by OMAR FINK
Ramos leaned forward nearer to the microphone, and lowered his voice and a hush settled over the stadium as he said, “Let me explain to you how this will work. In order to build space elevators, we all have to work together. In order to move everybody out into space, we have to teach everybody on the planet to read and write at least to a basic level. In order to build enough space habitats to house eight billion human beings, we have to learn to build them with robotic machines, and that will revolutionize our industrial production. In order to save the planet, we have to rebuild our entire civilization. We will be leaving everything behind, and moving to a new place, and we will have to make everything we need there, and it will all be brand-new and much better. We will all have a higher standard of living. We will all be better off than we are now.” The hush was shattered once again by more thunder.
+4 months, JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
At a sidewalk cafe where a television screen was showing the address by Manuel Ramos, a small throng had gathered to listen. Delize Naidu had been standing transfixed, watching the speech for about twenty minutes, when her phone vibrated. She looked at it, then touched her earpiece, “Hey Jo, I know I’m late, I’ll be there in a few.”
Then she listened, then her face widened in surprise, “What! She can’t do that. Tell her I’ll be there, I just need a few more minutes.”
She listened, then frowned, “That bitch! She fire me just because I’m five minutes late. Well okay, more like twenty-five, but… what? Yeah, I know I’ve been late before, but I have like three jobs and … okay. Okay. Listen Jozette, you’re not in any trouble are you? Okay. Okay. Good. No, I’ll be fine, I just have to find another job, that’s all. Alright, call me when you get off, girl.”
She stabbed at her ear to disconnect the call, scowled at the world, spun on her heel and stalked off to her minivan. She got into the vehicle, slammed the door and started the engine without putting her seat belt on. As she pulled out into traffic, she put her phone in the mounting bracket on the dashboard and said, “Play music, ‘Dante’s Prayer’ by Loreena McKennitt”. The music began to play and eventually the bell-like voice began singing. As Delize drove, tears welled up in her eyes, and she brushed at them angrily.
+4 months, PIRAEUS, GREECE
Zorba Omega jabbed a button on the phone on his desk, “Arty.”
There was a brief pause and Artemis answered, “Yes, Mr. Omega.”
Zorba said, “Arty, how are we doing with converting our assets to HU coin?”
Arty replied, “It’s hard to say precisely sir, because many of the sales have paperwork that will tie them up for several weeks at a time, but about ninety-five percent of all assets have entered the sale process and over eighty percent have been completed. I’d guess we’ll be near ninety-nine percent complete within three weeks, and the few remainders may take several months for various legal reasons.”
Zorba said, “Excellent! You’ve done a lot of good work, Arty. How about a rough estimate of our net worth change?”
Arty said, “Net worth of all assets combined will have doubled by the time we reach the ninety-nine percent completion point and possibly tripled one year from now. Our projections of the appreciation rate of HU coin are most impressive, and we expect it to continue for several more years.”
Zorba said, “That’s great Arty. One thing, though. Keep a small reserve of dollars set aside in case we need that for acquisitions. I’d say a few hundred million should be enough. I just want us to be able to offer the option of paying with either HU coin or dollars in case somebody is stuck on dollars. And that leads me to the next thing. Recently, I forwarded you some info from Billy on electrospinning, and self-assembly of carbon nanotubes in space. Please go ahead with our plan to purchase the top companies in those areas. Ditto for the plan to buy deep water drilling platform companies. Go ahead with both of those as soon as possible.”
Arty said, “Yes sir. Is there anything else?”
Zorba said, “Yes. I want you and Billy to collaborate on expanding the dossier we already have on Ulrich Giger into a profile. Make it just like the full psych profiles we’ve used in the past to evaluate game plans with executives in competing firms and possible buys. You can assign Billy to do the field work, and try to pick up pieces you can’t get as you need. I’ll let him know this is coming. I want to be able to anticipate some of his moves, and analyze the field he’ll have to operate in. If we can see his moves ahead of time, we can get in front and either smooth the path to earn confidence, or create obstacles that will provide us benefits. We’ll need the usual list of key resources and businesses that are related to the field of play.”
Arty said, “I understand and will do.”
+5 months, WASHINGTON, D.C., USA
K.T. Rosenfeld spoke directly into the camera, “The founders of the United States of America believed that the purpose of government is to protect and enable the potential of each human being. They used the words ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’. When government is restricted to protecting the rights of individuals, the abilities of those people are turned loose, and create exceptional results. Now it is time for all of humanity to embrace this idea, and work together to make it happen for everybody. For the first time in human history, we have a single uniting reason that eclipses all other concerns, and offers us a new mission with great potential.”
