by Baen Books
The command vessel was underway. An apparent wind blew from behind Ernesto, battling the cross-breeze that had begun to whip up whitecaps on the dark waves of the Pacific. The deck vibrated and water churned, pale and foam-flecked, salty spray thrown up by massive, unseen propellers far below. Ernesto's hands shook. This was so bizarre. He, Ernesto Suarez, was on the deck of a wet-launch command vessel, chatting with the richest man on Earth. Chatting like they were buddies.
Ernesto's voice quivered but didn't crack. "A couple, sir."
"Here's the agreement. For every question, you ask I get to ask one. If you ask a boneheaded question, I get to ask a boneheaded question. Anything I say gets reported word for word. Anything you say gets reported word for word."
Ernesto shifted his feet. He'd interviewed many NASA, CNSA, and ROSCOSMOS experts for his blog. "Verbatim transcriptions can be boring, sir. People tend to wander, and... um... do that a lot."
"I don't. And you won't. Those are my requirements. Take them or leave them."
"I'll take them, sir."
"Then shoot, ernesto2003."
"Yes, sir." Ernesto flicked the recording app on his cloudnode alive. He'd scoured the cloud for every interview of James Lamplighter in existence. He'd never interviewed anyone but scientists and engineers and they couldn't stop talking once Ernesto got them started on the subjects his friends cared about. With Lamplighter he didn't know where to begin. Lamplighter was a money man, not a scientist, and notoriously secretive. Plus, it wouldn't just be Blogespacial! regulars reading this interview. Millions would read Ernesto's words simply because the subject was James Lamplighter.
Ernesto decided to begin where every other interviewer began. "What's it feel like to be the richest man on Earth?"
"It feels like dirt. And that's a boneheaded question. I was born the tenth richest man on Earth. When I die I'll still be the richest man on Earth. And that will feel like dirt squared." Lamplighter glared at Ernesto. "My turn. What's it feel like to be born a nothing?"
Ernesto felt his face burn. "What?"
"You heard me."
"I'm not a nothing."
"Then prove it. Next question."
"You want me to post... That? Without editing?"
"I don't want it. I demand it. Now next question, son."
"I'm not your son."
"That's not a question."
Ernesto was so angry he couldn't see straight. He knew he was that angry because the idea that he couldn't see straight was a cliché, and Ernesto hated clichés with a passion. "You're the richest man on Earth. You can have anything you want."
"And you were born a nothing. And you can't. That's still not a question. Is this all you've brought, ernesto2003? Because I have a score of questions, and you're going to answer every single one."
Ernesto rubbed his forehead. His guts churned. "Why are you doing this?"
"Now that's a question, and it's not a boneheaded one. Do you want to film this?"
"Why?"
"Because no one's ever asked me that question. It's good copy."
"No, I don't want to film this."
"Fair enough," Lamplighter said. "I imagine, in your mind, 'Why are you doing this' pertains to why I am beating up on an seventeen year old kid, whose parents aren't even legal residents, and who would be entering college next year if he could scrape together the coin, but instead is wasting his talents waiting tables at the family restaurant, which will one day be his, and which he will hate with all the passion in the world because it isn't what he wants. He will hate it, not because he couldn't imagine better for himself, but because he can.
"Now, in my mind, your question, 'Why are you doing this', pertains, not merely to this conversation and your precious feelings, but to everything I've brought you here to witness, and everything I've done in my life up to this moment. Do you, perhaps, see a difference in these two questions, and in the nature of our perspectives?"
Ernesto's face burned. He glanced down at the recorder in his hand. He could switch it off and go home. He didn't have to do this. He didn't like it when his dad got angry, and he didn't like it when he got angry. Anger made him stupid, and maybe he wasn't much, but he wasn't stupid. Ernesto took a deep breath and looked Lamplighter in the eye. "I see it."
"Well, I don't. They are faces of the same coin. So I will give you the same answer to both questions. I'm 'doing this' because I want to. And because I can."
"What? That's your excuse?"
"You don't get a follow-up. And for the record, that was an explanation, not an excuse."
"That's... cold."
"My deck, my rules. Now I get a question."
