Boundary 2: Threshold (4 page)

The president's eyebrows rose. "I see."

"Indeed. The Tayler Corporation has established considerable manufacturing ties with India in the past decade, as have many other manufacturing corporations in the past several decades. Tayler is the primary—almost, in fact, the only—source of the material needed. Their work has been well-proven in the
Nike
mission—as spectacularly shown by Ms. Fathom's exploits, among others. I have taken the liberty of approaching them confidentially on this matter, and they were very receptive. Based on that conversation, I have brought with me a sample agreement which, I believe, will suit Tayler's needs.

"Manpower would seem to be a difficulty, as all the space-capable countries are already working as hard as possible to create their own—or in the case of the United States, additional—vessels. But there is one other source of such expertise—the one other organization which already is established on Mars. I was contacted earlier by Mr. A.J. Baker of Ares, who has supplied me with this letter of support and commitment." He placed the document on the table. "If you undertake this project, Ares will not only assist you in the engineering of the elevator and all associated infrastructure, but will also contract with you to construct a similar elevator for Mars itself. They are very much in need of launch capacity themselves, and so, Madame Speaker, they may also be considered to be a customer as well as an ally."

The committee seemed nearly convinced; a faint murmuring of intense conversation began. Ganeshan's smile, however, was wintry. "I will agree that you have supplied the allies in specific, and sufficiently so for now, but let us not attempt a magician's trick in making one appear to be simultaneously the other. I cannot speak for my learned colleagues, but I have been following Ares' activities quite closely in the past few months. They are essentially bankrupt, are they not? Oh, if they somehow manage to establish themselves and survive the next ten years, they may amount to something, but is it not true that it would be quite ludicrous for us to consider them a significant customer at the present time?"

"Madame Speaker, you are entirely correct." The murmurs turned to a hush. "I do believe that in the future you will find them excellent customers, but it is undoubtedly,
undoubtedly
true that you need another customer, one in the here and now. One which has considerable monetary resources, yet no space capability of its own. One which has pressing reason to enter space in a wide and diverse capacity but which at the present time cannot do so itself." He saw her eyebrows rise as the thought struck her an instant before he spoke his next words. "Such a market, such a customer, exists already: The Interplanetary Research Institute. I have spoken with Director Glendale on this matter, and he was willing—I will even say, enthusiastic—to commit the IRI to supporting this enterprise." He placed the final document on the table like a poker champion laying down his hand, and looked calmly into the Speaker's eyes.

After a moment, she smiled more broadly. "Dr. Gupta, I withdraw my objections and offer my support. This project is visionary, risky, and bold. But—in the context of history as we are seeing it—it is, indeed, reasonable." Her smile widened momentarily. "And I believe we can all find profit in the publicity."

Gupta laughed. "Indeed,
indeed
we can, Madame Speaker!"

He heard and answered additional questions, but the expressions on the faces, the way in which the questions were phrased . . . The conclusion had already been reached. They would try. They would at least try. If they could manage to see this project through, the results would transform the world.

He thought back to a conversation he'd had years earlier with Jackie Secord where he expressed his lack of complete enthusiasm for the Ares Project's intended approach to space exploitation. One of his major concerns was, and had always been, that the benefits of extending humanity's reach into space be brought to all of humanity, not simply to its wealthiest and most privileged classes and nations. Brought, not in some fuzzy handwaving sense, but in the hard and practical ways an engineer could appreciate.

Despite all the economic shifts of the past decades, the United States had always managed to stay—sometimes just barely—ahead of the other countries in its influence and power. Gupta didn't begrudge them that status; he was an American citizen himself, after all. But he felt it was far past time for other countries, especially his native land, to step forward from the red, white, and blue shadow by taking the best that America had to offer and making it their own. The alliances he proposed here would do just that. And regardless of what some of the current crop of politicians might think when they realized that he was helping India "steal a march" on the other countries, including America, he felt that this was actually a quintessentially American direction.

The thought came with great satisfaction.
Let my native land follow the best of my adopted homeland's methods, and there will be a victory that we can all feel pride in: a victory for the whole world.

Nicholas Glendale leaned back in his chair, relishing the lightness of one-third gravity—though not quite as much as he was enjoying the majestically rotating view of the Red Planet through his office window.

Phobos Station was shaping up nicely. Basically the habitat ring of a
Nike
-class vessel with a docking hub, the station was one of the subsidiary conditions of the Mars Treaty, a centralized location where missions to and from Phobos and Mars could be launched or concluded. Nicholas had wasted no time in making it clear that he intended to permit ships of any and all types to avail themselves of the station's amenities, so long as they were willing to help support the station—or to put it more crudely, pay for the privilege. True, such use was implied in the nature of the Interplanetary Research Institute, which essentially owned Phobos Station. But by making it explicit and enthusiastic, Glendale hoped to ensure that the IRI would be not just an overseeing body, but an active force in the exploration of the solar system.

And, as Madeline pointed out, it would also make it a lot easier for us to keep tabs on all the other players.
It was a bit of a jarring shift of gears to start thinking in those terms. While you did try to keep an eye on other scientists' work in academia, the level of paranoia and security needed for his new job as director of the IRI was something entirely different, and one of the least-pleasant parts of that job.

Having Fathom as his new head of security, however, certainly made it easier. As he thought that, he heard the faint chime from his door announcing her arrival. "Come in, Madeline."

"Good morning, Director. Or is it afternoon?" Madeline glided in, every golden hair impeccably in place as usual.

