by Hammond, Ray
The image clicked off, then on again, presenting another globe with the vast expanse of the Northern Pacific facing them.
‘So, it’s the middle of the night here, at the International Date Line. These are the Hawaiian islands. Watch as I run this . . .’
The digital globe started to revolve slowly in an anticlockwise direction and Jack saw a corona of sunlight appear around the eastern perimeter. He watched as the US Pacific coast moved on into daylight while the islands of Japan, the land mass of China and Eastern Siberia, travelling left to right, continued on into the darkness of night. A Solaris satellite in the Western arc of the chain then lit up and illuminated a string of islands to the north of Japan. Then three others in the western segment added beams of reflected sunlight to the same area.
‘This region being illuminated is called the Sea of Okhotsk and those are the Kuril Islands,’ explained Larsson as he stepped towards the image and pointed at the now-illuminated area.
‘This is all part of Siberia, all Russian federal territory.’
‘Until August thirtieth,’ added Deakin for the group’s benefit. He rose and faced them. Larsson pressed a button on his remote and the image froze.
Deakin continued, ‘Tye International Real Estate Inc. has signed a four-hundred-and-sixty-year lease on over one and a half million square miles of Eastern Siberia.’ He nodded towards Alan Lynch who was seated in the back row. ‘Al Lynch has intercepted final copies of the lease documents that were being sent to Tye Corporate HQ by the Russian Estates Office. The land in question becomes a place called Sybaria and it will become the Tye Corporation’s sovereign territory on the first day of next month.’
Those who had not heard the news in advance looked at each other in disbelief.
‘Lebensraum,’ Chelouche attempted to whisper to Jan Amethier, his gravel tones carrying sufficiently to defeat him.
‘You’ll see their logic in a moment.’ Deakin nodded for Larsson to continue and sat down.
The simulation restarted and they watched as the eastern land mass of Siberia, Mongolia and China slid fully into night. As the planet revolved from left to right, more satellites of the Phoebus network lit up, directing beams of energy towards Eastern Siberia as it now moved to the centre of the globe.
Larsson halted the image again. ‘Now Siberia is at the darkest point of its night,’ he explained. ‘And at this stage the Solaris controllers can focus light on the area from all twelve energy stations simultaneously.’
As the twelve satellites of the network lit up, Jack stared at the intense patch of white light now illuminating an enormous area of land. He suddenly thought about the effect such a technology could have on night campaigns – and, therefore, on all military strategy.
‘And, of course, they are able to concentrate, angle or spread this reflected light. As we saw, each panel of the solar sails is independently controlled. Watch.’ The light shrank to an intense pinpoint.
‘What happens down on the ground when all those beams are concentrated towards the same place?’ asked Deakin.
Good question, thought Jack, who, alone in the room, could make a guess based on experience.
‘We have no data yet on concentrations that would affect an area smaller than ten square miles,’ replied Larsson. ‘All of this information is lifted directly from the Tye Corporation’s own demonstration model and it seems as if the diacaustic potential isn’t something they’ve calculated.’
Right, thought Jack.
‘We’ve been trying to find an astro-catoptricologist to help us,’ added Larsson. He saw their blank stares. ‘That’s a scientist who studies reflections in space, like the gegenschein – the reflection of the sun on the dark matter of distant space.’
They remained quiet as he fingered the demo forward. The display now changed to show the Solaris beams opening up, throwing a pale wash of light that covered all the Asian land mass before reverting to its previous configuration, illuminating only Eastern Siberia.
The image of the Earth started to revolve again and, as Siberia turned steadily towards the sunlit equinoctial of the Earth’s eastern horizon, the Solaris stations to the west, on the segment furthest away from Eastern Siberia, shut down and passed on the task of radiating the continent to the satellites positioned further east.
‘So, they can provide sunlight to that territory all during the night,’ pointed out Larsson. ‘Now, at the beginning I said there have been fourteen Solaris satellites launched so far. Let me show you the other two.’
The current image disappeared completely and then Jack saw a new projection: a smaller Earth, perhaps two feet in diameter, to the left, and a larger sun, six or seven feet across, to the right. The astrophysicist stepped between them.
‘Once again, not to scale, of course. The sun would actually be ten times larger than this. Now look . . .’ He stepped over to the Earth and pointed to two silver specks that hung above its northern hemisphere on the sunward side of the planet.
‘These two are oblique reflectors positioned to supplement daylight sun. I’ll need to reduce the illumination . . .’ The images grew dimmer, and Jack could just make out two small areas of brighter light now reflected onto the planet’s darkened surface.
‘The northern tip of our planet doesn’t get much light or heat even in daytime during winter,’ observed Larsson. ‘I should know, I come from Sweden.’
Nobody laughed or even smiled so he pushed on. ‘One of the problems is that for the sun’s energy to reach the northern land masses when the North Pole is tipped away from the sun, as here, the sunlight has to penetrate sideways through the Earth’s atmosphere.’
