"celestial_earthmovers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nolte Phillip)
Celestial Earthmovers by Phillip Nolte Copyright (c) 1990
It was one of the oddball asteroids whose orbit brought it on a near collision course with the earth. Geographos, it was called, catalogue number 1620, one of the handful of asteroids that inhabit the inner solar system. Six months before I had never heard of it. But there I was, looking at it out of the forward viewport of an asteroid belt utility ship. Carlos was looking over my shoulder as we floated in the warm, nearly dark confines of the ship's control room. After a week or so of maneuvering we had matched velocities with the asteroid and had finally gotten close enough to see some of the fine details of it with the naked eye. We had been staring at it in silence for some time. "Well, what do you think of it, Stephan?" asked Carlos. "Looks like a big overgrown peanut," I said, as we watched it rotate lazily. "A peanut that has a date with destiny," he returned, with mock seriousness. I nudged him away with an elbow. "We should get suited up and go have a look at it. Touch it, take measurements, get familiar with it," I said. "Go see if Joanna wants to come along. I'll meet you in the workroom." "As you say, Senor Perkins," returned Carlos, as he left the bridge. The idea for this mad scheme that we were involved in was cooked up by someone named Charles Kelman of UCLA in about 1980, over a hundred years ago. The original paper can still be found in the files of the NASA museum, if you care to look. I've read it. There is little doubt that it was a tongue-in-cheek proposal by Kelman. In the same file with the proposal were several letters and memos addressed to him that contained criticisms from his peers. Their comments ranged from "premature" and "outrageously innovative" to "preposterous" and even "criminally insane." I think his real purpose was to stimulate some discussion on how mankind might begin to exploit the resources of the solar system. Surely he never intended for anyone to try it! Unfortunately, events and human nature can conspire to make the damnedest things sound plausible. The situation in Central America has never been stable, but this time the turmoil was even worse than usual. Threats by a new and belligerent government in Panama to disable the existing Panama canal probably had the most influence. More than threats, fact is, they actually closed it for nearly a year in 2045. Then they doubled the usage rates. Wealthy and powerful people got angry. Wheels were set in motion and the "Columbia Canal Project" was born. The project was billed as the most spectacular engineering feat ever attempted by mankind. And so it was. The first time I heard of it I thought that it was some kind of joke. When I found out that they were serious, I shook my head in disbelief. There was only one possible explanation--that everyone involved was certifiably nuts! The plan was to build a new canal connecting the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean Sea. The area chosen was in the wilderness of northwestern Columbia, near the Atrato River. A peninsula sticks up out of Columbia there, a peninsula that eventually becomes Panama. There was only about 150 Km of land between the two bodies of water in this area, so the new canal wouldn't have to be too long. Up to this point everything was fine, but then things started to get scary. They were going to do the excavation by hitting the proposed site with a piece of an asteroid! Our asteroid, Geographos. It was hoped that the resulting impact would create a huge crater and would, in one unthinkable blast, do a job that would normally take years of heavy and dangerous labor. The enterprise was made to sound even more attractive by announcing that the metal content of this heavenly fragment would be worth in the neighborhood of 900 billion dollars! Dollars that would be a godsend to the beleaguered economies of Central and South America. No one had any suggestions on how this new supply of precious metals was to be obtained from its eventual ocean resting place, however. Isn't this starting to sound just a little nuts? To prove that there is no shortage of stupidity in high places, a joint committee of Central American and United States officials bought the deal, lock, stock and asteroid. They wanted me because I'm damned good at astro-engineering and I have a lot of experience working in space. I'm the same Stephan Perkins that did most of the design work on the United States L-5 space colony. I was also good with people, usually, and this was going to require the coordinated efforts of many. At least we had the time we needed to iron out some of the problems. We began work on this project in 2048, nearly five years before the next close approach of Geographos. Not that we were likely to have any problems. I mean, all we were going to do was excise a chunk of rock about the size of a small midwestern town from this minor planetoid, alter its course to bring it within kissing distance of the earth, figure out some way to aim it at a specific target, and allow it to impact. No sweat, eh? How do you establish an acceptable margin of error for something like that? How do you go about reducing the stupefying velocity at which this "impact projectile" would be traveling? We had no idea of how this thing was going to behave when it made contact with earth's atmosphere either. We weren't going by the book, we were writing it! It's no exaggeration to say that the challenge was formidable; even the slightest miscalculation had the potential of ending in a horrible catastrophe. So, I got involved because I had to. I had to do what I could to insure that things wouldn't end up in a total disaster. I figured that they needed at least one person who knew what the hell he was doing! I tore my gaze away from the viewport. The vastness of space with its frosty dusting of tiny bright stars was a rich, dark tapestry and the slowly twirling asteroid suspended against this backdrop was a compelling, almost hypnotic, sight. As I left the bridge for the workroom, I almost ran into Salazar in the corridor. Diego Salazar, from Columbia, the "executive director" of the expedition. A terrible choice, by any measure. He was a wealthy and powerful member of the canal committee who had been included on the mission at the last minute. To tell you the truth, the whole Salazar situation looked suspicious to me. The guy knew next to nothing about the engineering end of the project. His forte was politics and even though that was something he was damned good at, I found out early on that he had no idea how difficult this job was going to be. In addition, he was neither liked nor respected by any of the crew. By some kind of convoluted logic this made him the obvious choice to head the mission. None of this altered the basic fact that he was an idiot, and I thought that the ramrod tactics that he tried to use on me and the rest of the team were actually counterproductive. We needed him like we needed a hole in the airlock. "Don't you think it's time to have a look at that asteroid, Perkins?" he said. With his accent, he pronounced it "pear-kins" but he always spoke with rich full tones, as though he were making one of his political speeches. "We were just on our way," I replied, pushing past him. "Ah, I see," he said, "Good, I shall observe you from the control room. Now that we are finally here it is vital that we make the best use of our time. Si?" "If you say so, Salazar," I continued down the corridor. That was his way, he stated the obvious and applied pressure when it wasn't needed. I always found an excuse to go somewhere else when he came in. From the first impression onward, my attitude towards him had been one of intense dislike. As you'll see, those instincts were well founded. After some idle chit-chat in the workroom while we put on our suits, we were off to our first close encounter with Geographos. That was a humbling experience! The ship