The Project Manager

by Terry Connolly

  “Again my apologies Madame Dubois, my name is Bin Li” he replied “I believe your assistant Sophie has been asking about me so I thought it best that I introduce myself to you at the earliest possible convenience.”

  “You work for a Swedish MEP don’t you? You could have called by the office any time. I can ask her to make an appointment for you if you wish?” Laure was more than a little annoyed at having her free time interrupted. Interns trying to be ‘proactive’ about their next employment could be a real pain in the neck.

  “Thank you Madame Dubois, but I am afraid your office would not be a safe place to talk, the walls have ears in that building. I should know, I am one of them,” he gave a cheeky smile, the smile of someone with a lot of self-belief.

  “I very much doubt that Mr. Li, the ears in that building would not admit it, lying is a way of life for most in this city.”

  “Well, whether you choose to believe me or not, I am not an intern in ‘some Swedish MEP’s office’. It’s amazing the access they give you here with just a simple badge and a vague truth. In the Great Hall of the People I wouldn’t have made it past the elevator. Still, perhaps such an open forum is not a bad thing”.

  Laure tried to keep her surprise hidden, she barely managed, but she managed none the less and kept her nonchalant composure; “You wouldn’t be the first spy in the European Parliament and you certainly are not the last. I suppose the Chinese government is keeping an eye on me to make sure we don’t flitter away any of your initial Zheng He investment money?”

  He remained smiling; “It’s not about the money Madame Dubois.”

  “Really? Because you know you’ve only covered about half of the start-up costs, in the long run it’s going to cost you a lot more?”

  “Yes Madame Dubois, we are aware of this, but we needed to get all the partner nations to agree first. We can’t afford the whole thing ourselves so we had to be sure the money would be pledged by everyone from the beginning. You will not find the People’s Republic of China idle when the next building phase begins. You will also not find us idle when you come up against, shall we say, certain financial irregularities?”

  That piqued Laure’s interest. “Let us walk Mr. Li, I fear if I spend much longer in front of this statue I will start questioning my mortality, what irregularities do you mean?”

  They began walking to the next piece, pretending to look at it. Li place his hands behind his back to look more contemplative, “As you know, our security services tend to search for documents of interest using certain methods most western countries are familiar with, so we know the content of the tenders you and your committee are receiving” he reached into his inside pocket and pulled out some folded sheets of A4 paper, “take these and look at them later.”

  Laure briefly opened the sheets to check that she wasn’t been set up for some sort of bribe taking scandal. An ambitious young journalist had caught out one of her friends in the French National Assembly with that one. It was just some text, so she quickly popped them into her jacket pocket, “what does it say?”

  “They are connections, the silk threads of a spider web if you like, or several spider webs. You are dealing with old fashioned corruption Madame Dubois, some elected representatives appear to think that their electorate is best served if their cousin or brother’s company wins a multimillion euro contract. If it happens to benefit them, well, what a nice coincidence”.

  “Thank you Mr. Li. I suppose this isn’t for free, is there something you want in return?”

  “You are most kind Madame Dubois, but I am rather well paid already.”

  “I didn’t mean money” she replied sternly, “but thank you, I have been suspecting corruption and needed proof. Obviously I can’t disclose it or the source, but at least I can pick the fake tenders from the real tenders. One finds that red tape can become ever so cumbersome in these processes. Why have you exposed yourself like this?”

  “A great American comedian, George Carlin, once pointed out that you don’t need a conspiracy if everyone’s interests are going in the same direction. These MEP’s and their family members and friends have interests going in the same direction so naturally they conspired. You Madame Dubois, and the Peoples’ Republic of China have interests which also go in the same direction, the direction of Gliese 451 as it so happens.” Bin Li seemed to enjoy his own wit as he gave that over confident cheeky smile again.

  “As in so far as stopping corruption or the waste of money I can agree with you Mr. Li, but don’t think for one second that I am going to favour any tender or proposal that you or any of your colleagues might put forward, I am not for sale.”

  He was still smiling “I think Madame Dubois, the Senior Controller was right about you. Please take my card, you may contact me at any time. In future I shall arrange our meetings in advance, I am not a fan of modern art I am afraid. Good day to you Madame Dubois.”

  “Good day to you Mr. Li.”

  With that, he gave a short half bow, turned and walked briskly away. Laure looked at the card, it was plain white with just a telephone number on one side, on the other was his job title: ‘Assistant Senior Controller’.

  ∆∆∆

  It was raining in Paris, Laure normally detested the rain, but somehow it was comforting today, as though it was washing away the previous week. The glass of wine she had in her hand was also helping. Her husband Nicolas was in the living room with the kids as she sat at the kitchen counter with John Peeters. She was still a little nervous after her meeting with Bin Li. Were there microphones in her home too? She had a friend in the gendarmerie who had sent someone over to do a check, but they had found nothing, and assured her that her home was secure. Naturally she didn’t believe them, people no longer spied on people, databases did, and every country had one or several of those. She had decided not to let it drive her crazy so she forced it out of mind. Even if her home was bugged Laure was one of the rare politicians who had built her political career on honesty, and as long as she stayed true to that she would be fine.

