Farside

by Ben Bova

  “Most of the base is underground. Those are the solar farms, out there.” He pointed. “That’s how we generate our electricity.”

  Trudy followed his pointing arm and saw an area of dark solar cells spread across the floor of the plain, silently drinking in sunlight.

  “Daylight for fourteen days straight, just about,” said Winston.

  “And fourteen straight days of night,” Trudy added.

  “Yeah. We generate twice the power the base needs and store the excess in superconducting coils for the night. We’ve also got a nuclear generator buried out there, as a backup.”

  “Just like Selene.”

  “Uh-huh.” Winston hesitated a moment, then said, “Well, that’s about it. You want to go in now?”

  I passed the test! Trudy exulted. I got through the initiation. As nonchalantly as she could manage, she replied, “I guess.”

  As they turned toward the airlock hatch, set into the slope of the ringwall mountain, Trudy’s eye caught a glint of something halfway up the distant twisting road.

  “What’s that?”

  Winston said, “Oh, that’s Simpson’s gang toting the mirror back.”

  An enormous rig was laboriously inching along the winding road, bearing a huge flat load that gleamed in the sunlight.

  Trudy stared at it, fascinated. It was like a huge round metal pancake, obviously on wheels of some sort, creeping down the road, painfully slowly.

  “Mirror must’ve cracked at one of the switchback turns,” Winston was saying. “It’ll take them seven, eight hours to get it back down here.”

  “Do you have a pair of binoculars on you?” Trudy asked.

  “Naw. C’mon, let’s go back inside.”

  A smaller vehicle was speeding down the switchbacks at breakneck speed, kicking up a trail of dust that hung lazily in the vacuum. Lighter gravity, Trudy told herself. Dust doesn’t settle as fast as on Earth.

  “We’d better get inside,” Winston urged.

  Whoever’s driving that buggy is in an awful hurry, Trudy thought. He could get himself killed zipping around those curves like that.

  “Time to go, Dr. Yost.”

  Hesitantly, Trudy turned and followed Winston back to the airlock hatch.

  “How on Earth do they get the mirror back inside the base?” she asked.

  As he pressed the control pad set beside the hatch, Winston replied, “Biggest airlock in the solar system. It forms one entire wall of the mirror lab, over on the far side of the big turntable. Hard to see from this angle, but it’s right over there, set into the mountainside.”

  Trudy nodded inside her helmet. Must be something to see, she thought. An airlock that can take a hundred-meter mirror.

  As the hatch slid silently open, Winston went on, “Professor Uhlrich thought about building the mirror lab out here in the open. Vacuum is a lot cleaner than an underground facility filled with air and sweat and all sorts of impurities and contaminants.”

  “But?” Trudy prompted.

  “He decided it’d be easier for the staff to work in air, instead of outside in suits. So they built the big airlock.”

  Trudy realized that Winston hadn’t pointed out the airlock to her when he’d taken her through the mirror lab. He hadn’t even mentioned it.

  Once back inside, it took nearly an hour to vacuum the dust off their suits and then wriggle out of them. The air in the locker room had an acrid smell to it.

  Before she could ask, Winston smilingly explained, “Place smells like gunpowder, doesn’t it? That’s from the dust.”

  As she peeled off her thermal undergarment, Trudy realized her blouse and jeans were soaked with perspiration.

  “I need a shower,” she said, wrinkling her nose at her own odor.

  “Yeah. Everybody does after they’ve been outside.”

  At that moment the inner hatch of the airlock slid open and a figure in a space suit tromped in. As he unsealed his helmet and pulled it off, Trudy recognized the darkly bearded guy with the sad eyes she’d seen on the screen in Professor Uhlrich’s office.

  “Hey, Grant,” said Winston.

  “Hello, Win.”

  “Uh, this is Trudy Yost. She’s going—”

  “Hello,” said Grant Simpson. And he clomped past Trudy, heading for the corridor that led to Professor Uhlrich’s office, without bothering to take off his space suit.

  PROFESSOR UHLRICH’S OFFICE

  Grant Simpson got as far as the corridor door, then realized he was being asinine. You can’t confront Uhlrich in your space suit, he told himself. That’d just confirm all his suspicions about you.