She continued, “You all know the reason of which I speak. There is a catastrophe waiting in our future, and we must avoid it. We have found a way to do this, to save the human race, but we must all work together to make it happen. The best minds and best efforts of our civilization have come together to provide the solution. But we also need a way to fund it, and it will cost more than any single endeavor in human history. Now, it might be possible to make this happen by using force, by establishing martial law, and ordering people to take on certain tasks. But our heritage of freedom, and individual liberty prohibits us from pursuing that path. Instead, we believe this monumental task can be better accomplished through voluntary cooperation, and the principle of free market exchange.”
“If we all are to volunteer to work together with a single focus for the next ten years, we must have a strong motivation. It might seem that the urge to survive should be enough. But history has shown that some people think they have more of a right to survive than others. This is why we have had wars that consumed most of the world. Hundreds of millions have died in these conflicts based on arguments about some degree of survival. In this case, we have found a way to focus our motivation and our intention on a singular and cooperative effort. Humanity United is in the process of issuing a brand-new form of currency called cyber coins. This new coin will replace all the older established systems of money, and will bring our work together. This new coin has been designed to reflect the incredible growth that will accompany the project of moving eight billion people off of our planet, and establishing new homesteads in space for them. Everybody on the planet will benefit from the growth in wealth that this coin will manifest. Everybody on the planet will have a chance to become rich and to live a lifestyle at a new standard. We all can become self-sufficient, and financially independent at the same time. Nobody has to lose in this process. We can all become winners because we will be both ensuring our survival, and lifting our civilization up into the future by our bootstraps.”
+5 months, LAS VEGAS, NEVADA, USA
The man sitting across the table from Keel O’Donnell turned away from the television over the bar where K.T. Rosenfeld was finishing up her speech. and spoke to Keel, “Well, that was inspiring. And I believe her. Thing is, our company will be totally owned by HU by the end of the week, and I suspect the U.S. Air Force won’t be far behind. Within the next forty-eight hours, you can expect a new job offer to be on the table for you to transfer into the space expansion project. Your experience and background make you a perfect candidate for training to operate remote machinery in space. We don’t know yet if you’ll a
ctually be outside in space in some small craft or inside some kind of station or platform, but either way, we need as many people as possible with piloting ability to handle and operate the machines that will be building more platforms, a mining base on the moon and eventually the space habitats where everybody will live.”
Keel took a long slow drink from his glass of ice water, but didn’t speak. He appeared thoughtful.
The other man said, “This job change is completely voluntary of course, but there aren’t many options, at least that make any sense. You will be paid a small fortune in HU coin for your work. The work schedule will most likely be grueling, but the benefits package is, .. is, .. luxuriant is the best word I can think of. You will have the best of everything, as much as that is possible while working in a primitive start up construction environment in space. We know some of the living conditions will be spartan at first, but for every shortcoming in the near term, there are fantastic compensations in the longer term. You’ll get the equivalent of both overtime pay and comp time. You may work almost all of your waking hours for six months and accumulate a year of paid leave time. All of your expenses will be fully covered. Your health and medical coverage is excellent and is paid for in full and if you complete the full ten-year term of the project, will become fully paid for the rest of your lifetime. In short, if you work the entire ten years, you will be able to retire rich.”
Keel raised one hand from the table, “I’m all in. When do I start.”
The other man raised his eyebrows and responded, “Soon. Sign the offer when it arrives, and we’ll start moving you within a day or two.” He picked up his glass of wine and took a sip. Then he continued, “By the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you that you have been developing quite a reputation as one of the best remote pilots in the business. The Air Force monitors who are always watching over your shoulder also get sensor measurement readouts from each mission you fly and do an analytical appraisal of your flying style. They’re looking for accuracy and precision of course and I know you see those numbers, but they also look at things like minimal G-force applied, particularly lateral force resulting from turns. You have broken all the records they have for lateral force and some in other areas also. As a result, you are accumulating a reputation around the community as ‘Mr. Smooth’.”
Keel smiled, “I’ve heard that nickname, but I thought they were just referring to my moves with the girls.”
+5 months, THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS
Helly pointed across the table, “Scotty has a kroketten sandwich which is a beef center, deep fried with a crunchy batter outside, and served on sourdough bread with dijon mustard. He pointed at another plate, “And Kaz has a tosti, which is just a fancy name for a grilled cheese sandwich. However, in this case, it’s made with goat cheese and grilled pastrami. This is put on thick artisan style multigrain bread and toasted in the oven. You can get it with a side of horseradish dip if you like.”
Scotty grinned at Helly and asked, “And what are you eating?”
Helly responded, “Smoked salmon, cream cheese, and dill on toasted rye.” He grinned back.
