by Niko Perren
They stepped into a night black beyond Jie’s experience. No neon highrises. No strobes. No fireworks, or lasers painting Coca Cola logos across the sky. A biting wind carried pale clouds across the crescent moon, giving the building’s towering walls an illusion of movement that only served to emphasize their height.
‹Awesome, isn’t it?› said Sally. ‹It still gives me shivers.›
Jie could only nod.
‹Tour guide time,› she said. ‹The Long March 7 Heavy Lifter is an expendable launch system. It’s composed of five first stage engines, the central fuel tank, two solid fuel booster rockets, an Earth departure stage engine, and the payload assembly. All of it is manufactured here. A lot of the work is done by robots, but because it’s not mass production it’s still pretty labor intensive compared to something like a car. You booked the cheap tour, so we’ll skip straight to the assembled stack.›
She stopped at the safety station outside the huge front doors. They were cracked open on their rails, revealing a sliver of light stretching to heaven. Grinding power tools and shouting voices echoed from inside. Sally handed Jie a set of noise cancellers, and the world fell into eerie silence.
‹Ready?› she asked.
Jie followed her inside. ‹Wow.›
A cylindrical rocket towered on an enormous wheeled platform, nested in pipes and machinery. The primary-stage engines beneath the central fuel tank seemed like toes on an elephant’s leg, the technicians green-clad ants.
‹The full stack is 110 meters high,› said Sally, the noise-cancellers separating her voice from the din. ‹Equivalent to a thirty-story building.› She looked up, into endless scaffolding. ‹From here to the top of the fuel tank is the first stage. Stages let us shed mass as we climb. They also let us switch fuels at different altitudes. You can’t see it from here, but there’s another stage up above. We also add two solid fuel boosters just before launch to give a bit of extra kick for the first two minutes. You can’t imagine what it’s like! The atmosphere jerks you around like a rodeo bull. And the sound!›
Jie felt unsteady just thinking about it. ‹You… You’ve gone up…? In one of these?›
‹Just in simulation,› admitted Sally, smiling wistfully. ‹I was months away… when the lunar accident happened.›
‹So you ended up here?›
‹I couldn’t get space out of my blood,› said Sally. ‹A lot of us old astronauts are still around, where we can watch these beauties fly.› Sally turned as she spoke so that her words seemed to encompass not just the hangar, but the entire valley. ‹I climb into the mountains sometimes, before a launch. Watch from one of the ridges. You should see this thing, when it’s sitting out there on the launch pad, all ready to go, surrounded by this landscape. I hope you can experience it.›
A cart full of metal parts drove itself past them to the far freight elevator. ‹Cheng would love this,› said Jie. ‹Mind if I take pictures?›
‹I don’t,› said Sally. ‹Our lawyers, however, would erase your brain to serve their vengeful secrecy god. So I’m going to look over there for a moment. La di da.›
Jie snuck out his omni and snapped a few photos from waist level. Unbelievable! He worked with components so small that air molecules messed up production. And here they rode controlled explosions into space. He imagined Cheng’s face, grinning in the light of the rocket’s flame as it surged into the sky on pure, brute strength. I’ve got to see a launch!
‹How are you with heights?› asked Sally.
Jie hesitated. ‹I’m fine with heights.›
Sally grinned and led him into a construction lift. The doors rattled shut and the wire cage began creeping up the rocket’s length, past level after level of scaffolding. After several minutes the lift stopped and the doors rattled open. Sally stepped onto the airy platform and leaned over the railing the way kids leaned over the fence at the petting zoo. Jie inched after her. He clutched the railing with both hands and risked a dizzying glance downwards.
‹We’re now at the top of the earth departure stage,› announced Sally. ‹The EDS is 30 meters tall and has one engine.›
‹So everything below this point is expendable?› asked Jie. Thirty stories of machinery stretched below them.
‹That’s true for low Earth orbit rockets,> said Sally.
Sally stepped forward, striding the gangplank as if it were at ground level.