  John gave his scotch a swirl, the ice rattling a little. After some friendly introductions, and the first drink, they had gotten straight down to business. John had given Laure a pretty convincing breakdown of what the fusion engine project was going to cost. Actually it was better than convincing, it was realistic. John outlined the inevitable waste that would occur due to delayed subcontractors, the almost annual summer strikes etc. but he also outlined the key delivery dates for funding so the project could continue without any unnecessary bureaucratic delays. Laure would make sure the red tape was minimised for him, or at least do her best to make sure it was minimised. Unfortunately even the mysterious Mr. Li couldn’t guarantee her re-election time and time again; still, maybe with the right agreement by the European Council something could be done, it would take a lot of convincing amongst her colleagues. She realised the conversation had gone a little quiet.

  “Something off with your scotch John?”

  “What? Oh no, sorry, I was just thinking, nothing, I just tend to get a little broody after a drink or two.”

  Laure had one of those personalities where people tended to be more open with her than she wanted them to be. Still, it wasn’t in her nature to be rude: “Is there a special someone in your life? It must be difficult with your work-load”

  He looked even gloomier than he did a second ago: “Well, that’s just it; I suppose I have sacrificed a lot for this job, listening to your husband playing with your kids, I really admire that, you have a busy career yet you have managed to have a family life. How? What’s the secret?”

  She should have been feeling pity for him, but she had a sudden burst of pride instead; “It wasn’t easy, I met Nicolas long before I decided to enter politics properly, if I’d had the workload then that I have now I would probably still be single. I’ve read your CV John; you’ve never stopped have you?”

  “No, to be honest I love my work, maybe I want too much by wanting everything.
Anyhow, brooding over my drink isn’t going to make much difference. I should head back to my hotel, this has been a really pleasant afternoon, thank you!”

  As he stood up and downed the remains of his drink, a wicked thought struck Laure. She normally wouldn’t be so interfering but… “You said you will be back in Paris in a few days, I’d like you to meet my assistant Sophie, there are some tenders I could really use your advice on and she knows the information as well as I do, it could also help you have a better overview of the European aspects of the project, what do you think?”

  John paused, one arm in his jacket, “sure, I think that information would be really useful, I know Graham would appreciate it, should I give her a call or how will we arrange it?”

  Laure felt like a student again, interfering in her friends love lives; “she’ll give you a call tomorrow, thanks for this, it will really help me, and the project of course”, and she thought to herself, it will really help you and Sophie; an overworked intelligent young French woman couldn’t fail to be attracted to an overworked intelligent young Belgian man. He was a few years older than her so perhaps a dinner meeting would be best. Laure knew just the place.

  Chapter 6: 2031

  It was four transit years since Sophie and John met. Their crazy schedules meant they didn’t see each other as much as they would like but somehow they made it work. They sat on the veranda of their new home in Aix-en-Provence, drinking wine under the light of the Moons, both of them. The Zheng He was passing overhead tonight and would be visible for a just a few minutes. Sophie gave John a squeeze; “see all those little lights on it? We did that”. He smiled back and kissed her in response. Miles overhead the European mining engineers were blasting rock day and night to carve tunnels into the Earth’s new moon. They had their own small village, 20 modular units, which were attached to the surface of the asteroid, and if the angles and orbits were correctly aligned you could just make out its lights. It was an engineering experiment in itself. You couldn’t just leave debris in orbit so new methods had to be developed to gather the rock as it was mined. The solution was an aluminium dome over the mouth of the entrance which would be removed at a later stage. The modules the miners lived in were of the same construction as the modules used to send the debris back to Earth. One bonus for the contracted mining companies was that they were allowed to keep and process the rare-earth metals contained within: waste not, want not.

  This wasn’t the only by-product of the project. The modules were built in Russia, and because many would be needed to return any ore to be processed or waste to be disposed of, two factories had been built to make them. The Zheng He had proven to be quite rich in iridium, which help when it came to offering incentives to the contractors. John’s own work was also having economic side effects. The modified fusion reactors they were working on were receiving investment from several energy companies. The modular nature of what they were designing, a massive source of power which could be built, pulled apart, transported and rebuilt had huge implications for widespread civilian power generation. They were still a few years off getting them working, but the engineering was sound, and they were being offered all the help they needed.

