“We do?”
“It’s an honor to meet a heroine in the world of terraforming.”
★
Face-lifted, manicured, and blow-dried, Cydney and Angelica wobbled back to the spa reception area. “Please,” Cydney said, putting her hand over Angelica’s. “I’ve got this.” She flicked a wireless payment to the elf at reception. “Snerkaaah!” She giggled and yawned at the same time. “I’m starving. They could have given us some nibbles. How cheap can you get?” The elf glared at her for that comment, not that she cared.
“It was lovely,” Angelica said. “I feel like a new woman.”
They went out onto the L1 mezzanine. Cydney felt as if she were about to burst with the news she’d learnt. Angelica Lin would be standing in the election!
Of course, Cydney had to keep quiet about it until Angelica declared her candidacy, but Angelica had promised to give her the scoop when the time came.
Her brain bubbled with ideas. She could prepare a documentary about Angelica … a soundtrack ... a biographical montage …
“I’m hungry, too,” Angelica said. “Shall we do lunch?”
She waved at the Mercury Café, the one and only place in this grotty old hab where you could get food that wasn’t bulked out with nutriblocks.
“Sure!” Cydney said. “But I don’t want to take up too much of your time.”
“Please. I don’t know anyone else here. No one who wants to know me, anyway. They keep me at arm’s length with fake sympathy. I’m really glad …”
“Ugh. My feeling is, I know you know I’m really sorry for your loss. So talking about it would be just …”
“Exactly.” Angelica’s eyes misted over. Cydney impulsively hugged her.
“So!” Angelica freed herself from Cydney’s hug, but held onto her hand. “Let’s go eat hydroponic salads. There was actually something else I wanted to talk to you about, too …”
★
“Soon as I heard you were on Mercury, I asked Mike to bring you over for a visit,” President Doug explained. “I sure am glad you obliged.”
Elfrida did not say that Vlajkovic had tricked her into coming here. The electric car glided through the fields. Corn grew thick and tall on either side of the road. With the windows down, the smell of toilets filled the car. They passed a girl in muddy jeans driving a herd of cows. Doug called out a greeting. No other human beings were visible in the fields.
“There aren’t very many people here?” Elfrida commented.
The maze of service tunnels downstairs, and the well-equipped decontamination room, implied a big hab. This indoor farm was huge, all right, but it seemed to be woefully underpopulated.
“Mercury’s a planet, not an asteroid,” Doug explained. “On a planet, you can spread out as far as your money’ll take you.”
The convoy turned onto a narrower road lined with trees. To Elfrida’s surprised, these were not fruit trees gengineered to yield without seasonal cues, but rhododendrons and magnolia. Conspicuous consumption. Or—environmental therapy? She was quiet, thinking about the ironies of space colonization. Space was the biggest thing in the universe, and yet most people living out here had no room to swing a cat. It could be crazy-making, as her experience with asteroid squatters proved. This looked much more sustainable. She felt a budding admiration for Wrightstuff, Inc. They were obviously investing in Mercury for the long term.
“Here we are!” The car pulled up at the edge of a lawn rainbowed by sprinklers. President Doug jumped out with the loose-jointed grace of the spaceborn. “Welcome to the White House.”
The two-storey Cape Cod rambled beneath trees taller than they would ever grow on Earth. A flag flew from the gable end. Elfrida’s unicorn told her that this was the Stars and Stripes, the flag of the former USA.
As President Doug led them around the outside of the house, a rat scuttled across their path. Before Elfrida even saw properly what it was, a gunshot shattered the quiet. The rat disintegrated.
“Rattus rattus,” President Doug sighed, holstering his pistol. “Talk about bringing your troubles with you.”
“So you’ve got a rat problem, too,” Elfrida said, giggling.
“Building an ecology in space isn’t easy. Fine if you’re going with a turnkey agricultural solution for a sterile environment. We’re operating on a different scale, in terms of diversity as well as yield. We’re reinventing the wheel in some respects, but we’re making a lot of exciting discoveries along the way.”