was kept on a parallel course at a safe distance and we used a utility sled to go over to the slowly rotating asteroid. As we got closer we began to realize just how big it was. The books and our instruments said that it was about 2.2 km in length. Maybe so, but it sure seemed bigger than that when you got close enough to touch it. Getting on to it was tough. It wasn't enough that it rotated around its center, it had a slight wobble as well. You mounted it carefully, at the center of rotation. Once on, you could move out towards the slightly swollen ends. It had no noticeable gravity; a healthy sneeze was probably enough to impart escape velocity, so you were virtually weightless. As you moved outward, you had to cling tightly to its pocked and jagged surface because you picked up the same relative motions. By the time you were perched on the end you were rotating and wobbling right along with it. What a ride! You were also treated to a blinding view of the sun's searingly bright disk every few minutes. It took some real getting used to but we had little choice, there was work to be done. Dismounting was the reverse process, carefully make your way back to the center and push off over to the sled. Carlos and I thought we were doing well merely to keep from flying off into space until we saw an unconcerned Joanna calmly going about the collection of samples for analysis. Not to be outdone, we checked our tethers, composed ourselves and set about determining the exact dimensions of our cosmic excavation tool. Our first order of business was to stop the spinning and wobbling motions. We would use some strategically placed rockets to accomplish this. Then, we would strap on the huge boosters that we had brought out with the belt ship and start to seriously alter its course and speed. Even though the size and mass of Geographos was far too much for the needs of our project, it looked like the best thing to do was to bring the whole asteroid back. The real fun would start when we began to approach Earth. That's when we were going to have to perform some difficult and intricate maneuvers. Here's how it was supposed to work. It had been determined that the smaller end of the "peanut" contained more than enough material to serve our purposes. We would cut through the asteroid near the slightly narrower "waist" area with a series of carefully placed explosive charges. After that, we would have to do some minor surgery to pare our chosen end down to the proper size and shape for the excavation job that was planned for it. Then we would use one of the same strap-on boosters to alter the course towards earth. Hopefully, we could "skip" it through the atmosphere once, or twice if we needed to, to scrub off some more of its unwanted velocity and to do some final shaping as well. While all this was going on, another team would take charge of the rest of the asteroid, the so-called "tail section". They would use the remaining booster to carefully "park" the tail section in the L-4 point of the earth-luna system. There it would be ready and waiting right in our neighborhood, so to speak. We could use it for another "excavation" project or, more likely, as building material for more orbital colonies or Lunar construction projects. Any construction material was welcome in space and Joanna's preliminary analysis had determined that Geographos was rich in all kinds of valuable metals. The hardware and methods for manipulating and moving the asteroid were pretty well worked out, men had been "mining" the asteroid belt for years, but no one had ever had to contend with such high relative velocities before. In the belt things only move at about 5 km/sec. Compared to that, Geographos was hauling ass! Carlos and I had sat up until the wee hours almost every "night" on the two-month trip out to the rendezvous with Geographos trying to determine what the best shape and mass of the final object should be. There had actually been several small asteroid "drops" done in the early part of the century. Maybe you've heard of Statler and Chin. They were a couple of borderline psychotics with forged scientific credentials who had somehow gotten permission to hit Mars with some small asteroids, just to see what would happen. It was kind of like turning a couple of small boys loose with a box of dynamite and a book of matches. Their masquerade lasted for nearly two years before they were found out and put away. They did take some nice pictures but both their measurements and their technique were, as you would expect, abysmal. In addition, the atmosphere and gravity of Mars were completely different from earth's. But this somewhat sketchy data was all that we had to go on. Of course, anything at all was a help. It was too bad that they had simply dropped the rocks directly, and hadn't tried to skip any of them through the atmosphere; we could have used the information. For us, such skips were vital because they would not only slow the thing down, but would allow us to get valuable data on how much mass we were going to lose when it made its final plunge through the atmosphere. More than once, I woke up in a cold sweat when I dreamed that we had miscalculated and instead of a new canal, we had created a sizeable new bay near San Francisco. Dr. Carlos Monzon Cortez had been appointed to be my assistant and liaison with the committee. Born in Columbia and educated in the U.S., he was an excellent choice. He was dark and slender with black eyes and classic Latin good looks. By any standard, Carlos was a strikingly handsome man. His speech was very soft and polite, almost apologetic, but it was best to listen when he spoke because he always knew what he was talking about. Women found him irresistible, but he seldom took advantage of them; maybe that was part of his charm. He was particularly valuable because he was fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and communication between us and the committee on some very technical matters was necessary. Oh yes, he was also one hell of an engineer. I found him irresistible too; we quickly became good friends. Everything was going according to schedule until we had a meeting to discuss procedures and present progress reports. The meeting started out amiably enough but things soon took a nasty and unexpected turn. After some assorted small talk, Salazar made an announcement. "We must begin placing the explosive charges tomorrow," he said. "The asteroid is to be broken in two here, in deep space. We shall be bringing home only what we need of it." There was a buzz of conversation. I was taken completely by surprise. "Wait a minute," I interrupted. "I thought it was agreed that we would take the whole thing back!" "The plan has been changed," he replied. "Changed?" I said. "By whom? Carlos and I weren't consulted about this." "It was changed by the committee," he said. "At my recommendation." "Well, change it back," I said, my anger beginning to stir. "We're missing out on a golden opportunity if we leave the rest of that rock out here." There was another buzz of conversation; a few heads nodded in affirmation. "I must agree with Stephan," Joanna spoke up, glancing at me and then looking back at Salazar. "I've looked that asteroid over very carefully. It's full of ores and deposits of metal that are badly needed. That thing is worth a fortune! More than that it's..." Salazar cut her off with a wave of his hand. "It does not matter, the mass of the entire asteroid is too great for our boosters. We do not have sufficient power." "Where the hell did you get that idea?" I said, his obvious runaround was making me even madder. "There's a five percent fuel margin, if we get them attached and operating within the thirty day window." Trying to reason with him was like arguing with Geographos itself. He wasn't even looking at me. "I can't believe you'd make this kind of change without some discussion," I said, my anger beginning to get out of hand. "We must go with the original plan! Do you have any idea how much work we've put in on