A Tower in Space-Time (The Stasis Stories #5)

by Laurence Dahners

  Staze says it’s capable of launching as many packages as are brought to them. Almost everything that’s been launched so far has been sent up in capsules or craft built by either Space-Gen or GLI. Everything that goes up must be hooked to the launcher with Stade attachements, and preferably be in a capsule or craft completely made of Stade.

  The other companies that have launched from the tower have sent up conventional satellites that have been attached to the launch rail with Stade fixtures. Because such launches are confined to accelerations of nine gravities or less (instead of the fifteen gravities used by Space-Gen and GLI) they don’t develop enough speed on the tower and must use a rocket engine to gain the rest of the speed needed for orbital insertion. The fuel needed for the rocket diminishes the mass of a launch package since, at present, the total weight of a launch cannot exceed one-hundred metric tons. To be fair, Space-Gen and GLI launches also use rocket engines to achieve exactly the orbit they want, but they need much less fuel to accomplish those smaller orbital changes. Competing companies can’t launch astronauts because the astronauts going up in Space-Gen and GLI’s products go up in the same kind of stasis that’s been saving lives in hospitals lately (stasis generators are yet another of Staze’s astonishing products).

  Land prices in the area have skyrocketed (pun intended). Staze itself bought up all the land in a wide swath around their campus, plus enough for a substantial landing strip. The other purchasers of land around the Staze facility are developing their property with an eye to capitalizing on the influx of workers and associated industries that are arriving. Many farmers in the area have become instant multimillionaires through sales of their land. This includes, surprisingly, the people who originally sold the land that the Staze campus was built on. Once prices started to rise, Staze, without solicitation or publicity, went to the original landowners and paid them enough additional money to make them as whole as if they’d sold in today’s market.

  This is, of course, extremely unusual corporate behavior…

  Mahesh Prakant was finishing lunch at Dimitri’s Greek restaurant. He’d been eating with Dez Lanis when Kaem Seba had arrived partway through the meal. They’d had some productive discussions and he was feeling good about the company’s direction. When they stood and started putting on their coats, he said, “Geez, Kaem, didn’t you check the weather before you left home this morning?”

  Kaem frowned in puzzlement, “Um, I did. Why do you ask?”

  “It’s freaking February-in-Virginia freezing out there. Why in the world are you wearing such a lightweight coat?”

  Kaem smiled, “This is one of Dez’s,” he nodded at his grade school friend, “first iterations of a winter version jacket containing her Stade scale armor. Maybe you’ve seen the summer version she printed with the 3D printer? It’s more breathable, chain mail over the joints and screens over the chest and arms. This version has big panels of solid Stade over the body and scales that overlap and slide over the joints. With its infinite R-value, I’ll bet this jacket’s a lot warmer than your big heavy coat.”

  Mahesh turned to give Dez a disappointed look, “Where’s mine? Aren’t I your friend?”

  She rolled her eyes. “No, you’re the guy who just keeps piling more work on me!”

  “You love it. Besides, haven’t you ever heard the old saw about, ‘If you need to get something done, give it to someone who’s already busy?’”

  “What?! That’s ridiculous!”

  “No, it’s true. Busy people only get that way because they’ve learned to be efficient.” He winked, “Wilson Delbet, for instance. Never busy, right?”

  “Well to hear him tell it, he was swamped by the one task he’d been assigned.” She frowned, “Though his side task of trying to steal stazer tech probably did add significantly to his burden.”

  They turned the corner and were confronted by a confusing scene. A bunch of SUVs and a large crowd of people were gathered in front of Staze’s buildings. The backs of the dark-colored overcoats they were all wearing had an entire alphabet’s worth of initials printed on them. The one that froze Mahesh was the “NAVY” that was printed on several of the ones he could see. Is this something to do with that Admiral who wanted us to give him a blimp for target practice? he wondered, a sick feeling in his gut. He turned to look at Kaem.

  Kaem had a finger on his earbud and appeared to be listening intently.

