The Next Continent (32 page)

“That's not on the table. We're not going to do these guys a favor, say ‘no strings attached,' and then show up later to collect the bill.”

“Then we won't bring it up.” Lambach reached for the hotline to NASA headquarters in D.C. “Let's ask Ringstone to summit with the head guys on the Japan side. It'll be risky for them to use valuable gear in an unscheduled operation. But I think Ringstone can convince them.” He started to pick up the phone.

“Wait.” Caroline put her hand over the receiver. She had removed her sunglasses. Her blue eyes were shining. “Not yet. I've got to think this through.”

“Carol, this isn't defeat. If we succeed, you'll be praised for making a wise call.”

“I know. But…I wonder what Wolf will say.”

“Carol?” Lambach looked at her with concern.

Dr. Wolfgang Valkhoven had been mission director of the Mars project. Just a year ago, it had been NASA's flagship mission for the first half of the twenty-first century—a tremendous undertaking on which to stake their—and America's—reputation. Now the mission had been completely eclipsed by Liberty Island. The five billion dollar Mars Ambassador's failure to make a landing on the surface was just one factor in that eclipse. Political factors had also dimmed Valkhoven's star, including a failed presidential reelection bid by the mission's chief booster.

In the wake of these events, Caroline and the members of the Liberty Island project had risen in NASA, but it was mostly because Valkhoven's team had lost power and another team had had to step up to the plate. They had been liberated from the shadows. It was a tremendous stroke of luck.

But those who had replaced them in the wings were full of resentment. Naturally the chief representative of this faction was Wolf Valkhoven himself. If he and his allies could have their way, they would be back onstage, and they were waiting expectantly for Caroline to stumble. To seek help openly from the Japanese would be political suicide. But—

“I think Wolf would understand,” said Lambach.

“You've got to be kidding.” Caroline shook her head in disbelief.

“We're cogs in a machine, Carol,” Lambach said quietly. “You, me, and everyone here. Our missions have gotten too large for any one person to take all the credit or all the blame. All we can do is be good cogs and try to keep this giant machine from falling apart. The politicians and the bureaucrats decide where the machine goes.”

“I'm aware of that. Wolf suffered more than any of us because of those people. How could he approve of our going to the Japanese for help?”

“
Because
he suffered.” Lambach nodded, as if he were trying to convince himself. “We've got to solve this here, at our level. Sixth Continent is on scene, and they have capabilities we don't. If we call on them, we can recover from this problem. Don't you see? We're the ones who make the call here. Not the politicians or the bureaucrats.” He paused. “Wolf is a scientist, same as us. He'll understand. If his nose gets bent out of shape, I'll talk sense into him.”

“You expect me to believe he'll see the Japanese as colleagues?” Caroline's mouth opened in stark disbelief. “Whatever gave you that idea? His project—which just happens to be frozen at the moment—is a lot more important to him. Anyway, the real question is whether
I
can see the Japanese as colleagues.”

“Carol, I don't think personal animus has a place here—” Lambach stopped in midsentence. When he had signed on to work with this aggressive mission manager, she had told him a bit of personal history. She had also asked him to keep it confidential.

Caroline fixed him with a cold stare. “They didn't have a manned spacecraft of their own, so they bought my father's seat on the shuttle. And now they've rendered our arrays unusable. Please tell me where I've gone off the rails, Joe.”

“I'm sorry, Carol. I misspoke.” Lambach waved his hand, as if to wave away his earlier words, but he did not yield. “As mission administrator, which is more embarrassing—having a project canceled for political reasons or losing it because of an accident? Look at this objectively. Are you really going to pass on an option that could help us recover?”

Caroline stared at him for a long moment. “So you're asking whether I'll be able to face myself, much less everyone else.” She looked down for a long moment, then put her sunglasses back on.

“All right. As long as there's something we can do about it, let's not waste time.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Lambach nodded with relief and picked up the hotline.

“MR. AOMINE, you have an outside call.”

The speaker in the ceiling repeated the announcement. Sohya slid out from under a multidozer and wiped metal dust from his face with a cloth. “Sorry, I'll be right back.”

“Leave her to me. I'll have this wrapped by the time you get back.” The maintenance engineer closed the lid of the dozer's motherboard compartment and waved a hand in assurance.

Sohya exited through double metal doors, then an air lock. The magnetic shielding chamber was paneled with metal plates to screen out all geomagnetic and electromagnetic energy. This allowed tests on multidozer performance under different simulated conditions. Naturally, his wearcom would not function inside the chamber.

Sohya was in the multidozer manufacturing facility and proving ground at the foot of Mount Fuji. The facility was also central control for the dozers already on the surface. On top of his responsibilities for directing surface operations, Sohya was helping to improve the next generation of multidozers currently under construction.

Once outside the chamber, Sohya stepped into a nearby data processing center. All the terminals were busy, so he had to take the call on a bench in the corridor. He found Tae smiling back at him from his wearcom monitor.

“Hello, Sohya. Are you busy at the moment?”

“I was just about finished anyway,” said Sohya. “Starting with Dozer 8 we're going to use slightly thinner shielding. That will allow us to increase its leverage.”

“Sounds good. Listen, I couldn't get hold of Mr. Iwaki. I need someone who knows the front line,” said Tae. Obviously this wasn't a personal call. Sohya was about to make a joke about his disappointment on that score, but what she said next banished that thought instantly.

“We're conferencing with Ringstone at NASA.”

“NASA? You're joking!”

“Mr. Gotoba and Mr. Yaenami are waiting too. We're just about to start.”