calculations alone?" "It has already been decided..." he began. "This is bullshit, Salazar!" I interrupted. The room was suddenly silent. "You can't run this project like it's a god-damned banana plantation!" Maybe that was a mistake. "Enough, Senor Perkins," he said, his eyes smoldering. "We make preparations to blast the asteroid tomorrow." "We'll see about that!" I said as I stormed out of the chamber. I was so angry that I might have done him harm if I hadn't left. The way things turned out, maybe I should have stayed a little longer. I put a call through to the committee; they were in agreement with Salazar. I ranted at them for a short while about the opportunities they were missing before they cut me off. Finally, I went back to my quarters where I floated and silently fumed for most of the evening. The following day I plodded through my duties without much enthusiasm. I knew I was in trouble when I found myself staring at the same equation for most of the morning trying to get it to make sense. I couldn't. My mind would keep wandering back to the altercation in the briefing room. I'd shake my head to clear it and plunge back into my work. All in vain. After two days of this, I came to a decision. I was going to resign, there was no way I could work with that man as my superior till the project was completed. Who knows what other surprises he had in store for us? I wrote a letter outlining my intentions, made the announcement and prepared to leave on the next shuttle, which was mercifully due in less than a week. Joanna joined me on the shuttle when the time came to leave. I didn't even notice her until she spoke. I was strapped into an acceleration couch lost in a final bittersweet look at Geographos out of the side viewport. "Mind if I join you?" she said. "Huh? Oh, Joanna," I said. My surprise was genuine. "No of course not. I was daydreaming." I helped her strap into the adjacent couch. "What are you doing here?" "I'm done," she said. "They have my report, they don't need a geologist anymore. You know what a stickler Salazar is for efficiency. Besides that, if you remember, I questioned his judgment at a recent staff meeting." "Yeah, I know. So did I!" I said with a tentative smile, surprised that I could actually joke about it. "Is that what you call it?" she replied, grinning. "I'd say what you did was more like an insult to his mother!" We both laughed. The conversation went on from there. She was easy to talk to and had a great sense of humor, which was really a good thing because we had a couple of months worth of space flight ahead of us with little to do. I found out that she had just recently come from a post-doc in geology at Colorado State and was looking for a job, hopefully an assistant professor's position or something. It was more than chance that had brought her the short stint on our Geographos survey. In addition to having a Ph.D in geology, she was an experienced rock climber. I guess that explains why she had so little trouble getting around while we were surveying the asteroid. She was surprised to find out that she really liked working in space. That was just one of the things we had in common. We got through all of this before the noise and discomfort of the shuttle's departure interrupted the conversation. What else do I tell you about Joanna. She wasn't a woman with the kind of looks that were distracting; at least, I didn't think so at first. She was more pretty than beautiful, with a clear and honest face. She fought a constant battle with a few extra kilos of body weight, a battle that she could never quite win. But, she was just the tonic I needed. After we had spent a week or so together on the shuttle, I found that my attitude towards her had changed. In fact, I was beginning to think she was rather attractive. It didn't hurt that she was in complete agreement with my actions on the belt ship. "You were absolutely right, Stephan," she said, at one point. "They're wasting a great opportunity. Not only would it be valuable for its ore content, we could have had a captive asteroid to study. Losing that disappointed me more than the sheer monetary value of the thing. As it stands right now, you have to go clear out to the belt to get a good look at an asteroid. I'd call it an 'astronomical' shame." That got a groan from me, too. By the time we got to earth, we found that our feelings for each other had gone beyond friendship. Way beyond. Perhaps it was because we had been together nearly every hour for the better part of two months. Or, maybe it was the fact that both of us were unattached and lonely because, up to that point in our lives, we had both been obsessively dedicated to our work. Whatever the reasons, we had fallen deeply in love. There was no question that we would be spending a lot more time together. My previous employments had left me modestly wealthy and I wasn't in any rush to find another job. Together, we organized some rallies and demonstrations to try and halt the Columbia Canal Project. That turned out to be an educational experience. For starters, we needed some dirt to throw. To get the dirt, we had to be willing to do a little digging. Fortunately, I still had some important friends who were willing to give me a hand with the shovelling. The pile of dirt concerning Diego Salazar quickly grew to almost mountainous proportions. The picture of him that gradually emerged was frightening, much more alarming then I could have possibly imagined. There have been few men who were as ambitious, as ruthless, or as crooked as he was. He controlled vast wealth, much of it hidden in a labyrinthine series of farms, businesses, foundations, trusts, and other fronts. Out of this mess, I was able to piece together just why he was on the mission and why he had made those critical changes to the project, changes that had ended up with me resigning my position. He had come along on the mission because he thought that he would be safe there. You don't get to the point in life that Salazar was at without making some friends--and some enemies. They had managed to keep it quiet, but there had been a nearly successful attempt on his life. While he was safe in space, his enforcers would find and eliminate the threat. He had changed the project for financial reasons. Among his many holdings, Salazar owned controlling interest in the company that had leased the belt ship and boosters. He had found a way to save some badly needed capital and his reputation at the same time. The savings would come because the extra work involved in moving the tail section was to have required another utility ship and several months of expensive labor. Salazar's empire was huge and sprawling, but not all of it was solvent and they didn't have all that much in liquid assets. They had borrowed some money from the canal project to keep several of the other concerns afloat. As a result, they didn't have enough ready cash to pay for the extra belt ship. As you know, the belt government never has much cash either; business with them is strictly cash-in-advance. The solution was simple: just make up some plausible excuse and cancel that part of the project. There would likely be a court battle afterwards but the people who had invested in the venture knew it was a high risk operation at the outset. They had signed contracts to that effect. Chances were very good that they would have to absorb the loss. But there was even more to it than just the financial end of things. The tail section of the asteroid was to have been signed over to interests that were owned by wealthy citizens of the USA. Among his other charming attributes, Salazar had no love for North Americans. The set-up was perfect; he could preserve his empire and he could screw some rich Americans at the same time. Apparently, he just couldn't resist it. It was Carlos who brought the whole protest episode to a close. We'd had two marches in the first six months and had gotten a little publicity, not nearly enough, but it was a start. To my great surprise, he came