by Niko Perren
“And he profited twice,” said Witty. “He’s the main witness.” Witty shook his head. “This isn’t looking good. I’d hoped we might take advantage of the nuclear panic. All that fallout spilling into Central Asia. But now your integrity is an issue.”
“That’s what I told Ruth,” sighed Tania. “I’ve become a liability.”
The butler appeared with an orange juice and two beers, although Witty had given no visible order.
“What about the Ethiopia documents?” asked Ruth, taking a beer. “You said you found something. Can we use it?”
Witty waved, and two large men in suits stepped into the living room. How does he do that? Do they just stand in a corner and wait for him? The men moved with cat-like alertness, as if any moment might present an unexpected danger. Their eyes were invisible behind EyeSistants. They must shop at the same store as the supposed bodyguards Juarez has spying on us outside.
“Frank, Bruno. Meet Tania. Frank and Bruno are my investigators. Ex some government agency that doesn’t exist.”
“Dangerous little investigation you gave us,” said Frank. “Our first probe was from an internet access point in a coffee shop. Took only two hours for somebody to show up.”
“One hour, fifty-three minutes,” said Bruno.
“Poor Meaghan,” said Ruth. “She didn’t have a chance.”
“How do you investigate something this sensitive?” asked Tania.
“The same way you investigate a proximity mine,” grunted Bruno. “Very carefully.”
“We only use public terminals,” said Frank. “And we hire intermediaries so that the cameras don’t pick up our own faces. A homeless guy can drop a relay in a coffee shop. We also keep our omnis turned off so nobody can cross-reference location records with the relay drops.” He gave a respectful nod towards Ruth. “She gets it. But most people aren’t aware just how much information they leak.”
Bruno gestured, and the glass grew opaque behind them, darkening the room. A large screen on the far wall – which Tania had mistaken for a painting – transformed into a spreadsheet listing names and numbers. The President’s name was first on the list, followed by the Vice President and a number of prominent senators and congressmen. The second column showed numbers. Large numbers.
“Those are payments into the Terillium Holdings land fund,” said Bruno.
“That’s a lot of money,” said Tania. “And a lot of people. How did they keep something this big a secret?”
“Clearly they didn’t,” said Bruno. “We got this anonymously from someone who developed a conscience. There’s a profound difference between profiting by anticipating a disaster, and profiting by creating one. Whatever Juarez’s intentions once were, she’s crossed that line. Not everyone is comfortable joining her.”
“I don’t see any Chinese names,” said Ruth.
“Nobody ever knows what the Chinese are up to,” said Frank. “They’re so fucking mysterious. Used to drive all of us crazy.”
“China makes no difference,” said Witty. “We now have evidence that top officials in the US government have bet money on Tamed Earth. Pax Gaia will bankrupt them if it goes through. You’re lucky you’re still alive, Tania.”
“Can we put this on your show?” asked Tania, already knowing the answer.
“Absolutely not,” said Witty. “There’s too much noise from the war. Juarez will claim the document is forged, and the story will sink.”
“Then we’re still fucked,” said Ruth.
“I’m sorry, Ruth. As I’ve said, I’m not going to throw my fame away for nothing. If you had something more – something to get back the world’s attention – then maybe I could help.”
“But we don’t,” said Tania. “And if we did find something – those guards outside…”
Frank pointed a finger at her. “Yes. Bang.”
Ruth feigned a look of indignation. “One bang, Frank? Really? Surely I’ve earned a bullet, too.”
Chapter 48
ENEWS: SEPTEMBER 20, 2050
INVESTIGATORS continue to piece together the hours before the nuclear war between India and Pakistan. According to Charles McCaffery, the British general heading the investigative team, it now seems certain that the conflict was triggered by a software error.
“Because of their close proximity, both countries employ automated defense systems,” said the General. “Our team has replicated an edge condition where the automated system mistakes the heat signatures generated during aerial maneuvers for a preemptive nuclear strike. Normally these systems have a human failsafe, but because of the high threat level, India gave their system full firing control early last week.”