They came out on a neatly trimmed lawn. A jug of lemonade sat on a bleached wooden table with matching chairs. Sunglasses flashed in the thickets.
“Here’s to terraforming,” Doug said, clinking his glass of lemonade against theirs. “I think of it as multiple redundancy for Homo sapiens.”
“Hear, hear,” Elfrida said. It was a joy to meet someone who thought like her on this topic. People were so down on terraforming nowadays.
Over the next couple of hours, Doug showed her diagrams, computer models, and artist’s impressions on a table-top screen. Wrightstuff, Inc. had sixteen habs like this one at Mercury’s north and south poles. Peaks had been hollowed out and crater floors tunneled under, combining water mining with excavation of living space. This was not terraforming per se, but paraterraforming. Nesting on a grand scale.
“Eventually,” Doug said, “we’re gonna roof the craters. That’ll be enough space for independent water cycles to develop. Given how much radiation this planet gets, Mercury will never be a shirtsleeve environment, but the polar regions at least, and maybe the whole planet, could become a worldhouse with a self-sustaining ecosystem. All powered by solar energy, of course. Mercury receives seven times as much sunlight as Earth.”
“Solar energy! Big whoop,” Elfrida teased him. “Venus is going to have solar and geothermal. Volcanism on the planet isn’t going to just stop when we’ve reduced the atmosphere. So the volcanoes will be converted into thermal power plants.” She grew contemplative. “Of course, the impact of 4 Vesta will cause tectonic perturbations and extensive resurfacing. Even the continents may not be the shape we currently expect. Vesta’s going to splash down in what will be the Sea of Aphrodite, so it may wind up deeper than originally projected …”
President Doug poked her forearm. “I still can’t believe I’m sitting here with the girl who bought 4 Vesta.”
“I know that’s how it was reported, but …”
“You’re acting like it was a bad thing you did. It. Was. A. Triumph. And you know it, too. Just look at you blushing.”
“Oh, well…”
“No one ever, ever thought UNVRP would get 4 Vesta. Everyone figured the big asteroids were off-limits, period.”
“Well, it wasn’t meant to happen. It was a tragedy.”
President Doug looked down at his clasped hands, and up again. “What happened on 4 Vesta was no tragedy, Ms. Goto. It was an atrocity. An act. Of. Purest evil.”
“Yes,” Elfrida said, and Vlajkovic nodded.
“The PLAN deliberately spammed that asteroid with malware that slaughtered thousands of people. The Heidegger program.”
“It wasn’t just a program,” Elfrida whispered. “It was intelligent. The experts said it was like the PLAN’s … child.”i
“Talk about bad seeds.”
“And now they’re studying it,” Vlajkovic said, in a tone of deep disapproval. “I sure hope they’ve got good containment.”
“Well, I expect they know what they’re doing,” President Doug said. “I agree, it sounds like a risk. But we don’t know anything about it. And I do know this: we, as a species, can’t turn aside from the quest for knowledge. What are we here for, if we don’t try to salvage something from the ashes? Out of evil, good.”
“Exactly!” Elfrida cried.
“I have been following every twist and turn of the Venus Project, Ms. Goto. Your biggest cheerleader, right here.” Doug thumbed his chest. “You’ve given new hope to everyone who cares about the future of humanity
, and don’t you forget it.”
Elfrida licked her lips. She reached for the scraps of her former cynicism. “So why are you trying to sabotage our Phase Five ramp?”
Vlajkovic put his hand over his eyes.
Doug’s wry smile revived. “Is that what they’re saying? … Of course it is. Some folks will say anything, do anything, to win power, and they’ll content themselves with illegitimate power, founded upon fear and ignorance. We here at Wrightstuff, Inc. believe in giving the people a say. Now, I don’t always do what they say. That would be an asinine way to run a company. But I always take their views under advisement, and that is a tradition we inherit from our forebears, going back to the Revolution of 1776. But UNVRP, I’m sorry to say, has no such tradition. As a result, you’ve got a situation where the legitimate rights of a thousand people are about to be trampled … and that is what I’m against.”