in person to visit us. Joanna and I were getting ready to kick off another rally in the next couple of weeks. We heard a knock on our door. Joanna answered it. "Carlos!" she cried, embracing him. "What a surprise! Please come in." She held the door for him. I got up and extended my hand. "It's been a long time, my friend." I said. "How are you?" He shook my hand with his usual firm grip and released it. "Tired." he said, matter-of-factly. We motioned to him to sit down. "I am running the engineering end of the project nearly by myself since you left." "That's not entirely my fault," I returned, as I sat also. "I had to make a very difficult decision." He nodded. "What brings you here, Carlos?" asked Joanna, from across the room. "I have come to plead with you to stop your involvement with the protest marches," he began. "Come on, Carlos," I interrupted. "Diego Salazar is pure poison, nothing more than a common criminal. He ought to be locked up!" "We have inside information, Carlos. He deals in arms and drugs and prostitution and who knows what else," added Joanna. "I harbor no illusions about his character, Joanna," he replied, with his soft voice. "But I speak to you both on behalf of my country, and my people. In fact this canal will benefit the entire South American continent. Believe me, I would throw Salazar to the dogs today if it were in my power. For the moment, you must forget about him. We are now near some of the most critical aspects of the entire project. My friendship with you has made Salazar very antagonistic to me, and the distraction that this causes makes it very difficult for me to do my work. He will have others who are not as competent or as careful as I redo the calculations. I need not tell you how serious that could be." "What about the tail section fiasco?" I asked. "You can't tell me that wasn't a tremendous waste." "I fully agree, Stephan," he replied. "That was a great pity, but it is also too late to correct. We must now deal with the present and the future. I tell you that your involvement in these protests may actually compromise the safety of the project!" It was as I thought, Carlos had stayed on the project because he sincerely felt that the benefits to his country and his people far outweighed any personal differences between him and Salazar. That was exactly what I would have expected from him; he was that sort of man. It was this sincere plea from him, our trusted and esteemed friend, that made us decide to stop. That and the realization that they would complete the project in spite of us and that our protests might actually jeopardize its success. "As you wish, my friend," I sighed. "I ask one more favor, Stephan," he said, gravely. "Believe me, I do not ask this lightly." "What is it?" I asked. "Will you check my final calculations, please? Just look them over and tell me if you see anything radically wrong." I thought about it for a while. It might have been a moment of weakness, but he had made a great deal of sense and I am a reasonable man. I agreed to do it. Thus ended the protest phase, but my being in those demonstrations had a profound effect on later events. Meanwhile, the Project continued, under Salazar's able leadership. Joanna got a teaching job at a small California school a short while later. I went with her, and managed to keep as busy as I wanted to be with some consulting work and pecking away at a book about the L-5 project. Both of us were very pleased with this arrangement; I, for one, had never been happier. We took some time off and headed south for the show, when the time came for the first skip of the rock through the atmosphere. It was the kind of thing you talked about for years afterwards. I'll never forget the Herculean, coruscating arc of light that flashed across the sky as it lanced spectacularly through the stratosphere. Joanna and I held hands as we watched. It was awesome, beautiful! I almost wished that I were still involved in the project at that moment. Which, in a small way, I still was. Carlos had remained in touch with us, as he had promised, without Salazar's knowledge. He had sent me the final figures and calculations; as I had promised, I checked them. It made sense to me, if they were determined to go through with the project I wanted them to get it right. Remember, they were going to drop a small mountain out of space. It was best if they didn't screw it up! It pleased me that our original calculations had been very close. During the final stages of the project, we consulted whenever Carlos thought it was necessary. The earlier show was nothing compared to the one that we saw on the day of impact. They had managed to scrub off enough speed and were satisfied that the shape of the projectile was within tolerances. The time had come to bring it down. They promised us the greatest spectacle ever witnessed by modern man. Perhaps they were right. An entire world watched and waited anxiously for the impact, not knowing what to expect. Finally, they gave the rock a gentle, precisely calculated shove to start its fall. We held our breath as the fiery mace of God descended out of the heavens to wreak devastation on the hapless, unsuspecting land bridge. The earth rang like a bell from the impact of the titanic blow as the shock wave reverberated violently through it. There was damage to windows and dwellings as far away as Mexico City, but people from all over the world claimed to have felt some kind of movement. Joanna and I were in Bogota. I was literally knocked off my feet! There was even a video of the impact area that had been obtained by some reckless and intrepid reporter. They ran it over and over for days afterwards on the newscasts. I never tired of watching it. To this day, I still remember the sight of the oceans rushing headlong into the enormous new crater from both directions and a huge cloud of pulverized asteroid, earth and steam billowing upward as the waters made contact with the still molten core of what had once been a piece of the sky. It ended up as a huge, angry mushroom cloud that slowly dissipated over a few hours. And there were after-effects. All of the dust and debris that were put into the atmosphere meant that, among other things, we were treated to the most incredible sunsets for several months after the impact. The project was an unqualified success. After about six months of cleanup work and a little testing, the Columbia Canal was opened to the ships of the world. The canal needed no locks and even the largest ships ever built had no trouble passing through its generous ways. Carlos was made wealthy by his involvement with the project. Most of the notoriety went to project leader Diego Salazar. He became even more powerful, there was even talk of a presidency. After a short court battle, several North American investment firms went quietly into receivership. I got an offer from the colonial government of the asteroid belt to oversee some new construction projects. I asked them if they could use a good geologist. In no time, Joanna and I were off to the belt, happy to be back in space. No place was too far away from Diego Salazar as far as I was concerned. Carlos got involved with some huge project on Luna. Women still swooned over him wherever he went. He didn't seem to mind.
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Phil Nolte has been writing Science-Fiction for about three years, although he's been reading and enjoying it for most of his life. He says that, for him, writing started out as "a lark" just to see if he could actually do it. Later, he found himself getting more and more serious about it. He still writes at home in his spare time, often when others are totally wasting their time watching dreadful TV sitcoms, etc... His obsession is a better use of time. In addition to fiction, he's also written several science history articles for a local (Red River Valley) trade journal. Two of his other stories have been published in Athene. [email protected]
Quanta is Copyright(c)1994 Daniel K. Appelquist.