  Hands on her hips, Dez was staring at the scene, an angry look on her face. She said, “Those A-holes better not scratch my truck!”

  Speaking to whoever’d called him, Kaem said, “Okay, we’ll be there in a few minutes.” He looked at Mahesh and Dez then waved at all the people. “That was Arya on the phone. Congress, in their wisdom,” he said with a sigh, “has decided to nationalize Staze,” he made finger quotes, “to prevent our country’s adversaries from gaining control of the technology.” He looked at the crowd, “You guys can go on in. I’ve got to let Mr. X know what’s going on.” He turned away and started talking to his phone.

  This left Mahesh and Dez staring at one another. She said, “What the hell?”

  Mahesh’s eyes roamed over the crowd and he got a sinking feeling. “From the presence of all the Navy jackets, I suspect an Admiral Halser ginned this up.”

  Dez frowned, “Who’s Halser?”

  Mahesh told her about the Admiral from the Naval shipyard that wanted a free blimp-sized Stade “for testing.” He sighed, “Unfortunately, I told the bastard they’d have to pay like everyone else and he hung up on me. I’ll bet he feels like he’s getting revenge.”

  “You think all this’s because you pissed one guy off?”

  “Probably not all of it. But I’ll bet when I didn’t kowtow, it got him started thinking about how the military needed to control the access to Staze’s technology. I’m afraid that might’ve gotten the whole ball rolling.”

  “You think we’re in trouble?”

  Prakant shook his head. “I don’t think we’re personally in trouble, but I don’t know that much about nationalization. In poor countries, it’s mostly a matter of the government taking over a company to gain its profits. I’m not sure what it’ll mean in the U.S. I know it’s been done in wartime; I suspect so the government could direct production.” He glanced at the agents who’d started filing into Staze’s building, then back to Dez, “I’m guessing this’ll be something like that. They probably plan to take control of any part of our production that might have military implications by putting their own people in charge. It shouldn’t affect the rank and file all that much.” He grinned sadly, “but I suspect Halser’ll make sure I get fired or demoted.”

  “Damn, Mahesh. Surely, they’ll need you to keep things running. Besides, there’s hardly a thing we’re doing that couldn’t be considered to have military implications!”

  Thoughtfully, Prakant began, “Well there’s hospital stasis—”

  “Needed on the battlefield to save our guys.”

  Prakant’s eyes widened at that, then went to Kaem’s jacket, thinking about body armor. And… better ships, and submarines, and aircraft, oh, and tanks. He looked east, thinking of the tower, Which will allow control of space. We can put up satellites and craft so rapidly that the States could quickly overwhelm anyone else’s space capabilities! Wait, food stasis doesn’t have a military… Oh, it could provide fresh food on the battlefield. He sighed and turned to Dez, “You’re right, they’re probably going to take control of the whole shebang.”

  She frowned, “They’re going to want to keep even tighter control over stazing tech than X does. They won’t want anyone else to start making their own weapons.”

  He looked at her, “What weapons could be made with our tech?”

  She shrugged, “Air-Stade guns that weigh barely more than the bullets in their magazines for one. But, even if you couldn’t make any offensive weapons, it may be a case of the best offense is a great defense. If the opposition can’t hurt us, our regular weapons would let us domin
ate the battlefield.”

  Staring into the distance, Mahesh said, “What if such an imbalance made someone desperate enough to use a nuclear weapon?”

  Dez’s eyes looked unfocused as well, “That’s interesting. We’ve lived a long time under the threat of the ultimate offensive weapon. Now we’ll have the ultimate defensive weapon. The unstoppable force comes up against an immovable object.”

  “This is all very interesting philosophy,” Mahesh said, “but I guess the question at hand is what to do about all this?” he waved a hand toward the agents in the Staze parking lot. Only a few agents were still left outside the buildings. It’s got to be really crowded in there, he thought, thinking of how crowded the building had been before they added a bunch of strangers.

  Kaem turned around, “You guys didn’t have to wait for me.” He didn’t look particularly troubled.

