Carbide Tipped Pens: Seventeen Tales of Hard Science Fiction

by Ben Bova

  In the meantime, radioactive steam, wall debris, and other material not captured by the explosive doors that slammed shut at the top of the bore hole, spewed into the atmosphere. Carried by easterly winds and the jet stream, the contaminated material drifted toward the most populated parts of the US.

  Senate Hearing Room, Russell Office Building

  The small hearing room was crammed with people. Staffers stood against the back wall as news media crouched on the floor in a no-man’s-land between the senators and the table where Heather and her deputies were seated.

  The chairman pounded on the gavel. He leaned over the wooden desk that separated him and his congressional colleagues from the NNSA personnel. The murmuring silenced as the chairman looked at Heather over the top of his glasses. “This report from your own agency, Madam Administrator, indicates that more radiation was released into the atmosphere by this Thunderwell disaster than from Three Mile Island. Now what do you say about that?”

  Heather straightened and leaned into her microphone. “Considering that the radiation level outside the gate to Three Mile Island was just over the amount of radiation you’d get from flying over the Rocky Mountains, a factor of ten times that amount is still less activity than the Japanese nuclear release from the 2012 tsunami.”

  The chairman reddened. “I can hold you in contempt, Madam Administrator.”

  “I meant no disrespect, Senator. You asked what I had to say about the comparison of radioactivity released from Three Mile Island. The fact is that the containment vessel at TMI did a remarkable job of doing what it was designed to do, and as such the radiation levels near the facility were relatively small. In the same manner, the blast doors at the Nevada Test Site, although not perfect, did an extraordinary job of containing a nuclear blast of over a half-megaton—and produced far, far less fallout than any aboveground test the US ever conducted.”

  “I wouldn’t call the meltdown of a nuclear power plant benign, madam.”

  “Compared to a nuclear explosion, it is, Senator.”

  The chairman pounded his gavel. “Enough! Do you have a clue as to the severity of your actions? Regardless of how much you downplay the venting of a nuclear explosion, the fact is that radiation levels have been raised across the US, and clouds of nuclear debris are drifting eastward toward our allies and friends. You’ve not only put millions of people at risk by exposing them to the unknown effects of nuclear fallout, but you’ve singlehandedly broken the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty, a cornerstone of the peaceful relationships our world currently enjoys.”

  Heather leaned into her microphone. “You’re well aware the Test-Ban Treaty has never been ratified by the Senate, Senator. And as far as the amount of fallout, anyone who flies cross-country receives more radiation damage from cosmic radiation than they ever will from the Thunderwell venting. You can haul me up before a Congressional hearing, but when you do, you can’t twist facts to push a political agenda. And you certainly can’t use me as a scapegoat when I’m trying to do what our nation should have been doing all along—everything we can to save human lives, the American and international astronauts who are relying on us.”

  The hearing room was silent. The only sound was from the low hum of the recording equipment and the thrumming of the building’s ventilator. Sitting next to Heather, General Mitchell got her attention and nodded at a flush-faced staffer who hurried in from the back.

  The chairman was handed a note. He nodded, then turned his attention back to Heather. His voice seemed to have brightened. “Are you through, madam?”

  Heather drew in a breath. “Yes, sir, I am.”

  “Very well.” He held up the paper given to him by his staffer. “I’ve just been handed a note from the NASA Administrator. It seems that radar imagery from the military’s Haystack radar confirms that the Thunderwell payload of supplies are slowly dispersing, and there’s a good chance that none of the supplies may reach Mars.” He looked over his glasses at Heather. “As altruistic as you may be, young lady, not only have you broken the law and put countless humans at risk, but it now appears that you’ve done it all in vain. For your own sake, you should hope we can keep you in the US when you’re hauled to court … and not appear in front of an international tribunal.” He showed the hint of a smirk. “I understand they can be quite ruthless.” He banged his gavel. “I call for a one-hour recess.”