Ernesto tore his gaze away from Lamplighter. He glanced out to sea, where the wind had begun to whip the white-capped waves higher. Ernesto could feel his nostrils flare as he sucked in great gulps of salt air. Lamplighter would probably ask if Ernesto had any socks without holes in them, or what it feels like when your parents can't make a mortgage payment. "Go ahead."
Lamplighter leaned against the rail, stretching his legs. His gaze never left Ernesto's face. "What, ernesto2003, do you want more than anything in the world?"
"What?"
"You heard me."
Ernesto couldn't speak the truth. Not in a thousand years could he speak the truth. Not without messaging cosmicgrrl first. In private. "I haven't given that as much thought as it deserves."
"Give it some." Lamplighter lounged against the fantail railing. He crossed his tanned ankles and pursed his lips, examining Ernesto like some unidentifiable stain discovered lurking on his freshly-pressed tablecloth. "While we wait, maybe you'd like to ask the obvious follow-up question."
Maybe, right after Ernesto finished stuffing his fist up Lamplighter's posh aristocratic nose. Some things never changed, no matter how much you wanted them to. Ernesto took three deep breaths and counted to ten. "Umm... What do you want more than anything in the world?"
Lamplighter grinned like an imbecile. "I thought you'd never ask. I have given this as much thought as it deserves. I've thought about it every night since I learned to read, and since I learned to think for myself. I wish to be the richest man--"
"But you already are!"
"Hear me out, son."
"I'm not your son."
"You think not?"
"I wouldn't want to be."
"I don't blame you for feeling that way. It changes nothing. Now stow it, and let me say what I want to say. For the record."
Ernesto jammed his cloudnode in Lamplighter's face so the microphone wouldn't miss the man's gloating words, and so that later he could transcribe every arrogant, elitist inflection of Lamplighter's boarding-school voice. "Go on."
"You'll laugh, ernesto2003."
"I promise you, Mr. Lamplighter, I find none of this amusing."
"I wish to be the richest man on Mars."
Ernesto snorted. "What?"
"You heard me. And you laughed."
"That's impossible."
"I heard you laugh, son."
"No, the other thing. Being the richest man on Mars. That's impossible."
"That doesn't stop me from wanting it."
"But you can't have that." Even the richest man on Earth couldn't have that. No one could.
Lamplighter's gaze locked with Ernesto's. It was like when Ernesto was eight and crouching in his aunt Vera's basement the day before Christmas, peering into the firebox of the furnace and trying to figure out why the house didn't burn down. For an instant, Ernesto felt that the fire saw him watching, and all it was waiting for was for Ernesto to turn his back and run.
"Are you a writer, ernesto2003?"
"Trying to be."
"Then surely someone, sometime, has told you how writing is like eating an elephant. That there's only one way to do it."
"One bite at a time."
"Exactly."
"So?"
"One small bite for a man is still too much for mankind to swallow. At least too much for manki
nd's politicians and their hidebound masters."
Lamplighter's gaze shifted from Ernesto to the sky, tracking something that probably wasn't invisible to Lamplighter's augmented eyesight but was far too small for Ernesto's naked eye to see, watching it soaring, up, up, and away.
"Too much until now."
The viewfinder of Ernesto's camera had grown very steady. Very still. He realized he'd been holding his breath. Shouting and astronauting didn't go together. He needed to be cool as mission control. Cool as cosmicgrrl. Ernesto took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"How do you intend to get to Mars?"
"I'm following your plan, ernesto2003. With slight modifications to the budget."
"What?"
"You'd do me a great favor if you'd stop shouting after every question I ask."
"That was a statement that I shouted after."
"So it was. Let's try this again. Are you sure you don't want to film this?"
Ernesto felt his face twist into an imbecilic grin. "That's a boneheaded question."
"Then get your gear. And meet me in the assembly bay."
"I will, sir. Umm..."
"Ring me when you're ready."
"I will, sir." Right after he messaged cosmicgrrl.
