Company Wars 01 – Downbelow Station
Chapter One
Earth and Outward: 2005-2352
The stars, like all man’s other ventures, were an obvious impracticality, as
rash and improbable an ambition as the first venture of man onto Earth’s own
great oceans, or into the air, or into space. Sol Station had existed profitably
for some years; there were the beginnings of mines, the manufacturies, the power
installations in space which were beginning to pay. Earth took them for granted
as quickly as it did all its other comforts. Missions from the station explored
the system, a program far from public understanding, but it met no strong
opposition, since it did not disturb the comfort of Earth.
So quietly, very matter of factly, that first probe went out to the two nearest
stars, unmanned, to gather data and return, a task in itself of considerable
complexity. The launch from station drew some public interest, but years was a
long time to wait for a result, and it passed out of media interest as quickly
as it did out of the solar system. It drew a great deal more attention on its
return, nostalgia on the part of those who recalled its launch more than a
decade before, curiosity on the part of the young who had known little of its
beginning and wondered what it was all about. It was a scientific success,
bringing back data enough to keep the analysts busy for years… but there was no
glib, slick way to explain the full meaning of its observations in layman’s
terms. In public relations the mission was a failure; the public, seeking to
understand on their own terms, looked for material benefit, treasure, riches,
dramatic findings.
What the probe had found was a star with reasonable possibilities for
encouraging life; a belt of debris, including particles, planetoids, irregular
chunks somewhat under planet size with interesting implications for systemic
formation, and a planetary companion with its own system of debris and moons… a
planet desolate, baked, forbidding. It was no Eden, no second Earth, no better
than what existed in the sun’s own system, and it was a far journey to have gone
to find that out. The press grappled with questions it could not easily grasp
itself, sought after something to give the viewers, lost interest quickly. If
anything, there were questions raised about cost, vague and desperate
comparisons offered to Columbus, and the press hared off quickly onto a
political crisis in the Mediterranean, much more comprehensible and far
bloodier.
The scientific establishment on Sol Station breathed a sigh of relief and with
equal quiet caution invested a portion of its budget in a modest manned
expedition, to voyage in what amounted to a traveling miniature of Sol Station
itself, and to stay a time making observations in orbit about that world.
And very quietly, to further imitate Sol Station, to test manufacturing
techniques which had built Earth’s great second satellite… in stranger
conditions. Sol Corporation supplied a generous grant, having a certain
curiosity, a certain understanding of stations and what profits could be looked
for from their development
That was the beginning.
The same principles which had made Sol Station practical made the first
star-station viable. It needed a bare minimum of supply in biostuffs from Earth…
mostly luxuries to make life more pleasant for the increasing number of techs
and scientists and families stationed there. It mined; and as its own needs
diminished, would send back the surplus of its ores… so the first link in the
chain was made. No need, no need at all, that first colony had proven, that a
star have a world friendly to humans, no need even for a moderate sun-type star…
just the solar wind and the usual accompanying debris of metals and rock and
ice. One station built, a station module could be hauled to the next star,
whatever it was. Scientific bases, manufacture: bases from which the next
hopeful star could be reached; and the next and the next and the next. Earth’s
outward exploration developed in one narrow vector, one little fan which grew at
its broader end.
Sol Corporation, swollen beyond its original purpose and holding more stations