  Grimly he turned around and clunked back to his personal locker. The young woman and Win Winston were standing a few lockers up, staring at him.

  “Grant, this is Trudy Yost,” Winston repeated. “She’s a new postdoc.”

  Grant extended his hand, then realized it was still encased in the heavy glove of his space suit. He ripped the seal open, then pulled off his glove while Winston was saying:

  “Dr. Yost, this is Grant Simpson, the assistant chief of the mirror lab’s technical staff.”

  Grant clasped Trudy’s hand briefly while he looked at her. Nice face, he thought. Wholesome. Little snub of a nose. Hair cut short. Greenish eyes.

  “Good to meet you, Dr. Yost,” he said.

  She nodded, said nothing.

  To Winston, Grant said, “Can you give me a hand with the suit, Win?”

  “Sure thing.” Winston stepped behind him and began to disconnect Grant’s backpack. Once that was done he helped Grant lift the suit’s hard-shell torso over his head and rested it in his locker.

  “I’m in kind of a hurry,” Grant said to Trudy. “Got to see the Ulcer.”

  Trudy’s eyes looked perplexed. “Ulcer?”

  Winston laughed shakily. “That’s Grant’s pet name for the professor. Uhlrich the Ulcer.”

  “He doesn’t get them,” said Grant. “He gives them.”

  “Oh.” She looked somewhere between amused and alarmed. “I’m going to be Professor Uhlrich’s assistant, you know.”

  Settling himself on the bench in front of the lockers, Grant replied as he started to undo his dust-covered boots, “Then you’ll probably get an ulcer, too, sooner or later.”

  She glanced at Winston, then said, “I won’t tell him that you call him that.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Grant said. “He knows it. Everybody here at Farside calls him the Ulcer.”

  Trudy seemed unsure of herself. She looked toward Winston again, who merely shrugged. Then she said, almost apologetically, “I’ve got to get to my quarters. I need a shower.”

  She started toward the door as if she were fleeing from danger. Over her shoulder she said, “It was nice to meet you, Dr. Simpson.”

  “Mr. Simpson,” Grant called after her. “I’m not a Ph.D. I work for a living.”

  Winston laughed nervously, then started after her. “Her first day,” he said.

  As if that explains anything, Grant thought. He sat wearily on the bench in front of his locker and unconsciously rubbed at the small of his back. It throbbed with a dull, deep, sullen pain.

  * * *

  The Ulcer was in a grim mood when Grant slid back the door to his office. Carter McClintock was already there; why, Grant could not fathom. The man wasn’t an astronomer, not an engineer or even an administrator. He seemed to be nothing more than a visiting playboy, but somehow he was always at the Ulcer’s elbow. McClintock was about Grant’s own age, but there the similarities ended. Where Grant was a compact middleweight with strong, stubby limbs, McClintock was tall, gracefully good-looking, smiling, and totally at ease. His job wasn’t on the line. His neck wasn’t in the noose.

  “Come in, Simpson,” said Professor Uhlrich, his voice as cold and sharp as a dagger’s blade. Then he got a whiff of Grant’s sweat-soaked clothes.

  As Grant took the seat across the table from McClintock, Uhlrich’s nose wrinkled. From behind his desk he
said stiffly, “And where is Mr. Oberman? I expected him to be here with you.”

  “Nate’s on his way,” Grant said. “I phoned him while I was coming here.”

  As if in response to his words, the office door slid back and Nate Oberman stepped through, looking wary, troubled. He was tall and lean, loose jointed, with a long square jaw and narrow, suspicious eyes.

  Although Oberman was Grant’s immediate superior, Grant had never warmed to the man. Nate didn’t take his job seriously enough, Grant thought. He had a shrunken sense of responsibility: always ready to let Grant do the work while he lazed in the background. He didn’t seem to really know very much about engineering; Grant wondered how he had gotten Uhlrich to hire him for Farside in the first place. Probably doctored his résumé, Grant thought. Maybe he even got through college that way. Plenty of hackers ready to improve your record—for a fee.

  The thing about engineering, though, is that sooner or later you have to make something work. You can’t finesse your way through your entire career. The real world’s caught up with Nate, Grant thought.

