BETWEEN THE ORBITS OF EARTH AND MARS
ABOARD DASCS SUBOTAI
JUNE 18, 1982
The wardroom of the Subotai was small and cluttered; it doubled as an exercise chamber, up here just below the bowcap of the cruiser. They would be a long time in zero-G and the hormone treatments did only so much to slow calcium loss. Just now Yolande and Snappdove had it to themselves, their feet tucked into straps under a table. There was a lingering smell of sweat in the air under the chill freshness the life-support system imposed.
“Your health,” Yolande said, raising her bulb and sipping lemonade through the straw. Flat, but carbonated beverages in zero-G were an invitation to perpetual flatulence. Such are the trials we face pushing back the frontiers of the Race, she thought dryly.
Snappdove’s beard had been clipped closer, for convenience in the helmet ring of his skinsuit. “Our success!” he said, clinking his bulb against hers with a dull tamp of plastic. “Not to mention our wealth.”
“The news good as all that?” Yolande said.
“The core samples are all in now,” the scientist said. “Definitely an ex-comet, somewhat larger and less dense than we thought . . . ah, there is so much we do not know! Always we discover theory-breaking facts faster than we can make plausible theories, out here.” He shook his head ruefully. “Ex-comet, or at least something that came from the outer system, sometime. Complex orbital perturbations, collisions . . . Comet, asteroid—we impose definitions on nature, but nature does not always agree.”
Yolande sighed inwardly. She had not had much time to get to know the head of the expedition’s Technical Section crew—they had only been here five days and he had been madly busy, but it had been enough to know that he was unstoppable. A true natural philosopher, out of time, she thought. The facts entrance him because he can think about them, not necessarily because they’re of any use.
“You have a theory?” she asked.
“Hm-mm. Crude, but . . . several passes into the zone between Earth and Mars resulted in the loss of the outer layer of volatiles, various ices. The process was fairly gentle—I doubt if the object ever came within 1.1 AU of the sun—and the solid material, the organics and silicates, were not thrown off. Instead it formed a protective crust; there must have been a truly unusual amount of such heavier materials. This was through many passes, you understand. Perhaps asteroidal material was incorporated. Now, though, we have a fairly complete crust, there may be some sublimation still, but nothing drastic.” The slight foreign overtone to his accent became stronger as his animation grew. “We will have to be careful; ammonia or methane could still be present.”
“The composition?” she asked, reigning in impatience.
“As favorable as could be hoped!” He spread his hands. “Carbonaceous outer layer, rock and organic compounds. Under that . . . ice! Over a billion tonnes of ice. Dirty ice at that, many complex hydrogenated compounds. And—an additional bonus—rocky core with high concentrations of platinum-group metals. At a guess, the object did encounter asteroidal material. At some time, the ice softened enough that . . . well, never mind.” He chuckled, and parked the drink in the air to rub his palms. “My so-aristocratic colleague, has it occurred to you that we are now very, very rich?”
Yolande blinked. Why no, it hadn’t, she thought. “Point-oh-one percent of the value divided by . . . two hundred and thirty Citizens is that much?” A moment’s pause. “Oh, I see what you means.”
“Yes, indeed. This discovery will power our space-based development for half a decade.”
The commander of the flotilla nodded, mildly pleased. Not that she had ever wanted for money; few Citizens did, and she less than most. Still, it would be pleasant; she was of Landholding family but not landed . . . A land grant was free, but that meant raw territory you had to spend a generation licking into shape. Nothing like the opportunities her parents had had in Europe after the Eurasian War. With enough money you could get one of the rare plantations for sale, or pay for someone else to oversee development. A heritage for her children; and then, it would be useful to have an Archona townhouse . . .
“Can we move it?” she added practically.
“If it is possible, my crew can do it,” Snappdove said with another chuckle. “They are well motivated, even the serfs.”
Glory, she supposed, as well as wealth, for the Citizens. The serfs would get the satisfaction of exercising their specialties; these would be mostly Class V-a Literates already, many crèche-trained for the military. And privileges, apartments, guarantees of education for their children. They would be eager for success, too.
“It is my ambition to get through a project without a single execution,” Snappdove said, echoing her thoughts. “And yes we can move it, I think. Monomolecular coating, reflective to decrease the heat absorption. Single-crystal cable webbing. Then we set up that thrust plate—beautiful piece of work, astounding things they do with cermet composites these days—and it only has to last a month. Then boom! and boom!—we use our bombs. Earth orbit, very eccentric one but the details after that are not our concern.”
She nodded. “Sounds good,” she said. “Very good.”
He sighed happily. “Yes, every year the size of project we can accomplish increases. Geometrically. Did I tell you, we have nearly completed the long-range feasibility study for terraforming Mars?”
Her ears pricked. For a moment, she was back on the dark beach below Baiae School, lying around the campfire and watching the moving stars and dreaming of what they would do. Myfwany . . .
“No,” she said hastily. Gods, how it sneaks up on you, she thought dismally. Work, more work. That’s what I need.
“Oh, yes. We float big mirrors near Mars, melt the icecaps. Much water and C02 there. More mirrors, increase the solar heating. Then we blow up Callisto—”
“Wotan and the White Christ!” she blurted. That was one of the major moons of Jupiter. “That’s biggah than Luna!”
He nodded, and ran fingers through his beard. “But ice, only ice; much more than we need for Mars. And there is no limit to how big we may make our bombs. We drop pieces on Mars . . . comets also, if convenient. Already the atmosphere will be thicker and warmer. Water vapor increases the greenhouse effect; tailored bacteria and algae go to work cracking the oxides, the sun splits water vapor. An ozone layer. Nitrogen we get from various places, Titan . . . In a long lifetime, there is breathable air, thinner than Earth, higher percentage of oxygen. Then we build the Beanstalks, and work begins on the ecology; not my field. Many small seas and lakes, about half the surface.”
His eyes stared out beyond the bulkhead. “And then we bring in serfs to till the fields . . . strange, is it not?”
“No,” she said frankly. “Should it be?” For a moment she imagined condors nesting on the slopes of Martian canyons longer than continents, forests five hundred meters tall . . .
He snorted. “A matter of perspective. Me, I will buy an estate in perhaps South China, for my children. And a block in the Trans-Solar Combine, they have contracts in the project.” Another shrug of the massive shoulders. “All this is moot. We must finish with the Alliance, first.”