  Once the Zheng He had disappeared below the horizon, John and Sophie went back inside. They both still had some work to do. Laure had managed to hold on to her MEP seat in the previous election, she was proving very popular and people wondered why she didn’t run for a national position, she could easily become a minister in the French government. Sophie knew why though, she knew that Laure wanted to see the Zheng He launched on schedule, and she knew that if Laure gave up her influence on the financing of the European part of the project the vultures would swoop in and carve up the budget for themselves. The hollowing out of the asteroid would take four more years, if Laure could hang on that long then at least the project would have a fighting chance. For Sophie, it meant that lump of rock in the sky had become her life. At work, all she could think about was how to help her boss keep it financed, the walls of her office were covered with posters from the European Space Agency promoting their part in it and every phone call she received from members of the public, in all their colourful forms, were about the project. Her Brussels apartment had reports and accounts scattered in piles on the floor. They had eventually rented this home in Aix-en-Provence; they liked the area, it was close to Cadarache and it was connected by train to Brussels. When she got back once a month it quickly became messier, worse than her place in Brussels; diagrams, spreadsheets, technical manuals were scattered about the house. Early in their relationship, John and Sophie had agreed to try and not discuss the project when they were together. It was difficult, it didn’t always work, such as tonight when they watched it overhead, but usually they managed somehow. At dinner parties their friends knew not to ask them about it and their families, though they itched to know more details, kept silent on the matter too. In many ways this pact had reinforced their relationship, not only were John and Sophie lovers and companions, but they were each other’s escape, the escape from the that rock which hung permanently over their heads threatening to crush them under the weight of responsibility at any moment. They helped each other keep it aloft, they helped each other to handle the pressure, and because of this they understood each other intimately.

  John picked a diagram off the kitchen table and rubbed his chin. He was about to automatically ask a rhetorical question out loud but he caught himself on time. It was a first draft of the modifications that needed to be made to the asteroid on its outer surface. Normally this would be Graham’s department, but the decision on whether the engines would be recessed into the surface or not was John’s, and if so then where on the surface and how deep? For this he needed the final go ahead from the surveyors, this hadn’t arrived yet. A big modification had been made already which would dramatically change the distribution of its mass.

  Fusion on its own would have very little effect when it came to accelerating the ship. That was an earlier design, the engines would just pulse out charged particles and provide thrust that way. It was crude, and slow, but over time it would build up the speed of the ship. But it just wasn’t enough. The breakthrough came about when NASA engineers realised that as the Zheng He travelled forward, it could take its fuel from its surroundings. Space is full of water, particles of Ice, water which could be split by electrolysis into Hydrogen and Oxygen, and then recombined to make rocket fuel. Tried and trusted technology. The trick was how to collect it, and NASA had designed a solution that was as elegant as it was simple: a huge cone would be carved into the front of the ship, a funnel which would gather ice from the interstellar medium. While it is present in low concentrations, at 10% the speed of light, enough could be gathered to produce the fuel to keep the continuous thrust needed to accelerate. The faster the ship went, the greater the quantity of fuel it could gather, the faster it could go.

  As a result, the mining engineers would now have to modify the surface more than they thought. He didn’t dare tell Sophie. If she knew that miners could be up there an extra two years then Laure would want to run for office again. The last election battle was still fresh in her mind and he didn’t want her to have to think about another five years unless he was absolutely sure the new design was the one they would go for. Still, John and Graham were not powerless, they had a say on whether it was logistically within reason, and tonight they were due to discuss it. John had also promised the surveyors that he would make a decision with Graham on the latest changes to the magnetic field generators, and that was going to cause a delay. The extra power requirements might mean another reactor was needed, but again that would mean another design change. It was getting late, and John had rarely missed a meeting, he knew if he didn’t call Graham now then Graham would be calling him. He went to the study and dialled the number of the Houston office.

  “Hello Graham speaking”

  “Hi Graham, it’s John”

  “Hey! I was expecting you, got any an
swer for me on the specs I need? I know it’s a big ask but your team has pulled through in the past.”

  John had a team of twenty logistical assistants. It was a bigger team than the one he had been a part of on the ITER project, but then this was a bigger project. He had hired them all himself, they were good, and right now they were pulling all-nighters to try and get the latest changes factored into their work.

  “Yes they have pulled through in the past, and they have now too, but I don’t want to send them over to you just yet. Graham, this alternative magnetic field generator placement, NASA say it will need more power, so I’m putting together a similarly alternative plan for mounting the engines. Can you hold off for a couple of days?”

  Graham gave a cough on the end of the phone, a deep chesty cough. He’d being doing that a lot lately, apparently he picked up a bit of a cold during his travels to suppliers, but he didn’t seem to be getting rid of it. Graham was getting older though he looked fitter than any man half his age.

  “If it was anyone else then no, but let’s face it John, we’ve worked together for nearly sixteen years and the rare times you have asked me to extend a deadline you usually have a good reason. So of course yes you can have an extra few days. Just so I can justify the 100 million dollars if any launches are delayed, what is this alternative idea?”

  “What’s 100 million between friends eh! Don’t worry, it shouldn’t delay any launches, Sophie’s boss would be on my back if overspent on coffee, which means Sophie would find some way to take it out on me. Anyhow, have you read over the project outline I sent you two days ago? The one I called you about?”

  “Honestly John I haven’t. I know you were excited, but Theresa banned me from work this weekend, it was our anniversary.”

  “Congratulations, sorry I forgot, I hope you didn’t?”