“But, Tae—”

Sohya's wearcom display divided into five cells, each with a face. He hurriedly composed himself.

“Hello, Administrator Ringstone. This is Tae Toenji speaking.”

Her accent was polished King's English, belying the fact that she'd learned the language in California.

“Greetings to all of you in Japan,” answered Ringstone. “I'm calling with an important request. This discussion is off the record, so I would appreciate your candid opinion. First, let me introduce Caroline Cadbury from JPL. Caroline is operations director for the unmanned phase of Liberty Island.”

“Hello, everyone.” The same bald American Sohya had seen on the web yielded the floor to a blond woman. In a businesslike tone she began outlining NASA's problem. When she had finished, she looked up from her documents and spoke directly into the camera. “I'd like to emphasize that this problem was caused by the proximity of your landing sites. I hope you will fully bear in mind your responsibility as you consider our request.”

“Carol, let's set that aside for the moment,” Ringstone said with an uneasy chuckle. Then he turned to his audience. “We're prepared to render you assistance if you encounter problems. We regard this as an obligation, given our preeminent position in space exploration.”

Ryuichi broke in, “You sounded pretty preeminent in that press conference.”

“You saw that? Well, that puts me in a difficult position.” Ringstone rubbed his pate, then slowly executed a formal bow, Japanese-style. “We would deeply appreciate your assistance. As humans, and as fellow strivers toward the stars.”

“Mr. Ringstone, we need time to confer,” said Tae.

“I understand. I hope you'll hurry.” Ringstone's and Caroline's faces were replaced with the caption on hold.

“Well then,” said Gotoba. “First question: can we actually help them? What do you think, Aomine?”

Sohya returned to the present. He had been preoccupied with Caroline's steely expression.

“Um…yes. As far as I can tell from Cadbury's explanation, I think it's possible. The multidozers' power cables can easily extend two hundred meters. They have a macro for shaking our soft panels. With a little reprogramming, we could use it.”

“Their panels are built from different materials. Are you sure you can dislodge the regolith just by shaking them?”

“If it doesn't work, we can clean it off.”

“With what—a cloth or something?” asked Ryuichi.

“We could blow it off. The regolith contains titanium. That's a very hard metal. Wiping the panels free of regolith would damage them. We have a small spray module for cleaning the dozer video lenses. It's a metal container with a heating element, like a teakettle. We can generate as much vapor as we need by charging it with permafrost. We'd have to program the dozers to manipulate the module to reach the panels—that's a lot of area to cover. Tricky, but not impossible.”

“I see,” said Gotoba. “It's just a question of whether we want to spend the time.”

“Basically, yes,” said Sohya.

“So which benefits us most: investing time and resources to help NASA or leaving them to their own devices, cold as that might seem.”

Ryuichi didn't wait for Gotoba to finish. “Let's help them.” Gotoba looked intrigued.

“Your reason?”

“Number one: publicity. If we help NASA, it will be as effective as airing ten commercials. Two: we'll put them in our debt. We have no way of knowing what kind of problem we might run into at some point. It would be good to have them in our corner.”

“Are you sure they'll be willing to repay the favor? What we really need is for them to slow the pace of construction on Liberty Island. They're certainly not going to do that.”

“Fine,” said Ryuichi. “It would be better for them to do well—even if they are competitors—than dump cold water on this space boom. NASA's success will have a halo effect on Sixth Continent.”

“I'm not sure I share your optimism,” said Gotoba.

“Then why did we let the rest of the world get a peek at TROPHY? I bet NASA will be building their own version soon, though it will take them a while to figure out the details. I welcome that.”

Gotoba chuckled. “You make it sound very appealing. Ms. Toenji, what's your take on this?”

“I agree with Mr. Yaenami. As Sixth Continent's publicity director, helping NASA wouldn't be worth ten commercials—it'd be worth a hundred. I'm thinking of having footage of our multidozers working on Liberty Island intercut with video of Ringstone thanking us for our help.”

Sohya couldn't keep silent. Tae's triumphant expression was too much for him. “Excuse me, everyone. Have you forgotten what NASA did for
Apple 3
? Are we going to repay them by turning their misfortune into an ad campaign?”

“Aomine, this is not your issue.” Gotoba gave him a sharp look. Sohya felt a stab of fear. Naturally he was just on the call to render a technical opinion, not to participate in high-level decision making. But he couldn't help himself.

“You saw Cadbury's face. She was in agony having to ask us for help. No wonder, when you consider NASA's legacy. It's like having to ask for help from a child who's just learning to walk. I think we should be satisfied with putting them in our debt, not running around telling—”

“Aomine—” Gotoba began to reprimand him, but Tae cut in.

“Sohya.” She spoke coldly, with narrowed eyes. “Don't you understand? If they win, Sixth Continent will be in a real predicament.” Sohya couldn't think of an answer. He opened a two-way channel to Tae.

“Tae, please. I'm in the same position as Cadbury. I know what she's going through. We're not senior people. We're on the front line, putting heart and soul into our work. We don't want political agendas to destroy what we're doing. If we go public with this, the media will crucify her.”

“Sohya…” Her image on the wearcom display was tiny, but Sohya saw the change that came over her. “So gentle, as always.”

“You mean ‘weak,' right? But still.”

“If only everyone were like you,” murmured Tae. Then she sighed. “All right. Just this once.” She returned to conference mode.

“Sorry for the interruption. After some thought, I think we should avoid publicity at this time.”

“Really?” said Gotoba. “And help them for nothing?”