Leaving Earth Vol. 1 (Leaving Earth Omnibus)

by Kaal Alexander Rosser

  'Hank told me about the tip, yes. I don't see how I could manage that.'

  'Yes you do. You just delegate effectively. You know how to do that. But the key thing is that your management style flies in the face of the more conservative members of both senior management and the board of directors.'

  'So I'm being undermined to protect a broken system?'

  'Happens everywhere. Just look at politics. Anyway, this is something which must be addressed, and soon. If I had been given the job earlier, I could possibly have headed off some of the more damaging work, but this is the situation we have to deal with.'

  'OK, Steve. You've laid the bad out for me, there has to be some good or there wouldn't be any point in continuing. The very fact that you're sitting there telling me this stuff, also tells me that there is some good to be had, here.'

  'True enough. Our CEO and Chairman is fully behind you on this. As you rightly seem to think, Hank Bowers is also in your corner. That's a powerful combo. Stew is doing a good job on your behalf, too, especially with the troops, so to speak.'

  Right. That's something to work with, at least.'

  'Yes, and a pretty solid base. It's taking a lot of effort and time for the — and I hesitate to use the word, but it is what it is — conspiracy to attack that foundation.'

  'So, how do I counter? I can't speed Nevada up, and that sounds like the most likely thing to knock some stuffing out of the detractors' arguments.'

  'I know. I want you to engage in a few pieces yourself. One thing none of the others have been particularly open about doing is a full on interview. A couple of op-eds have been the closest they've come as yet.'

  'You want me to do an interview for the company magazine?'

  'Well, yes, that too. But I was thinking that we probably need to go bigger. I would suggest that we try and arrange some national coverage. Magazines, papers, some of the big online tech blogs, maybe even TV if we can swing it.'

  'Crap, man! That sounds like a nightmare!'

  'I know. But I will help arrange it. It won't be the first time that I've dealt with the likes of the New York Times, for example.'

  'OK. I'll follow your lead on this.'

  'Great. I'll get to arranging things.'

  Chapter 11

  NOT every interview was down to Grum to do. Stew was doing practical pieces on running a department like SyncDep and the importance of the catalogues for the company magazine, strongly suggesting that Grum was the driving force. Hank chipped in with glowing pieces on how SyncDep and Grum's departments had saved his Division from a serious shortage, and even Kelvin had been persuaded to give comment on greater company-wide inter-operability.

  Some of the most damaging work, though, came from seemingly positive commentary on those pieces. What Grum had to consider to be wilful and deliberate ignorance and misinformation. One commentator said: "…we will all be very happy when the Nevada antimatter production facility is back up to full capacity in a couple of months time and can supply USSMC with all the energy it will ever need", which caused Grum to grind his teeth in frustration when he read it.

  Nevada was no longer just an antimatter production facility. That was what the old VP had called it. Also, production from Nevada would not be back to even its old strength for a good few months, and the increased capacity would take longer. Lastly, there was a strong implication that USSMC's energy supplies could be met by Nevada cheaply, or even for free. Neither of those things was true. Nevada was not working to supply USSMC itself with power, and the generators would not be able to meet that demand, not that this would even be a desirable goal. The generators and the power they produced was not cheap. It was very bloody expensive! The economics of AM power generation only worked in circumstances where continuous power was more important than the cost, or where the usage was so small that producing the power — on a per kilowatt-hour basis — was already huge, but the magnitude of the price was tiny.

  That was why the pico-scale generators were important. It should be possible to produce generators which could run for ten years giving a constant, guaranteed output of a few tens of microwatts, but only costing a few cents to produce, because each production run could make hundreds of millions of them. He had repeated this ad nauseam and yet the false message was still being put out.

  After consulting with Steve, Grum asked Stew to work with Ben on getting out and actual product catalogue for the Nevada facility, along with an official timeline for production capacity. He also officially changed its name to the Nevada Antimatter Power Facility.

  That move caused another invite to a board of directors meeting.

  Much of the board, it seemed, had been under the same misapprehension as the unknown commenter wished them to be, and were "surprised" at the news.

  Grum had to re-iterate that the material being put out by Nevada was entirely consistent with the information he had previously reported to the board, and to the company in general, and that he did not know what the source of such pervasive misinformation was. He was sure, he informed the board, that such misinformation was not coming from within his own Division.

  That caused uproar. Accusations flew at him that he was effectively saying that someone in the company was deliberately feeding false information, that he was clearly paranoid, and that perhaps the pressures of his recent appointment were starting to show.

  Grum responded that he had merely said that he could account for the information coming out of his own Division, and that none of it was contrary to the position he had adopted at any point. Once again, he reminded them that he did not know the source of the misinformation, but that in order that there should be no more confusion, he had asked the AVP of the Nevada Antimatter Power Facility to issue definitive material designed to make sure there could be no more mistakes or unwarranted assumptions.

