Worlds in Chaos (4 page)

She smiled, managing to convey the suggestion of freshness in spite of it all. “Even better than you promised,” she complimented.

“Always make your surprises pleasant ones,” Keene said, yawning in the close air. “People forget bad predictions that were wrong. But tell them one time that things will be okay and be wrong, and they’ll never forgive you.”

“Getting philosophical? Is this a new postflight syndrome or something?”

“I don’t know. But I could sure use a postflight coffee.”

“I’ll get one,” Stevie said, and moved away along one of the passages.

Joyce nodded to indicate the doorway through to the Ccoms room. “We’ve got PCN on now, asking to talk to one of the crew. You want to take it?”

“Sure. Who is it?”

“Somebody called John Feld from their Los Angeles office. He’s linked through via Corpus Christi.”

“Uh-huh.” Keene followed Joyce between the communications equipment racks and control panels. “Have we a friendly native?”

“It’s difficult to say,” Joyce answered as they came to a live screen on one of the consoles. The face showing on it was of a man in his forties with clear blue eyes and straight, yellow hair brushed to the side. He turned to look out full-face as Keene moved within the viewing angle of the console pickup.

“Hello. I’m Landen Keene—NIFTV’s flight engineer; also one of the principal design engineers involved with the project.”

“John Feld, Pacific Coast Network news.”

“Hi.”

“You are with the Amspace Corporation, Dr. Keene?”

“In a way. I run a private engineering consultancy that Amspace contracts design work and theoretical studies to.”

Feld looked mildly surprised. “And does this relationship result in your going into space often?” he asked.

“Oh, Amspace and Protonix—that’s the name of my company—have known each other for a long time. I go wherever the job demands. A desk has more leg room, but this way we get to have more fun.”

“As we saw,” Feld agreed. “That was a spectacular performance you people gave up there earlier.”

“And it was in spite of everything this country has done in the last forty years, not thanks to any of it,” Keene replied.

“So what were you demonstrating? Obviously you were doing more than having fun. Is it another version of the message we hear from time to time about private enterprise being able to do things better than government?”

Keene shook his head. “Hell no. What we were telling you has to do with the whole future of humanity, not somebody’s political or economic ideology. The world is still burying its head in the sand and refusing to face what Athena is telling us: the universe isn’t a safe place. For our own good, we need a commitment on a massive scale to broadening what the Kronians have pioneered and spreading ourselves around more of space. What we showed today is that we can start doing it right now, without needing to negotiate any deals with the Kronians—although if you want my opinion, we should avail ourselves of any help they offer. We already have the technology and the industries. The vehicle that we demonstrated today was a test bed for a Nuclear Indigenously Fueled engine. That means it uses a nuclear thermal reactor to heat an indigenous propellant gas as a reaction mass. ‘Indigenous’: native to a particular place.”

Feld seemed to understand the term but looked puzzled. “Okay. . . . But where are we talking about, exactly, in this instance?”

Keene spread his hands. “That’s the whole point: anywhere that you’re operating. You see, it works with a whole range of substances that occur naturally just about wherever you might happen to be. Venus is rich in carbon dioxide; the asteroids and ice moons of the gas-giants give unlimited water; others, such as Saturn’s Titan and Neptune’s Triton have methane; you can also use nitrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, argon. In other words, it opens up the entire Solar System by affording ready refueling sources wherever you go. Today we were using water, and you saw the results. Methane would perform about fifty percent better still.”

“So was today’s effort to get publicity for a new technology that you’ve developed? If so, it certainly seems to have been successful.”

“New? No way. It was being talked about back in the 1960s. But antinuclear phobia took over, and we’ve been at a standstill. What we’re trying to do is more wake the country up again.”

“Ah, but weren’t there good reasons?” Feld seemed on more familiar ground, suddenly. “Surely there are hazards associated with taking such devices into orbit that haven’t been resolved yet. Isn’t it true that if the radioactive material from just one reactor were spread evenly through the atmosphere—”

“It isn’t going to get spread evenly around the planet. There’s enough gasoline in every city to—” Keene broke off as he saw that Feld was glancing aside, as if taking directions from somewhere off-screen. He looked back.

“Thank you, Dr. Keene. Apparently Captain Elms is standing by up there in the Amspace satellite now, and we would like to hear a few words from him too while we’ve got the connection. That was very interesting. Let’s hope you have a safe trip back down.”

“My pleasure,” Keene grunted. The screen blanked to a test mode.

Joyce, who had moved away to talk to the duty supervisor on the far side of the room and then come back, stepped forward from where she had been watching. “See, you’ve scared them off again, Lan. You always have to start getting political.”

“Hell, the problem’s political,” Keene grumbled. “How is it supposed to get solved if we can’t mention it?”

Stevie reappeared carrying a plastic mug of black coffee and handed it to him. Keene nodded, sipped to test the heat, then took a longer drink gratefully. “But you’re right,” he told Joyce. “I should know better by now. It’s gotten to be something of a reflex, I guess.”

“Falling into patterns of habit is normal with advancing age,” she assured him cheerfully.

“Thanks. Just what I needed.”

The supervisor called over to them. “They’re on hold now, Joyce. Do you want it through there again?”

“Yes, we’re done with Pacific,” Joyce called back over the consoles. “You’ve got another call waiting,” she told Keene. He drank from his coffee mug again, as if fortifying himself. “Oh, I think you’ll like this one,” Joyce said. She gazed expectantly at the test pattern on the screen. It changed suddenly to present a face once again, this time a woman’s.