‹This is the bit that makes it to space,› she said. ‹Payloads are mounted on those cargo supports, and then we drop a composite shroud overtop to protect against the atmosphere. The Long March 7’s payload area was designed to accommodate bulky cargo for the lunar base. We can deliver 100,000 kilograms to L1, where the disk array will be positioned.›
‹So you have to launch 3000 of these in the next five years?› Jie asked.
‹That’s why space company shares have gone up so much,› said Sally. ‹We’ll need facilities like this all over the world. At staggering expense. Though even then, the five-year estimate’s a joke. Pulled out of somebody’s ass, the way things run around here. No one talked to us about it.›
Jie took one more look down, then edged away from the railing. ‹Bái mù. How did we let the planet get into this mess?›
‹It’s not like we weren’t warned,› said Sally. ‹There’s been a climate change section in our voter training kits since I was a kid.›
Jie said nothing, feeling a little bit embarrassed. He rarely bothered to study for his voting exams. It was easier to pay the fine instead.
‹My opinion?› continued Sally. ‹Sulfuring worked too well. It gave us the illusion that our climate problems were over. Like taking painkillers for a brain tumor. So we got lazy.›
‹I guess that’s where I come in,› said Jie. ‹My Nanoglass is half the weight of Spidex. We’ll cut the build time to three years.›
‹No. You’ll cut cost, but not schedule,› said Sally.
‹But…› Jie looked at her in confusion. ‹From what Molari said, schedule is far more important than cost.›
‹What can I say?› Sally shook her head. ‹It takes time to build new launch facilities. Two or three years, at least. Until then, we can launch maybe forty rockets a year if we run triple shifts.›
‹So for the first three years we get a total of 120 launches,› said Jie. ‹Regardless of the material we use.›
‹You forgot about India,› said Sally. ‹They’ve also got a heavy lift facility. And the Americans could probably get Florida working pretty fast. So it’s more like 300 or 400 launches. But yes, that’s not nearly enough. Your work will only save time in the final two years. And that’s if they don’t simply reduce the number of space facilities they’re building and keep the schedule the same.”
‹It doesn’t make sense,› said Jie. ‹I’m sure Molari knows these numbers. What am I missing? ›
Sally shrugged. ‹Trust me. We old “loonies” know our launch capacities.›
Loonie. She’d used the English word. “What is a loonie?” asked Jie, switching to English. “Molari used that word too. Said he was handing me to loonies. Dictionary says it means crazy.”
“It’s a pun,” said Sally. “Luna is the moon. Loonies is what we called ourselves if we were training to do a rotation there.” She gasped. “Wait… I know what plan B is. I know how they hope to cut the schedule.”
Suddenly it all made sense. Easy access to space. Plenty of raw materials. Even an abandoned research station waiting on the South Po
le. That’s why Singh was interested in Nanoglass. Not because it is light. Because of what it is made of.
‹Iron and silicon,› said Jie. ‹The basic ingredients of the moon. They want to make Nanoglass tiles on the moon, so they don’t need to lift them out of Earth’s gravity.› The world lurched, like a video game that was running low on memory. Manufacture Nanoglass tiles on the moon? Is that even possible?
They looked at each other in stunned silence. You could only chain together so many risks before you crossed the line between ambitious and irresponsible. Yet… Jie could no sooner deny the math than he could deny the massive rocket in front of him. A rocket that could be launched only 400 times in the next three years.
Chapter 7
GREEN ARMY EMAIL
[possible spam] Feb 15, 2050
Forward to your friends. Beat the censors. At 3:50 GMT, Green Army defended Earth through the synchronized demolition of railway bridges in Russia, Canada, and India. Despite media reports to the contrary, these bridges had no purpose beyond carrying coal to CO2-belching power stations. They call us terrorists, but somebody must speak for common sense. If our leaders had retired these plants ten years ago, like they promised, they wouldn’t be gambling our future on expensive disk arrays in space.