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Celestial Earthmovers by Phillip Nolte Copyright (c) 1990
It was one of the oddball asteroids whose orbit brought it on a near collision course with the earth. Geographos, it was called, catalogue number 1620, one of the handful of asteroids that inhabit the inner solar system. Six months before I had never heard of it. But there I was, looking at it out of the forward viewport of an asteroid belt utility ship. Carlos was looking over my shoulder as we floated in the warm, nearly dark confines of the ship's control room. After a week or so of maneuvering we had matched velocities with the asteroid and had finally gotten close enough to see some of the fine details of it with the naked eye. We had been staring at it in silence for some time. "Well, what do you think of it, Stephan?" asked Carlos. "Looks like a big overgrown peanut," I said, as we watched it rotate lazily. "A peanut that has a date with destiny," he returned, with mock seriousness. I nudged him away with an elbow. "We should get suited up and go have a look at it. Touch it, take measurements, get familiar with it," I said. "Go see if Joanna wants to come along. I'll meet you in the workroom." "As you say, Senor Perkins," returned Carlos, as he left the bridge. The idea for this mad scheme that we were involved in was cooked up by someone named Charles Kelman of UCLA in about 1980, over a hundred years ago. The original paper can still be found in the files of the NASA museum, if you care to look. I've read it. There is little doubt that it was a tongue-in-cheek proposal by Kelman. In the same file with the proposal were several letters and memos addressed to him that contained criticisms from his peers. Their comments ranged from "premature" and "outrageously innovative" to "preposterous" and even "criminally insane." I think his real purpose was to stimulate some discussion on how mankind might begin to exploit the resources of the solar system. Surely he never intended for anyone to try it! Unfortunately, events and human nature can conspire to make the damnedest things sound plausible. The situation in Central America has never been stable, but this time the turmoil was even worse than usual. Threats by a new and belligerent government in Panama to disable the existing Panama canal probably had the most influence. More than threats, fact is, they actually closed it for nearly a year in 2045. Then they doubled the usage rates. Wealthy and powerful people got angry. Wheels were set in motion and the "Columbia Canal Project" was born. The project was billed as the most spectacular engineering feat ever attempted by mankind. And so it was. The first time I heard of it I thought that it was some kind of joke. When I found out that they were serious, I shook my head in disbelief. There was only one possible explanation--that everyone involved was certifiably nuts! The plan was to build a new canal connecting the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean Sea. The area chosen was in the wilderness of northwestern Columbia, near the Atrato River. A peninsula sticks up out of Columbia there, a peninsula that eventually becomes Panama. There was only about 150 Km of land between the two bodies of water in this area, so the new canal wouldn't have to be too long. Up to this point everything was fine, but then things started to get scary. They were going to do the excavation by hitting the proposed site with a piece of an asteroid! Our asteroid, Geographos. It was hoped that the resulting impact would create a huge crater and would, in one unthinkable blast, do a job that would normally take years of heavy and dangerous labor. The enterprise was made to sound even more attractive by announcing that the metal content of this heavenly fragment would be worth in the neighborhood of 900 billion dollars! Dollars that would be a godsend to the beleaguered economies of Central and South America. No one had any suggestions on how this new supply of precious metals was to be obtained from its eventual ocean resting place, however. Isn't this starting to sound just a little nuts? To prove that there is no shortage of stupidity in high places, a joint committee of Central American and United States officials bought the deal, lock, stock and asteroid. They wanted me because I'm damned good at astro-engineering and I have a lot of experience working in space. I'm the same Stephan Perkins that did most of the design work on the United States L-5 space colony. I was also good with people, usually, and this was going to require the coordinated efforts of many. At least we had the time we needed to iron out some of the problems. We began work on this project in 2048, nearly five years before the next close approach of Geographos. Not that we were likely to have any problems. I mean, all we were going to do was excise a chunk of rock about the size of a small midwestern town from this minor planetoid, alter its course to bring it within kissing distance of the earth, figure out some way to aim it at a specific target, and allow it to impact. No sweat, eh? How do you establish an acceptable margin of error for something like that? How do you go about reducing the stupefying velocity at which this "impact projectile" would be traveling? We had no idea of how this thing was going to behave when it made contact with earth's atmosphere either. We weren't going by the book, we were writing it! It's no exaggeration to say that the challenge was formidable; even the slightest miscalculation had the potential of ending in a horrible catastrophe. So, I got involved because I had to. I had to do what I could to insure that things wouldn't end up in a total disaster. I figured that they needed at least one person who knew what the hell he was doing! I tore my gaze away from the viewport. The vastness of space with its frosty dusting of tiny bright stars was a rich, dark tapestry and the slowly twirling asteroid suspended against this backdrop was a compelling, almost hypnotic, sight. As I left the bridge for the workroom, I almost ran into Salazar in the corridor. Diego Salazar, from Columbia, the "executive director" of the expedition. A terrible choice, by any measure. He was a wealthy and powerful member of the canal committee who had been included on the mission at the last minute. To tell you the truth, the whole Salazar situation looked suspicious to me. The guy knew next to nothing about the engineering end of the project. His forte was politics and even though that was something he was damned good at, I found out early on that he had no idea how difficult this job was going to be. In addition, he was neither liked nor respected by any of the crew. By some kind of convoluted logic this made him the obvious choice to head the mission. None of this altered the basic fact that he was an idiot, and I thought that the ramrod tactics that he tried to use on me and the rest of the team were actually counterproductive. We needed him like we needed a hole in the airlock. "Don't you think it's time to have a look at that asteroid, Perkins?" he said. With his accent, he pronounced it "pear-kins" but he always spoke with rich full tones, as though he were making one of his political speeches. "We were just on our way," I replied, pushing past him. "Ah, I see," he said, "Good, I shall observe you from the control room. Now that we are finally here it is vital that we make the best use of our time. Si?" "If you say so, Salazar," I continued down the corridor. That was his way, he stated the obvious and applied pressure when it wasn't needed. I always found an excuse to go somewhere else when he came in. From the first impression onward, my attitude towards him had been one of intense dislike. As you'll see, those instincts were well founded. After some idle chit-chat in the workroom while we put on our suits, we were off to our first close encounter with Geographos. That was a humbling experience! The ship was kept on a parallel course