  Mahesh rolled his eyes, “Doesn’t anything ever get to you?”

  “Sure,” Kaem said, wrinkling his nose, then grinning. “I just bottle it all up inside. Shall we go in and find out exactly what’s going on?”

  “Wait one,” Mahesh said, “We should make sure we’re all on the same page.” He summarized the conversation he’d had with Dez.

  Kaem nodded, “I think you guys are probably right about all that stuff. “Course I don’t know what’s going on either.”

  “What’d X say?”

  “That he’d make sure our files were protected and we should find out what’s actually going on.” He started toward the building.

  Mahesh followed, wondering whether, instead, he should be seeking asylum somewhere.

  When they got close, they were stopped by a young man who, despite his civilian clothing, had an unmistakable military bearing. “Halt. Who are you?”

  “We work here,” Mahesh said, trying to keep his voice mild.

  The door opened and an older man stepped out, “Stennis, apparently the CTO’s gone to lunch. When he gets back…” the man’s eyes fell on Mahesh. “Ah, Mr. Prakant, come on in.”

  Halser’s voice, Mahesh thought, having only talked to the man on audio. He didn’t speak, just climbed the steps and went through the anteroom to enter the overcrowded main room. Yup, really crowded, he saw, looking around. It looked as if at least one agent was standing at every table in the building. Some of Staze’s people still seemed to be trying to work, but most were looking around like deer in headlights. He made his way toward Arya.

  Halser’s voice came from behind him, “Prakant!”

  He stopped and slowly turned.

  With an oily smile, Halser said, “You may remember me calling you back last summer? I’m Admiral Halser. We needed large samples of Stade for testing?”

  “Oh, I do remember,” Mahesh said, pleased that his voice remained even.

  “As you’re going to learn, we’ve worked our way around your obstructionism.”

  The man likes to gloat, doesn’t he? Mahesh thought.

  “I wasn’t obstructing anything Admiral, just expecting our company to be paid like any other business.”

  “Well, you see, now it’s the government’s business.”

  “Thank you for that information. Who’s in charge for the government?”

  “I am.”

  Shit! Mahesh thought. “I see,” he said. “I’m going to go consult with the other officers of our company.” He turned and continued on his way to where he saw Arya, still at her desk. Some of the company’s more senior people were with her, though not Gunnar. Mahesh surveyed the room with his eyes and didn’t see the man. On the one hand, Gunnar supposedly owned a small piece of the company so Mahesh wanted to talk to him about what was happening. On the other hand, he was glad Gunnar wasn’t there. The man’s irascible temperament would already be ruffling feathers. When he arrived, the group made way for him and someone gave him a chair. “What do we know so far?”

  Arya looked at Mahesh, “Kaem told you that they’re nationalizing Staze?”

  Mahesh nodded. “Do we know what that means? I mean the details in our case. I do know what nationalization means.”

  She shook her head. “Sylvia Contreras is on her way and she’s bringing someone from her firm that specializes in the federal government, but nationalization of a corporation hasn’t happened for a long time. Google searches suggest that everyone usually keeps their jobs but the government’s people are put in over the bosses. The country’s supposed to pay just compensation to the owners of the company, but of course, the government decides whether or not to do it and how much to pay.” She looked past Mahesh at Kaem, “What does X want to do about this?”

  Kaem blinked, “He, um, said he was going to protect our intellectual property and we should wait to see how things shake out.”

  “What the hell?!” someone shouted somewhere out in the middle of the big room.

  Worried someone was going to start a scuffle, Mahesh looked around. One of the engineers was on his feet, staring at the older of the two agents at his table. He said, “First you tell us to keep working, then you lock us out of our system?!”

  Exclamations erupted around the room, all the complainers staring at their computers. It appeared that they’d all been locked out. How would the government have done that? Mahesh wondered. Unless they had some NSA type super hackers break into our system before they even arrived? He turned and looked at Halser.

  The man wasn’t looking toward Mahesh. Interestingly, he also looked surprised.

