Trojan Orbit

by Mack Reynolds

  “Yes, sir. I usually do.”

  At about this same time, Irene was being interviewed in the office of Al Moore by the Security Chief, Mark Donald, and Joe Evola. Al Moore was furious, Irene abject in her apology.

  Moore was saying, “You goddamned fucking mopsy, you must’ve known that room was bugged. It’s bad enough you letting that stupid cop know you’re on the run. He’ll get the impression that not only is Rocks Weil up here, but half the lamsters Earthside.”

  “I’m sorry, Al,” she wavered, her eyes going nervously from one of the grim visaged men to the other.

  “Call me Mr. Moore, you stupid cunt. And that’s not all. What the hell did you think Mark told you to show Kapitz a good time for? Your job was to give him an upbeat picture of Island One. Instead of that, you shoot off your fucking mouth about what a rough go it is and how nobody in his right mind would ever come up here as a colonist.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Moore,” she said fearfully. Then added, in hope, “I got another date with him for tonight. I’ll…I’ll be different.”

  “You’re goddamned right, you’ll be different. Joe, emphasize what I’ve just said to this stupid broad.”

  Joe slapped her hard with the back of his right hand over her lips, bringing blood, then reversed his hand and struck her brutally again.

  She moaned, “Not my face, Joe. Not my face. He’ll notice tonight.”

  “Get the hell out of here,” Mark Donald said. “And if you think you’re going to get any kind of bonus for last night, next time I’ll have Joe kick some of your teeth in.”

  When she was gone, Al Moore said to Joe Evola, “Where in the hell’s the funker now?”

  “He went on up to the roof; I couldn’t have followed him without his seeing me.” Joe hesitated. “I’m kind of surprised. If he’s an IABI man, he ought to be experienced enough to make me, especially since we came up together. But he doesn’t seem to realize he’s being followed.”

  The Security head looked at Donald. “What in the hell would he be doing on the roof?”

  His lieutenant said, “He could be just taking a look-see out over the town. On the other hand, he could be making a report Earthside.”

  “If he’s reporting,” Moore mused, “his equipment’s probably both scrambled and muffled. Is there any way we can bug in?”

  “I’ll put the electronic boys to work on it,” Donald said.

  Moore looked at Joe Evola. “Get on back to the job. We want to know where that bootlicker of Roy Thomas is every minute.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “I think that when people talk of colonizing space they really don’t have any genuine perception of what it will involve. All the present support for space comes from Earth and until we learn much, much more about contained ecosystems, it will continue to do so. It won’t be the kind of knowledge that a crash program of space biology will generate.”

  —John Todd, Biologist,

  co-founder of the New Alchemy Institute.

  *

  Academician Leonard Suvorov pushed his pince-nez glasses back higher on his nose and looked about the opulent office. He said, “Only a few decades ago the little dog Laika became the first Earthling ever to enter space. And already we have such as this. It is hard to believe I am hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from the planet of my birth.”

  Solomon Ryan laughed ruefully and said in deprecation, “I am in the hands of the Public Relations Department of the Lagrange Five Corporation, Academician. Our Ron Rich insists that my office be as magnificent as any that might be found in the World Trade Center, or the Sears Tower in Chicago. Mine not to reason why.”

  Annette Casey, seated at her own desk to one side of that of her boss, said cynically, “Investors plowing tens of billions of dollars, Common Europe marks, francs, and pounds, South American pesos and what not, into the Lagrange Five Project, would be set back seeing you seated on an orange crate behind a desk jury-rigged from a packing case.”

  The Soviet bionomics authority nodded and said, “I am afraid that I am over my head in this field of publicity.” He ran a chubby hand back through his thin, red hair. “As I am in so many fields pertaining to the project. Indeed, though I have only been here two or three days, I find myself increasingly confused.”

  “I am truly sorry that I have taken so long to get around to properly greeting you, Academician,” Ryan told him. “It is a feather in our cap to be able to add the prestigious Leonard Suvorov to our ranks.” He smiled his charisma again. “What are your first impressions?”