***
Green Army Email
[verified] Feb 15, 2050
A forged email was circulated earlier, in which Green Army claimed credit for attacks on coal infrastructure. This email was sent through a compromised mail server. We are working to fix the problem. While we applaud the actions described in the email, we do not take credit for the attacks. We are a law-abiding organization. Click here to donate.
***
Green Army Email
[possible spam] Feb 15, 2050
Cl1ck here to m33t nak3d protester5 in your area.
***
The bus dropped Tania off in downtown Boulder. She ignored the line of waiting cars and set off into the sunshine, her suitcase rolling behind her. New job. New city. Life rebooted. Walking two blocks brought her to Pearl Street Mall, a cobblestoned street of two and three-story brick stores, crowded with shoppers enjoying the weather. A pair of African nannies stood outside a coffee shop, chatting over their baby strollers. A group of seniors played cards on a stone table. Not a bad place so far…
An attractive young man with a surfer’s build glanced at Tania as she passed. “I saw you on TV didn’t I? You’re that biologist… the new UNBio Director… Tammy…?” He scratched two fingers against his temple, as if digging out the memory.
“Tania Black,” said Tania. Celebrity is my friend. Celebrity is my friend. “And I’m a bio-spherist, not a biologist. A biologist studies living creatures to learn how they work. I study ecosystems to learn how to fix them.”
The man flipped up two thumbs. “It’s great to see somebody green at UNBio again,” he said. He leaned in next to her, and a camera drone boomeranged off his omni to get a better angle on a selfie. Then he sauntered off.
Tania continued into the surrounding neighborhood, weaving through parks. Letting her sense of direction carry her. Exploring the old fashioned way. Most people were so dependent on their omnis that they couldn’t find their living room if their GPS went down.
At the end of a green space that had once been ruled by cars, she found her house. Its neighbors dated back to the turn of the previous century, brightly painted wood and brick homes passed down the generations to children who could no longer afford to buy such places. Hers was new though, a tasteful streetfill, sided with a recycled material that could pass for wood, the windows framed in decorative shutters. And a yard! The UNBio salary might be a step down, but the housing was a big improvement on her Seattle loft.
Feeling somewhat of an intruder, Tania walked to the front door and tapped her omni to the lock. Click. She pulled it open, savoring the moment. Nothing like walking into a new house for the first time.
It smelled musty, as if it had been vacant for a while, and the curtains were drawn. The outlines of boxes emerged from the gloom, scattered on the living room floor where the movers had left them. A shaft of afternoon sun beckoned through the window over the sink, drawing her into the kitchen. New appliances. Maybe I’ll cook something this year. She looked from the boxes to the sunshine, and stepped onto the patio.
Somebody was sitting on the deck! In one of the lawn chairs, back to Tania, facing the sunshine. Tania inched closer. A scroll lay just out of reach of a dangling hand. A woman, in jeans and a CU sweatshirt. Bright red hair. Snoring softly.
“What the…?” said Tania.
“Gaahhhh.” The woman jerked awake and leapt out of the chair, hand slapped over her heart. “Holy shit! You scared me!” She laughed. “I must have dozed off.”
“I scared you?” said Tania, her own heart whacking away. “What are you doing in my yard? What do you want?”
“I know what you’re thinking,” said the woman. She raised her fist over her head, and pantomimed a stabbing motion. “Psycho, right?” The smile never left her face. “Don’t worry. I’m harmless. I’m Ruth. Remember? From the protest? I was hoping for my sunglasses back.”
“Your sunglasses set off the security scanner at the UN building,” said Tania. She nudged a plastic chair out of the shade of a towering pine and lowered herself into it, keeping a wary eye. “What the hell are Chameleon glasses?”
Ruth clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh no. There was no time to warn you. I’m sorry.” She looked at Tania slyly. “If you don’t have the glasses anymore, I’d settle for a drink.”
“You still haven’t told me what you want,” said Tania. “Who are you? How did you find out where I live?”
Ruth’s smile vanished. “You know what. I did you a huge favor. I got zapped with a paingiver and crammed into a jail cell for two days. ‘Thanks for saving me’ might make a good start.”