Kaz asked, “Are you going to order the beer too?”
Helly said, “The ‘Gold’ here is a dark double bock that I love. But I’ve learned to let each man pick his own drink. That gives me plausible deniability.”
Kaz grinned, “I’ll try the Gold.”
Scotty said, “Me too.” He scratched his head, then added, “Can somebody please explain to me what just happened?”
Kaz said, “Sure, we just ordered some of the best sandwiches available in The Hague.” He chuckled.
Scotty said, “I know what we’re eating, and you know that’s not what I meant. What just happened at that corporate meeting we sat through? Helly, you’re the tool pusher. You have the corporate connections. What’s going on? What’s next for us?”
Helly leaned back in his chair, “You know all that stuff we’ve seen in the news about the comet train coming to destroy Earth in ten years, and the HU group that says they can save us. Well, they are using their cyber coins to buy up everything they need to accomplish that and now they’ve bought us.”
Kaz tried to answer, “In the presentation, they said nothing will change in terms of being paid and doing work. It’s just that we’ll be doing work for the HU agenda instead of just drilling for oil. They also said some of us will keep on drilling for oil for a few years just like nothing at all has changed.”
Helly jumped in, “That’s right. But as they build the hundreds of space elevators they need to evacuate Earth, most of us will move to somewhere on the equator, and start building platforms that anchor the ribbon tethers from the elevators.”
Scotty spoke around a bite of sandwich and asked, “But we won’t be drilling right?”
Helly said, “Right. The platforms will be designed to hold the tether in place and mount the climber cars onto the tether. We won’t be drilling, but we’ll still be dealing with a small platform, a long line, and a payload product, but the payload will go up instead of down.”
+5 months, PULAU BALAMGUNG, RIAU ARCHIPELAGO, JUST SOUTH OF SINGAPORE
Several circles of smiling dancers holding hands undulated back and forth and slowly rotated the circles forward and then back to the music. Tony Azaria walked over to the table where Zorba Omega sat next to Helena. and took a seat next to Zorba. He reached over to a serving platter, and moved a piece of baklava onto a paper napkin, “The baklava and the apple cake are both excellent, my friend.”
Zorba smiled, “We brought in our favorite caterer.”
A line of dancers stepping and bobbing, moved closer to the table and everybody looked up to admire them. When they moved away, Tony smiled at Zorba, “I love this dance.”
Zorba smiled back, “You know the Kalamatianos originates from my home town in Greece.”
Tony replied, “That brings up an interesting question. Why did you decide to hold your wedding here instead of back home in Greece?”
Zorba said, “Well, Helena has always wanted to get married on a private island and I found a couple of them I could afford off the Greek coastline but this one seemed to make better business sense.”
Tony chuckled, “Zorba, you can afford any island in the world. If by business sense, you mean this island is optimally positioned to become a central complex for the sea and ground platforms for several space elevators, then I understand. HU will probably pay a small fortune to acquire this island. Does that have anything to do with the infrastructure you’ve developed here in the last few months?”
Zorba chuckled at Tony, “Well, we had to have a deeper harbor and better airport to fly all the guests in. And every dollar I sunk into this place will return many more when somebody buys it from me. It is of little concern whether or not the buyer is HU.” He grinned at Tony.
Tony grinned back, “Zorba, you are a sly fox. I think your business sense is just as sharp with islands as it always has been with ships. But I’m glad you have married Helena and it’s obvious you will be able to take good care of her. I’m happy for you both.” He picked up a glass of sparkling liquid from a passing waiters tray and held it up in the air.
6 Moonbase
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
— John F. Kennedy
+6 months, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
“Hello world. This is Gitane Levesque with Europa Alliance Press. Today, I will be talking to Ben Rosen, who is an engineer with NASA in the USA. He is one of the key planners working on the Moonbase project. This project will provide raw materials that will be needed at the top of the space elevators in order to build the space dwellings.”
Gitane Levesque paused and turned to face another camera, then continued, “Before I talk to Ben, let’s go over what we’ve learned in recent days. It was about six months ago that a giant comet circled our Sun and broke up into many pieces under the gravitati
onal stress. Over the next thirty days, astronomers around the world collected observations and fed them into several supercomputer sites in order to calculate the new trajectory of the pieces of the comet. The comet train, as they call this long string of pieces, will exit our Solar System and then return ten years later. When it does return, it’s coming straight at us. Our scientists now tell us that nobody is expected to survive the many impacts when the comet train strikes our planet. We’re talking about complete destruction, at least as far as life is concerned.” A split screen graphic began showing animations of the trajectory of the comet circling the Sun, breaking up, leaving, and then returning to hit Earth.
