by Darren Beyer
Launch Complex 34 lay on the Cape Canaveral side of the facility. The auto-driver wouldn’t take her into a restricted location, and her source had been clear about turning off any device capable of tracking, which included both her comm and the rental car’s auto-driving system.
Mandi put the hand-drawn map in the front passenger seat, manually engaged her car, and tentatively began to drive herself. It had been a long time since she’d personally operated a car. She turned back out on the main roadway and headed toward Cape Canaveral. There was a bridge ahead, crossing a shallow estuary. Had she been driven by an auto-driver as she was when she crossed the Canaveral River earlier in the day, she wouldn’t have given it a second thought. Driving herself, though, she kept a death grip on the steering wheel and her eyes glued to the road as she crossed the ancient steel drawbridge. The estuary spread out below her, a sluggish river surrounded on both sides by marshland.
Only when she reached the far side and saw the brown Cape Canaveral Air Station sign did she realize that she had been holding her breath. She took a gasp of air.
Her map guided her to the left, down a smaller access road where it indicated another turn. Ahead, she saw a corroded sign with only a few legible letters: —lex 34.
Chapter 14
Eridani
Jans turned off the holovid playing the latest news from Earth. Some days he wished the diminutive jump pods that crisscrossed known space carrying news, communications, and other data would simply stop working for a day or two.
“It seems that every day another talking head has something to say about how AIC is behind everything wrong with Euramerica, from this recent nuclear terror attack to supplying Outer Sphere militant groups.” Jans paused, shaking his head. “It doesn’t help matters that a senior member of one used to work for us.” He sighed. “Nassir was a brilliant researcher, but— Wait. There haven’t been any attempts at contact—”
Immediately Dagan shook his head. His left hand went to cover his heart and his right raised as if taking an oath.
“Keep it that way, Danny.” Jans eyed him warily. “I know you have a wide network. If even a hint of contact were to get public, it would take whatever shred of positive public opinion we have and toss it in the shitter.”
“I know that all too well,” Dagan replied. “There are too many wheels in motion,” he continued, lowering his hands. “Too many forces arrayed against us, too many coincidences, too much negative press. I do not like it.”
“You know I’ve been through this before.” Jans stood. “Before you joined AIC. Back then it was mineral rights. The stellar mining boom was just getting started, but space-based mining was expensive and took time. For all the advances in space travel, it still took putting an expensive piece of hardware— even people—on any given rock in order to prospect, to see if mining it would be worthwhile.” Jans took up his customary spot gazing out through his floor-to-ceiling windows. Far below, a fifty-ton crane was lifting one of the newly assembled maglev cars onto the circular track. Across from the rail station, robot construction workers swarmed over the newest apartment building.
“The economics were daunting.” Jans kept his gaze focused on the activity below. “I knew there had to be a better way. We were making great strides with our mass sensors. It was Sophia—” Jans took a deep breath. “Sophia said we should change their purpose.”
“So it was she who altered the direction of AIC?”
Jans somberly nodded.
“That is something I did not know—and there is little I do not know.” Dagan smiled faintly.
“She took us in directions that we had never imagined, allowing us to map mineral deposits from orbit or even from flybys of asteroids. She put us so far ahead of the competition that there was no way they could keep up. Many on our Board of Directors wanted us to go into the mining business, while others wanted to sell the sensors at a premium. But we weren’t miners at the time. And I couldn’t give up our technology. Instead, we became prospectors, posting mineral claims on the solar system’s richest deposits. We went into the business of mineral rights.” Jans almost laughed. “We were too good at it. The business catapulted AIC to the head of the space race. A lot of people didn’t like that. We snatched up all the good real estate, and before long, every new claim was a fight. We were demonized in the Assembly, in the press—”
“I remember watching it.”
“However, it was our core focus, and we fought for it.” Jans paused. “At least until we surveyed Hyperion. Who would have thought that Saturn’s little moon would have such a profound effect on us? On the entire future of humanity?”
“Who indeed?”
“The hyperium, and all that we found on Hyperion, changed everything. Suddenly mineral rights lost their importance. We knew we needed sole rights to Hyperion—all of it—and that was a fight we weren’t going to win. No one had ever claimed an entire moon before—in fact it was against international law. The Euramerican Coalition, Pan Asian, Eastern Block—everyone was in an uproar. When we reached the point where winning seemed a distant dream, we gave them something they wanted. We gave up our mass sensor technology, licensing it in exchange for unlimited rights to Hyperion. You never met Nassir, did you?” Dagan shook his head no, but there was something in his eyes that said otherwise. Jans paused momentarily before continuing. “He was one of our early researchers on Hyperion. To him, the competition, even the government, was evil. Satan personified, he used to call them. When we finally executed on the agreement, he left the company, and you know where he ended up. Sharing our technology was unthinkable to him. Yet, it allowed us to survive, and thrive. We set a precedent in space-based mineral rights. This was the same precedent, by the way, that laid the groundwork for our claim to Eridani. So now we need to give up something else.”