  Hank stated that the information was entirely consistent with what he had known from the start, even though he could have wished for it to be otherwise.

  That prompted calls for the timeline to be sped up, and Grum had to work hard to make it clear that the timelines were fixed and already as fast as was possible. The costs were already established and even then were projected to go over-budget.

  The mention of costs brought another round of disappointed commentary that there was nothing in the material produced by Nevada about providing USSMC with free power.

  That was because there never was a possibility of that, and never would be, Grum told the board.

  Antimatter production was an expensive business, and the generators were not applicable to general power production of the type the board wished for.

  Another general row broke out asking what the point of the plant was if there was no application.

  Both Hank and the director for medical research spoke up, then, stating that there were products listed which would be immensely useful to their fields. Grum followed up with his opinion that there were definitely applications in the wider market and genuine USSMC commercial products.

  This time Kelvin had remained completely silent. There was no call for censure or any kind of disciplinary proceedings, but Grum could tell that he had lost some of the wavering support among the board members. It seemed to him that only Kelvin, Hank and the medical research director were on board, now.

  Steve confirmed that in their next meeting. 'Is there any way you can find out just what we would be talking about in terms of commercial products, that might help sway some of the waverers on the board back in your favour?'

  'To be honest, it's my own speculation. I can imagine several possibilities, but I have no actual market data to back that up.'

  'How about I work with Stew on getting that market research?'

  'That would be great. What would you need from me?'

  Steve waved the glossy product catalogue which Nevada had produced. 'If everything is in here, nothing at all.'

  'Everything that's real is in there.'

  'That will be the ideal starting point
. Don't worry, Grum. You still have serious support among the board, and the C-suite. At worst, you can always play your big ace.'

  Grum knew he had a carefully blank expression, and once again realised that this was a dead giveaway. 'I don't know what you mean,' he said, for what it was worth.

  'Of course you don't. You have no idea that you could ask me to map out the sabotage attempts, get Kelvin to call an EGM and have at least one board member removed. Nor that you could effectively ramp up SyncDep's consultancy arm and do exactly what the HR director fears you might do, and do it better than he can. None of that has occurred to you, at all.'

  'I said this to Stew once, when he suggested that I go straight over our old VP's head to Kelvin, very early on. It's not time for that. If I have to take those steps it's because I have failed to make things work properly. It is potentially a damaging move and can only be considered as a last resort if the alternative is more damaging.'

  Steve grinned. 'Just wanted to hear you say it. Speak soon, Grum.'

  Steve left and Grum blew out a breath. He really did not enjoy being an analyst in a political position where emotion ruled. He remembered what his lawyer friend, Zak, had told him once, though: it's not just about the facts, it's about the narrative you create with the facts.

  Chapter 12

  THE rebuild of collider "A" was going well, "C" was in its final testing phase, and "B" was beginning to produce the various sizes of generators. They had started with the biggest possible with a single collider feeding the decelerator rig, and progressed down the scale. Although this was technically a production-level test, it was producing real generators which could be put into use. Hank had already earmarked the top three classes of generators for use in the orbital habitats. He was not going to wait for full pods, but — Grum found out from Vann — the generators would be hooked up to the massive on-station battery banks to provide a constant charge, and would be distributed throughout the habitats to provide power in an emergency.

  The trouble was that until all three colliders were up and running, there was no way that Nevada could produce enough generators to fill even that need completely.

  That meant the orbitals were reliant on the giant solar arrays they had always used. In terms of power supply, that was not a problem, the technology was well understood and had a long history. The problem came with the sheer volume of debris which was cluttering up the space around the Earth. USSMC's own space salvage arm was doing as good a job as any when it came to clearing up and re-using material, but the danger to the solar panels was still there.

  So, Grum eagerly read every report which came out of Nevada to make sure that nothing was slipping behind schedule.

  It was while he was running through these reports that Grum noticed an anomaly, nothing serious, but… He punched the speed dial for Reception at Nevada.

  'Nevada Antimatter Power Facility, good afternoon, how may I help you?'

  'Sarah? It's Grum, put me through to Ben, will you?'

  'Of course, sir, please hold,' she said, immediately.

  'Grum?' Ben Abelson's gruff voice sounded on the other end.

  'Ben. I've just been going over the latest data from the colliders…'

  'Uh… Nothing wrong is there?'

  'No, no, not as such, more a curiosity. It's the batch prefixes. For Unit A, the original one, the prefix is 1100; for B the prefix is 1200,' Grum paused a second, fancying he heard a slight muffled grunt on the other end, 'Unit C, though, where I might expect the prefix 1300, has the number 1701. Why is this, please?'

  There was no doubting it. There were definite sounds of Ben's snorting laughter on the other end of the phone.