Tania shivered. Dark figures moved through the rain. Protestors screamed. “I’m sorry. Thank you… Are you all right?”
“I’ve had worse.” Ruth looked at the ground, her lips drawn tight. But then her good humor seemed to return, as if she could channel moods like a radio. “So, why did the new UNBio Director have to be rescued from an environmental protest roundup?”
“I was curious,” said Tania, relaxing a bit. “I wanted to understand the mood of the crowd.”
“Curious?” Ruth looked skeptical. “Or sympathetic? Because if the rumors are true, you’re on our side. Which would be a welcome change.”
The prudent act would be to send Ruth away. Yet… She doesn’t seem crazy. At least not in a dangerous way. Ruth raised her eyebrows and Tania couldn’t help but smile.
“Why don’t you come inside,” Tania offered. “I haven’t started unpacking, but I’m pretty sure I saw my grocery order in the kitchen. There should be a bottle of red.”
***
“One drink,” said Tania, pouring two glasses of wine. “It’s my first day at UNBio tomorrow.” She cleared three boxes marked “Kitchen” off the leather couch.
“Let me make myself useful,” suggested Ruth, lifting one of the boxes and starting towards the kitchen with it. “You have to label them in Spanish by the way,” she called over her shoulder. “La Cocina.”
They moved boxes as they talked and soon found much common ground. They shared a love of the outdoors, and Ruth had done the same rafting trip down the Grand Canyon. She’d also climbed Mount Hood, which had been on Tania’s list for years. “The climb’s overrated,” grumbled Ruth. “The glacier’s receded so much that it’s just a scramble up loose rubble now.”
It wasn’t long before the stack of boxes was gone and the wine glasses were empty. Tania poured a second glass and took it into the dining room without even thinking about it. Ruth had taken Tania’s bicycle out of its box and was mounting the rear wheel.
“So, Ruth. Why are you here?” Tania handed her the wine. “Not for the sunglasses.”
“I don’t normally stalk
people.” Ruth blushed. “But I didn’t think I’d get an appointment through your office.”
Tania groaned. “Probably right. My computer’s been auto-replying to two thousand emails a day.”
“I was excited when I heard you might be the new UNBio Director,” said Ruth. “You’re respected in the environmental community, Tania. So imagine my surprise when I recognized you at the protest. I think we could help each other. We are on the same side, and these are desperate times.” Ruth slid the bike’s front wheel into place, lining it up with a practiced ease.
“Can you believe the nerve of the Canadians?” asked Tania. “They actually proposed a five degree temperature cap. Five degrees. They won’t be happy until they can grow bananas in Toronto.”
“They can grow bananas in Toronto,” Ruth pointed out.
“You know what I mean,” said Tania. “Non-engineered bananas.”
“Anyway, I agree, the UN Climate Summit was a disgrace,” said Ruth. “That disk array proposal sounds like a mess. Yet another example of the Climate Council’s incompetence.”
“But we do need sunlight control,” said Tania.
“Desperately,” said Ruth. “But as part of a comprehensive longterm strategy… I heard you stood up to the Council. Did they really want to use UNBio’s preserve budget to pay for the construction?” She looked at Tania questioningly.
“I can’t comment,” said Tania.
Ruth shrugged and spun the wheel. Tapped the brake. “Bike’s ready.”
Tania rolled the bike to the front door. “How did you get involved, Ruth?”
Ruth sank into the couch. “I’m a psychological engineer. But I couldn’t find a job when I graduated because I refused to manipulate kids. That’s where all the money is. Get your memes into a five-year-old and you’ve got a lifelong convert. Doesn’t matter if it’s religion or hamburgers.” She gulped her wine. “So I traveled. I was in Belize when the ice shelf collapsed. I realized that everyone I’d met there would lose their homes, and that the beautiful marshes along the coast would vanish. They can build a levee around London or Miami, but they’re not going to do it for Belize. A veil lifted. I found my calling.”