  “Copy,” clicked Colonel Lewis. Although it took a good eight minutes for the signal to arrive at Mars and another eight for the response to reach Earth, when appraised of the rescue attempt and the breakup of supplies, the Mars commander showed no emotion.

  Just like his wife.

  It was classic Heather: short and sweet.

  The memo to the Secretary of Energy read, “I respectfully submit my resignation, effective immediately, for personal reasons.”

  Two weeks later she entered the minimum security prison facility just north of Pleasanton, CA.

  The US refused her extradition to the international tribunal.

  Three months later

  Data from MIT Lincoln Lab’s Haystack radar showed a surprising result: chunks of steel plate that had fractured during the ascent no longer drifted apart. The slowing of the chunks had been previously noted, and at first the data was dismissed as an artifact of scintillation, the random dispersion of radar due to fluctuations of the Earth’s ionosphere. But the data grew more pronounced as corrections were applied and as time passed. It took weeks to verify the readings, but when the data were released, a theory based on a gravitational asteroid-rubble model was simultaneously published in Nature and Geophysical Review Letters explaining the debris aggregation phenomenon.

  According to the orbit determination and propagations performed by Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the center-of-mass was predicted to intersect the northern Martian limb and with the supplies no longer drifting apart, there was a non-zero chance that at least a third of the supplies would impact the planet.

  Brigadier General Mitchell, now assigned to the Pentagon as a special assistant to the Air Force Chief of Staff before his forced, impending retirement from active duty, wrote Heather a note with the news.

  Hundreds of kilometers from the landing craft, gigantic puffs of dust peppered the Martian surface. Seismometers recorded shocks emanating from thousands of locations, as if the planet were being bombarded by a swarm of meteorites.

  Sensors on board the still-orbiting mothership showed that the puffs of dust made a pattern, commensurate with the center-of-mass distribution of the supplies. A few of the supplies splashed heavily into the surface—metal tanks, scaffolding, and parts that had been packaged to withstand the rapid transit of the Martian atmosphere and burrow into the ground. Other provisions of dried food, water, and expendables had been enveloped in giant twin-hulled balloons that had inflated while being slowed by specially designed parachutes. The balloons bounced crazily across the Martian surface, rebounding or striking outcrops of rocks and quickly deflating.

  Chunks of steel plate, glowing red hot from screaming through the thin atmosphere, preceded the supplies and created craters hundreds of feet across. Between the seismic data and overhead sensors, the locations of the supplies were quickly calculated.

  Emotions in check, Colonel Lewis ordered two of the crew to remain with the lander and ordered the rest to accompany him on the Martian crawler to investigate one of the nearer impact sites. They didn’t know how much, if any, of the supplies had survived the journey, or in what shape anything would be, but it gave them hope that their mission might extend well beyond what they had thought only a few minutes before.

  Passed through channels to her minimum security cell, Brigadier General Mitchell’s memo to Heather described what her husband’s crew had managed to find.

  Sitting on the single bed in her stark cell, Heather leaned back against the bare, white wall. She closed her eyes. If she kept up her good behavior, she might be released by the time her husband returned.
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br />   And there was little doubt in her mind that he would.

  THE CIRCLE

  Liu Cixin*

  Translated by Ken Liu

  * * *

  For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

  The saddest are these: “It might have been!”

  Maud Muller (1856)

  In the early years of the fifteenth century—eight decades before Columbus’s voyages to the New World—the Ming Empire of China sent “treasure fleets” across the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

  Commanded by the eunuch Zheng He, these fleets were composed of huge oceangoing junks, many of them with crews of a thousand men (plus “comfort women”). By the hundreds, they sailed to Indonesia, Malaya, and the east coast of Africa. There is some evidence they may even have touched on the western coasts of North and South America.

  While their ostensible purpose was to obtain “treasure” from the distant lands, Zheng He’s fleets also compelled fealty to the Chinese emperor.

