rob hesitated. “I don’t think this will be in any data banks, but I want to know about Corrie. Senta says she’s Regulo’s daughter. Corrie
says she doesn’t believe it. Is there any way of finding out for sure, through chromosome tests or genetic matching?”
“Ah.” Howard Anson rubbed at his chest thoughtfully, running a lightning search of some internal data bank. “Sure there is, in principle. It would be dead easy if the genetic data banks were open, but they’re closed so tight I don’t know if I can crack them. It’s a privacy issue. I know there won’t be anything in the public files. A couple of years ago I talked about the same thing with Senta. I had the same reaction as you when I was told that Corrie is Regulo’s daughter. There’s nothing to support it in the birth records, and no other direct evidence. I asked Senta for more details, but she has big blanks in what she can remember. It’s probably part of the same set of memories that we’ve been trying to tap through the taliza trances.” He shrugged. “I’ll dig again, but don’t hold your breath waiting for answers. Can you think of any reason why Senta wouldn’t be telling the truth?”
“No.” Rob was reaching out to cut the connection switch. “No reason at all. Put it the other way round, though. Can you think of any reason why Corrie would be lying? They can’t both be right.”
CHAPTER 15: “I do begin to have bloody thoughts”
This was the way that an eclipsing binary must look. There was the bright disk of the smaller star, a searing white, moving steadily into occultation behind the softer glow of its orange-yellow giant companion.
Except that now the smaller star was Sol. It was hard to believe that the Sun, so small and bright, was really thousands of times the size of the nearer sphere that shone to fill a fifth of the sky. Rob looked around him for some reference point that would allow him to calibrate size and distance. There was no other disk in the sky, nothing but the hard unwinking lights of the stellar background and the diffuse glow of the nebulae.
“I wondered what was keeping you,” said a familiar voice behind him. “What do you think of it?”
Rob turned at the grated words. Regulo, gaunt and awkward, was hunched by the entrance of the viewing room. In the few weeks since he and Rob last met, his condition had visibly worsened. The rough skin of his face was scored deeper with channeled gulleys, and the white hair was sparser. Only the eyes, bright and inquisitive, were undimmed and unchanged.
“When you didn’t show up at the office, I thought you must have stopped here on the way in,” went on Regulo. “So I decided to take a look for you.” He nodded at the bulk of Lutetia, glowing in the big viewing panel. “Impressive, eh?”
Rob nodded. “It looks even better from space. You lose a lot of the impact on a viewing screen. I’m still having trouble getting used to the sheer size of it. I know the Spider must be up there somewhere, but I can’t see it. Did you put in all the modifications that I sent to you?”
“Every one.” Regulo slowly came forward to stand at Rob’s side. “You’d need a telescope to see the Spider from here. We’re still about two hundred kilometers from the surface of Lutetia. I’ll move Atlantis in close before the tap begins, so we can all have a better look at what’s going on. I didn’t want to get close too soon, or we’d have troubles with the temperature of the aquasphere.”
“Lutetia’s giving out that much heat?” Rob studied the image again. “I think there’s something a little off with your camera system on Atlantis. It’s distorting the colors that come through to the screens. What’s the surface temperature of Lutetia now?”
“About three thousand, maybe as high as thirty-one hundred. We finished the spin-up and most of the inductive heating three days ago. I could have started the tap then, but I wanted you to take another look at the Spider and see if you need to do any fine tuning before we begin.”
Rob nodded. Things had been moving faster than he expected. On the trip from Earth he’d had time to look over the materials that Howard Anson had pulled together for him. They pointed to a bizarre conclusion, but to verify it he needed time. And opportunity. He had the right equipment with him, selected and loaded before he left Earth. But when would he find a chance to use it?
Regulo was watching him closely. “Problems, Rob?” The old eyes were keen.
“Just a lot on my mind. All the reports from the beanstalk are good, but I can’t stay away too long. Landing is scheduled six days from now.”
“Understood. But you don’t need to worry. I’ve been following the work from here. Merindo has everything ready to go at the ground end, and Hakluyt’s already up there with the powersat.”
“You’re more up-to-date than I am.” Rob frowned. “I missed that report from Merindo. It must have been sent as we were on final approach here. Did he reach target tether mass yet?”