at a safe distance and we used a utility sled to go over to the slowly rotating asteroid. As we got closer we began to realize just how big it was. The books and our instruments said that it was about 2.2 km in length. Maybe so, but it sure seemed bigger than that when you got close enough to touch it. Getting on to it was tough. It wasn't enough that it rotated around its center, it had a slight wobble as well. You mounted it carefully, at the center of rotation. Once on, you could move out towards the slightly swollen ends. It had no noticeable gravity; a healthy sneeze was probably enough to impart escape velocity, so you were virtually weightless. As you moved outward, you had to cling tightly to its pocked and jagged surface because you picked up the same relative motions. By the time you were perched on the end you were rotating and wobbling right along with it. What a ride! You were also treated to a blinding view of the sun's searingly bright disk every few minutes. It took some real getting used to but we had little choice, there was work to be done. Dismounting was the reverse process, carefully make your way back to the center and push off over to the sled. Carlos and I thought we were doing well merely to keep from flying off into space until we saw an unconcerned Joanna calmly going about the collection of samples for analysis. Not to be outdone, we checked our tethers, composed ourselves and set about determining the exact dimensions of our cosmic excavation tool. Our first order of business was to stop the spinning and wobbling motions. We would use some strategically placed rockets to accomplish this. Then, we would strap on the huge boosters that we had brought out with the belt ship and start to seriously alter its course and speed. Even though the size and mass of Geographos was far too much for the needs of our project, it looked like the best thing to do was to bring the whole asteroid back. The real fun would start when we began to approach Earth. That's when we were going to have to perform some difficult and intricate maneuvers. Here's how it was supposed to work. It had been determined that the smaller end of the "peanut" contained more than enough material to serve our purposes. We would cut through the asteroid near the slightly narrower "waist" area with a series of carefully placed explosive charges. After that, we would have to do some minor surgery to pare our chosen end down to the proper size and shape for the excavation job that was planned for it. Then we would use one of the same strap-on boosters to alter the course towards earth. Hopefully, we could "skip" it through the atmosphere once, or twice if we needed to, to scrub off some more of its unwanted velocity and to do some final shaping as well. While all this was going on, another team would take charge of the rest of the asteroid, the so-called "tail section". They would use the remaining booster to carefully "park" the tail section in the L-4 point of the earth-luna system. There it would be ready and waiting right in our neighborhood, so to speak. We could use it for another "excavation" project or, more likely, as building material for more orbital colonies or Lunar construction projects. Any construction material was welcome in space and Joanna's preliminary analysis had determined that Geographos was rich in all kinds of valuable metals. The hardware and methods for manipulating and moving the asteroid were pretty well worked out, men had been "mining" the asteroid belt for years, but no one had ever had to contend with such high relative velocities before. In the belt things only move at about 5 km/sec. Compared to that, Geographos was hauling ass! Carlos and I had sat up until the wee hours almost every "night" on the two-month trip out to the rendezvous with Geographos trying to determine what the best shape and mass of the final object should be. There had actually been several small asteroid "drops" done in the early part of the century. Maybe you've heard of Statler and Chin. They were a couple of borderline psychotics with forged scientific credentials who had somehow gotten permission to hit Mars with some small asteroids, just to see what would happen. It was kind of like turning a couple of small boys loose with a box of dynamite and a book of matches. Their masquerade lasted for nearly two years before they were found out and put away. They did take some nice pictures but both their measurements and their technique were, as you would expect, abysmal. In addition, the atmosphere and gravity of Mars were completely different from earth's. But this somewhat sketchy data was all that we had to go on. Of course, anything at all was a help. It was too bad that they had simply dropped the rocks directly, and hadn't tried to skip any of them through the atmosphere; we could have used the information. For us, such skips were vital because they would not only slow the thing down, but would allow us to get valuable data on how much mass we were going to lose when it made its final plunge through the atmosphere. More than once, I woke up in a cold sweat when I dreamed that we had miscalculated and instead of a new canal, we had created a sizeable new bay near San Francisco. Dr. Carlos Monzon Cortez had been appointed to be my assistant and liaison with the committee. Born in Columbia and educated in the U.S., he was an excellent choice. He was dark and slender with black eyes and classic Latin good looks. By any standard, Carlos was a strikingly handsome man. His speech was very soft and polite, almost apologetic, but it was best to listen when he spoke because he always knew what he was talking about. Women found him irresistible, but he seldom took advantage of them; maybe that was part of his charm. He was particularly valuable because he was fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and communication between us and the committee on some very technical matters was necessary. Oh yes, he was also one hell of an engineer. I found him irresistible too; we quickly became good friends. Everything was going according to schedule until we had a meeting to discuss procedures and present progress reports. The meeting started out amiably enough but things soon took a nasty and unexpected turn. After some assorted small talk, Salazar made an announcement. "We must begin placing the explosive charges tomorrow," he said. "The asteroid is to be broken in two here, in deep space. We shall be bringing home only what we need of it." There was a buzz of conversation. I was taken completely by surprise. "Wait a minute," I interrupted. "I thought it was agreed that we would take the whole thing back!" "The plan has been changed," he replied. "Changed?" I said. "By whom? Carlos and I weren't consulted about this." "It was changed by the committee," he said. "At my recommendation." "Well, change it back," I said, my anger beginning to stir. "We're missing out on a golden opportunity if we leave the rest of that rock out here." There was another buzz of conversation; a few heads nodded in affirmation. "I must agree with Stephan," Joanna spoke up, glancing at me and then looking back at Salazar. "I've looked that asteroid over very carefully. It's full of ores and deposits of metal that are badly needed. That thing is worth a fortune! More than that it's..." Salazar cut her off with a wave of his hand. "It does not matter, the mass of the entire asteroid is too great for our boosters. We do not have sufficient power." "Where the hell did you get that idea?" I said, his obvious runaround was making me even madder. "There's a five percent fuel margin, if we get them attached and operating within the thirty day window." Trying to reason with him was like arguing with Geographos itself. He wasn't even looking at me. "I can't believe you'd make this kind of change without some discussion," I said, my anger beginning to get out of hand. "We must go with the original plan! Do you have any idea how much work we've put in on calculations alone?" "It