He indicated with his finger. ‘Above southern Europe, here, sunlight arrives at the top of the atmosphere and then slices laterally through two thousand miles of our atmosphere’s moisture, dust particles and pollution before it can arrive at ground level in the extreme northern latitudes. By this time the sun’s rays are inevitably very weak. There’s little UV and little heat, as it’s all been dispersed in the atmosphere hanging over more southern latitudes.’
Then Larsson indicated the two satellites placed above and sunwards of the Arctic. ‘But if you place reflectors here, immediately above the atmosphere, they can direct sunlight straight downwards. There are only two sunward satellites in the Solaris network today, but there will be a total of forty-two positioned sunward of the planet when the final phase of the Phoebus Project is complete in eight years’ time.’
He conjured up additional images with the remote control. ‘This is a projection of the later phases of the project. Over the next eight years there will be forty-two positioned on the sunward side, as I said, and a further seventy-eight satellites stationed above the dark side of our planet. This image has been adjusted for visibility so that even those with their black heat traps facing you are shown here as reflective surfaces.’
Dozens more silver pinpricks appeared in space, surrounding the planet. These too enlarged to become like silver tiles floating in space. The Earth seemed to be suspended in the middle of a giant cradle, ensphered by pinpoints of light.
‘With the fourteen satellites already in place today, Tye Aerospace and Phoebus Inc. can, over time, heat Siberia’s winters up from minus six degrees Celsius at surface level to an average daytime temperature of nineteen Celsius – that’s about sixty-six degrees Fahrenheit. They can also avoid nychthemeral variations – the normal temperature changes that occur between day and night. They’ll be warming the air masses all during the night and supplementing the sunlight during the day. In summer, when Siberia and all northern latitudes are tipped towards the sun, they can achieve a daytime temperature of about twenty-five Celsius, seventy-seven degrees Fahrenheit. When all these satellites are in place they will become capable of extensive, worldwide climatic re-engineering. We’re investigating just what that might mean at the present. And, of course, once the Phoebus Project is complete, terrestrial visual astronomy will become impossible almost everywh
ere in the world and even orbital astronomy will be seriously curtailed.’
He spoke the last sentence quietly, as if he did not want to further underline the ultimate irony of the decision he had made over seven years earlier.
‘Could they pump out sunlight all round the clock with just their present satellites?’ asked Joe Tinkler.
‘Yes. There’re bound to be periods when one or more of the satellites is down for one reason or the other, but most of them will be capable of working on a twenty-four-hour basis.’
‘So Tye could light up any part of the Northern Hemisphere, starting right now?’ queried Joe.
Larsson nodded and walked closer to the image again. He pressed a button and the image of the fully developed network disappeared, leaving only the twelve satellites hovering above the dark side of the Earth and the two on the sunward side.
‘Most of the present system’s power is concentrated between the fiftieth and seventieth parallels – as I said, that takes in Siberia, Russia, the whole of Northern Europe, Canada and Alaska. Two of the Solaris stations, the ones located furthest from the Earth – here and here – lie between the thirtieth and the fiftieth parallel. We’re not yet sure what use they will be put to. They could produce spot sun-power for all sorts of purposes – a few nights of sunshine to ripen a crop of grapes, or to provide street lighting for cities in the temperate zones – even for something as non-essential as film-making.’
‘But what about clouds?’ asked Jack, speaking up for the first time. ‘Wouldn’t they completely wreck the performance?’
Larsson beamed, as if he had been asked a very difficult question for which he had a ready answer.
‘The Solaris satellites are able to provide a constant stream of energy and, using that, they can probably burn off most types of cloud cover. All they have to do is to concentrate several of their beams onto a particularly dense layer of cloud – even as high as twelve or thirteen thousand metres – and, over a period, it will disperse as the upper atmosphere heats up.’
There was a silence as the audience digested this information.
‘It’s simply evaporation; the clouds turn into vapour or rain,’ added Larsson. ‘But you would need to ask the meteorologists for fuller detail.’
‘Why aren’t there any satellites in the southern hemisphere?’ asked Jan Amethier.
‘Look,’ said Larsson. He pressed a button and the globe began to turn slowly. ‘In relative terms, there isn’t a lot down there. Except for New Zealand, Australia, the southern tip of Africa, South America, it’s all ocean.’
‘Sir,’ interrupted Joe Tinkler as if to confirm, ‘Over eighty per cent of the world’s economic activity takes place in the upper two-thirds of the Northern Hemisphere.’
‘Thank you, Mr Tinkler,’ said Amethier patiently. He well understood the problem of the North/South economic disparity, it was almost the inverse of the planet’s distribution of population and was a topic that dominated the UN Assembly Chamber. He turned and said something inaudible to Yoave Chelouche. The banker nodded, then coughed, a deep crackling sound.
‘So how does he make his famous rain with all this?’ he asked.
Larsson gulped, then smiled. ‘We’re not absolutely sure yet. Perhaps this is one for Professor Madison . . .’
A short woman in late middle age, wearing a dark green suit, raised her hand tentatively at the end of the row and rose to her feet. ‘It’s not easy,’ she began, hesitantly. ‘There’re so many possibilities and we have to complete our measurements. We need output ratings, atmospheric measurements, historical data . . .’