Vlajkovic shot her a triumphant look that she could read like a text. It said: See? He’s on our side.
“Hence, I did not see eye to eye with Charlie Pope, may he rest in peace. We’re all very sorry for his untimely death, but this is a potential opportunity to reverse his decision to evacuate our friends and neighbors. For that reason, Wrightstuff, Inc. has endorsed Amanda Patel, the candidate of the NEO colonies, for the directorship of UNVRP.”
“Okayyy,” Elfrida said. “I can see how that would annoy people.”
The negative talk she’d heard about Wrightstuff, Inc. made sense now. She wondered for a second if Wrightstuff, Inc. could have had a hand in Charles K. Pope’s death, and then dismissed the thought. Way too farfetched. No one was even admitting that Pope had been murdered.
“But let’s not waste this fine day on political chit-chat, Ms. Goto! We’ve barely scratched the surface here.” Doug brought up a new set of models on the screen that covered the table. “Let me tell you more about my paraterraforming project.”
★
Cydney and Angelica were on their third beer.
“Now I remember what I wanted to ask you,” Angelica said.
Alcohol worked faster in weaker gravitational environments. The mirrored walls of the Mercury Café had dissolved into a blur. Cydney focused on Angelica’s lips. It was some seconds before she remembered to listen to what Angelica was saying.
“… So will you be my publicist?”
“Will I? Angie, I’d be totally honored! I’m so into what you’re about.”
Cydney had no idea what Angelica was about, to be honest. But she knew that her viddability quotient beat all the other candidates, combined. Those lips.
“Really? Really? Oh, Cyds. I’m so happy. Come here.” Angelica scooted around the table, and they hugged.
“We should get to work right away,” Cydney burbled, “designing your campaign.”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Oh my dog. Whoops. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t think anyone heard. But just for safety’s sake, maybe we should go back to my suite.”
“Oh, yes. Yes. Yes.”
x.
“Well?” Vlajkovic said, as soon as they got back to their rover. “What did you think?”
Elfrida peeled her EVA suit off her legs, stuffed it behind her seat, and sat back.
“Phew.” She blew her fringe off her forehead. “What did I think of President Doug? Well, he’s charismatic, isn’t he? I know what they mean now about electric personalities. Just being around him gave me so much energy. Did you notice I completely forgot about lunch, until he offered us sandwiches? That is not like me.” She giggled. The Doug effect had not entirely worn off yet, although she was objective enough to analyze it. “I wanted to please him.”
“Führer Kontakt,” Vlajkovic said.
“What?”
“The gift of leadership. He’s got it. Like you said, his people would do anything for him. He shook up the company, shifted their focus away from financial engineering, ramped up the microcredit business. They’re the only supermajor that will make loans to asteroid squatters, which is why everyone else badmouths them. And also why their share price is in the toilet. Some of the other executives blame Doug for that. They say he’s too ideological.” Vlajkovic shrugged. He reached down to the rover’s stereo and turned it on.
It was obvious to Elfrida that Vlajkovic was a 100% paid-up member of the Cult of Doug, just pretending to be objective.
“But he didn’t explain,” she said.
“What?”
She raised her voice over Vlajkovic’s execrable taste in music. “You said he’d explain everything. He didn’t.”
“Paraterraforming. That was the explanation.”
“Hmm.”
As they drove back across the crater floor, she glimpsed the peak of Mt. Gotham through the rover’s rear porthole. Amazing to think that there was a whole world inside there. Paraterraforming. It wasn’t as sexy as the Venus Project, but maybe it could make life better, faster, for more people.
“Do you have time for coffee at the Hobbit Hole when we get back?” Vlajkovic said.
“I really ought to put in some butt time,” Elfrida said regretfully. “I have to at least get started on my report for Dr. Hasselblatter. Oh dog. What am I going to do?”
“Be a rebel. Live a little.”
“Oh, OK.”