Easier on the eye as well as on my schedule,
Nicholas mused. He was quite honest about the fact that he thought both Joe Buckley and A.J. Baker were exceedingly lucky men. Or perhaps just much easier to live with, he corrected himself. As an admittedly handsome and very well-known figure, he'd been "lucky" that way four times, each time ending with a divorce: one friendly, one neutral, two savage. He'd been single for some years now, and suspected he'd be smart to remain that way. For whatever reason—probably flaws in his own personality, he'd readily admit—Nicholas Glendale and marriage just didn't seem to suit each other.

"I suppose it depends on your preference," he said, in answer to her light question. "The standard Martian time is early morning. Hopefully we should be concluded by the time Joe is ready to call you."

She gave a slight frown. "I shouldn't be that transparent."

"Madeline, my dear, you
should
be that transparent about something that isn't at all a secret. You have to bounce constantly between here, Phobos Station, and Mars—the last thing I want to do is cause you to miss out on whatever you married Joe for. This may be a mystery to the rest of us, but as long as it keeps you happy . . ."

Fathom grinned, sticking her tongue out.

Glendale smiled in response. "Always glad to be of help. It's time for the general briefing, is it?"

"With new wrinkles and info, yes. I've sent it to your e-mail, too."

"Which I will file with the others after I get the live presentation, yes."

Maddie sat down across from him. "Well, I'll try to make it fast. First, Ares. I am required to give you a big thank-you once again from everyone on Mars. Yes, I know that's the fifth time, but they'll probably send the same message five more times anyway."

"And tell Glenn, Joe, A.J., and the others they're all welcome. Again." Nicholas had stretched several points to have a considerable portion of the shipment he'd brought with him from Earth, ostensibly intended to help set up the IRI, delivered to Ares at a very reasonable price. That wasn't, in his view, charity. The division of Mars had given Ares essentially all of the Melas Chasma area as well as a number of other notable claims elsewhere—except for, of course, the Bemmie base on Mars. This made the IRI a political and economic island with exactly one neighbor: the Ares Project. It only made sense to be neighborly. The fact that many of the people involved were his friends just made it easier.

Maddie consulted her notes. "Walter Keldering is requesting another meeting with you. Probably wants to try to push for more U.S. direct access to the research."

"Of course he is." Nicholas sighed. "I suppose you'll have to set one up. I don't have any reason to antagonize the United States, even if I'm going to have to once more refuse him special privileges—whatever justification he's come up with this time." Nicholas' hopes had been that whoever was sent to replace Madeline would be a pure political yes-man, someone who just did exactly as he was told. Keldering was political, but unfortunately was very competent indeed. The former CIA operative had not attempted any bluster or bullying, as might have been expected from the current administration's attitude. Instead, he seemed to be almost infinitely inventive at finding legal and practical arguments that would lead to preferential treatment of the United States with respect to any new discoveries in the alien bases. Even Maddie had more than once voiced a grudging respect for Keldering's unfailingly polite, doggedly resourceful approach.

Privately, Nicholas suspected part of Madeline Fathom was actually pleased with the situation; she enjoyed having an adversary who might occasionally test her steel. For Nicholas himself, however, Keldering was just an annoyance. "Put him down for an appointment in a week or so."

"Yes, sir. On the positive side, the finalized cooperative agreements with Ares have arrived and the Ares board of directors just signed all of them. Once you countersign, all our arrangements will be in place."

"Good."

"Let's see . . . America's got the second engine built and tested for
Nike
and is building two more for
Athena
. Europe's keeping tight lips on the
Odin
. They're making some major design changes, and I think what they're planning is something more suited for outer-system exploration. Based on preliminary hints and the fact that they've hired a number of people in a couple of related specialties, Jackie Secord and Dr. Gupta have both told me they suspect
Odin
will be designed to use a mass-beam drive as well as the NERVA rocket and standard electric ion drives." She glanced at Nicholas to see if he understood.

Nicholas nodded. "Ions or small particles fired at the ship, which catches them, probably magnetically, thus transferring the momentum directly without need for using fuel. Very power hungry, however, yes?"

"I think they're also planning on attempting solar powersats to run the thing. Do it far enough away from Earth to be no particular danger or nuisance, and once you've proven the reliability you can also then market the satellites to supply energy. We'll have to keep a close eye on them. Japan's well along in the construction of
Amaterasu
, and current buzz is that they're planning to also build a real orbital colony. This has been a perennial favorite of Japan's space enthusiasts, so that's no real surprise.

"China, unfortunately, had their engine go bad—you heard about all that. I think what's going to happen there is that the U.S. will apologize, promise to repair the thing at no cost, and probably sell them or give them another engine eventually. It'll still slow down China's deployment significantly, probably putting them last in terms of getting a functional reusable interplanetary craft going. They may benefit to some small extent from watching other people's mistakes along the way, but overall it's a bad break for them.

"India's moving forward with the creation of the space elevator. They've named the project Meru, by the way, after Mount Meru, the legendary world pillar in Hindu mythology. Preliminary calculations show that their proposed design will come in under a thousand tons total mass. Modifying the NERVA reactor to act as a power generator—not the best design if you start from scratch, but having the reactor already up in the sky counts for something—they'll have plenty of power for dragging cargo up and down and keeping a station above the world running. You asked me about anchoring the thing down last time—something I didn't know much about—so I checked into it. The design they're using doesn't really require much anchoring force—about as much as the designed transport capability, actually. They're going to be splitting the base and anchoring it to several nearby ships, so it doesn't have a single simple point of failure. Time to completion, about another year."

"One year?" Nicholas sat up straighter. "That seems awfully fast!"

"Apparently it's within reason. And building up its capacity will be built into the design. In a few more years they'll be able to send a thousand tons per week up or down. With the IRI and Ares having first call on much of that capacity, we will be a lot more comfortable. And after you made sure Ares got a cheap shipment"—she gave him a grateful smile on behalf of Joe and his friends—"they'll definitely make it long enough to survive the crisis."