‘Just give me the implications, not the specifications,’ interrupted Chelouche rudely, displaying a mixture of irritation, impatience and anxiety.
‘We can’t answer your question yet, Doctor Chelouche,’ she insisted quietly but firmly, then walked along the line of seats until she stood directly in front of the banker.
‘On Mr Deakin’s instructions I can’t call on my normal team for analysis – no American nationals, universities or institutes.’ She glanced at Deakin for confirmation and received a slight nod, although Jack could see a hint of annoyance in his boss’s expression, as if he wished this information had not been revealed.
‘Nobody who habitually studies weather, atmosphere, water circulation, ecology or the environment has ever seen a model like this. I’m told there’s no data available from the Tye Corporation either on this?’
Larsson stepped forward again. ‘It seems as though anything the Tye people produced on weather projections is either missing – or perhaps studies were not undertaken.’
Chelouche and Amethier exchanged a grimace of disbelief.
‘So I need to gather a team to play “what-if”,’ continued the meteorologist, ‘and I need real specialists who do understand the specifications before I can even consider possible implications.’
She looked Chelouche straight in the eye.
‘Just to start with I need heliologists, hydrometeorologists and aeronomists.’
She paused, drew breath, then bore down on him again.
‘I then need micrometeorologists, limnologists and climatologists as well as cloud physicists, nephologists and glaciologists. I especially need hyetologists. All have to be gathered.’
‘Ologists,’ sighed the basset hound in resignation.
She shot a look at him and then continued as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I’ve already identified most of the people I need but they’ve got to be vetted by UNISA and then many have to travel from universities and institutes outside the USA. Only then can we begin to start investigating what the implications of all this might be.’
Chelouche rubbed a palm over his heavy jowls. He looked as if he had been working long hours recently. ‘But how long, Professor Madison?’ he asked wearily.
She hesitated before she answered. ‘You do understand what he’s doing, ladies and gentlemen? He’s re-engineering our planet’s climate. We can only begin to guess at some of the implications of that. It will be a long time before we can even suggest some possible outcomes.’
‘Thanks, Marla,’ said Deakin, brokering a peace. ‘When do you think you will be able to give us your first thoughts?’
‘Maybe a week,’ she replied, with a smile intended solely for him.
*
‘There was nothing diplomatic about that,’ said Furtrado as he eased himself into a seat beside his boss.
‘How the fuck could they have acquired so much knowledge about our land deals?’ mused Tye as he accepted an antiseptic hot towel from the stewardess. They were waiting to take off from Marsh Field, a private-aviation airfield twenty-two miles south-west of Washington DC.
‘Through a mix of diplomatic leaks and straightforward spying,’ reasoned the counsellor. ‘They’ll have had the CIA and NSA onto it. I think we’ve been lucky to keep the lid on everything this long with Orlov trying to spend his new cash so fast.’
The Attorney-General had been direct with them. The American government wanted full disclosure about this cession of Russian Federal land to the Tye Corporation and an explanation of how the company intended to use its new territory. The administration also wanted a full disclosure of any additional, undisclosed functions and the purpose of Tye’s new deep-space satellite network.
‘We realize the Tye Corporation is no longer an American company,’ Jane Treno had acknowledged, ‘But we’d like to think you remain one of ours at heart, that your move from US soil had more to do with corporate financial advantages than any desire to be un-American.’
The last word was spoken with an emphasis that made Tye frown. For the second time in three months he felt physically and mentally uncomfortable. There in the Roosevelt Room of the mock-Palladian Department of Justice building on Pennsylvania Avenue he had no control over his surroundings. He had no idea who had sat before him in this gilded, upright chair and he could imagine the dirt that must linger around him in what looked like nineteenth-century drapes and furni
shings. But even Thomas Tye could not really ignore a summons from the Attorney-General of the United States and expect to continue doing business with the US government, which was one of Tye Corporation America Inc.’s largest customers.
‘You understand how delicate the diplomatic balance has been in that region,’ she continued as one of her male lackeys offered the visitors more jasmine tea. The great tycoon had touched nothing so far, and Tye waved the offer away again.
The Secretary of State took a cup of iced tea from her assistant and nodded. ‘Let’s go off the record – Tom,’ she had continued. At this clearly pre-arranged signal her four assistants had risen and left the room. She sat forward on the sofa, facing him.
‘We would like the Tye Corporation to become an American company again,’ she said, so quietly that he had to strain to catch her words. ‘There are significant long-term civilian and defence contracts that would be available to you. We can ease things in LA. You could be assured that your shareholders would not suffer. We could extend US protection to Hope Island State and, if it becomes appropriate, to your new territories in Siberia. But there would be no requirement for you or your staff to redomicile.’
Tye and Furtrado had exchanged glances.
‘I know the President is keen for this,’ pressed Jane Treno ‘We can work together as partners. It would be important for our economy – for both our economies.’
‘And for his fucking election campaign,’ yelled Tye before his counsel had the opportunity to intervene. ‘Is that what this is all about, an attempt to boost the US economy through my corporation so he, and you, can get back in again? You’re wasting my time!’