Solar Sailer

by Stephan Besik

  “Okay. So, when I dock, is that when the party will start?”

  Suzette could swear there was a hopeful tone in Alvin’s voice. She grinned. In a long-suffering voice she responded, “Yes, Alvin, that’s when the party will start.”

  The Competition

  In Europe, America, Russia, India, China and Japan there was consternation at the space agencies. Some crazy billionaire had made a cheap, fast flight to the Moon and was announcing plans to build human habitats for research, etc. The space agencies were feeling embarrassed.

  What made it worse, Aman Treble’s solar ship wasn’t a particularly startling advance in spaceflight. The achievement left others behind because no one else had applied the most recent advances in materials to already existing technologies. That made catching up fairly easy, assuming the will to do so; expensive and time-consuming R&D would not be necessary. The potential competitors still didn’t seem to have the will, however. Governments didn’t want to spend the money to get to the Moon because everyone thought there still wasn’t a very good reason to go there. Exploration for the sake of exploring was not a good reason.

  The newly formed U.S. Space Force was presently composed of two men. Head of the Force was Brigadier Arthur “Smiley” Campbell, recently transferred from the Air Force Office of Advanced Technology. His nickname was ironic; his fellow officers in the USAF knew that he rarely smiled, and major contractors knew him as a big pain in the ass. He had been transferred to the Office of Advanced Technology to get him off the backs of some of the biggest Air Force contractors, people who were making scads of money on slower-than-molasses and quite expensive procurement and production processes. When the Space Farce position, as it was known in Congress, had opened up, the contractors pressed the Air Force to move him completely out of the way. (He actually thought the Air Force should have cost-effective and efficient policies and procedures.) Quickly the deed was done.

  His current one-man staff was Colonel Trenton Samuels, a man who thought a lot like Campbell and was therefore a prime candidate for the go-nowhere position of Smiley’s second in command.

  The Air Force was only slightly embarrassed when Campbell was given a ten billion dollar budget and orders from the President’s National Security Advisor to get on the stick and get some solar sailers built. The USAF was pretty firmly convinced that the Space Force would find itself with little to do because there was nothing of interest on the Moon and probably the near planets as well. The man who was known in the Air Force as the boondoggle killer had become the head of a first-rate boondoggle in the minds of his fellow officers.

  Smiley (who hated the nickname for the misnomer that it was) sat with Trent Samuels in his little office at Vandenburg AFB.

  “So what’s our situation?”

  Trent gave his boss a big smile. “We’ve got a boatload of money and no idea how to spend it.”

  Campbell smiled one of his rare, small smiles. “Sounds like a top priority Air Force snafu.”

  “Yes, Sir. This guy Treble has created a new space race all by himself. He’s got robot drones that will be looking for places to set up shop on the Moon and a ship that makes everything everyone else has look like baby buggies. It looks like a lot of the problems that have kept man off the Moon for the last sixty years are solvable. He’s got people who solved a bunch of them and are working on the rest. No one else is even tooled up.”

  “Who’s our competition, apart from this guy Treble? Can we buy or steal what he’s got?”

  Trent blew out a deep breath. “I think the second question is the easiest. From what I’ve heard he’s gone out of his way to avoid working with the major national space agencies. And I’m not sure it makes sense to try to steal anything from him. Everything they’re doing uses stuff that’s off the shelf or easily constructed using current technology. There’s no reward for the risk. By the way, he’s got one ship in operation and two more nearing completion. If the national agencies don’t come up with money and motivation soon he’s going to leave everyone in the dust. That goes for us, too.

  As for the competition there’s a good chance the biggest competitor is China. They’ve got the solar and electronic technology to get close to Treble’s ships. I’m not sure they could build the plasma engines but Treble’s people are using a modified version of a prototype that his group licensed. No reason to think the Chinese couldn’t do the same. Defense Intelligence thinks they’re getting nervous about Treble but have nothing going in the way of a real program. About like us.

