by Chris Hechtl
Once they had one hundred kilometers of cable on hand they carefully began to extend the cable. They had to do it slowly at first to deal with the changes the tether would engineer to the asteroid's orbit as it was lowered into the atmosphere.
The beanstalk started to grow, not from the ground up but from the asteroid down to the Earth. Naturally the asteroid was called the Giant's Castle or Giant's Cloud, though some wanted to name it after Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. Jack compromised by naming the small but growing space station on the rock after the scientist.
The cable was thicker in the middle due to the high stresses at that point. It tapered to its smallest diameter at the tip that would be in contact with the ground, thickest at the base of the beanstalk. Getting it all right was a challenge as was dealing with the weather, gravitational, and Coriolis forces, as well as the motion from the slow unraveling of the beanstalk.
Jack oversaw every step of the project; it was his baby and the fate of more than just the company was riding on its success. They did get some side benefits; many of the processes his eggheads had come up with to make the cable had been spun off into various other projects that generated income. They even sold the rights to some of the polymers to Biogen to use. Much like when America entered the space race, the cross pollination caused a boom to many industries. Not that his stockholders saw it in that light. They just saw a long-term, high-risk project with no current return.
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“This is so freaking cool,” Race Track said, over the com, watching the spinning robot come up to speed.
“Watch it, Track, this isn't a race,” Evelyn warned him. She was a good supervisor, but she couldn't hack the black. The guys respected her though because of her voice and because she was easy on the eyes.
“Cute, you think of that one on your own?” he demanded, pursing his lips as he scaled the speed back with a slight touch of his fingers on the controls. “How we doing in there?”
“Good, all good. Surprisingly good.”
“Don't act so surprised,” Race scolded mildly.
“It's just that, when everything's going so well, that's right around the time things start to go wrong,” Evelyn replied.
“Don't …,” Race sighed as the panel lit red. A kink had messed him up. “Now you've done it. Jinx!”
“Sorry,” Evelyn replied, sounding remorseful. “Can you get it back?” she asked as he worked on it. She could hear his raspy respiration.
“Working as best I can. The damn handhold is in the way though.”
“I'll talk to the boss. Get it sorted out.”
“Trying.” Race paused for a moment to get his breathing under control. He turned slightly to look at the Earth below. Getting more crowded every day but still beautiful. “Can't beat the view here,” he murmured softly to himself. His hands got the line under control, drawing the kink taught. He couldn't cut it out, so he would have to hand wind it around the center cable. What a pain in the ass. There went his quota.
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With the end in sight, the engineers projected they would have touchdown in no less than five months. But there was a problem. Roman saw the way the political winds were blowing and warned Jack in a grim meeting. “It's going to be ugly. They are greedy, they see the beanstalk and want it. I'm telling you, boss, my contacts say they are gearing up to seize it through hook or by crook.”
“Damn it.”
“I know, I know. But we've got to do something. They are the lawful government of the nation, so technically we're outsiders. Gaijin? No, that's Japanese. You get the idea. They can kick us out at any time. That's happened several times before boss.”
“We need to prepare for fallback positions and contingencies for security,” Jack said after a long thoughtful moment.
“The problem is where? And we've invested so much here boss. Tons and tons. Four hundred billion credits down the tube.” He was hoping his boss wouldn't ask him to perform a coup against the government of Ethiopia. He knew some corporations had tinkered with third world countries over the centuries, but he really didn't want to go down that path.
“Oh, we can recover some of it. We're going to lose some if it gets ugly. No doubt about that. But part of the money went into the learning process. Trial and error, testing, that sort of thing. Now that we have the concept down, we're already building a skyhook on Mars, remember?”
“Yes, but are you talking about yanking this thing and sending it there?” Roman asked very carefully.
“No. The whole reason we did it here was because the bottom of Earth's gravity well is where it is needed the most. Where we can get the most, 'bang for our buck' as the saying goes,” he said with a half-smile. “But …”
“But we'll have this problem wherever we go, boss,” Roman finished for him.
“Not exactly,” Jack mused, pulling up some of the original design specs. One of the proposals had something … he frowned until he found what he was looking for. One of the sites proposed decades ago had been an offshore oil rig. He nodded slowly. “It'll take some re-engineering. But I think we might make this work,” he said, showing Roman the tablet.
Roman looked at it and whistled softly. “Are you serious, boss? Getting stuff in and out from the base there …”
“Yeah, that's a problem we'll have to solve if it comes to that. Let's hope it doesn't. But this would be in international waters.”
“Okay.”
“So out of everyone's jurisdiction,” Jack said. “I remember I almost went with this plan. I'm wishing I had now. But the seas were a problem. And we wanted space around the base for the infrastructure. A harbor, the airport, warehouses, and a population to support it all. Which is why we went this route.”
“Okay. So what do we do?”
“You get the job of looking hard at our security situation. Anything they have, plans, etc; I want you to find the holes and plug them. If they so much as breathe wrong, we're going to have to act fast.”