#
Safe in his stateroom, Ernesto tried to keep from hyperventilating. You are not going to believe this. Ernesto messaged cosmicgrrl everything he'd learned: that Lamplighter intended to go to Mars using a plan cosmicgrrl and Ernesto's other friends had worked out on Blogespacial!.
cosmicgrrl's reply was nearly instantaneous. I am shocked, shocked, shocked. Tell me more.
Later. When I know more. First, Ernesto had to do something he'd been putting off. There were a pair of elephants stomping around on his guts now, and if he wanted a good night's sleep ever again he couldn't ignore either one. His pulse raced as he typed rapidly, pressing the send glyph before he lost his courage. Do you ever get out to San Diego?
It cost a small fortune, but Ernesto's international data plan was worth every penny. cosmicgrrl's reply rocketed back instantly. All the time. Why do you ask?
Ernesto's palms wept sweat. His cloudnode squirted from his fingers. He scooped it up off the pristine bedspread and took the coward's way out. Tell you later. Gotta go.
#
The camera rattled in Ernesto's hands. It had image stabilization, but that wasn't enough. A multi-stage lift vehicle filled the command ship's assembly bay. Three engineers were stripping the payload. Captain Weber and a lady engineer were working on another payload package in a distant corner of the shipboard high bay. Sodium light bathed every inch in uncompromising detail. It took Ernesto a minute to adjust the camera's white balance before he was satisfied with the results. Ernesto panned the camera the length of the bay. He wished it could capture everything, not just the way shadows fell across titanium and steel, but the scents: machine oil, ozone and hot metal, salt air and copper, and the sweat of honest work; scents so thick he could taste them—sights, and sounds, and smells that if distilled and condensed could fuel his imagination for a thousand years.
Lamplighter shifted so he was in the frame. "Recognize that bird, ernesto2003?"
"Yes sir." It was one of the old Zenits.
"Care to read off the specs for your online amigos?"
"I'll add them in a voice-over, sir. If I get any details wrong my friends will ream me a new... I mean, I'll lose a significant amount of credibility, sir."
"Recognize the payload they're removing?"
"I think it's one of your communications satellites, sir."
"Right. What about the new payload Captain Marine Band and his shapely sidekick are working on?"
"I can't tell from here, sir."
"Let's take a walk."
"I'll have to stop recording." Ernesto couldn't afford to trip and break his camera.
"Do what you need to, son. Lamplighter's first and only rule."
"Yes sir." Ernesto clicked the camera off and stepped over a thick black power cable, following along in Lamplighter's wake.
Lamplighter paused as they passed the three engineers wrenching on the payload at warp speed. "Would you like to take a break, gentlemen?"
"Thought you'd never ask," a compact man said. He wiped a red bandana across his face. He eyed Ernesto up and down. "This the new guy, chief?"
"That remains to be seen."
The man stuck out his hand. "Well, either way, glad to meet you. I'm--"
"No names." Lamplighter glanced at Ernesto and for the first time Lamplighter looked uncomfortable. "They're on loan from NASA. An off-the-books deal."
"Temporary Duty Assignment," the first engineer said. "About as temporary as it gets, if this bird doesn't fly. Either way, we're all qualified for early out if we want it."
"Volunteers," the second engineer said. He'd wandered over, sipping a Diet Coke. "True believers, ernesto2003. Maybe these old coots are ready for retirement, but I'm not."
"I shouldn't be recording this," Ernesto said. "If you'll get in trouble I--"
"Screw it," the third engineer said.
"Easy for you to say, 'beatlestix69'." The second engineer sipped his diet cola.
"Listen, wiseacre, stony1632 said my screen name needed numbers in it."
"Did he now?" The engineer glanced at his coworker and chuckled.
"I might have, duckman."
"It's 'mandrake', compadre." He wiped his hands on a shop towel and looked Ernesto up and down. He turned to Lamplighter and grinned. "Ab ove maiori discit arare minor."
"We'll see," Lamplighter said.
"Hey, wait a minute." Ernesto looked from face to face. "Are you guys saying you're posters on Blogespacial!?"
"That's why we're here," the third engineer said. "Even then, it took some conniving. Uncle Sugar is unusually tight-fisted now that he's broke."
The first engineer grinned at Ernesto. "We're all grownups. We know what we signed up for. Even if the Federales don't. Officially."
