Glass Sky

by Niko Perren

  “An ecological collapse a billion deaths deep scares me worse,” said Tania. “We’re doing the right thing. Nanoglass gives us one last chance to turn Earth around.”

  “Tearing the Climate Council apart is a tough way to start,” said Tengri. “What a mess.”

  Gordon raised his hand tentatively, like a school kid not certain he had the answer. “Can I make a suggestion? If you need to balance the power, why not get the Chinese to partner with the Americans?”

  Tengri stared at him. “The Chinese and Americans hate each other.”

  “Exactly,” said Gordon. “But sunrise in Beijing is sunset in New York. And we’re talking about a technology that only works where the sun is shining. It’s a natural fit.”

  Tengri’s eyes lit up. “Is Tania paying you enough?”

  Chapter 10

  ENEWS: FEBRUARY 25, 2050

  THE UN Climate Council is facing the biggest crisis since its creation, after the United States and China sabotaged plans to build a sunlight control disk array and instead promoted their own, much riskier plan called the Nanoglass shield. Unlike the disk array, which was expected to receive approval from the UN General Assembly next week, the Nanoglass shield is a standalone effort. United States President Juarez claims that updated simulations from UNBio Director Tania Black were behind the decision and that “there simply wasn’t enough time to take this through the full UN approval process.”

  ***

  A pair of uniformed soldiers in EyeSistants met Jie as he stepped out of the plane and onto the solar-reflective tarmac. The sun’s fire broiled off the white pavement, and he gasped at the thickness of the humid air. He hurriedly stripped off the light jacket he’d worn from Beijing. This can’t be happening.

  “Follow us, sir.”

  The soldiers marched towards a helicopter that was baking a short distance away. Star treatment at least. The machine evoked action heroes jumping from exploding skyscrapers just in time to grab the landing skids. Cheng would love this. The soldiers belted Jie in, and moments later the blades started, accelerating to an invisible blur of sound. The noise cancellers kicked in and he rose over the endless sea of humanity. Chennai, India. Home to the Chennai Space Center and Earth’s only remaining astronaut training facilities.

  Below them shantytowns mixed with walled-off business enclaves. The streets were unpaved or full of potholes, jammed with vehicles, livestock, pedestrians, and bicycles. The flexible sheets of solar film that had transformed world energy production were elevated to a primary building material here. Rotten boards supported glimmering solar roofs: medieval living, protected from the rain by modern nanotechnology.

  They flew north to a forested peninsula that extended from the haze of mainland slums. Fishing boats worked the glassy water, drifting between floating islands of plastic garbage and the half-submerged concrete ruins that marked the 2040 sea level. The helicopter swept over the levee and landed on a long runway near a complex of warehouses.

  More soldiers awaited Jie on the tarmac inferno. If my room isn’t air-conditioned, I won’t make the moon. A camouflage jeep raced towards him. It screeched to a halt and a gray-haired woman in coveralls waved from the driver’s seat.

  “Hi, Sharon,” Jie gasped. “Hurry. Shade. Need shade.”

  Sharon did not look amused. “We both need to have our heads examined. This is not good, Jie. I only agreed to take you along because I was sure we’d find an alternative.” The moment he was seated she stomped the gas, sending the vehicle squealing forward.

  “Believe me, the moon is the last place I want to go,” said Jie, clutching the dashboard. “My team in Beijing is working very hard to keep me home.”

  This can’t be happening.

  ***

  Jie dropped his bag in his room, a cinderblock box with peeling white paint and a rusty air-conditioner hanging out of the window. It hadn’t been used in years, unless you counted rats as guests. What it lacked in ambience it made up in, well, nothing. Jie poked at the mattress with his foot. It looked as if it had been found in an alley. Underneath a dead body.

  “Please tell me there is a game center,” moaned Jie.

  “OK, there’s a game center,” said Sharon.

  Jie perked up. “Really?” I can play with Cheng in the evenings.

  Sharon rolled her eyes. “Of course not. This place is a disaster. The only reason it still exists is because India was too disorganized to decommission their training equipment. Now quit whining. We’ve got three weeks to get you ready.”