  When Mahesh turned to ask Arya if she’d been locked out as well, he saw a generic-looking lock screen image up on her screen. She was trying without success to open it. What the hell? he wondered.

  ~~~

  As the afternoon passed, Contreras and Mei Lang, her legal expert on federal matters, arrived. They demanded and received a copy of the congressional bill authorizing the nationalization, then retired to their offices to research precedents and options.

  Halser accused Mahesh of locking down Staze’s computer systems. A federal team at Staze East was reporting that almost all the computers there were shut down as well. The exceptions were the computer systems necessary for the launch scheduled that afternoon.

  Mahesh learned that X’s mysterious system that took in components and turned them into working stazers had stopped functioning and the entire interior of the building seemed to have been placed into stasis. This led to the resurrection of common speculation about whether Mr. X or someone else worked in the building and might’ve been trapped in stasis when it locked up. This seemed likely, since most doubted a robotic system could carry out the final assembly of such a presumably complex machine without human supervision.

  Then one of the engineers, trying to continue working as directed, decided to staze something.

  The stazing laptop was also locked.

  Learning this, Halser flew into a frenzy, demanding that the rest of the stazing laptops be turned on to see if they were all locked as well. One after another they were powered up and proven to be locked as well. However, before he had them turn on every last laptop, one of his technical advisers noticed that they didn’t actually lock until they connected to the internet. The guy advised Halser not to power any more on until they could be launched in a Faraday room to keep them off the internet. There, someone with coding skills could try to disable the locking command from reaching the operating system.

  Halser stormed across the room to Mahesh, “I suppose you think this’s funny?!”

  Though Mahesh did find it quite amusing, he reverted to his military training and said, “No, sir. Of course not.”

  “How’d you do it, you little prick?”

  “Sorry, sir,” Mahesh said, wondering, if he himself was a “little prick” despite being quite a bit taller than Halser, what that made Halser. “If you’re speaking of the locked computers, I not only didn’t do it, I don’t have any idea how it was or could be done.”

  Halser leaned close, apparently in an attempt to get in Mahesh’s face—an at
tempt that failed due to their height disparity. He growled, “Where the hell is your owner, or CEO, or whatever? This ‘Mr. X’ asshole.”

  Prakant shrugged, “Don’t know. I’ve never met or spoken with him. Have no idea how to contact him.”

  Halser closed his eyes as if praying for patience. He ground out, “How does X give you direction then?”

  “Through Kaem Seba,” Mahesh said reluctantly, nodding at the young man.

  Halser pivoted and stepped over to Kaem, “I understand you’re the conduit X uses to tell people what to do?”

  Kaem slowly nodded.

  “Well,” Halser barked, “tell him I need to talk to him!”

  “He’s listening,” Kaem said calmly.

  “No! I need for him to get his ass down here so we can talk face to face!”

  “Since this is a free country, that’s not going to happen,” Kaem said, still unruffled. “I’d suggest you just go ahead and say your piece. He’ll be able to hear you.”

  “He needs to understand that the U.S. Government owns his company now. He’ll be fairly reimbursed for his property…” Halser tilted his head. “Is he the only owner, or are there others?”

  Kaem tilted his head a moment as if listening, then said, “A couple of minor owners. Almost all of it belongs to X.”

  “Who the hell are these minor owners?!”

  Again, there was a hesitation, then Kaem said, “Mr. X isn’t willing to divulge that.”

  Halser turned his eyes to the heavens as if hoping for patience. “Well, if these owners want their reimbursement for the company, they’re going to need to step up and prove their ownership. And, cooperate in getting these computers unlocked and the company functional again.”

  A moment passed, then Kaem said, “Mr. X would like to know what the government’s trying to accomplish by shutting the company down?”

  Halser’s eyes narrowed, “We’re not shutting it down. Staze is to keep doing what it’s been doing. The objective of this action is ‘to secure stazing technology for the use of these United States and deny its potential for weaponization to our adversaries.’”