"Like I said. You do what you need to, son. It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission."
"Try telling that to my dad."
"When I meet him, I will." Lamplighter smiled at Ernesto, a devil's smile, all teeth. "It takes three days to transfer this bird to the launch vessel and fuel her with LOX and RP-1. Until then no one's going anywhere. No one, including you."
Ernesto tried to keep the look of terror off his face. His dad would murder him. There was a wedding reception scheduled for Saturday night and Ernesto had promised to work the private room. "I need to make a call."
"First you need to see the new payload. The one you and your transnational, net-dwelling co-conspirators designed."
"I didn't do anything." Ernesto said. "I just made a place where people could share ideas."
"You're right, kid, that's nothing," Stony said.
Lamplighter grinned at the engineer. "I think he's a little too overwhelmed for irony right now, Stony."
"Is that so, kid? Are you a little overwhelmed?"
"No, sir." Ernesto was a lot overwhelmed.
Lamplighter gripped Ernesto's elbow and hauled him away. The engineers went back to their feverish wrenching.
"You've met Captain Weber," Lamplighter said. "Or should I say, 'hohnerman'?"
"That was a typo," the astronaut said. "There's no way to edit your screen name."
"It's off-the-shelf software," Ernesto said. He'd tried to edit his own screen name a thousand times.
"That's what the chief's little princess claimed."
Ernesto wasn't listening. He was trying to check out the NASA lady without her noticing. Maybe she was cosmicgrrl. Maybe that’s why cosmicgrrl’s replies were coming back so quickly. She was on board the command vessel.
"And this is--"
The astronaut grinned. "She goes by 'butterbug_babe'. On line."
Ernesto stared at the engineer. "Oh. I mean, wow. Really?"
She smiled at Ernesto. "Really."
"
Your posts are brilliant. And your Spanish is outstanding."
"I paid attention in class."
"Yes, ma'am." Ernesto spent most of his time on-line cleaning up typos and grammatical errors. Half the people posting on Blogespacial! lately weren't native speakers. He'd tried writing a program to clean up the common English to Spanish translation errors but it hadn't worked out. He’d had to read and edit every post manually. Ernesto couldn't keep his eyes off butterbug_babe, who looked like he'd imagined cosmicgrrl would. Brainy, and competent, and calm under pressure. Everything Ernesto wasn't.
"You know what the greatest benefactor to space exploration is, Ernesto?" The astronaut grinned.
"War." That's what cosmicgrrl said. Ernesto had tried to argue with her but it was like a stone trying to argue with the wind.
butterbug_babe crossed her arms and frowned. "Reasonable people might disagree."
Ernesto glanced from face to face.
"War," Captain Weber said. "The mother of invention. Take a look at this bad boy."
Ernesto followed the astronaut to a workbench where a mottled brown and tan box hunched atop a vacuum clamp. "Recognize it?"
"It looks like a Miller-Lee 3D printer. A Mark Four. With some sort of adjunct processor and one big-a... I mean, some sort of large external power supply, sir."
"Like a remotely controlled Millie Tri-Delta. A Mike Five Roger. EMP hardened. Sealed and jacketed for desert use. Hydrogen fueled. We started using these puppies in the second Syrian War and--"
"Police Action," butterbug_babe said. "Technically."
"Call it what you like," Captain Weber said. "It smelled like war to me. Anyway, it's heavy duty, and this one's special. One of a kind."
Ernesto's stomach felt like it was filled with broken glass. "The first of its kind."
"Right. It's self-replicating."
This was all beginning to make sense. Lamplighter wasn't going to Mars. He had other plans. Plans that were all Ernesto's fault.
#
Lamplighter leaned over Ernesto's shoulder. "You don't look so good, son."
Ernesto didn't feel so good. The timing all made sense now. It was September 15th, 2021. In two weeks Ernesto would turn eighteen. He'd be called up for the draft. By December he could be frying in a sunbaked, 3D-printed sand hut, waiting to die. If he was still breathing he could search the desert sky and witness nothing. The asteroid 4660 Nereus would pass within 3.9 million kilometers of Earth. Close, but too distant to perceive with the naked eye.