★
The Hobbit Hole was a (literally) ratty little joint where the lab workers hung out. Excavated from the outer wall of the intake shaft, it was a cozy cave furnished with second-hand tables and chairs. Carpets congregated on the floor, eating crumbs. The dim lighting preserved the illusion that they were in the middle of a 120-sol Venus night. Carpet tendrils caressed her ankles. Shabby bead curtains reminded Elfrida of the off-campus coffee shops where she’d hung out when she was at university in Berlin. She sipped her coffee … and opened her eyes wide. “This is, wow. Good.”
“It’s something Sean does,” Vlajkovic said. “We have the same beans at home, but Richard can’t duplicate the wow factor. Hungry?”
She was. She had a grilled cheese sandwich, and that was also wow. Off-duty lab workers and miners stopped by to talk to Vlajkovic. They guarded their words, unsure whether Elfrida could be trusted, but she could see that they were yearning for some sliver of hope.
“What if you were to all move into Mt. Gotham?” she said idly.
“Huh? No.”
“You need somewhere to live; they’ve got plenty of space …”
“Not an option.”
“I thought you said Doug was on your side?”
“He is.” Vlajkovic’s gaze darting around the cave as if to make sure they were not being eavesdropped on. “Listen, there’s something else I need to show you. This way.”
They squeezed into the kitchen. With two of Vlajkovic’s friends watching the door, others helped him shuffle pallets aside from a concertina curtain with embedded motion sensors, the same type of ‘door’ that they splarted into the entrances of sandcastles for privacy and security.
“Doug is on our side,” Vlajkovic insisted. “And here’s the proof.”
He urged her through the curtain, into another cave. This one was unfurnished and starkly lit. On the floor lay several open pelican cases crammed with machine-guns, drums of ammunition, and pistols.
Elfrida went on her knees next to the stash. She fitted her finger into a greasy gun barrel.
“These are the same as the Little America security guys have.”
“Yeah. .50 caliber. These rounds go through walls. You wouldn’t want to use them in an inflatable hab. But down here, we’ve got rock on all sides.”
At the far end of the cave sat one of the vinge-class phavatars they used in the surface mining operation. Elfrida had never actually seen a vinge-class in the flesh (so to speak) before. Anodized dark purple, it was a three-meter nightmare, with six multi-jointed legs, a mouthful of industrial tools, and big Bambi eyes that were supposed to make it look friendly. The eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, filmed wit
h dust.
“We’re gonna use the phavatars to secure our mining assets on the surface.” The speaker was one of Vlajkovic’s friends, a guy from the mining division. He had come in behind them, with several other men.
“Gotta jailbreak ‘em first,” Vlajkovic said. “We’re working on that.”
“Good luck,” Elfrida said. “Jailbreaking phavatars is impossible. Is anyone in management in on this?”
Vlajkovic sawed a hand back and forth.
“This is crazy.” She was trembling.
“You think we don’t know that?”
“And what if you do take over the hab? I guess that’s what you’re planning. Then what? They’d never let you get away with it.”
“They’ll agree to our terms,” Vlajkovic said, “once they see we’re serious.” He lifted one of the machine-guns and pretended to shoot from the hip, making ba-ba-ba noises under his breath.
“And, what, the Phase Five ramp just doesn’t happen? We need that iron. The Bosch reaction requires it. We also need 3×1020 kilograms of magnesium to sequester the remaining carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Venus.”
“It’ll happen,” Vlajkovic said. He put the machine-gun into her hands. “It’s not loaded … No, like this.”
Elfrida staggered. The men laughed. She was handling the gun gingerly, as if it might shock her. She adjusted her grip on the stock.
“It kicks. With your smaller physique, you’d want to use the tripod. It goes around your waist, attaches to the stock, and the feet snap down on command, see? Stabilizes the weapon. Adds a few microseconds to your reaction time, that’s all.”
“The blue berets have laser rifles.”
She referred to the thirty-strong team of UNVRP peacekeepers who officially guarded the hab and the UNVRP mining assets on the surface. The miners made rude noises to show what they thought of them. From her own experience, Elfrida could not contradict their assessment.
The Mercury Rebellion: A Science Fiction Thriller (The Solarian War Saga Book 3) Page 8