has already been decided..." he began. "This is bullshit, Salazar!" I interrupted. The room was suddenly silent. "You can't run this project like it's a god-damned banana plantation!" Maybe that was a mistake. "Enough, Senor Perkins," he said, his eyes smoldering. "We make preparations to blast the asteroid tomorrow." "We'll see about that!" I said as I stormed out of the chamber. I was so angry that I might have done him harm if I hadn't left. The way things turned out, maybe I should have stayed a little longer. I put a call through to the committee; they were in agreement with Salazar. I ranted at them for a short while about the opportunities they were missing before they cut me off. Finally, I went back to my quarters where I floated and silently fumed for most of the evening. The following day I plodded through my duties without much enthusiasm. I knew I was in trouble when I found myself staring at the same equation for most of the morning trying to get it to make sense. I couldn't. My mind would keep wandering back to the altercation in the briefing room. I'd shake my head to clear it and plunge back into my work. All in vain. After two days of this, I came to a decision. I was going to resign, there was no way I could work with that man as my superior till the project was completed. Who knows what other surprises he had in store for us? I wrote a letter outlining my intentions, made the announcement and prepared to leave on the next shuttle, which was mercifully due in less than a week. Joanna joined me on the shuttle when the time came to leave. I didn't even notice her until she spoke. I was strapped into an acceleration couch lost in a final bittersweet look at Geographos out of the side viewport. "Mind if I join you?" she said. "Huh? Oh, Joanna," I said. My surprise was genuine. "No of course not. I was daydreaming." I helped her strap into the adjacent couch. "What are you doing here?" "I'm done," she said. "They have my report, they don't need a geologist anymore. You know what a stickler Salazar is for efficiency. Besides that, if you remember, I questioned his judgment at a recent staff meeting." "Yeah, I know. So did I!" I said with a tentative smile, surprised that I could actually joke about it. "Is that what you call it?" she replied, grinning. "I'd say what you did was more like an insult to his mother!" We both laughed. The conversation went on from there. She was easy to talk to and had a great sense of humor, which was really a good thing because we had a couple of months worth of space flight ahead of us with little to do. I found out that she had just recently come from a post-doc in geology at Colorado State and was looking for a job, hopefully an assistant professor's position or something. It was more than chance that had brought her the short stint on our Geographos survey. In addition to having a Ph.D in geology, she was an experienced rock climber. I guess that explains why she had so little trouble getting around while we were surveying the asteroid. She was surprised to find out that she really liked working in space. That was just one of the things we had in common. We got through all of this before the noise and discomfort of the shuttle's departure interrupted the conversation. What else do I tell you about Joanna. She wasn't a woman with the kind of looks that were distracting; at least, I didn't think so at first. She was more pretty than beautiful, with a clear and honest face. She fought a constant battle with a few extra kilos of body weight, a battle that she could never quite win. But, she was just the tonic I needed. After we had spent a week or so together on the shuttle, I found that my attitude towards her had changed. In fact, I was beginning to think she was rather attractive. It didn't hurt that she was in complete agreement with my actions on the belt ship. "You were absolutely right, Stephan," she said, at one point. "They're wasting a great opportunity. Not only would it be valuable for its ore content, we could have had a captive asteroid to study. Losing that disappointed me more than the sheer monetary value of the thing. As it stands right now, you have to go clear out to the belt to get a good look at an asteroid. I'd call it an 'astronomical' shame." That got a groan from me, too. By the time we got to earth, we found that our feelings for each other had gone beyond friendship. Way beyond. Perhaps it was because we had been together nearly every hour for the better part of two months. Or, maybe it was the fact that both of us were unattached and lonely because, up to that point in our lives, we had both been obsessively dedicated to our work. Whatever the reasons, we had fallen deeply in love. There was no question that we would be spending a lot more time together. My previous employments had left me modestly wealthy and I wasn't in any rush to find another job. Together, we organized some rallies and demonstrations to try and halt the Columbia Canal Project. That turned out to be an educational experience. For starters, we needed some dirt to throw. To get the dirt, we had to be willing to do a little digging. Fortunately, I still had some important friends who were willing to give me a hand with the shovelling. The pile of dirt concerning Diego Salazar quickly grew to almost mountainous proportions. The picture of him that gradually emerged was frightening, much more alarming then I could have possibly imagined. There have been few men who were as ambitious, as ruthless, or as crooked as he was. He controlled vast wealth, much of it hidden in a labyrinthine series of farms, businesses, foundations, trusts, and other fronts. Out of this mess, I was able to piece together just why he was on the mission and why he had made those critical changes to the project, changes that had ended up with me resigning my position. He had come along on the mission because he thought that he would be safe there. You don't get to the point in life that Salazar was at without making some friends--and some enemies. They had managed to keep it quiet, but there had been a nearly successful attempt on his life. While he was safe in space, his enforcers would find and eliminate the threat. He had changed the project for financial reasons. Among his many holdings, Salazar owned controlling interest in the company that had leased the belt ship and boosters. He had found a way to save some badly needed capital and his reputation at the same time. The savings would come because the extra work involved in moving the tail section was to have required another utility ship and several months of expensive labor. Salazar's empire was huge and sprawling, but not all of it was solvent and they didn't have all that much in liquid assets. They had borrowed some money from the canal project to keep several of the other concerns afloat. As a result, they didn't have enough ready cash to pay for the extra belt ship. As you know, the belt government never has much cash either; business with them is strictly cash-in-advance. The solution was simple: just make up some plausible excuse and cancel that part of the project. There would likely be a court battle afterwards but the people who had invested in the venture knew it was a high risk operation at the outset. They had signed contracts to that effect. Chances were very good that they would have to absorb the loss. But there was even more to it than just the financial end of things. The tail section of the asteroid was to have been signed over to interests that were owned by wealthy citizens of the USA. Among his other charming attributes, Salazar had no love for North Americans. The set-up was perfect; he could preserve his empire and he could screw some rich Americans at the same time. Apparently, he just couldn't resist it. It was Carlos who brought the whole protest episode to a close. We'd had two marches in the first six months and had gotten a little publicity, not nearly enough, but it was a start. To my great surprise, he came in person to