“Past it. He has a twenty-percent margin.” Regulo was turning to leave the viewing room. “The beanstalk can’t be finished and operating soon enough for me. I just saw a forecast from Sycorax showing a near-term Earth shortage of titanium. There will be a shortfall of five million tons a month, and we’re the only ones with any chance of filling it. The assay of Lutetia shows billions of tons of the metal. If we can tap it out efficiently, and have a working beanstalk, we’ll be unbeatable.”
“Can you ship in time? Even if we can mine it, we’ll still have to live with the rules for cargo ship drives in the Inner System.”
“Right.” Regulo paused in the doorway, pale eyes hooded and inscrutable. “That’s a problem, no doubt about it. But let’s see how the tap goes before we worry.”
“When do you want to start?”
“The sooner, the better. Then you can be finished and out of here. Unless you have problems with the Spider, how about shooting for twenty-four hours from now? That will give you time to work, and time to rest as well.”
“I’ll be ready. I’ll go out to the Spider now and see what needs to be done.”
Regulo nodded and limped away, leaving Rob with the unpalatable arithmetic. Twenty-four hours would provide sixteen for work on the Spider, and the other eight for preparation, exploration and — if he were correct — action. Rest or sleep would have to go. But Rob always seemed to be squeezing such luxuries out of his crowded life.
A century of space experiments had only served to confirm the strength of the circadian rhythm. After attempts at twenty-, thirty- and forty-hour days, and almost every number in between, humankind had finally accepted the constraint. Every colony on the Moon and Mars, and every outpost of the USF through the Middle and Outer System, now worked from the same premise: a day was twenty-four hours; and in each place, one third of that period was accepted as a time of reduced activity.
Rob had finished his review of the Spider, which was functioning flawlessly. Now he waited quietly in his rooms at the edge of the living-sphere for the time when the rest of Atlantis slept. Then he could begin.
Anson’s Information Service had provided him with a number of important operating factors. Item: Joseph Morel was an insomniac, sleeping only a couple of hours a day. Implication: No time of the diurnal cycle was really safe for exploration of Atlantis.
Rob had noted the point, but it made no difference to the way he must proceed. Exploration would be done when most of the inhabitants of the living-sphere were asleep. Morel was simply an added and unavoidable risk.
Item: Only four appearances of Goblins had ever been recorded, and the geographical distribution of at least the most recent three was consistent with Atlantis as their point of origin.
Item: By every reasonable index, Caliban was intelligent. Further exploration of Atlantis via the aquasphere, unless Caliban could be eliminated from the picture, would be rash verging on insane.
Rob, remembering his earlier visit to the water-world, did not need Anson’s information to keep him clear of the aquasphere. His survival then, with Caliban patrolling, seemed more and more an accident of good luck. This time, Rob would work from within.
He went across to the window partition and stared out into the clear water. The lights had been dimmed, but he fancied he could see a faint new glow diffusing throug
h the interior of Atlantis. As they moved closer to Lutetia, the white-hot asteroid served as a second sun. Rob looked for signs of Caliban but the great squid was busy elsewhere. He forced himself to sit quietly for another half hour, even though his instincts urged him to hurry.
At last he collected the small tools that he had brought with him from Earth, stowed them in a plastic bag that fitted in his shirt pocket, and set off through the darkened corridors of the inner sphere. At this hour, the living-sphere seemed deserted; but he was sure that each corridor contained its own cameras and viewing monitors. It was an unavoidable risk, one that he had not been able to plan around.
Soon he again reached the big room with its sealed metal door. Squatting down in front of it, he forced himself to wait another quarter hour. When nothing happened in that time, he stood up and drifted across to the heavy door.
The photo-cells were first, and easiest. They took less than five minutes. After they were de-activated he turned his attention to the door itself. The design was unfamiliar and expensive-looking, but it was clearly a magnetostriction lock. He had prepared for that, and for four other possibilities. In the silent gloom he took out delicate tools from their plastic cover and began to examine the seven locking seals.
His previous experiences on Atlantis had not been wasted. Although forcing an entrance to the room might have been easier, he wanted to leave no trace of his visit. The trick was subtlety, not violence.
It was work that called for analytical skill more than manual dexterity, otherwise Rob might not have succeeded. In the past few months he had badly neglected the exercises needed to keep his hands at maximum efficiency. His concentration on the complex lock design was broken only once, when his peripheral vision thought it caught the trace of a dark shadow sweeping across the window to his left. He went quickly across to the panel and looked out. There was nothing to be seen, and after a few seconds he went back to the door.
The Web Between the Worlds Page 22