“You are not suggesting—”
“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting. This pressure we’re under today is at a level we’ve never seen before. Uranium mined here on Eridani used in a terrorist attack on Washington, DC? Our signature in a mineral employed against the Euramerican Coalition? We need to relieve some of that pressure before it blows. Back then, we fought for sole rights to Hyperion. Now we need to give it up for something even greater.”
“But Jans, you are talking about yielding our largest hyperium operation—”
“Which is doing what for us? We finished sanitizing the facility long ago. Nothing out of the ordinary remains. If the reports I’m getting are correct, the hyperium deposit will be played out in less than a decade. We’ve been subsidizing it out of Helios to keep it appearing viable. Yes, the value of the remaining hyperium deposit is significant, but Helios dwarfs it in all respects. We’ll let it leak to the press that we’re planning to sell hyperium rights.”
“It is a steep price to pay.”
“Not too steep for Helios. Just as Hyperion was the key back then, it’s Helios now. It’s all that matters.”
Chapter 15
Earth
The small road was mostly coral gravel. A few surviving pieces of old pavement remained, interspersed with weeds growing up through the cracks. Sub-tropical greenery encroached upon the edges of the derelict road, and branches scraped the top of the car.
Mandi slowed to a crawl, maneuvering the car forward until the overgrowth gave way to a large open area that must once have been a parking lot for the launch complex. Another car was already there. Around the periphery, assorted structures and support equipment stood in various stages of decay. A breeze blew off the ocean just beyond the launch pad, swaying the palms.
In front of Mandi stretched a large flat area of concrete, the crumbling base of the launch pad. In its center stood the “Stonehenge” of rust-stained concrete supports that she had seen in only that single picture she had found on the net.
Mandi opened the door and stepped out of her car to look around. There was no sign of anyone. She stepped over crumbled debris to the concrete pad and made her way to the
massive structure in its center. It looked as though it had taken a direct hit from a bomb.
“My grandfather worked on the Apollo program.”
Startled, Mandi spun to see a plump man emerge from behind one of the platform’s massive supports.
“I’m sorry to have scared you.”
Mandi put a hand to her chest and took a deep breath.
“I had to be sure it was you.”
“Anonymous?”
The man nodded.
“It’s all right. Just let me get my heart started again.”
“He brought me here when I was a child after the Shuttle program shut down.” The man walked toward her, looking around at the disintegrating concrete structure and its towering supports. He shook his head. “It was kept up back then. The beach was farther out—” He looked toward the gray sea. “I can see it like it was yesterday.” He paused. Uncomfortable moments passed. Then, suddenly alert again, he turned to face Mandi. “But that’s not why we’re here now, is it? I’m very pleased that you solved my riddle. I would have hated to be here alone today.”
“That was a little dicey. What if I hadn’t figured it out?”
“I couldn’t risk anyone intercepting it and snooping around. I had to be sure. And if you hadn’t figured it out? Maybe you wouldn’t have been the right person.”
“But why me?”
“That’s easy—you’re the only one I can trust.”
Mandi gave him a confused look.
“At first, I didn’t think I could trust anyone. I researched everyone in the media. They all had some sort of ties or uncertainties that I couldn’t risk. Then I came across your profile. Your mother is Gisela Nkosi.”
Mandi stiffened.
“What I’m going to tell you involves the company that she works for. I figured that, no matter where your loyalties lie, you would never do anything to hurt your mother.”
“I haven’t seen her in more than twenty years—”
“I don’t think that matters.” The man smiled.
“It might to me.” Mandi flattened her lips. “Who are you?”
“I won’t tell you my name, but I will tell you that I’m a nuclear engineer.”
“You knew the details of the uranium from the Alexandria terror plot before the rest of us even realized it existed. How?”
“I’m the one who enriched it.”
Holy shit! Mandi’s heart pounded. “You’re involved with the terrorists?”
“The terrorists? No—no! I work for a company called Centric Scientific.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! I’m lost. What’s Centric Scientific?”
“Let me start from the beginning. A year ago, I was unemployed. There used to be a lot of work in Florida for nuclear engineers, but when launch facilities began popping up everywhere, the work here dried up. Out of the blue, someone knocks at my door and offers me an eighteen-month contract job with a signing bonus and a huge sunset clause that comes into effect three years after the job is completed, paying out in increments over ten years. So I say, ‘Where do I sign?’ But there’s a catch. They hand me a Non-Disclosure Agreement specifying that I’ll be terminated immediately without bonus or sunset clause if I mention a single word to anyone, even my wife.” The man sighed.” My house was about to be foreclosed. My wife was working two jobs. She had health issues that were bleeding us dry. I could make more in a year and a half through one contract than I ever had in five. How could I say no?”
Mandi watched him intently.