  “Mr. Oberman,” said Uhlrich, his voice glacially cold.

  Oberman pulled up the chair next to McClintock and eased his lanky frame into it. “I heard about the accident,” he said, almost as lightly as if he were talking about the weather.

  “The road you laid out was too difficult for the mirror to negotiate,” said Uhlrich.

  Shaking his head, Oberman countered, “There’s nothing wrong with the road. Grant should’ve been able to get the mirror across the mountain with no trouble.”

  Looking as if he’d been forced to swallow a half-dozen lemons, Uhlrich said, “Yet the mirror fell off its carriage at one of the switchbacks that you designed.”

  “You approved the design,” Oberman said.

  “After you assured me that it was adequate,” Uhlrich retorted.

  Jabbing a finger across the table toward Grant, Oberman said, “It’s not my fault that he messed up. Probably took that switchback turn too fast, I bet.”

  The pain in his back flared up again and Grant felt his pulse thundering in his ears. Nate’s dumping the blame in my lap, he told himself. And he realized it was nothing less than he’d expected from Oberman. He closed his eyes for a moment, telling himself to relax, don’t get angry, be reasonable, rational, calm.

  “Well, Mr. Simpson?” Uhlrich’s voice cut through his mantra.

  Keeping his voice soft, tranquil, Grant said, “I never exceeded the speed limits set by the transport plan. You can check the monitor’s record at the excursion control center. I kept to the indicated speed limits.”

  “Then why did the mirror frame slip off the carriage?” Uhlrich demanded.

  “Because the switchback was too tight for the carriage to negotiate,” Grant said. Turning to Oberman, he said, “Nate, I told you those curves were too sharp. I warned you we’d have trouble.”

  “So you’re dumping it all on me!” Oberman snapped.

  “No, all I’m saying—”

  Angrily, Oberman screeched, “My design was fine! Perfect! The professor here okayed it!”

  Suddenly Uhlrich looked alarmed. “I approved it only because you assured me it was satisfactory.”

  McClintock broke in, “Recriminations aren’t going to help anything.”

  “It’s not my fault,” Oberman insisted. “I did my job right. Grant screwed up.”

  Grant fought down the urge to lean across the table and smack Oberman in his lying mouth.

  “The fact remains,” Professor Uhlrich said, his voice quivering slightly with deadly anger, “that the mirror is damaged and it is your responsibility, Mr. Oberman.”

  “Not mine,” Oberman insisted, pointing across the table again at Grant. “His.”

  “Yours,” Uhlrich repeated. He took a deep breath, then said, “I am relieving you of your position, Mr. Oberman.”

  “You’re firing me?”

  “Yes.”

  Oberman smiled maliciously. “You can’t fire me. I have a contract. I still have more than a month of employment coming to me. With salary and benefits.”

  Uhlrich stared at him blankly, then replied, “Mr. McClintock will find some administrative assignment for you for the remainder of your contract. I don’t want you involved in any of the technical work here.”

  Grant felt stunned. He hadn’t realized that the Ulcer was so blazingly furious.

  Then he heard the professor say, “Mr. Simpson, you will take over the leadership of the technical crew, on a temporary basis.”

  Oberman hauled himself up from his chair and glared at Uhlrich. “Okay, fine. I don’t give a shit. I’ll sit around here for another few weeks and twiddle my thumbs—at full salary. Why the fuck not?”

  Then he turned back to Grant. “Congratulations, backstabber. You’ve got what you wanted all along, haven’t you?”

  JOB DESCRIPTIONS

  Grant watched in stunned silence as Oberman slammed furiously out of the professor’s office and banged the sliding door loudly shut behind him.

  The office fell absolutely still. Grant could hear the whisper of the air blowing softly through the ducts in the stone ceiling.

  I’m going to head up the tech team, Grant said to himself. Nate thinks I angled for his job. He’s sore as hell. Then he thought, I guess I would be, too, if the Ulcer had bounced me out of my job.

  At last Uhlrich asked, in a voice that was low but sharp enough to cut steel, “Where is the damaged mirror now?”

  “On its way back here,” Grant replied. “It’s about halfway down the ringwall road. Should be at the mirror lab airlock in six or seven hours.”

