by Niko Perren
Tania touched the gorilla coin in her pocket. “What team do you play for?”
Ruth hesitated. “I’d better not say.”
“Come on,” said Tania. “We’re on the same side, right? That’s why you made that lame excuse to come here. What’s the big secret?”
“Green Army,” said Ruth.
“Green Army?” Tania jumped up as if she’d been stung. “Are you crazy?” She glanced out of the window. “Do you have any idea how it would look if I were caught talking to you?”
“Why do you think I stayed in the back yard?”
“I’m sorry.” Tania pointed at the door. “I had a great time. But you need to leave.”
Wine spattered as Ruth slammed her glass on the table. “So it’s OK to deal with corrupt political leaders who undermine everything we’re trying to accomplish, but it’s not OK to talk to me?”
“Green Army goes too far. You blow up coal plants. You sabotage equipment.”
“And UNBio doesn’t go far enough,” snapped Ruth. She glared at Tania. “It’s only by pushing the boundaries that we make room in the middle. Green Army may be on the wrong side of the law sometimes. But that’s only because the laws are written by the people we are fighting against. We’re never on the wrong side of morality. And we never hurt anybody. Never. Can you say that about the people you spent the weekend with?”
Tania bit back a gasp. Does Ruth know about Jim Wong? No. How could she? But the words hit hard. This isn’t Earthsayer anymore. This isn’t a tidy consulting contract, greening urban areas that have committed to reinventing themselves. Khan Tengri’s brought me into a war. And a lot of it will be fought online, with words. I need to choose my allies wisely.
“I’m sorry, Ruth. I can’t afford the risk.”
Ruth looked at Tania, as if understanding much more than Tania would have liked. She shrugged, reached into her pocket, and produced a business card. “If you change your mind,” she said, dropping the card on the table by the door. “Call me some time. I enjoyed hanging out with you.”
The door thudded shut. Tania picked up the crisp plastic card. “Ruth.” No last name. No email. Just a phone number.
Unpacking wasn’t nearly as much fun alone.
***
Tania pedaled up the final switchback to the front gates of the UNBio campus, a collection of sand-colored buildings perched on a flat hilltop overlooking the city. The sun had risen over the prairies, bathing the rocky fingers of the Flatirons in pink, and turning Boulder’s solar-paneled roofs to polished gold. She locked her bike, savored a breath of mountain air, then stepped through glass doors marked “UNBio International Headquarters.” Halfway across the lobby a hawknosed woman rose to intercept her, high heels clacking on the tiles.
“Doctor Black?” The woman looked at Tania’s biking clothes with obvious disapproval. “My goodness. I almost mistook you for a courier.”
Tania took a breath. “You must be Katherine. Glad to see you in meatspace. I’m sorry to arrive in such tragic circumstances.”
“Yes. Poor Jim. What a tragedy.” Katherine smiled, lips pulling back to reveal her teeth. “But at least you’re here to continue his work.”
The two women measured each other for a moment. As the Permanent Secretary for UNBio Katherine was the most senior civil servant and handled day-to-day operations, leaving Tania free to concentrate on high-level policy and science issues. So while Tania was technically Katherine’s boss, Katherine wielded significant power.
Katherine’s smile seemed to vanish, though her expression didn’t change. “I’ll take you up.”
Two flights of stairs led to a spacious corner office looking west onto the mountains. The carpets had been vacuumed, but the walls still had pins where pictures had been removed. Tania dropped her backpack on the fauxwood desk, next to two large displays.
“Your omni should have network access,” said Katherine. “The documents you requested are in your inbox. Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything.”
Tania changed out of her biking clothes in the corner, where she wouldn’t be visible through the hallway window. She hadn’t ridden hard enough to worry about finding the shower facilities today. She opened the cardboard box she’d had Percy ship from Seattle, and dug through its meager contents. Mainly pictures, old-fashioned ones, printed on paper and framed behind glass. She propped her parents between the two displays and pulled out a photo she’d taken last fall, just after she’d met Percy, when they’d hiked part of the John Muir trail. He’d framed it for her as a gift, saving it from the digital black hole where most of her photos went to die.