  When the last Ming emperor died and a boy king ascended to the Throne of Heaven, the Confucian bureaucrats who now controlled the government ordered the treasure fleet burned.

  All that is worth knowing and having, the bureaucrats decreed, is right here in China. Sailing beyond China’s coastal waters was forbidden.

  Within a century, European explorers, in their much smaller ships, began the colonial era that humbled China for nearly five hundred years.

  If the Chinese had continued the work of their treasure fleets, China might have colonized Europe. You and I would be speaking Chinese today.

  It might have been.

  Liu Cixin’s stylishly told tale, translated into English by Ken Liu, tells of another “might have been,” also set in China, long ago.

  * * *

  Xianyang, capital of the state of Qin, 227 B.C.*

  Jing Ke slowly unrolled the silk scroll of a map across the low, long table.

  On the other side of the table, King Zheng of Qin sighed satisfactorily as he watched the mountains and rivers of his enemy being slowly revealed. Jing Ke was here to present the surrender of the King of Yan. It was easy to feel in control looking at the fields, roads, cities, and military bases drawn on a map. The real land, so vast, sometimes made him feel powerless.

  When Jing Ke reached the end of the scroll, there was a metallic glint, and a sharp dagger came into view. The air in the Great Hall of the Palace seemed to solidify in an instant.

  All the king’s ministers stood at least thirty feet away, and in any event, had no weapons. The armed guards were even farther away, below the steps leading into the Great Hall. These measures were intended to improve the king’s security, but now they only made the assassin’s task easier.

  But King Zheng remained calm. After giving the dagger a brief glance, he focused his sharp and somber eyes on Jing Ke. The king was a careful man, and he had noticed that the dagger was positioned such that the handle pointed at him while the tip pointed back toward the assassin.

  Jing Ke picked up the dagger, and all those present in the Great Hall gasped. But King Zheng sighed in relief. He saw that Jing Ke held the dagger only by the tip of the blade, with the dull handle pointing at the king.

  “Your Majesty, please kill me with this weapon.” Jing Ke raised the dagger over his head and bowed. “Crown Prince Dan of Yan ordered me to make this attempt on your life, and I cannot disobey an order from my master. But my great admiration for you makes it impossible for me to carry through.”

  King Zheng made no move.

  “Sire, all you have to do is to stab lightly. The dagger has been soaked in poison. A slight prick is enough to end my life.”

  King Zheng sat still and raised his hands to signal the guards rushing into the Great Hall to stop. Without changing his expression, he said, “I do not have to kill you to feel safe. Your words have convinced me that you do not have the heart of an assassin.”

  In a single, smooth motion, Jing Ke wrapped the fingers of his right hand around the handle of the dagger. The tip of the dagger was aimed at his own chest as though he was about to commit suicide.

  “You’re a learned man.” King Zheng’s voice was cold. “Dying now would be a waste. I’d like to have your skills and knowledge assisting my army. If you insist on dying, do so only after you’ve accomplished some things for me first.” He waved at Jing Ke, dismissing him.

  The assassin from Yan gently put the dagger down on the table, and still bowing, backed out of the Great Hall.

  King Zheng stood up and walked out of the Great Hall. The sky was perfectly clear and he saw the pale white moon in the blue sky like a delicate dream left behind by the night.

  “Jing Ke,” he called after the assassin still descending the steps. “Does the moon appear during the day often?”

  The assassin’s white robe reflected the sunlight like a bright flame. “It’s not unusual to have the sun and the moon appear in the sky simultaneously. On the lunar calendar, between the fourth and twelfth days of each month, it’s possible to see the moon at different times during the day as long as the weather is good.”

  King Zheng nodded. “Oh, not an uncommon sight,” he muttered to himself.

  Two years later, King Zheng summoned Jing Ke to an audience.