“You realize that will put our people on a hair trigger. And half of my security force are locals. We don't know if we have spies in our ranks.”
“Don't share it with them then,” Jack said ruthlessly. “We'll leave them behind if we have to. But I think they'll see that if the government gets greedy and we play hardball, they'll realize where their paychecks are coming from. They'll stay with us.”
“You hope.”
“Yeah. Sometimes you have to have faith,” Jack said. He shrugged. “And this is all moot. We might be scaring ourselves.”
“You hope,” Roman retorted as he went to work.
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Jack took the problem to his mother. Ursilla was distracted by her current crop of projects, but she endeavored to listen and be the sounding board her son obviously wanted. She could tell he wanted approval; he was searching for the right grounds to take the actions he knew he had to. But she refused to get drawn into it. “Jack, you know what is right, what is wrong. You know what you have to do. Why are you dithering about it?”
Jack exhaled slowly. Trust his mother to get to the bottom of the problem right away. “I'm not comfortable with cutting someone's throat like that. A lot of people will get hurt—if not physically, then definitely financially.”
“And you can't help it. You can't warn them either,” she said. He nodded. “And you know they'll do it to you if they could?” He shook his head. “See? You know they are planning something. The politicians are getting greedy. They want to take away everything you've invested. If you allow it, you are setting a dangerous precedent for others to follow.”
“I know,” he said softly. He remembered how he'd had to deal with the graft and corruption around the subcontractors. Blackballing, he winced.
“You'll do what is right, son. For all concerned. And if they don't like the consequences, well, they shouldn't have started something they didn't know the outcome of. Do they really expect you to roll over and tamely give them what you'd paid for? What you'd wo
rked to achieve?”
“No,” he said. “It could come back on the family though. Put them in danger,” he warned.
“Prue and Ed are here in orbit now. Phoebe is off doing her own thing, and the rest of the family has either emigrated to orbit or done their own thing. They'll take care of themselves.”
“I know that. But some people are vindictive. They see the name and …,” he exhaled slowly.
“If you know what you have to do, do it. It's that simple, son. We'll deal with the fallout when it happens.”
“I wish it was that easy. But we'll get it done.”
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As the beanstalk neared completion, the Ethiopian government changed hands during the latest election cycle. They had campaigned on a promise of prosperity for their people, which was ironic to Jack since he was the reason they were already prospering. They had campaigned that their people deserved more and if they were elected they would get it—an Ethiopia for Ethiopia. Again, ironic, they had been emigrating from the country for centuries to other countries expecting them to take them in. They had been receiving aid for decades to shore up their almost nonexistent economy.
It was apparent that they had their eyes on him, and the government had a change in heart about their contract. He resisted the urge to tamper with the election process as some on the board recommended. He didn't want to get his hands dirty, and as an American he had to respect the democratic process however much the results would appall him.
By morning though the tally was in. Mister Kijani was out, ousted by Mister Motombo who was installed as the new liaison, though they called him the “overseer.” The Ethiopian government wanted more control at first, which was fine for Jack; he turned over some of the simpler operations to them like the schools and hospital administration his company had set up.
He even turned over some of the now unneeded construction equipment so they could extend the irrigation and transportation projects. But it was obvious that wasn't enough. He warily watched as they gleefully digested all that, sending most of it to their cronies and supporters and then turned their greedy eyes on more.
A week before touchdown, they held a meeting in the council room of the base. Roman's handpicked security forces guarded the building and critical areas of the base. Drones circled in the air, ever watchful of any treachery. They were supposed to be there to watch out for the ever present threat of terrorism. Roman was just as suspicious of their so called “allies” as he was any terrorists.
“I see the fruits of labor have sown great things here. It is beginning to bear fruit. Not just in your healthy educated population, but also in your economy,” Amelia said. “And as this project finally comes online, we expect great things. Onward and upward, excuse the pun.”
“We do not wish to be beholden to foreigners. Which is why my government is in the process of passing a new set of laws restricting foreign ownership of land or businesses,” Mister Motombo stated, setting his coffee cup down. Amelia Burnheart, the company's legal team leader, winced. She too put her own cup down. It was obvious that they were going to be blunt.
“I can understand that in theory. I understand your pride; you are a good people. And I'm prepared to sell you the solar farm and wind farms we have built to your private interests,” Jack said slowly.
“That is not good enough,” Mister Motombo said simply, crossing his arms in front of him on the table.
Jack looked at him, breathed in and out slowly to control his rising temper then finally nodded once. “Well, what do you want then?” he asked curtly. He caught Amelia's sidelong look his way warning him to watch it, but he ignored it. He was the boss, not her.
Mister Towolde sniffed and then pointed out the window to the beanstalk. It was almost to the ground, nearly there.
Jack laughed. “Not happening,” he said turned to them. “We built that. What has been done here on the ground is a pittance of what it cost to build that thing in orbit and drop it through the sky to the ground. You can use the people we trained to build additional roads, highways, ports. Thousands will be coming here, millions over time. You'll get a cut of import fees and other ways to milk the situation. But that is enough. Don't get greedy. There is enough for all here,” he warned.