She let it thunk back into the box, blinking. Keep busy. Best cure for a parting of ways.
She tapped her omni to the displays and waited for the systems to connect. A garble of random horizontal streaks moved across the screens. She wasted several minutes downloading updated video drivers, then opened the first of the documents Katherine had prepared. She scrolled through the pages, her fingers flicking faster and faster. No. This won’t do.
“Call Katherine,” she told her omni. Katherine’s face appeared on the display. “Katherine, sorry to bother you so soon. I’m confused. The documents you prepared for me are summaries. I asked for full reports on our preserves. How much money are they getting and where is the money going?”
Katherine held Tania’s gaze. “The summary data tells you everything you need to know,” she said. “Your biospherics work is too important for you to get bogged down by accounting minutia. I’ll take care of the day-to-day details.”
Tania scrolled to a random line in the report. “Beng Per, Cambodia,” she read out. “$180K on waterway stabilization? No contractors are listed. How do we know this even happened?”
An almost imperceptible shake of Katherine’s head. “If the reports are too detailed, we lose flexibility.”
“I see,” said Tania. She rolled her shoulders to stop them from tightening. “Katherine. Please get me better numbers. I have to understand how flexible we are.”
Katherine emitted a low growl not meant for the microphone. “Please. Don’t just charge in, and start down-voting the work we’ve been doing,” Doctor Black. “It’ll be bad for morale.”
“I’m not down-voting anything,” said Tania. “I just want auditable data. Get. Me. The. Damn. Data.”
“Jesus.” Katherine sat back, mouth wide, her shock as false as her smile. “No need to get so uptight. I’ll get you everything. Give me a few weeks. In the meantime you can learn our processes.”
“A few weeks…? Never mind. Fine.” Tania hung up. The UN’s given me two weeks to evaluate Plan B. I don’t have time for this.
***
Tania’s office door opened a few inches and a muscled man in jeans and a T-shirt appeared in the crack. “You wanted to see me?”
Tania studied Gordon Hill as he took a seat across from her. Between his ponytail and his ear stones, the head of simulations didn’t look near the 55 years his file indicated – a file that listed two reprimands from James Wong for “making statements harmful to the reputation of the department.”
“Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful when you called me from New York,” said Gordon. “Did you stop that freight train?”
“I slowed it,” said Tania. She gave an edited version of the back room meeting she’d had with the UN Climate Council. “Molari’s team is looking at a plan B. It’s potentially faster than the disk array, so we might avoid the need to sulfur. And hopefully it’ll be cheaper so that we don’t have to sacrifice our preserves to pay for it. But it’s got a terrible risk curve. I will need hard numbers comparing plan B to the original design. Integrate risk over time, and give me species loss and human mortality distributions. Treat sulfuring and funding as independent variables. Add sunlight control to the models as best you can.”
Gordon’s jaw tightened. “James Wong didn’t allow those types of simulations. Said it was… speculative.” He spat the last word like a curse.
<
br /> “I prefer informed speculation to uninformed guesswork,” said Tania. She rapped her knuckles on the desk. “Can you do it?”
Gordon groaned. “I understand what you want,” he said. “But there’s so much uncertainty. We don’t even know what plan B looks like yet. Not that I have much information on the disk array either. And Wong cancelled independent preserve audits. He said they smacked of colonialism. It’s all self-reported now. So the data is sketchy.”
“Why am I not surprised?” sighed Tania. “I hadn’t gotten to the preserve audits yet. How bad is the data?”
“I couldn’t tell you for sure,” said Gordon. “But wildlife density in some preserves doubled the first time they self-audited. I think it’s safe to assume that for many areas we’ve got no meaningful statistics.”