  The Russian thought about it. Then, “Possibly not very sound ones, Doctor Ryan.”

  “Sol, please. Here in space there are no formalities. We are peers without qualifications regarding race, creed, color, class, title, rank.…” He looked at Annette, smiled his little rueful smile and added, “…or sex.”

  Annette gave a small snort. “Oh, there’s a little sex in Island One, but you’re right, no discrimination against it.”

  Leonard Suvorov chuckled in appreciation. He liked the atmosphere. “You must both call me Leon,” he told them.

  The father of the Lagrange Five Project said, “But I am truly quite interested in your first reactions. You may think them premature, but in actuality, first snap impressions often have a surprising validity. I would say that a newcomer here has three periods where his opinions are of particular interest. The first, when he has been on the scene only a few days. The next, when he has been here perhaps six months. And, finally, when he has worked on the project for several years.”

  The other adjusted his somewhat heavyset body in his chair and sent his habitually tired eyes to a far corner of the room in consideration. He said musingly, “I see what you mean. A newcomer might spot things that you veterans would miss through familiarity. Well then, my first impression, and one that I did not particularly nurture until my arrival, is that the project is premature.”

  Ryan frowned. “How do you mean?” he said.

  The Russian nodded. “Let us suppose that at the turn of the century, in 1900, a government had approached the pioneers of heavier than air flying.”

  “In actuality, the Wright brothers didn’t fly until 1903,” Annette said pertly.

  He looked at her. “1 wasn’t thinking in particular of Orville and Wilbur Wright.”

  Annette was irrepressible. “Sorry, I forgot. The first powered flight was made in the Ukraine, or Siberia, or somewhere by somebody named Ivan Ivanovitch, or something.”

  The Russian scientist was amused. “Ai, ai,” he said. “Chauvinism rears its head. I am surprised at you, Doctor Casey.”

  “Annette,” she said, “or I won’t call you Leon.”

  “Annette,” he said. “It is the old story. We have an international gathering. A Russian mentions in passing that his people were the first to develop the submarine. An American laughs. The Russian looks at him huffily and says, ‘Then, who did first develop the submarine?’ And the American informs him that it was Simon Lake or, perhaps, J.P. Holland. Whereupon, both the Dutchman and the Greek laugh in turn. Perhaps the Greek with the most validity, since I understand there are records of a submarine in Ionia going back to the era before Christ.”

  Annette was not one to be sat upon. She said, in a touch of irritation, “Oh, come now, Leon. It is rather commonly accepted that the Wright brothers were the first to accomplish powered flight. Nobody is running down the other pioneers in aviation, but the Wright brothers were the first.”

  “According to you Americans,” Suvorov nodded. “In actuality, I suppose that possibly the French have as good a claim as any, in this nationalistic prestige game. Clement Ader achieved powered flight for a hundred or possibly a hundred and fifty feet in 1897, six years before the Wrights. He was, by the way, the first aeronautical engineer to receive a government subsidy. However, he didn’t seem to press on after his initial success. Henri Farman, another Frenchman, was the first to achieve a flight that might be called complete. He took off
without assistance, that is without an initial push such as given the Wright craft, made a circle of more than a kilometer, and then landed without damage to his airplane, at the same spot from which he had ascended.”

  Annette looked at him sourly.

  But Leonard Suvorov was not to be put off. He said, “The Wright brothers are somewhat comparable to Columbus. He was by no means the first European to discover the Americas. It is known today that they had been discovered many times over the centuries, without permanent result. But circa 1490, the day of the New World had come. Even if Columbus had not made his epic journey, a dozen others would have done so within a few years. It was in the wind. So it was with the Wrights. A score of men were working on the project contemporaneously with them. The Canadian Horatio Phillips, Lilienthal in Germany, J. J. Montgomery in the United States, Percy Pilcher and Sir Hiram Maxim in England, Alberto Santos-Dumont of Brazil. Maxim, by the way, was another who flew, in his steam-engined aircraft, before the Wright brothers, but his airplane cracked up on landing. At any rate, it was the Wrights who made the breakthroughs that precipitated the birth of aviation.”