  The EU and probably Japan and the U.K. are all likely to be in a close race for next if we make the dubious assumption that we’re going to be second. They’ve all got the technology or access to technology to give it a good try. I think the real question for them all is the same as ours- is it worth it?

  I’d like to say that Russia is last, but they’re there only if you leave out their spacecraft experience. They aren’t close on solar technology or electronics, and maybe not in the ability to put together a large, truly sophisticated spacecraft. The one big advantage they have is in earth-to-orbit lifting technology and capacity. That includes infrastructure to move people as well as parts. We’re back in the hunt, now, but they’ve got the experience.

  Bottom line is it’s hard to decide who’s close. It might even be that Russia is right behind Treble because they can get stuff and people into orbit in proven vehicles.

  But, you know, I don’t think capability is the issue. I think it’s the will to spend the money and do the job. That’s why Treble is where he is now. The real question is what do we get if we follow him? Does he have a dollars-and-sense reason for doing all this, or is he just a rich guy playing with a fancy, really expensive yacht?”

  Campbell smiled another of his rare smiles. “At this point does it really matter? When the President says spend, we spend.” The smile disappeared. “What about colonization? Assuming there’s a need to stay on the Moon, is there some sort of legal framework in place to keep people from shooting each other over a piece of airless rock?”

  Trent shook his head. “Not really. There was a treaty circulated that was supposed to keep weapons of mass destruction off the Moon, but all the nations aren’t signatories and its only real feature is the prohibition against nuclear weapons on the Moon. None of the current spacefaring nations signed it. If it was on paper it wouldn’t be worth the paper it was written on. Apparently Treble circulated his own idea, a thing they call the Lunar Compact, but I haven’t seen a copy yet. Presumably his document addresses some of the issues that the treaty didn’t. And he actually has signatories, although none of them are really space oriented. From what I can figure out, that was his selling point. Sort of ‘Buy a piece of the Moon.’ The marketing seems to have worked; it sounds like he visited a bunch of small nations with little or no space presence and they bought in. Apparently he’s getting a lot of the people who will populate his first research stations from his signatories.”

  “Christ. You mean there isn’t even something in place to keep WMDs off the Moon? Did anyone even think about ways to keep people from fighting over valuable property up there? And he’s actually got a plan to put people up there long-term?”

  Trent smiled grimly. “I don’t think anyone thought there was any property up there that would ever be valuable. As usual with we humans though, we can figure out a way to convince ourselves there is land worth fighting over pretty much anywhere we go. That was pretty easy on the Moon. The two poles have some important characteristics that make them more suitable for habitation than other areas. Everyone will be looking to set up camp at the poles, and there isn’t really all that much choice real estate. If we’re not careful, we could have exactly what you said- a bunch of people shooting at each other over chunks of airless rock.”

  “That’s not great.” Campbell frowned. “I guess we will have to look into militarization of the Moon, along with everything else. If it turns out that we actually have to do this, I’ll arrange a
meeting with someone from the State Department to figure out how to proceed. I’d much rather have a treaty in place than have to start planning for skirmishes up there. Man, I hate working with State. Everything over there takes forever. This is going to be a real hornet’s nest if we have to put people up there.”

  He sighed. “This all hinges on whether we’ve actually got to go to the Moon. Then I think we’ve got two short term goals, aside from write specs and a Request for Proposal to send to those aerospace bandits we have to do business with. We have to find out how this guy Treble thinks he’s going to make money off a Moon colony. If it’s just a scam of some sort, we have to take steps to keep the government from spending more money on this thing. We also have to read this Lunar Compact he’s cooked up to see if it makes any sense, particularly about ownership of property up there. If he’s got a way to make money and his Compact has political support of some sort and gives him ownership of whatever property his people stake out, we need to know as much about his setup as we can find out. I’ll take on the Compact and you start on goals. See if Treble has made any public statements about his reasons for going to the Moon. Do we have any people available to start looking at their ship design and sketch out an RFP? Would it make sense to recruit any of the current and former astronauts? Do we have anyone we can recruit who can give us a feel for the politics of this mess?”