  Her eyes went to Jie’s flabby stomach. Jie sucked it in, but Sharon just shook her head. “Don’t bother. It’s the doctor you have to impress. As soon as you’ve signed the waivers.”

  “Waivers?”

  She handed him a stack of actual papers and an ink pen. “It’s a bunch of legal crap. We all had to sign it. You won’t sue if something goes wrong, you won’t misuse company resources, and so on, and so forth. You can read it over if you want. It’s ninety-three pages.”

  Jie flipped through it. Party of the third agrees… The entity here forthwith known as the secondary counterparty has primary responsibility for tertiary… In the event of death or dismemberment… Even a native English speaker wouldn’t be able to make sense out of this nonsense. He scribbled his name in 23 places.

  Sharon led him to the doctor, a man, possibly in his sixties, who spoke highly accented English. His office smelled like antiseptic curry. He spent over an hour giving Jie a thorough physical examination, culminating in a terrible test where Jie had to stay on an accelerating treadmill until his heart and lungs couldn’t keep up. Jie lasted only six minutes before the doctor called a stop to it.

  “You’re fat, and you’re out of shape,” he said. “Under normal circumstances, you’d be a better candidate for stomach stapling than for an extended stay on the moon.” He looked at Jie, a frown on his face.

  Please tell me I can’t go.

  “Fortunately, there’s nothing too scary in your genome. And Mr. Molari has put considerable pressure on me to pass you. He says you are vital to Earth’s future, so I have to believe him.”

  “Thank you,” said Jie. He didn’t think it sounded particularly convincing.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” said the doctor. “You’re going to exercise in the lunar station gym every day, for at least an hour, without exception. Extended stays in low gravity are very hard on the body. All the astronauts have to put in gym time. But unlike them, you don’t have a regular history of exercise, so I have to give you this little lecture. I’m serious about this, do you understand? Exercise like your life depends on it. Otherwise,” he clutched his chest, staggered, and made such an alarming noise that Jie nearly stood up to help him, “you will not survive the return to Earth.”

  Jie felt his throat tighten. “That,” he said, “is very clear.”

  The doctor called in Sharon. “Against my better judgment, I’m passing him. Make sure he exercises. Start today. Work him hard.”

  Jie checked his messages, hoping that his team had found him a way out. An hour of exercise? Every day? This keeps getting worse.

  Rather than take him to lunch, Sharon led him to the personal trainer.

  The young man would have been a royal torturer a few centuries earlier.

  ***

  Jie groaned as he descended the stairs to the team dining room. Which side do I limp on? But despite his aching body and lingering fear, he could feel the first tingles of excitement. Things could be worse. He could be designing longer-lasting lipstick pigments, like most of his classmates.

  He slowed as he approached the dining room doors. Sharon’s reception hadn’t exactly been warm; probably similar to what he’d feel if an astronaut showed up to run his lab equipment. But before his doubts could multiply, the smell of Indian food tickled at his nostrils, drawing him into what would have been a cozy dining room if somebody hadn’t stripped the original fixtures. Four astronauts in matching blue coveralls sat at the stained
table. Their conversation slammed shut.

  “Hi, I’m Jie.” Jie forced a smile and took the remaining seat.

  “Rajit Pamir, robotics and mining.” A tall Indian man with long, curly hair extended his hand across the table. “Glad to have you aboard.” His tone was flat, as if he was reading from a script; there was no warmth in the handshake.

  “Isabel LaJoya,” said the olive-skinned woman next to Rajit. “Internal systems and medical.” Her Brazilian accent matched her dark eyes.

  Jie stared in surprise at the final astronaut, an athletic Asian woman. “I know you!” he exclaimed. “You showed me the rocket in Xinjiang three weeks ago.” He almost hadn’t recognized her in her fresh crew cut. “Good to see you, Suzie.”

  “Sally,” corrected Sally. But she was grinning. “When I suggested watching a launch, I meant as a spectator.”

  Sharon uncovered the plastic serving trays, and the conversation paused for a clatter of cutlery. Jie mounded curried meats onto his plate, then thought better of it and slid some back. He tried a piece of fish. Tasty. The silence dragged on, becoming awkward.