  “You left it there? You left your crew?”

  “You told me to report to you as quickly as possible, didn’t you? Well, here I am.”

  Uhlrich stared blankly at Grant. After several moments, McClintock tried to break the tension. “Couldn’t we repair the mirror, instead of recasting it?”

  Surprised, Grant asked, “Repair it? How?”

  “With nanomachines.”

  “Nanos…” Grant glanced back at Uhlrich, who sat as rigidly as a Chinese mandarin presiding over an execution.

  Nanomachines can be dangerous, Grant knew. He had considered suggesting using them to Uhlrich back when he’d first arrived at Farside, but decided against it. Too risky, he’d thought. Especially in a facility as small as Farside. If some rogue nanos got loose they could wipe out the whole place and everybody in it.

  Instead, he had followed Uhlrich’s decision to spin cast the mirrors. With the Moon’s lighter gravity it was possible to spin cast telescope mirrors far larger than anything on Earth.

  Yeah, Grant thought. Until you try to get them over the ringwall mountains and they crack on you.

  Halfheartedly, Uhlrich said, “If nanomachines can repair the mirror, we will have lost only a few weeks.”

  Instead of the months it would take to recast the mirror, Grant thought. He looked at McClintock with newfound respect. He might be able to do it. Nanomachines might be the answer, after all. Despite the risks.

  Uhlrich dismissed them both with a curt nod of his head. Grant followed McClintock through the door and out into the corridor.

  As he slid the door shut, Grant asked McClintock, “Do you really think nanotechnology can save the mirror?”

  The taller man made a barely discernible shrug. “I really don’t know. Maybe we’re grasping at straws.”

  Starting down the corridor, toward the area where the living quarters were located, McClintock said, “I’m surprised that Professor Uhlrich didn’t look into nanotech when he first came to Farside.”

  “Maybe he should have,” Grant replied noncommittally.

  “I mean, with Cardenas heading the nanolab over at Selene. She’s up for the Nobel, for god’s sake.”

  “Nanomachines can be dangerous, you know,” Grant said. “They’re banned back on Earth. Worried about murderers or terrorists using them.”

&n
bsp; “Or the gray goo,” said McClintock.

  Grant looked at him. The man was not smiling now.

  McClintock went on, “Someone could design nanomachines to tear apart carbon-based molecules. There goes all the world’s plastics—and people.”

  “I’ve heard there are secret nanolabs on Earth,” Grant said. “Big corporations have them tucked away here and there.”

  “Old wives’ tales,” McClintock muttered.

  Grant nodded. “Maybe so.”

  The corridor was narrow and low-ceilinged. The construction engineers who had cut these tunnels hadn’t spent a penny more than necessary. Strictly utilitarian. Bare rock, drab and gray. Pipes and conduits along the ceiling. Overhead lights spaced every twenty meters made the corridor look shadowy. Like a haunted house, Grant thought. He grimaced. I don’t need any props or settings to haunt me, he thought. I’ve got my own demons chasing me.

  He felt his hands beginning to tremble, and knew that he needed a fix. Only a few more meters to my door, Grant told himself. I can make it without letting him see how bad off I am. He jammed his hands in his coverall pockets.

  Was it my fault the mirror cracked? he asked himself. Nate plotted out the road, and I told him he ought to make it easier, but the Ulcer was in a sweat to get the frigging mirror over to Mendeleev, and Nate didn’t have the balls to stand up to him. Maybe I should’ve tried to help Nate, stiffen his backbone a little. Maybe I could’ve helped to make the road easier to traverse. I might have saved Nate’s job for him. But that would’ve meant we’d need more time to build the road and Uhlrich—

  He realized that McClintock was speaking to him.

  “… my quarters at seventeen hundred, sharp.”

  Grant blinked, confused. “Your quarters?”

  “For my teleconference with Dr. Cardenas,” McClintock said.

  “You want me in on that?”

  “Of course.”

  They had reached Grant’s door. “This is my place,” he said.

  McClintock stopped and repeated, “Seventeen hundred. Sharp.”

  “I’ll be there,” said Grant. Then he realized, “Um, where is your place?”