  Trent shook his head. “I can do the research on motivation, but we have to get started on recruitment. Astronauts are a good starting point but we will need more people from Defense and the branches who are able and willing to contribute ASAP. Do we have to stay in channels on personnel requests or can we snatch and grab?”

  Campbell smiled an evil little smile. “The President wants this. I think we take what we can and call the Secretary if anyone gives us trouble. Our chain of command won’t like that, but they don’t like us anyhow. Let them explain to the Commander in Chief why they can’t help with a few bodies.”

  Trent put up a finger. “One more thing we have to do somehow in our free time. We have to keep tabs on our competition. Can we get some people from Defense Intelligence to help with that?”

  “I’ll handle that. I know a few people over there. I don’t think we can grab any personnel, but my guess is the man in charge would be happy to get a piece of this action. I’ll ask if he can set up a team to keep track of our competitors, even Treble’s people. My guess is he’d rather do that than have us try to freelance the intelligence issues.”

  Campbell stared into space again and then looked at his exec. “Anything else we’ve got to take on?”

  Trent laughed. “Isn’t that enough?”

  “Yeah. So we’re good. Let’s plan on meeting once a week, with a bit of communications every day through email if we can find the time.” Then he shook his head ruefully. “Oh, and about that. I’ll talk to my buddy at Defense Intelligence about getting this deal a top secret classification. I know it’s a pain, but we have to be ready if we have to roll on this. Apart from the project itself, the technological advances in something this exotic stuff could be huge. We can’t have potentially defense related stuff talked about on the streets. Besides, we don’t want our erstwhile friends in the Air Force or our competitors to know any more about what we’re doing than we absolutely have to.”

  He stood up and offered his hand to Trent. “Sorry you got roped in to this. Let’s hope it’s a big scam. Oh, and welcome aboard.”

  The Old Man

  Characters

  - Bob Smith, nearly 250 years old, lost his wife 20 years earlier

  - Al Thompson, nearly 250 years, also a widower

  - Grem, 50 years old, operates an antique bar

  Bob waits for Al in Gremorg’s bar. The bar is a style nearly extinct; dark with low lights and expensive, hard-to-find woods stained dark. Gremorg’s appearance stopped changing when he was thirty. Bob and Al were early participants in age stabilizing therapies that saved their lives when they were in their early seventies. The early technology stopped aging at the current age of the subject; while they are both healthy, mentally alert seventy-year-olds, they are still seventy. They have become unusual anomalies in a society in which life prolonging therapies are applied to virtually everyone between age twenty-five and thirty-five. Therapies have not been developed that can reverse aging processes and return Al and Bob to their physical and mental capacities to match the days of their youth. Al is tired of waiting and tired of living; Bob is struggling with loneliness; his wife of many years died in an accident ten years earlier.

  **

  The Golden Goose looked the same as always. Like everything else, nothing much changed in just eight years. It was quiet; there were a few people talking in booths. He felt bad that he hadn’t come back sooner, but it was easy to lose track of time. Time used to be valuable. Now it was easy to waste it.

  His eyes had to adjust to the low light. Grem still kept the place in great shape- every piece of wood polished, the bar and all the tables in the alcoves along the wall gleamed. The style predated Bob himself and he was no youngster. Low light, dark wood, dark leather in the booths. After all the years that Grem had taken care of it, the Goose still felt as homey as any bar Bob had ever been to.

  Even Grem looked the same. But of course, he would.

  Grem looked at him for only a second, instantly recognizing the walk and the slightly grayed hair. He smiled as Bob walked up to the bar.

  “Hello, Bob. Haven’t seen you in a while. Glad to have you back. How are you?”

