“Mostly it’s tides. We’re dealing here with a moon, not a planet, and we’re subject to solar tides, the effects of other planets, and, most of all, the effects of being so bloody close to a gigantic world. If Earth’s moon can create the tides it does, imagine the tides a Jupiter can cause. Add in other moons—we have two dozen of any significance in our lunar system—and various rings, and you’ve got a hellish mess. When we solve that one, we’ll be on our way.”
“Looking at this project, some of us can’t help but question if it is all worth it,” said one woman, and there were several nods. “My own people are hungry each day.”
“That’s why we must not fail,” he responded. “We are the guinea pigs for what’s going on back home. We’ve never minimized the risk, although we’ve accented the adventure. We can’t feed, clothe, or house all the people we’ve got on Earth. We’re running low on resources and not all of them can be replaced economically or even practically from space. If we can survive, build, grow, and prove ourselves out, it will be child’s play to remake the Earth, renew and replenish it. If we can do it out there, we can also do it to Mars, the moon, perhaps even to Venus, to other outer moons, and wherever we need it, and we can build worlds where there is no hunger, no lack of material goods. That’s the object here, and we must remember it always.
“That’s why so much in resources is being poured into this project. That’s why we can’t afford to fail. It’s our task to save the human race. We dare not fail—or the conditions on Earth today, bad as they are, are only a pale shadow of what is to come.”
There were more—hundreds more—such questions, and he fielded them expertly. Too expertly, he worried. He couldn’t help but wonder if they were leaving him here to do this simply because he was so good at it.
But finally he got the call, and to Sir Kenneth’s office. The handsome, gentle-seeming Kenyan still had his doubts about things, but he was doing a good job and couldn’t help but feel some of the excitement and thrill of embarking on what might well be humanity’s greatest adventure.
“Come in, lad! Have a seat,” the Director of Landscape Engineering said cheerfully, although it was clear that he was very tired. Korda had aged five years in the past six months. “I hear you’re making an excellent propagandist for us.”
“I suppose,” he grumbled. “It’s not exactly my line though.” Not very subtle, but he felt he didn’t have much he could lose.
“I know, I know,” Korda responded sympathetically. “You’re eager to get out there. Well, your time has come.”
He felt a sudden knot in his stomach, and rising excitement, but he held it in and just looked expectantly at his boss.
“There are pluses and minuses to your assignment.” Sir Kenneth continued, “so I want to go into them and our reasoning with you now. First of all, you’re assigned to Sector Four, under your countrywoman, Sandra Kingsley.”
That was good news. He didn’t know her very well, but those who worked under her had nothing but good things to say. “Yes, sir?”
“Area Four doesn’t have a division headquarters—the only one that doesn’t—and that’s probably all to the good. It’s the one region where our people will be stepping on the fewest toes and tripping over the least bureaucracy. That also means, however, an area not near the centers of power and influence, so if anything runs short, it’ll short you first and you’ll get replacements last.”
“I’m not exactly unfamiliar with coping with things like that,” Haller noted ruefully. Water projects had not been very high on Westrex’s initial list on Titan.
“I know. That’s one reason you’re right for down there. You have a good record of making do with what you have and scrounging up what you need without bothering with channels. There are, however, some additional negatives to Four, which is, as you might guess, the last to be fully set up.”
Haller nodded. “Go ahead, sir.”
“First of all, they—the board—are dropping some small teams of folks working on special projects into there simply because they want them secret and out of the way. They might assist, they might not—and they might also ease you out when you need the machine, for example. They are answerable only to the board—not even Kingsley will know what they’re doing, and she’ll have no authority to cancel their priority. They’ll have van Haas’s ear, in other words. They will probably be a pain in the ass, but they will be experts on the big machines, and the little ones, and don’t hesitate to use them if you can. Understand?”
He nodded, understanding perfectly. Not only their brains but also their supplies and their priority slips.
“All right. Finally, while you’ll be getting some good people there, particularly at the start, they’re also using Region Four as something of a dumping ground. Odd religious sects, important people nobody really wants, political prisoners—all that. Lots of variety, to say the least.”
“To say the least,” Haller repeated a little sarcastically. A bundle of foreign religious nuts and folks sent out there against their will. Plus all the missionary groups, political groups with some leverage, you name it. It would be messy— but certainly not boring.
“Now, the good news for last. You and I both know it’s going to take years just to establish and test out the Anchors. We don’t know how many years, but perhaps as much as a decade or even longer. A great deal of Region Four is devoted in the master plan to one of your great lakes, so that’s the final reason for going down there, but you and I know that I can’t keep you on big water projects forever when any results are perhaps decades away.”
He nodded. “I understand, sir.” Having such a time frame spelled out was not a happy thing, although it was nothing he hadn’t known from the start.
“I’ve been very impressed with you, though, and since two of the Anchors in the area are Anchors for your lake as well, that needs to be taken into consideration in their design. How would you like to be division chief of Anchor Luck? That’s the northernmost in the region, and the closest to everyone else, and will probably be the earliest Anchor developed in that region.” The Anchor letters were assigned arbitrary English and Greek-English code names by the military after some old navy convention. Whose navy nobody seemed to know.
He sat bolt upright. Division chief! Sweet Bloody Jesus! He cleared his throat. “That, uh, would be most satisfactory, sir.”
Korda wasn’t fooled for a moment by the coolness of his reply. “I know this is a promotion you did not expect, but I think you are the right man for this job. While it’s basically an administrative rather than a lab job, I want someone there in charge who’s been looking at the big picture and knows our procedures inside and out. I want each of the Anchors to be so right, so correct, from the start that we will have no regrets later on.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
Sir Kenneth smiled and stood, indicating the interview was over. “I know you will, son. And if your best isn’t good enough, I’ll sack you just as quickly. See my secretary for a list of the names and locations of the staff who you’ve drawn and the names of the other key department heads you’ll have to deal with at Luck. I would suggest you get right into some preliminary meetings, both for mutual familiarity and to get the details of the Luck pattern. You leave in nineteen days.”
7
THE GRAND ADVENTURE
It was the damnedest piece of packing he’d ever done. With the computer mains on and checked at New Eden, little in the way of personal baggage was required save some personal things and a full set of clothing. What else was needed would be repaired or duplicated there from the Flux energy. That was a luxury they could learn to like, Haller decided, but one they shouldn’t really get so used to. The objective was total self-sufficiency, and this bred indolence.
Still, financing was tight and getting the basic needs over just to start the project was tricky. Cargo took up cargo space on the ships, and massive amounts were needed. The solution was to digitize the inorganic stuff before you left, creating, in effect, little computer programs that could be used to recreate your belongings when you got there. As a result, he took 126 kilograms, give or take, of clothing, old mementos, various personal objects, and such to one of the nine active tube stations at Titan Multinational Experimental Base and he came away with a tiny cube that could fit into his pocket and which was encoded with his personal identification data so that only he could activate it.
While his people would be going in this batch as well, he had no real way to get together with them in the processing, since the order was determined by Transportation. He made his way now to the shuttle, keeping it slow, feeling a curious ambivalence about leaving the place even if it had begun to resemble a morgue. Its gray skies, gray streets, gray buildings, and uninviting landscape had become familiar to him, an old friend. He’d worked into the system quite well and been rather comfortable here the past four years or so.
In his hand he held the only nondigitized possessions he was allowed; a small squarish bag of toiletries and such, and a few items he thought he’d need right away when he got there. This would be useful for the trip out to the Borelli Point, and would go with him in a small separate little locker under his own tube.