***
Jie felt no satisfaction when they hooked up the last Nanoglass factory. Not with the relentless images of burned children and hollowed-eyed nuclear survivors haunting his thoughts. Not after witnessing Rajit’s desolation. Was I that naïve? To think we could create a better world? It had been a week since he’d even seen Pax Gaia mentioned on the news.
“Let’s walk the mass driver one last time,” suggested Sharon.
The four astronauts trudged uphill, past magnet after magnet. The mass driver was dormant during the two-day polar night, but its first week of use had already created sinuous patterns in the iron-rich dust, mounding it against the scaffolding in places. Not our problem. The replacement crew can deal with it.
They crested the landing field’s edge. In the absence of the sun, the swirling colors of Earth painted the rocks an eerie blue. Not even an atmosphere glow hinted at the spot where the sun had ducked behind the horizon.
Sharon cut a circuitous path between the hollowed-out shells of old supply vehicles. When they stopped, Jie realized she had led them to the blunt-nosed pyramid of the Earth return vehicle. The foil-wrapped crew capsule rested in a curved saucer of foamy white heat shielding, which in turn sat on a four-legged metal plate, underneath of which hung the main departure engine. The straps and packaging that had once held the attached payload lay scattered on the surrounding ground like wrapping paper on Christmas morning.
Jie took two steps up the ladder and tapped the heat shielding. Neat stuff. It felt hard, like brick, engineered to reach tremendous temperatures and then flake off, shedding kinetic energy into Earth’s atmosphere in a comet tail of white-hot ash.
“Next time we’re out here, we’ll be heading home,” said Sharon.
“Whenever that is,” said Jie, not caring whether Earthcon heard him or not. “We are political prisoners. Plain and simple. In fact, why we not fly the ERV back early? It has a manual override, right?”
“Where would we get navigation data?” asked Sally.
“Doesn’t Rajit’s X-Ray Pulsar Positioning System give us five-centimeter accuracy?” asked Jie. “Besides, even without the XPOS how hard can it be to hit Earth? It’s 12,000 kilometers wide and at bottom of big gravity well.”
“We have to hit the atmosphere at the right angle,” said Rajit. “Too shallow and we bounce. Too steep, and we burn.”
“And we have to land in water,” Sharon added.
“And somebody has to pick us up,” said Sally.
“OK. I get the point,” said Jie.
Their blue home looked as beautiful as ever, despite the clouds of radiation. Despite the poisoned politics.
We’ll hand them the shield, and come home to nothing. If only we could get their attention somehow. Let them see what we see.
And then it hit him.
***
Jie raced to his cabin, barely pausing to shower. I can’t tell the others. Not yet. Not until I’m certain. He forced himself to be methodical, reading up on revolutions, political movements, and orbital mechanics. What notes he took, he wrote on dead-tree paper from the stores, not trusting his networked scroll.
Morning came. He’d slept little. A hurried breakfast, then back into his cabin. Plotting event sequences. Scribbling rough calculations, hands cramping from the unfamiliar feel of a pencil. By
dinner, he was as close to an answer as his own set of skills could take him.
This might just work.
“Tania Black, please,” he told his omni. She’s a friend, so the censors should let me through. I just hope she answers. I hope the connection holds.
Tania appeared. “Jie, what can I do for you?” Behind her, a suited man in sunglasses craned his neck as if trying to get a glimpse of the screen. “Back off. Give me privacy.”
The image lurched. “Sorry about that,” said Tania. “I hear that you hooked up the last nanofactories yesterday. Congratulations. I hope they let you return soon.”
No time for small talk. Not with minders listening in. “Tania, it is very important I know the answer. Is there any chance that the UN will adopt Pax Gaia next week?”