Tania pushed her displays aside so that she had an uninterrupted view over the desk. “I’ve got two PhDs. I understand error bars and standard deviations. So do the best you can.”
Gordon grinned. “A UNBio Director who understands the science! What will they come up with next? How soon do you want my informed speculation?”
“The Climate Council is keen to get the disk array proposal approved by the General Assembly,” said Tania. “They want to start handing out aerospace contracts. I could only delay them two weeks. Molari’s team needs half of that to get us some details on their plan B. Assuming it’s even feasible.”
“So really I’ll only have a week?” said Gordon. “For two full planetary simulation runs. You don’t ask for much do you? Would you like the second coming of Christ with that?”
“No, the simulations will be fine,” laughed Tania. “The second coming would just be a distraction.”
Chapter 8
JIE’S THEORY ABOUT lunar manufacturing had proven correct. Not an hour after leaving the launch facilities, Jie had received a video message informing him that Nanoglass was now the leading candidate for plan B. The night that followed had been largely sleepless.
‹Search: L1 Point.› Jie shoveled in a mouthful of rice. A group of blue-clad workers got up. Metal trays clanged as the cafeteria staff consolidated the remains of the buffet.
Wikipedia Summary: Lagrange points are the positions in an orbital configuration where an object affected only by gravity can be stationary relative to two larger objects. In the Earth-sun system, the L1 point is 1.5 million kilometers from Earth (about three times the distance of the moon). Instruments at L1 orbit in such a way that they remain directly between the earth and sun.
‹Search: Lagrangian equations.›
Mathematical Summary: Lagrangian points are the stationary solutions of the circular restricted three-body problem.
The lightening sky unveiled layers of detail in the desolate mountains on the other side of the frosty glass wall. Dark shadows became rocky faces, grey ridges became sculpted knives of snow.
‹Search: lunar manufacturing.› Jie tipped back his tea, hoping to squeeze out a few more drops. Wafts of coffee drifted, as if carried by the babble of a hundred conversations. Just minutes to the meeting.
Wikipedia Summary: Practical work on lunar manufacturing dates to the lunar station from 2026 to 2034. The goal was to extract raw materials from the lunar surface to support a manned mission to Mars. As lunar gravity is only 17% of Earth’s and the moon lacks and atmosphere, items produced on the moon enjoy much easier access to space. Current techniques are most applicable in situations where large amounts of easily manufactured material are required outside Earth’s gravity well. Mining and refining technologies reached a moderate degree of sophistication. Manufacturing of more complicated products was limited to a few small-scale experiments.
Jie pushed away his scroll. This is lunacy. What am I getting myself into?
He looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps. A frizzle-haired woman in a shapeless black dress strode towards him. She leaned across the table, a finger aimed at his chest. “I suppose you’re Tian Jie?” Her voice dripped acid.
Jie looked around, astonished, as if there might be another Tian Jie that he’d been mistaken for. “Ummm. Pleased to meet you.”
“I’ve been the materials engineer on this project for six years,” the woman hissed. “Six fucking years. Do you know – do you have any idea – how many materials I tried before I perfected Spidex?” She stared at him in contempt. “I have a Nobel Prize. What do you have?”
This didn’t seem like the time to bring up the four Engineering Brilliance Awards on his office wall. She looked familiar. Nobel Prize? Patricia Ivanov? The Patricia Ivanov? Jie hoped he didn’t look too startled.
“You can fool them, but you can’t fool me.” Ivanov’s head moved in abrupt increments, like a bird’s.
“I…,” stammered Jie.
“I. I. I,” mocked the woman, the sounds sharp, like the cry of a gull. “I will tear you apart before I see my work discarded.” She spun, stomping away from him. If she’d intended a dramatic exit, she failed. She tangled with a food trolley for awkward seconds before storming out of the cafeteria.
Jie envisioned Cheng trying to sneak the cup away from her.