visit us. Joanna and I were getting ready to kick off another rally in the next couple of weeks. We heard a knock on our door. Joanna answered it. "Carlos!" she cried, embracing him. "What a surprise! Please come in." She held the door for him. I got up and extended my hand. "It's been a long time, my friend." I said. "How are you?" He shook my hand with his usual firm grip and released it. "Tired." he said, matter-of-factly. We motioned to him to sit down. "I am running the engineering end of the project nearly by myself since you left." "That's not entirely my fault," I returned, as I sat also. "I had to make a very difficult decision." He nodded. "What brings you here, Carlos?" asked Joanna, from across the room. "I have come to plead with you to stop your involvement with the protest marches," he began. "Come on, Carlos," I interrupted. "Diego Salazar is pure poison, nothing more than a common criminal. He ought to be locked up!" "We have inside information, Carlos. He deals in arms and drugs and prostitution and who knows what else," added Joanna. "I harbor no illusions about his character, Joanna," he replied, with his soft voice. "But I speak to you both on behalf of my country, and my people. In fact this canal will benefit the entire South American continent. Believe me, I would throw Salazar to the dogs today if it were in my power. For the moment, you must forget about him. We are now near some of the most critical aspects of the entire project. My friendship with you has made Salazar very antagonistic to me, and the distraction that this causes makes it very difficult for me to do my work. He will have others who are not as competent or as careful as I redo the calculations. I need not tell you how serious that could be." "What about the tail section fiasco?" I asked. "You can't tell me that wasn't a tremendous waste." "I fully agree, Stephan," he replied. "That was a great pity, but it is also too late to correct. We must now deal with the present and the future. I tell you that your involvement in these protests may actually compromise the safety of the project!" It was as I thought, Carlos had stayed on the project because he sincerely felt that the benefits to his country and his people far outweighed any personal differences between him and Salazar. That was exactly what I would have expected from him; he was that sort of man. It was this sincere plea from him, our trusted and esteemed friend, that made us decide to stop. That and the realization that they would complete the project in spite of us and that our protests might actually jeopardize its success. "As you wish, my friend," I sighed. "I ask one more favor, Stephan," he said, gravely. "Believe me, I do not ask this lightly." "What is it?" I asked. "Will you check my final calculations, please? Just look them over and tell me if you see anything radically wrong." I thought about it for a while. It might have been a moment of weakness, but he had made a great deal of sense and I am a reasonable man. I agreed to do it. Thus ended the protest phase, but my being in those demonstrations had a profound effect on later events. Meanwhile, the Project continued, under Salazar's able leadership. Joanna got a teaching job at a small California school a short while later. I went with her, and managed to keep as busy as I wanted to be with some consulting work and pecking away at a book about the L-5 project. Both of us were very pleased with this arrangement; I, for one, had never been happier. We took some time off and headed south for the show, when the time came for the first skip of the rock through the atmosphere. It was the kind of thing you talked about for years afterwards. I'll never forget the Herculean, coruscating arc of light that flashed across the sky as it lanced spectacularly through the stratosphere. Joanna and I held hands as we watched. It was awesome, beautiful! I almost wished that I were still involved in the project at that moment. Which, in a small way, I still was. Carlos had remained in touch with us, as he had promised, without Salazar's knowledge. He had sent me the final figures and calculations; as I had promised, I checked them. It made sense to me, if they were determined to go through with the project I wanted them to get it right. Remember, they were going to drop a small mountain out of space. It was best if they didn't screw it up! It pleased me that our original calculations had been very close. During the final stages of the project, we consulted whenever Carlos thought it was necessary. The earlier show was nothing compared to the one that we saw on the day of impact. They had managed to scrub off enough speed and were satisfied that the shape of the projectile was within tolerances. The time had come to bring it down. They promised us the greatest spectacle ever witnessed by modern man. Perhaps they were right. An entire world watched and waited anxiously for the impact, not knowing what to expect. Finally, they gave the rock a gentle, precisely calculated shove to start its fall. We held our breath as the fiery mace of God descended out of the heavens to wreak devastation on the hapless, unsuspecting land bridge. The earth rang like a bell from the impact of the titanic blow as the shock wave reverberated violently through it. There was damage to windows and dwellings as far away as Mexico City, but people from all over the world claimed to have felt some kind of movement. Joanna and I were in Bogota. I was literally knocked off my feet! There was even a video of the impact area that had been obtained by some reckless and intrepid reporter. They ran it over and over for days afterwards on the newscasts. I never tired of watching it. To this day, I still remember the sight of the oceans rushing headlong into the enormous new crater from both directions and a huge cloud of pulverized asteroid, earth and steam billowing upward as the waters made contact with the still molten core of what had once been a piece of the sky. It ended up as a huge, angry mushroom cloud that slowly dissipated over a few hours. And there were after-effects. All of the dust and debris that were put into the atmosphere meant that, among other things, we were treated to the most incredible sunsets for several months after the impact. The project was an unqualified success. After about six months of cleanup work and a little testing, the Columbia Canal was opened to the ships of the world. The canal needed no locks and even the largest ships ever built had no trouble passing through its generous ways. Carlos was made wealthy by his involvement with the project. Most of the notoriety went to project leader Diego Salazar. He became even more powerful, there was even talk of a presidency. After a short court battle, several North American investment firms went quietly into receivership. I got an offer from the colonial government of the asteroid belt to oversee some new construction projects. I asked them if they could use a good geologist. In no time, Joanna and I were off to the belt, happy to be back in space. No place was too far away from Diego Salazar as far as I was concerned. Carlos got involved with some huge project on Luna. Women still swooned over him wherever he went. He didn't seem to mind.
- * *
Phil Nolte has been writing Science-Fiction for about three years, although he's been reading and enjoying it for most of his life. He says that, for him, writing started out as "a lark" just to see if he could actually do it. Later, he found himself getting more and more serious about it. He still writes at home in his spare time, often when others are totally wasting their time watching dreadful TV sitcoms, etc... His obsession is a better use of time. In addition to fiction, he's also written several science history articles for a local (Red River Valley) trade journal. Two of his other stories have been published in Athene. [email protected]
Quanta is Copyright(c)1994 Daniel K. Appelquist.
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