  'Sorry, Grum, it's relief. I never thought you'd call over something this silly… Really, Grum, I'm sorry. It's like this. The unofficial name for each of the units is "Nevada Collider" followed by A, B or C, and when it inevitably became shortened in meetings…'

  'NCC… Oh dear. NCC-1701?'

  'Well, it is a hell of an enterprise.' Ben went back to his snorting.

  'For crying out loud! Okay, calm down. I suppose you were going to use alphabet designations for the different sizes?'

  'That was the thought. At least for the cell sizes. The generators and pods really need better product names.'

  'For certain. Remember that the products cannot mention Nevada or antimatter in the publicly available literature.'

  'I know, Grum. I'll make sure of that.'

  'All right, Ben. It's your business, just don't do yourself a mischief. Bye.'

  'Bye.'

  Grum hung up and shook his head. 'Sad. Someone actually took the time to work that out.'

  In an effort to mitigate some of the negative views in the company magazine, Grum had taken to releasing periodic updates parsed from the Nevada testing reports. He had to figure that the report of bringing the "C" collider online would be positive, even if it did mean that production ceased completely for the month just prior. However, it was almost completely neutral. Much was made of the production shutdown and a lot of speculation about the "stability" of the site if the whole thing had to be shut down "just" to being another collider online. It was deeply frustrating.

  Even more frustrating was when the VP for Medical R&D came to see him.

  Frank Mullins was not someone to whom Grum had spoken much, and the fact that he had come to visit for the first time, was evidence of some concern. The source of that concern was not long in being stated.

  'I think your devices are what we seriously need to power some of our more ambitious devices. Especially the cybernetics and prostheses. But I have to tell you that my director is wavering.'

  'I thought she was supportive.'

  'She was. But she has been swayed by the argument that your production schedule may not be as quick or as stable as you say. She's a hell of a doctor, but not so good on the technology front.'

  'That seems to be a theme on the board.'

  'True enough. Once the production schedule is maintained for a while, I should imagine that she will take the evidence as it stands, but for now there is sufficient doubt around that you may lose her support.'

  Grum closed his eyes briefly in resignation. 'Nothing to be done?'

  'Not unless you can avoid shutting down the site to bring the final collider online.'

  'No. That's physically impossible. The whole thing has to go through a full cycle. Shutdown, warm up, chill down, on. Without that, the colliders really will be unstable. Their environments must match.'

  'Then, I suspect, you are going to find hard times ahead with the board.'

  'You seem to understand how things really are. She won't listen to you?'

  'I'm in a tricky position, myself. Some of the existing battery and super-capacitor technology is almost good enough for what we need. But they only last a few years before they need replacing. With much of what we want to use them for, that means surgery. A lot of my programmes are coming under scrutiny, and the director is getting it in the neck for supporting me. Supporting you as well is damaging her position.'

  'I see. I can't thank you for the message, but I do thank you for bringing it. Have you been able to get any of the first-batch samples to experiment with?'

  'Very few. It's the smallest ones we really need and they have been the most delayed, so far. That hasn't helped.'

  'I understand. Once we're up to full capacity, I'll see what I can do to bring those sizes up the schedule.'

  'That would be appreciated, but I'm not convinced it will be soon enough. Neither is the director.'

  'I can see that. I wish I could change reality to bring things into line, but I am bound by the laws of physics, I'm afraid.'

  'I know. I hope things work out.'

  'Thanks.'

  'I'll be off now. I just thought I should come and tell you the lay of the land.'

  'It's appreciated. I'll see what I can do to counter the negativity, and whether there's anything I can do to relieve your director's pressure
.'

  'What can you do?' Frank held his hands out wide, in a gesture of impotence.

  'I don't know. I'll have to talk to people.'

  'Well. See you around.'

  'Thanks for your time, Frank. Hope I have better news next time we talk.'

  'As do I.'

  Frank left the office and Grum sank further into his chair. This was getting to be hellish. If he lost complete support on the board, he would be done for, he was sure.

  Chapter 13

  'I'M not happy about this situation, Grum.' Kelvin Goldstein was sat forward in his throne-like chair peering at Grum across the desk as if trying to discern something hidden in Grum's features.

  There was a slight rustle of sound from outside of Grum's peripheral vision, and the barest shake of the head from Kelvin as his eyes darted in the direction of the sound.

  It was first thing on a Monday morning and Grum had not yet had enough coffee to deal with this. The last week had been almost completely taken up with fighting an information war, trying to keep whichever detractors he faced on the right track about the Nevada Facility's capacity and capabilities. This meeting request had been sent first thing this morning, and followed up within minutes of arriving by Mr Grey knocking at the office door.

  'No, Kelvin, me neither.'

  'It really is necessary to shutdown the plant in order to bring the last collider online?'

  They had been over this point several times already. 'Yes, it really is. To do otherwise really would make the whole thing unstable and probably lead — in very short order — to the destruction of the plant.'