***
His heart still pounding from his encounter with Ivanov, Jie followed a hallway lined with photos of satellites and rocket launches, to a glass doorway marked ‹Team Room.› He opened the door cautiously, as if Ivanov might be lying in ambush. A dozen people sat around a circular table: a typical engineering demographic, mostly women, not a suit in the bunch, and more electronic devices on the table than people around it. Jie relaxed. Scientists. These are the people I have to convince. No. Not convince. I’ve already gotten enough money to stay afloat another year. My job is to give facts. Help them make a wise decision.
Nishad Singh paced the room’s perimeter, tapping his omni to each display to clear off the old notes. “Good morning, Jie.” Singh must have arrived during the night – very late, judging from the dark circles under his eyes.
All conversations stopped. A dozen sets of eyes sought their first glimpse of the celebrated newcomer. A woman with short salt and pepper hair rose to greet him, tall and square in her tunic and pants.
“I’m Sharon,” she said. “Sharon Steel.”
Jie gulped air like a goldfish as he made his way to an empty chair. Sharon Steel. Hero of Malapert. The only survivor of the final mission to the lunar station. Jie had been in university then; he’d watched her splashdown live on the web. Seen her tears when she climbed out of the capsule. The agencies had lost their appetite for risk after the accident, especially coming so soon after the Ganymede fiasco. A two-year safety inquiry had become a five-year delay. Then the ice sheets had crumbled and the world’s focus had turned inward. Mankind’s quest for the stars ended, swept away by the rising seas.
Until now.
Singh turned to face the group. “Molari proposed sunlight control technologies ten years ago, around the same time the UN created the Climate Council and started sulfuring,” he began. “Serious engineering started six years ago, which is when most of us joined.” Singh nodded at a hirsute Australian. “Jie – Paul Brumby. Paul has 180 patents in zero gravity robotics. Xiao Xing specializes in celestial mechanics. And Feng Hu works in artificial intelligence.” Jie scribbled notes on his omni so that he could remember the names and roles. He hadn’t heard of any of them before, but then, they wouldn’t have heard of him either. Science was too specialized, the frontiers of knowledge too distant. Even top researchers had no visibility outside their own narrow fields.
Singh made a few more introductions. “Our final team member will be here soon,” finished Singh. “Patricia Ivanov invented Spidex.” Singh smiled so broadly that he bared his teeth. “We’ve got very little time, so we’re going to run this meeting using an accelerated trial workflow. Patricia volunteered to be lead prosecutor against the lunar construction plan.” He nodded at Sharon. “Sharon will be defending the idea. She’s been flogging lunar manufacturing ever since we brought her onto the team. No
w we finally have to listen to her. With great humility, I defer to you, Sharon.”
Sharon bowed, to a burst of good-natured laughter. “Jie,” she said. “Thank you for not using carbon or rare-earth elements in Nanoglass. A moon-compatible ingredient list makes this so much more feasible.”
“A happy accident,” said Jie.
“I am curious,” said Brumby. “Our ability to aim photons is critical. How does Nanoglass actually aim light?”
“We use quantum effect to channel light so it always come out of Nanoglass perpendicular to surface. If Nanoglass at two degrees to light source, light come out at two degrees,” said Jie. “We make simple molecular machines to change Nanoglass angle. Silicon is like carbon. It has four free bonds, so is perfect building block for protein-like machines. Each Nanoglass tile has molecular hinge on one end, and molecular lever on other. Electrons ratchet lever up or down.” Everyone was nodding. Good, they’re actually following this!
Brumby was captivated. “How much testing have you done?”
Sharon broke in before Jie could answer. “Our engineering support group is working with Jie’s Beijing staff to verify Nanoglass’s optical characteristics; to save time, we should assume it works unless they tell us otherwise. Let’s concentrate on lunar-specific issues.”
At that moment an angular shadow jerked behind the frosted glass of the doors. Jie sensed a collective intake of breath. The door swept open and Ivanov strode into the room.
“Patricia,” said Singh. “Thanks for coming.”