  Annette said, “How in the world can you remember all that?”

  The Russian pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and sighed. “I am cursed with almost complete recall,” he told her.

  Solomon Ryan was amused. He said, “How did we get off on this tangent?”

  Suvorov looked over at him and said, “I was building up to saying that I feel the Lagrange Five Project is something as though one were to go to the…” he flicked his eyes at Annette, “…Wright brothers in 1903, and offer them a hundred billion dollars to embark upon a project to build an aircraft that would carry three hundred passengers at a time across the Atlantic at a speed exceeding that of sound.”

  Ryan rubbed the end of his nose with a forefinger and screwed up his face. “Oh, come now, Leon,” he protested.

  But the Russian was shaking his head. “And then, when they were thwarted on a dozen fronts, parlaying it up to two hundred billion, then three hundred billion.”

  Annette said in exasperation, “What in the hell are you getting at?”

  Suvorov said slowly, “My point is that no matter how much you were willing to contribute to the building of such an aircraft, the Wright brothers were in no position to do it. Nor would anyone be for half a century and more. My first impression, upon spending two or three days in Island One, is that the Lagrange Five Project is in the same position. That it is premature. We do not as yet have the knowledge to build a valid space colony.”

  “But it is here!” Ryan blurted.

  “Is it?”

  Sol Ryan drummed his fingers on his desk unhappily. He said, “Admittedly, there are a lot of problems, Leon. But, one by one, we’re licking them.”

  “Are you?”

  Ryan stared at him.

  Suvorov said, “Some things there are, in science as elsewhere, that do not admit of crash programs, infinitely funded or not. For instance, we have yet to defeat cancer; indeed, it continues to grow. We have plowed hundreds of millions into the fight, but as yet without success. Some things do not concede to money alone. Time is an element. The Wright brothers would have needed the jet engine, among other things, to build that supersonic aircraft and the world’s technology was not up to jet propulsion at that time.”

  The other two were eyeing him emptily.

  He said slowly, “I am out of my depth so far as your other problems are concerned. But so far as ecology is concerned, the world’s technology is not up to space colonies at this time.”

  Solomon Ryan said, “Are you admitting defeat before beginning?”

  The academician shook his head. “No, I accept the challenge. I will do all possible to achieve a self-sustaining biosphere, a closed-cycle ecology system here in Island One. The problem intrigues me endlessly. And I understand that you have facilities and resources available such as are undreamed of Earthside. I shall do my best. You asked me, however, for my first impressions. I have given them to you. In this field, we are in our infancy, much as the Wrights were in aviation in 1903. Frankly, I would rather see this project begin possibly twenty years from now.”

  Solomon Ryan shook his head sadly. “I suppose,” he said. “I asked for it and you’ve certainly laid it on the line.” His irrepressible grin came to his face. “And I suppose that the sooner you get to this all but impossible job, the better.” He looked at his assistant. “Annette, suppose that you take Leon down to his new office. Find out his needs. Get his nose to the grindstone.”

  “Wizard, Sol,” she said, coming to her feet.

  Suvorov stood too and looked down at the project head. “Sorry, Sol,” he said. “Perhaps you shouldn’t have asked me. And, after all, it is but my first impression.” He smiled heavily. “Ask me again in six months. And then, again, after a few years.”

  One of the screens on the desk of the L5 Project head buzzed, but before Ryan could answer it, the door burst open and Rudi Koplin hurried in, a sheaf of papers in his hand, and looking even more than ordinarily distraught.

  “Doctor Ryan!” he got out. “Sol! It’s madness.”

  “It sure is, Comrade,” Annette murmured under her breath.

  Ryan grinned and said, “What is it this time, Rudi?” And then, “Academician Suvorov, have you met our stormy petrel, Doctor Rudi Koplin?”

  The Russian extended a hand to the Polish biochemist. “Of course. Not only at the party for the Prince, but various times Earthside at scientific conclaves. Rudi and I are old colleagues.”

  The dowdy Koplin shook his hand absently, saying, “Leon! You must hear this. It is madness.”