“Yes, of course.” The time delay made it so much easier to read people. Tania’s smile was too quick, like the nod that followed it. Scripted words, rolling off her tongue. Then her face fell. “Actually, no. The attacks on me… Khan Tengri dead… Everyone occupied by the India war… We need something enormous. Something to capture the world’s attention.” She shook her head. “It would take a miracle.”
“And how far would you go to get the world’s attention? What risks would you take?”
“At this stage,” said Tania, “I would do…”
“Your call has been terminated by an automated system for violating the terms of a legal agreement,” intoned the voice.
‹You dog fucker! Thirty seconds longer! Do what? Do anything? Do nothing? How much are you willing to give up?› Jie slammed his palm against the screen. Because if I make this choice, I’m making it for both of us. Whether she wants to be part of it or not.
But he’d already lost a night’s sleep on this. And the answer was as clear as ever. It’s my plan or failure. There’s no other way. He who rides the tiger, can never dismount.
He scribbled a message on a blank sheet of paper, then he stepped into the hive.
“Where were you all day?” Sally shifted to make room on the couch. “We’re about to watch a movie. No news, I promise.”
Jie felt unsteady, like his first time public speaking in college. He held up the note, shielding it from the ceiling camera with his body. “Important! Everyone meet in the greenhouse. Need privacy.”
Sharon, and Sally looked at each other in puzzlement. Rajit was sitting at the table, staring somewhere beyond the walls, as if the last week had sucked the life out of him.
“I’d love to see how the tomatoes are doing,” said Sally. “Anyone want to come with me to the greenhouse?”
“Huh?” Rajit stirred. He seemed surprised to see others in the hive with him. Sharon took his arm. “Let’s all go.”
Sunglasses. Flowered hats. The four of them made an odd sight, like senior citizens heading out to prune roses. Jie led them beneath the tangled vegetation to the corner of the greenhouse farthest away from the microphones.
“Earthcon, can you hear me?”
No reply.
“Earthcon.” Louder this time. “We’ve got a problem. Can you hear us?”
Sharon looked at him curiously. “You’ve got my attention.”
“I know how to make a difference on Earth,” announced Jie.
Sharon laughed out loud. “How? We’re on the moon. All our communications are censored.”
“Rajit. We can’t take ERV to Earth early because reentry trajectories too hard to calculate without full network access. Correct?”
“Yeah. We’d either skip off the atmosphere. Or get flattened against it.”
“How about taking ERV to L1?”
Rajit shrugged. “Way easier. You aren’t plunging into a huge gravity well.” He furrowed his brow. “In fact, it’s almost a two-body problem once you’re away from the moon. You can take the Earth-moon system’s center of mass. Provided you don’t mind wasting fuel on course corrections.”
Jie leaned forward. “We can hijack the shield.”
Sharon looked at him as if he’d sprouted antennas. “Are you out of your mind?”
“The entire shield is run by redundant Haier Extreme Environment Controllers. I’ve used the same controllers in my work. They have an administrator reset button on the box. We can change the passwords.”
“No way.” Sharon shook her head. “That crosses way too many lines. We don’t speak for Earth. Adopting Pax Gaia is their decision to make.”
“Whose decision? The crazies who just killed 20 million with nuclear weapons because they can’t share river?”
Rajit nodded. “I’m with Jie on this, Sharon. And I think we have a unique perspective on this.”
Sharon frowned, looking uncertain.
“What are we here for if we won’t act?” pushed Jie. “Radiation clouds? Famines? We know Pax Gaia is vital. We even planned to join the speaking tour, before they silenced us!”
“But it’s futile,” protested Sharon. “They’ll just send a repair team to reset the passwords.”
“The international community can protect the shield,” said Jie. “No country can match the Chinese and American armies. But many countries can shoot down a rocket.”
Sharon whistled. “Interesting.”
“How would this play out?” asked Sally. “The four of us can’t run the shield. Would we hand the passwords to the UN?”
Jie shook his head. “The UN had their chance. I say we give it to Tania Black. To her Pax Gaia team. Maybe they can create automated shield control software. Why not? Computer AIs can already answer calls, drive cars, and do surgery.”