  When Jing Ke arrived outside the palace in Xianyang, he saw three officials being marched out of the Great Hall by armed guards. Having been stripped of the insignia of their rank, their heads were bare. Two of them walked between the guards with faces drained of blood while the third was so frightened that he could no longer walk and had to be carried by two soldiers. This last man continued to mumble, begging King Zheng to spare his life. Jing Ke heard him muttering the word “medicine” a few times. He guessed that the three men had been sentenced to death.

  King Zheng’s mood was jovial when he saw Jing Ke, as though nothing had happened. He pointed to the three departing officials and said, by way of explanation, “Xu Fu’s fleet has never returned from the East Sea. Someone has to be held responsible.”

  Jing Ke knew that Xu Fu was an occultist who claimed that he could go to three magical mountains on islands out in the East Sea to find the elixir of eternal life. King Zheng gave him a large fleet of ships loaded with three thousand youths and maidens and heaped with treasure, gifts for the immortals that held the secret of eternal life. But the fleet had set sail three years ago, and not a peep had been heard from him since.

  King Zheng waved the sore topic away. “I hear that you’ve invented many wonders in the last couple years. The new bow you designed can shoot twice as far as the old models; the war chariots you devised are equipped with clever springs to ride smoothly over rough ground without having to slow down; the bridges whose construction you supervised use only half as much material, but are even stronger—I’m very pleased. How did you come up with these ideas?”

  “When I follow the order of the Heavens, all things are possible.”

  “Xu Fu said the same thing.”

  “Sire, please permit me to be blunt. Xu Fu is nothing more than a fraud. Casting lots and empty meditation are not appropriate ways to understand the order of the universe. Men like him cannot understand the way the Heavens speak at all.”

  “What is the language of the Heavens then?”

  “Mathematics. Numbers and shapes are the means by which the Heavens write to the world.”

  King Zheng nodded thoughtfully. “Interesting. So what are you working on now?”

  “I’m always striving to understand more of the Heavens’ messages for Your Majesty.”

  “Any progress?”

  “Yes, some. At times, I even feel I’m standing right in front of the door to the treasury filled with the secrets of the universe.”

  “How do the Heavens tell you these mysteries? Just now, you explained that the language of the Heavens consists of numbers and shapes.”

  “The circle.”

  Seeing that King Zheng was utterly confused, Jing Ke asked for and received
permission to pick up a brush. He drew a circle on the silk cloth spread out on the low table. Though he didn’t use a compass or other tools to assist him, the circle appeared to be perfect.

  “Sire, other than objects made by men, have you ever seen a perfect circle in nature?”

  King Zheng pondered this for a moment. “Very rarely. Once, a falcon and I stared at each other, and I noticed that its eyes were very round.”

  “Yes, that’s true. I can also suggest as examples eggs laid by certain aquatic creatures, the intersecting plane between a dewdrop and a leaf, and so on. But I’ve carefully measured all of these, and none of them are perfect circles. It’s the same with the circle I drew here: it may look round, but it contains errors and imperfections undetectable by the naked eye. In fact, it’s an oval, not a perfect circle. I’ve been searching for the perfect circle for a long time, and I finally realized that it does not exist in the world below, but only in the Heavens above.”

  “Oh?”

  “Sire, please accompany me outside the palace.”

  Jing Ke and King Zheng strode outside the palace. It was another beautiful day with the moon and the sun both visible in the clear sky.

  “The sun and the full moon are both perfect circles,” said Jing Ke as he pointed at the sky. “The Heavens placed the perfect circle—impossible to find on earth—in the sky. Not just one, but two examples, and they’re the most notable features of the firmament. The meaning couldn’t be clearer: the secret of the Heavens resides inside the circle.”

  “But the circle is the simplest of shapes. Other than a straight line, it’s the least complicated figure.” King Zheng turned around and returned inside the palace.

  “That apparent simplicity disguises a profound mystery,” Jing Ke said as he followed the king back inside. When they returned to the low table, he drew a rectangle on the silk with the brush. “Observe this rectangle, if you would. The longer dimension measures four inches, and the shorter dimension two. The Heavens speak also through this figure.”