  “All right,” said Sally suddenly. “Nobody’s happy about this. So let’s get this out in the open. Jie, tell us how do you feel about being here. Are you as scared as I am? Because I’m terrified.”

  “Me?” Jie worked on the food in his mouth, buying a moment to compose his thoughts. “I’m scared to even admit this is real.”

  Sally nodded. “And you, Rajit?” Rajit shrugged and took another bite of his curry. “Rajit’s scared too,” said Sally. “That’s his way of saying yes. Isabel?”

  “Overwhelmed,” said Isabel. She looked at Jie. “I’ve wanted to go to the moon all my life. But the whole world is counting on us now. There’s so much pressure.”

  “So why did you volunteer, Jie?” Sally softened her voice to make it clear that the question wasn’t intended as a challenge.

  “Because I not think I actually have to go,” said Jie. Everyone laughed, and the tension seemed to ease.

  “Come on,” said Sally. “If that were really the case, you could back out. What’s the real reason? You got a hero complex?”

  Jie flexed his arm to show the lack of muscle. “A hero? I’m here because I have nine-year-old son.”

  “Cheng?” prompted Sally. How had she even remembered that?

  A memory. Cheng learning to ride his bike, wobbling down the street. In Jie’s mind, Cheng always seemed frozen a few years in the past. He and Zhenzhen hadn’t even been dating; just hormones at a campus party. But genetic screening at the abortion clinic had shown that Cheng would be exceptionally gifted, which made him a state asset if his parents didn’t want him. By the time Zhenzhen was in her ninth month, she couldn’t bear the idea of giving Cheng to the government nurseries. And when Jie had seen the smiling infant, he’d taken his share of responsibility. A hard road for two people with nothing in common but a child.

  All four astronauts had stopped eating. They looked at him, across the gulf of his inexperience.

  “This is my chance to make Cheng a better future,” said Jie. He met Sharon’s eyes. “I know you are all worried. But give me chance. You cannot make Nanoglass without my help, and I cannot come home alive without your help. I want to come home.”

  ***

  Half a dozen photographers dashed from the white jet’s shade, video cameras aimed at the astronauts, drones circling for better footage. Rajit ignored them, bounding up the steps and vanishing into the aircraft. Isabel paused to smile for the cameras, flicking back her dark hair.

  “Remember Jie, we aren’t making you an astronaut,” said Sharon. “You’ll stay inside on the moon. Today’s training is just to make sure you don’t panic on the trip.”

  Jie posed on top of the stairs for the photographers. “This plane looks old,” he mumbled, hiding his words from the camera mics. “I think we would be safer on a space tourist flight.”

  “Tourist flights take the wealthy for a few smooth, luxurious laps just above Earth’s atmosphere,” said Sharon dismissively. “We’re going to be travelling half a million kilometers, strapped to a controlled explosion. This will be much more realistic.” She vanished inside.

  Sally touched Jie’s arm. ‹Don’t worry.›

  Jie stepped into the cool aircraft. The interior had been gutted down to a flatfloored cylindrical tube. Loops of red nylon webbing hung at regular intervals out of white foam padding. The jet took off as soon as they were strapped into the single row of backward-facing seats, and they climbed steadily for many minutes, the engines roaring. Jie felt the same tingles he got at Beijing Disney when a rollercoaster clattered towards its first big drop.

  “We will be starting the first bzzzt thirty seconds,” announced the pilot, his voice crackling over the intercom. “Our first bzzztt will simbzzt lunar gravity.” I hope the mechanical is better than the audio.

  Rajit unbuckled his seatbelt, a wild grin on his face. Sally and Isabel radiated excitement. “Sit the first one out, Jie,” warned Sharon. “Just get used to the sensation.”