“And start wars,” said Sally.
“Skynet,” said Rajit. Sharon shared a smile with him. Jie looked at them quizzically.
“From an old American action movie we watched last night,” said Sharon.
“Tania can figure it out,” said Jie. “The point is we can give Pax Gaia the chance it deserves.”
Sally picked an apple off a branch. “You trust Tania that much? Even after the corruption charges?”
Jie nodded enthusiastically. “They made that up. There’s no way she is playing bad accounting tricks. She is honest.”
“And does Tania get a choice before we make her the weather god?” asked Sharon. “Because she’s going to draw a lot of lightning.”
“I talked to her half hour ago,” said Jie. “She needs a miracle to save Pax Gaia. An event to catch the world’s attention.”
“We’ll certainly do that,” said Sharon. “Assuming Earthcon doesn’t open an airlock as soon as they figure out what we’re up to. This is going to be tricky.”
***
For the next hour they sat amongst the trellised plants, beating on Jie’s plan, poking holes in it, kicking at it, probing it for cracks.
Jie finally raised his hands in surrender. “All of us must act together. If I cannot convince my friends, then it is not right thing to do. I will go to gym. Let you decide together.”
He retreated to the gym, where he biked as if his doubts were chasing him. Black news darkened the television. Fallout raining on Dushanbe. Worsening crop failures in the monsoon belt. It’s not just the climate that’s broken. It’s politics. The system can’t repair itself anymore. It must be rebooted. Jie biked. And biked. When his rubbery legs could take no more, he staggered back to the crew dome.
He found his friends back down in the hive. Sharon was perched on Rajit’s shoulders, fiddling with a ceiling camera. A cable dangled where another microphone and camera had already been disconnected.
“Sharon, this is not wise,” scolded Earthcon.
“Neither is censoring our calls. We’re taking back our privacy in protest.” Sharon pulled loose the camera wire.
“Hey, us controllers don’t make policy,” protested Earthcon. “We’re as upset as you.”
“That’s great. See you tomorrow.” She pulled the wires and hopped down. “That’s better. I felt like I was being microwaved in that greenhouse.”
They sat down at the table.
“So?” asked Jie.
Sally took his hand. “Rajit did the math. There’s not enough fuel.”
“Dog testicles! How’s that possible? I thought we were 90% up the gravity well.”
“We can get there,” said Rajit. “We can’t get back.”
Your test results are in. I’ve got some bad news. “What about low-energy transfers? Gravity slingshots?”
“Low energy transfers take months. Gravity slingshots need more computation power than we’ve got. With our resources, L1 is a one-way trip.”
Last night, Jie had dreamed of walking along a beach with Cheng, chasing fireflies. But when he’d looked at the ocean, it had been black with charred corpses. Twenty million in Pakistan and India. Two million in Miami. That’s Cheng’s future. Why should my life be more important?
“I will go alone,” said Jie. “I can take extra supplies and wait for rescue.”
Sharon frowned. “Rescue is a huge assumption. And the ERV doesn’t have enough radiation shielding for a long wait. It should be me. I don’t have a family.”
“I have more impact,” said Jie. “Cheng is free publicity. And I understand the hardware.”
Sally stared from one to the other. “Are you both insane? What part of suicide mission don’t you understand?”
If Jie had been given a chance to shoot himself for the same outcome, he couldn’t have pulled the trigger. But this didn’t feel like suicide. Climbing into a spacecraft was too disconnected from the result. It left the door to denial wedged open just enough. Maybe that’s why some people still smoke. Or cut down the forests that clean their air. Maybe humans naturally believe that there’s always some loophole unless we can see the end directly. That the universe’s laws don’t apply to us.
‹Cheng needs a father,› said Sally.
‹Cheng needs a future.› The words choked in Jie’s mouth. ‹If you had a son, you’d understand.› Will Cheng understand? Will he tell his children stories about his father, who went to the moon, and never returned?