“Ah, but Africans are doing the work. They should get the money. All of the money. The money should rightly stay in our country,” Mister Motombo pointed out, tapping the desk with his finger. Mister Towolde smoothed his lapel with one manicured hand but said nothing.
“We have a contract,” Jack pointed out, fighting his rising temper.
“With the old government. We are the new one,” Mister Motombo said, grinning white pearly teeth at him. “We shall need to restructure what was considered an unfair and unjust agreement.”
“Which means you want us to do more beyond all the stuff we've already done to turn your country around or you'll take what you want. No. Hell no,” Jack growled, eyes flashing as he rose out of his chair.
“Jack,” Amelia warned, one hand on his arm.
The representative just smiled broader as he rose. His supporters did as well. “We shall see,” Mister Motomobo said and then departed. Mister Towolde looked over his shoulder to the fulminating American, shook his head once, and then followed his boss out.
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Jack was intensely frustrated by the whole situation. He found out through Roman's spies that the politicians in Somalia and Ethiopia were moving to nationalize everything his company had built or brought in and kick the company out. They would either bring in outside help to run things or try to run it on their own. Since his people controlled the beanstalk's counterweight, there was no way in hell they would get anywhere with that. He talked to the corporate board as well as the signatory backers of the project. Everyone was dismayed by the event. They agreed with him; something had to be done.
When the nationalization bill hit the public, Lagroose Industries employed dozens of lobbyists to stall it while their legal team sued to stop the measure in both the nation's court system as well as the world court.
Unfortunately, they didn't get far with the World Court. Judge Yan issued a quick judgment that boiled down to a shrug. “It is a national jurisdiction thing even though it effects the entire world. I love the double speak there,” Jack growled.
“It's stupid I know. But the Africans are rolling forward with their plan. And they are pretty smug that they have it in the bag. They can't secure the high end though,” Amelia said.
“Yes, I know. But they can get their military and police force to move in to seize our property and people,” Jack replied.
“It could happen at any moment. Don't wait on the bill to pass,” Roman warned.
“I know. I'm already putting local attorneys on retainer in case we need to argue for bail,” Amelia replied.
“This is getting out of hand. And when we get to a shooting incident …,” Roman's voice petered out as he shook his head on the video phone.
“Okay, fine,” Jack ground out, seething. “This is Jack Lagroose, authorizing Omega one. Go with Thermopylae one,” he ordered.
“Acknowledged,” the female voice of the company AI reported. Jack had recently named the computer program Athena after the Greek goddess of knowledge.
“On it,” Roman acknowledged the order for what it was. The end game he thought as he worked his jaw and then opened his playbook to the appropriate contingency plan. He hated it, but it was the GOTH plan. He began to issue the necessary orders to his assistants.
“Amelia, stall them for as long as you can.”
“What about the opening ceremony?” she asked. “And don't you still need to do hook up?”
“We're handling that end. Fortunately, the cable was designed to be detached in case of an emergency. So, we'll leave it detached,” Jack said.
Nonessential personnel had already started to be pulled from the country the moment discontent had started. Two hours after issuing the order, a company-leased frei
ghter arrived and paid new port fees in Somalia. Jack was cold over the slap and breach of their agreement. The harbor his company had built and paid for was now under the control of a Somali warlord due to eminent domain.
Roman had his own people as well as military grade drones watching over the cargo like a hawk. They assembled convoys after the cargo was unloaded. The contents were trucked to various company locations. To add insult to injury, some of the convoy captains reported that they were being charged a toll on the highway they had built.
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The opening ceremony was a bit of a theatrical affair with a ribbon cutting ceremony between two pillars that were part of a ceremonial gateway to space. The bright broad red ribbon fluttered in the light breeze.
It was a clear day, quite beautiful. Crowded too and security was tight. Many of the world leaders had been invited to the ceremony. As the host country, Ethiopia had the honor of hosting them but Lagroose security worked with all of the security details, even sharing some of their secondary drone feeds with the secret service detail guarding the vice president of the United States.
Jack stepped up with President Alazar. He knew the man from his liaison efforts with Lagroose. Apparently, it had catapulted his star to the top of his nation's government. Good for him Jack thought as the president started his speech. He wanted to buttonhole the man, get him to back off on the nationalization, but the security detail around the president was too tight. His two attempts to get to the president had been quietly but firmly thwarted.
General Ziwandi was also in the Ethiopian delegation. The General had been assigned to the Lagroose project as the military and police liaison. He'd risen rapidly through the ranks of his own military largely due to his training and education in America as a child. He also was connected to some of the political families according to Roman's intelligence.
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Athena was monitoring the ceremony as was Roman and his security teams. She constantly ran tracking algorithms on everyone she knew had a weapon, checking their sight lines and potential for a threat. She also monitored all the radio frequencies.