And the shield that would save the world was already growing around the Aurora, its glistening surface spiraling out like a spiderweb.
Auroraserved as a construction shack for the crews who, ferried up from Earth and Moon, labored to complete this mighty project. It was a noble destiny for any ship, Miriam thought. But Aurorahad been destined to orbit another world, and there was something poignant about seeing it meshed up in a tangle of scaffolding. Miriam wondered if the ships own artificial intelligences, thwarted of their true purpose, knew some ghost of regret.
Boudicca docked with the Auroras habitable compartment, nestling belly-first against its curving hull like a moth settling on an orange.
Miriam and Nicolaus were met by an astronaut: Colonel Burton Tooke. Bud wore coveralls, practical enough but freshly laundered and pressed, and adorned with astronaut wings, mission logos, and military decorations. Bud extended a hand and helped pull Miriam through the docking tunnel. You seem to be coping fine with the lack of gravity, he offered.
Oh, I took some spins around the Boudiccas cabin. It was great funafter the first twelve hours or so.
I can imagine. Space sickness hits most of us. And most people get through it.
Nicolaus hadnt, however, a fact that had given Miriam some rather unkind satisfaction. Just for once, in that bubble of metal drifting between worlds, it had been she who had had to look out for him.
Miriam had spent most of the flight working; she was reasonably up to date, and even felt quite rested. So she left Captain Purcell to sort out her few bits of luggage, and accepted Buds invitation for a quick tour. Nicolaus followed, cameras sitting on his scalp and shoulder like glistening birds, determined not to miss a moment of this photo opportunity.
They drifted through the cramped corridors of the Aurora. This was a ship designed for space; there were pipes, ducts, and removable panels on walls, ceiling, and floor, rails and rungs to help you pull your way along in zero G, and a color-coding in pastel shades to help you remember which way was up. It was difficult to grasp that this unremarkable working space had sailed across the solar system, all the way to Mars and back.
Despite the efficiency of the recycling systems there was a powerful, almost leonine stink of people. But they met nobody; the crew were either avoiding the visiting brass, or, much more likely, were out working somewhere. It was all very different from her usual Prime Ministerial visits, and oddly intimateand she certainly didnt miss the usual scrum of journalists and assorted hangers-on.
They reached the hatchway to Auroras observation deck. Bud pushed open the door, and sunlight flooded over Miriams face. The decks picture window turned out to be a pane of toughened Perspex a lot smaller than any of the windows in her office in the Euro-needle. But once, briefly, this window had looked down over the red canyons of Marsand now it looked out into space.
There was work going on out there. A framework of open struts jutted out from just below the window, and extending far into the distance. Astronauts in color-coded spacesuits were crawling all over, pulling themselves along with handholds or cables or pushed by small thruster packs on their backs. There must have been a hundred people in that first glance, and as many autonomous, multilimbed machines, moving through a sunlit three-dimensional maze of scaffolding. It was hugely impressive, but complex, baffling.
Tell me what theyre doing.
Okay. Bud pointed. In the distance, you can see heavy-duty equipment moving those struts into place.
Those look like glass. The shields framework?
Yeah. Moon glass. Were extending the structure in a spiral fashion around the Aurora, so that at any given moment we keep the center of gravity of the whole BDO right here at L1.
She asked, BDO?
Bud looked abashed. The shield. We astronauts will have our acronyms.
And it stands for
Big Dumb Object. Kind of an in-joke.
Nicolaus rolled his eyes.
Bud said, The struts are prefabricated on the Moon. But up here were manufacturing the skin itselfnot the smart stuff coming from Earth; just the simple prismatic film that well lay over most of the BDOs area.
He pointed to an astronaut wrestling with an ungainly piece of equipment. It looked as if she were extracting a huge balloon animal from a packing case. It was an almost comical sight, but Miriam took care to keep her face straight.
Bud said, We use inflatable Mylar formers as molds. Designing the inflatable itself is an art. You have to figure the deployment dynamics. When you blow it up you dont want it stretching out of shape; the Mylar is only as thick as freezer film. So we simulate backward, letting it deflate its way into the box, trying to make sure it will deploy smoothly without tangling itself up or stretching
She let him talk on. Bud was obviously proud of the work being performed here, meeting the challenges of an environment where the simplest task, such as blowing up a balloon, was full of unknowns. And anyhow, some space-buff piece of her was enjoying his talk of deployment dynamics and the rest.
And when the mold is ready, he was saying, pointing to another area of work, we spray on the film.
An astronaut supervised a clumsy-looking robot that rolled along a boom stretched out before a big inflatable disk. The robot was using a roller to smear a glassy surface on the Mylar face of the disk. The robot, working calmly, looked as if it were doing nothing more exotic than painting a wall.
The Mylar comes up from the ground in solid blocks, Bud said. To make a film, you heat the stuff and force it out through hot nozzles, so you get jets of filament. You give this stuff a positive charge, and make the target surface a negative electrode, so the polymer filament is drawn out like taffy, becoming hundreds of times thinner in the process. You couldnt do this on Earth; gravity would mess with everything. But here you just squirt it on, deflate the mold, and peel it off.
I want one of those robots to paint my flat.
He laughed, but it was a bit forced, and she was painfully aware that everybody who came here must make a similar joke.
He said, The robots and machines and processes are all very well. But the heart of this place is the people. He glanced at her. I come from a farming area in Iowa. As a kid I always liked to read stories of blue-collar guys just like my father and his buddies working in space, or on the Moon. Well, it cant be that way, not for a long time. This is still space, a lethal environment, and the work were doing is highly skilled engineering. None of those grease monkeys out there is less qualified than a Ph.D. Blue collar they aint, I guess. But they have the heartyou know what Im saying? Theyre working twenty-four seven to get this job done, and some of them have been up here for years already. And without that heart none of this would get done, for all our gadgets.