  Two long beeps. On the third, a sickening feeling, like a neverending rollercoaster plunge. Jie clutched the arms of his chair, fighting the wave of dizziness as blood flooded into his head. His stomach staggered around in his abdomen like a latenight drunk. He closed his eyes, teeth clenched. The rest of the astronauts spilled out of their seats, bounding around the cabin in graceful, gliding steps. The wall clock counted. 25. 24…

  Jie fought his clenched fingers loose from the armrests. He raised a hand. It felt insubstantial, as if some invisible force were aiding his every movement. The mesh bag dangling from his seat held a water bottle, and he pulled it out, light as a balloon, yet solid. He tried to toss it from his left hand to his right, but failed to compensate for the flattened arc; it skipped over his outstretched fingers, clattering into the wall. Ooops.

  “Five secbzzz.”

  The astronauts grabbed the floor straps; no sense wasting time on musical chairs each circuit. With a scream of engines, the plane shuddered as it fought to reverse a five-kilometer plummet. Blood rushed from Jie’s head, and the water bottle clattered into the plane’s tail. Jie looked around at the grinning faces. I’m training with astronauts! He snuck his omni out of his coveralls and fired a quick video to Cheng.

  Jie left his seat on the next loop. It was one of the weirdest experiences he’d ever had, a cross between floating in water and being on a trampoline. Sharon tutored him on his first baby steps. “If you walk normally, you’ll bounce. Small movements. Paddle the ground.”

  It felt exhilarating. Freeing. They flew five more loops, and Jie imagined himself bounding across the lunar surface, puffs of dust rising from his feet. The moon seemed a shade less fearsome.

  At Sharon’s insistence, Jie returned to his seat for the first zero gravity loop. Another series of beeps, then a disorienting endless fall. Sally drifted to the ceiling, rolling upside down. Rajit’s and Isabel’s hair fountained from their heads, making them look like mad scientists at a Tesla coil. With no stable sensations to latch onto, a million-year-old instinct from Jie’s reptile brain took over. It associated sensory disturbances with poison, and ordered him to empty his stomach. He dammed his lips, fumbling the airsickness bag out of the seat pocket.

  BLLLAAARRRGGHHHH!

  Droplets of escaped puke formed a lazy cloud. When did I eat carrots? He tried to clean the air with the napkin, but the swirling mess wafted away.

  “That’s disgusting,” said Isabel. “Please don’t do that in the lunar capsule.”

  Chapter 11

  ENEWS: FEBRUARY 28, 2050

  THERE are reports that the Peruvian President has fled to Brazil after refugees broke through the military cordon surrounding Lima and stormed government offices. Peru gets 90% of its drinking water from 18 massive dams that were built when the last of the Andean glaciers melted. The dams were supposed to capture spring runoff, but extended droughts have left 11 of those dams dry, f
orcing 600,000 refugees to swarm into Lima, overwhelming basic services.

  “Without a source of water, the mountains are no longer habitable,” says former Cuzco mayor Jorge Perez, a refugee spokesman. “If federal soldiers won’t let us into the city, what are we to do? Die of thirst?” So far there are no signs of the violence spreading into neighboring countries, but in a region beset by environmental catastrophes, analysts fear it’s only a matter of time.

  ***

  Tom Lane, head of UNBio accounting, wheezed as he shifted his enormous bulk. “I can’t get that information right now, Tania.” Droplets of moisture ran down his doughy face, and his hands fidgeted with the engraved scroll quiver on his desk. Engraved? On a civil service salary? I wish I could play poker with this guy.

  “I see,” said Tania. “And nobody else in your department can help?”

  “No.” Tom swallowed.

  Tania stood up. “Mind if I ask them?”

  The blood drained from Tom’s face and his eyes darted, avoiding contact with Tania’s. “I’ll ask for you,” he sputtered. “I’m sure you’re busy.”

  Tania smiled her best smile at him. “The Nanoglass decision has been made. It’s all up to the engineers now. So my new top concern is how we spend our preserve budget. It’s no problem for me to talk to your staff.”

  She stepped out of his office, a walled-off corner in the accounting cubicle farm. A dozen heads turned in unison, snapping back to their computers, pretending not to watch.

  “I’m trying to find detailed preserve expenditures,” Tania announced. “Any of you happen to have the information handy?” She looked around the room, matching the faces to HR photos she’d studied earlier, picking a victim at random. “Morry?”

  “Sorry, Doctor Black, but I don’t,” Morry said to the floor. Tania shifted her gaze from face to face.