“So I signed. Right there on the spot. I was told to show up the following Monday at the guard gate of the old cruise missile plant in Titusville. I did. I was checked in and went inside, and I saw something that I’d only ever seen in college textbooks. They had the whole plant floor decked out in rows and rows of re-enrichment centrifuges. It was one massive uranium enrichment facility. Then the stuff started arriving. We’d get a batch of uranium fresh-fuel discs—you don’t see discs very often. We’d break them down for re-enrichment and keep it going until we got it to weapons grade. Nobody does that. It’s too expensive. But there it was, all laid out in front of us. We ran it night and day. Sometimes we’d run out of material, and we’d shut down. I didn’t mind that at all, because my wife was ill and I got to spend time with her—and we still got paid. Then more would come in, and we’d get back to it.”
“You’re suggesting that this material and the enriched uranium in the terror plot are the same?”
“I’m not suggesting anything.” The man raised his eyes. “I’m telling you.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’ve told you the composition: uranium enriched to eighty-five point six percent with very high amounts of divalent europium. We tested the material constantly. Its composition is like a fingerprint.”
“That’s why you contacted me?”
“No. That was just a way to verify it.”
“Then why? You couldn’t have known when the story broke that it was your uranium.”
The engineer took a deep breath. “That week was a busy one, running three shifts. The word was that the schedule had been moved up. We were told to get a sample ready for transport. Then that night—like everyone else in the country—I was watching the news.” He licked his dry lips. “I saw it in the news story…the case. They hadn’t changed the transport case.”
Mandi raised a confused eyebrow.
“I’d dropped the case the night before and accidentally bent the corner, and scraped off a bit of coating. I had no time to get a new one delivered. Then I saw it on the news…the same corner, the same scrape. It was the same case.”
“You’re one hundred percent certain?” Mandi’s heart quickened.
“When I dropped it, my boss threatened to fire me, take my bonus, everything. I tried to bang the dent back out, to buff the scratches. I worked on the damn thing for hours. I’m telling you, it was the same case.”
“Wow.” Mandi breathed out, excitement in her voice.
“I know—”
“I need some corroboration. Some evidence.”
The man reached into his shirt pocket and produced a small data chip. “It’s all on this.” He handed it to Mandi. “Enrichment analysis, trace element composition, incoming and outgoing sample statistics. Everything that can connect the uranium I’ve worked on to the uranium in the terror plot.”
“And the europium content, these stories in the news—you connected the dots before any of this happened?”
“It was all a little too unorthodox. So I did some of my own nuclear forensics. I contacted an old colleague at the Laurence Livermore Lab. They catalog nuclear materials there and were able to get me a match. That uranium composition definitely originated on Eridani.”
“I’ll need you to go on the record.” Mandi’s mind raced.
“I’d need to get some guarantees. They’re on the chip too. Take it back, get approval, and then we can talk about next steps.” The man looked around at the decaying launch complex and back at the chip in Mandi’s hand. “We’ve lost our way.”
***
A common-looking housefly followed the tall, young woman to her car. The fly’s miniaturized power cell was unable to support both flight and long-range data transmission, so it anchored itself above the windshield. The car engaged and began moving, slowly at first, forcing the artificial insect to reorient itself in order to keep its antenna pointed toward its dedicated receptor on the mainland. As the car accelerated west through the spaceport facilities, the fly altered transmissions from recorded data to position information. The car approached Canaveral River and the bridge over the estuary, and the fly released its grip to fly away on the wind.
Chapter 16
Earth
The comm buzzed, an incoming message breaking into the silence. Andrews had been tapping his cane on the floor with anxiety over the earlier news of a possible breach at the Deliverance facility. He reached into his jacket and checked his comm screen. Andrews never could
get used to the contact lens models. The brief message it relayed relieved his tension, and he smiled.
Erik: Deliverance breach under control. Validating extent of damage.
Andrews slid his comm back into his pocket. There had been signs of a potential threat, but Erik had set up a robust security net around the operation and seemed to have kept everything in check. The fact that someone could get so close to an operation Erik had managed to keep under wraps for years was troubling. Billions in funding, payoffs, and resources had gone into Deliverance; the project that would be the grandest achievement of Andrews’ career. He had sacrificed so much, risked so much. However, the prize was worth it.
A woman approached holding a holo-tablet. Her smug expression, hair in a bun, and conservative dark blue suit told Andrews she thought entirely too much of herself. He realized he’d been tapping his cane again and gave it one last solid knock on the floor before looking up at her.
“Assembly Member Andrews, the president will see you now.”
With effort and relying upon his cane, Andrews stood and followed her to the Euramerican Coalition’s most famous office.
“Greg!” The president smiled as he greeted Andrews. “I always look forward to seeing you.” The president’s pasted-on expression betrayed his lie. “What shall we talk about today?” He gestured for them to take a seat.
Andrews sat down and waited, both hands resting on his cane.
The president leaned on his desk, quietly waiting with an expectant half-smile. It took a moment before he grasped what Andrews was waiting for.
“Of course!” Reaching across his wide desk, the president depressed a button on a small device. “We’re clear now, Greg. No one can listen in.”