Keene blinked in surprise. “It’s Sariena!” he exclaimed.

She was in her early thirties, perhaps, with the finely formed features combining just the right amount of firmness with a softening of feminine roundness that fashion modeling agencies and cosmetics advertisers will scour a continent for. Her hair was shoulder-length, richly dark with a hint of wave at the tips, and her skin a clear dusky brown, setting off a pair of light gray, curiously opalescent eyes which at first sight jarred with such a complexion, but produced a strangely fascinating effect as one adjusted to them. Keene could have pictured her as an Arabian princess of fairy tale, or a rajah’s daughter. And that was just from electronic images; they had never actually met. For Sariena was not of Earth at all but from Kronia, the collective name for the oasis of human habitation established among the moons of Saturn. The name came from Kronos, the Ancient Greek name for Saturn, who had ruled the heavens during Earth’s Golden Age.

“Hello, Lan,” she greeted. “And is that Joyce with you there?”

“I’m here,” Joyce put in, coming closer.

“Ah yes, it is.” Sariena’s smile was restrained enough to preserve dignity, wide enough not to appear cold. “I just wanted to let you know that the shuttles are in orbit with us now, and we’ll be on our way down to the surface later today, arriving in Washington this evening.”

“Sorry if I’ve been out of touch,” Keene said. “I’ve been a bit busy lately, as you’ve probably gathered.”

Sariena was aboard the Kronian long-range transporter vessel
Osiris
, now parked in Earth orbit after a three-month voyage from the Saturnian system. In that time, the communications turnaround delay had decreased steadily from over two hours when the ship set out. With preparations for the NIFTV demonstration taking up all his time, Keene hadn’t talked with the Kronians at all during the past week. Now, suddenly, it was a pleasant change to find himself able to interact with them normally.

“Yes. We all thought that show of yours today was terrific,” Sariena said. “The timing was perfect. It’ll give us a good opening theme for the talks. Gallian asked me to say thanks, and that he’s looking forward to meeting you in person at last too.” Gallian was the head of the Kronian mission.

“You should thank the Air Force Space Command more than us,” Keene replied. “They picked today for their test. We just went along with it.”

“So do you have any idea yet when we’ll be able to meet you?” Sariena asked.

“Well, you’re probably going to be tied up with formal receptions and so forth for a while,” Keene said. “I try not to get involved in things like that. But I’ve made time to be in Washington for a few days, starting Monday. We could probably work something in then.”

“I’ll let Gallian know,” Sariena said.

Besides being a consultant to Amspace in Texas, Keene also acted as an advisor on space-related nuclear issues to various government offices, and maintained a Washington office for the purpose. He evaluated official reports and proposals, prepared recommendations, and testified before committees. A lot of congresspeople and other denizens of the Hill also consulted him privately for off-the-record views and background details. Most of them were better informed on issues that concerned them than the required public posturing sometimes allowed them to admit.

He looked at the face that he knew only from screens, outwardly so composed, yet what kind of agitation and uncertainties—fear even—had to be churning inside? In all her adult life, she had never seen an ocean, breathed a planet’s air, or walked under an open sky. She had been taken to Kronia as a child in the early days when the original base, named Kropotkin, was constructed on the moon Dione. Now she was returning for the first time as one of the deputation that the Saturn colony had sent to Earth following the Athena event to press the same case that Keene had summarized to Feld.

Keene raised his coffee mug. “And before any of those guys in tuxedos have a chance to get started with their toasts and speeches, let us be the first to say, Welcome to Earth, finally. The main thing you have to remember is that leaving the outside door open is okay. But don’t try walking on the blue stuff.”

Sariena laughed. “Will you be able to make it to Washington too, Joyce?”

“Sorry. Not for a while, anyhow. I’m stuck up in this grimy can for another three weeks.”

“Is that all?”

“Yeah, right, okay—you’ve got me. I was forgetting. What’s three weeks in space to you guys?”

“But their accommodation is probably a bit more roomy,” Keene said to Joyce.

“When are you going back down, Lan?” Sariena asked.

“In a couple of hours, probably. The firm’s bus is up here waiting already.” He gave Joyce a sideways look. “Then it’ll be a shower and a swim, clean clothes . . .” He watched the look forming on her face. “And maybe a good steak and some wine out somewhere nice tonight.”

“Pig,” Joyce muttered hatefully.

The Amspace minishuttle detached from Space Dock a little under three hours later. As the craft fell away, Keene was able to catch a glimpse of the
Osiris
passing above as an elongated bead of light in its higher orbit. Low to one side, partly eclipsed by the curve of Earth’s dark side, stretched the awesome spectacle of Athena’s braided tail streaming in the solar wind as the supercomet fell toward the Sun.

4

Amspace’s headquarters offices were located in Corpus Christi, southeast Texas, on North Water Street, a couple of blocks inland from the marinas on Corpus Christi Bay, at the fashionable, downtown end of Shoreline Boulevard. The company’s main manufacturing, engineering, and research center was twenty miles south of the city at Kingsville, with a launch facility thirty miles farther south at a place called San Saucillo, on the plain of sandy flats and sage brush between Laredo and the Gulf. It was Oil Country, and much of the company’s founding impetus had derived from the tradition of independence rooted in private capital and sympathetic local politics. All the same, taking an initiative toward developing the longer-term potential of space was a contentious and uncertain issue, and as insurance the corporation was constructing a second launch complex over the border in Mexico, on a highland plateau known as Montemorelos. Besides affording backup capability, Montemorelos would provide a means of continuing operations in the event that San Saucillo was shut down by politics.