  Bob smiled and took a seat on a barstool. “Same as always. No older and no younger. How are you? How’s the Goose?”

  “Same old same old. Still keeping the old girl running. It’s getting a little harder to pay the bills though. Not too many into well-maintained antiques any longer.”

  Bob grimaced at the irony in Grem’s words. “Yeah. In more ways than one.”

  Grem looked embarrassed. “Hey, I didn’t mean…”

  Bob waved him off. “Forget it. After all these years I can tell a slip from a dig.”

  “Yeah, I imagine so. What’ll you have?”

  “Just a beer. Whatever you have on tap is fine.”

  “Coming right up.” Grem pulled a glass out of the rack, slid it under the tap and pulled the handle. “What brings you here?” He smiled again, and set the glass in front of Bob. “Other than the beer, I mean.”

  “I got a call from Al. Al Thompson. You remember him, right? Said he wanted to meet someplace where we could talk for a while. I thought he might like to meet at one of our old haunts.”

  “Do you two keep in touch?”

  Bob looked at his beer. “No, not really. I lost track of time and he moves around a lot. We were in the Corps of Engineers together, you know. We started when it was still part of the U.S. Army. They’ve needed every hand for decades now, and every time he thought about leaving they’d give him some big, juicy project to manage. Hadn’t really even thought about him for quite a while. Kind of embarrassing, really. We’re actually pretty good friends. Or we were, I guess.” Bob hesitated, looking at his glass. “They retired me out when my wife died. Medical retirement. Probably for the best.” He took a sip of his beer. “This is really good.”

  “Thanks. One of the new brews. Some pre-warming archeologists found some old recipes in Europe and brewed them up. They ran the results through an analyzer and added a few tweaks. Came up with a half dozen great beers. Amazing what you can do with a little information and a smart machine.”

  “Whatever they did, it worked. Think they’ll go into distribution?”

  Grem shrugged. “Hard to tell. Things move so fast. One day you’re a hit, the next you’re an old fad.”

  Bob nodded. “Don’t I know it. Hard to keep up with all the things going on nowadays. Especially with the Artificial Intelligences. I heard a group of AIs did some experiments that showed there’s a way to circumvent Einstein’s barrier.”

  Grem looked astonished. �
��Wow. Hadn’t heard that. Guess I should get on the net once in a while. The speed of light’s been the limit for so long it looked like the Kuiper belt was going to be as far as anyone was ever going to go. I don’t think even the AIs thought sublight starships would ever be practical.”

  “It is sort of a big deal. With a little luck, we'll both be around when they launch the first FTL ship.”

  Grem smiled. “Wouldn't that be something? I might consider migrating if it happens. I could probably use a change. Or maybe just take the bar and move it to Alpha Centauri.” Grem hesitated. “What about you?”

  Bob shrugged. “Might be fun. It's getting a little stale here.”

  Grem hesitated. The silence got longer. “Have you heard anything new? Medically, I mean.”

  Bob sighed. “No, nothing new. It's been a long time and there are fewer researchers interested in my situation.” He shrugged. “I'm a dead end. Doesn't make sense to invest time and resources in a problem that no longer exists. Except for me, of course. And Al. And a few others.” He swirled his beer. “And getting fewer every day.” He took another sip from his glass.

  “Hey, don't get discouraged. Who knows, maybe some AI will find an answer for you.”

  Bob smiled sadly and shook his head. “Probably not. Too busy working on FTL drives.”

  Grem looked unhappy and discouraged. It wasn't a look Bob saw very often any longer. There was a lot of optimism now. The Cyclone Decades were long gone, famines were reduced to occasional events in the locations where recovery was still under way, the Great Cleanup and the global ecology laws had worked, and the bad times were gradually fading away. Space was opening up, too. Not fast enough to move much of the world’s population off-planet yet, but between the population crash during the famines and effective population planning the New Frontier of space was beginning to feel like a real option. There was a lot of hope out there.