  “Very well, Rudi,” Ryan said. “What disaster now faces the Project?”

  The newcomer to the scene turned and faced him, his expression registering anguish. “It’s Doctor O’Malley again. Do they present clods with doctorates at your New Kingston University? He is insane.”

  Annette sighed and said, “Aren’t we all, or why are we all here? What’s Barry up to now?”

  Koplin slapped his sheaf of papers down onto Ryan’s desk dramatically, and thumped them with the back of a fat paw. “He is again off on his tangent about the lack of need for nitrogen in our atmosphere. That we can do with oxygen alone.”

  Ryan nodded. “The subject has come up. O’Malley, among others, has pointed out that long since, deep-sea divers and astronauts have proved that 78 percent of the air we breathe is nitrogen and unused by the human body. We have no need for it in our breathing.”

  The Pole looked at him aghast. “Sol! You are not siding with this maniac!”

  The other grinned at him. “I haven’t taken a stance as yet. But O’Malley correctly points out that neither humans nor most plants take their nitrogen from the air. We eat it in our food; plants take up nitrogen from their roots, from the soil.”

  Suvorov said mildly, “But where do the bacteria in the soil get it?”

  Annette said, “Providing an Earth-normal amount of nitrogen costs us in two ways in space colony construction. Our structure masses have to be increased to contain the increased pressure that adding the 78 percent of nitrogen to our atmosphere involves. And, of course, nitrogen has to be brought up from Earth. Endless tons of it, even for a small island such as this one. For the larger islands, it’ll be a sizable expense.”

  The rotund, disheveled Pole peered at her through his thick-lensed, steel-bound spectacles in continued agony. Then he turned to Leonard Suvorov. “Leon,” he said. “It is more your field than mine. Tell them.”

  Ryan looked at the Russian ecologist. “What do you think, Leon?”

  Suvorov shook his head ruefully. “It is childishness such as this that caused me to state I would rather see this whole project begin twenty years from now. Sol, an enzyme called nitrogenase is responsible for taking atmospheric nitrogen and changing it into high energy ammonia, NH3. The ammonia is necessary for protein production. Now, here is the importa
nt thing. Oxygen must be kept away from nitrogenase. If there is too much oxygen, then there can be no ammonia and no protein. It is hard enough on Earth to keep nitrogenase without upping the amount of nitrogen in the atmosphere to eighty percent. I am afraid that your Doctor O’Malley—I have yet to meet the gentleman—isn’t thinking in terms of the nitrogen-fixing bacteria. And, now that I think of it, I wonder if he has considered sources for the trace elements. For instance, molybdenum is needed to make nitrogenase. And while we are at it, we could mention such crucial elements as phosphorus. The universal energy currency of all living organisms is adenosine triphosphate, or ATP.”

  Ryan nodded. “Rudi has already been on our necks about the need for phosphates.”

  The Russian scientist pursed his heavy lips. “Sol, I suggest that if you wish no more than to grow hydroponic gardens that it can be done with your Luna soil with suitable nitrates to enrich it. Indeed, it could be done without the soil at all. However, if you wish finally to achieve a closed-cycle ecology system, then you had best continue to include, both in this island and those to come, from 78 to 80 percent nitrogen in your atmosphere.”

  Annette said, “Leon, suppose we go and introduce you to your new office and avoid the further dismal sight of Rudi beating poor Sol over the head.”

  The L5 head said, in mock wryness, “I’m going to put a sign outside my door, ‘No Rudis Allowed.’”

  “Ha,” the Pole said, rummaging through the papers he had brought, looking for a particular page.

  The office that had been allotted to Academician Leonard Suvorov was one floor below those of Solomon Ryan. The Soviet bionomics expert followed Annette down.

  He said, on the way, “Your Doctor Ryan is a most charming man. It would seem difficult to maintain such a cheerful front in the face of so much adversity.”

  Annette gave her little snort. “He loves it. It’s his life.”

  He contemplated her from the side of his eyes. Annette Casey was taller than he was by almost half a head. He said, “And what will happen to him when he finally confronts failure?”