Alexis Gilliland - The Third Wave

Wasn’t there something he’d read, somewhere? “Couldn’t you dedicate that extra power for making fresh water from the sea?”

“What, you watch PBS on a regular basis? I vetted the script for that program, and saw to it that they didn’t make the case against the idea.”

He looked a little shocked at learning that PBS might have had a slant in its reporting. “Which was?”

“Enemy action,” she said. “What they left out was that those space arrays beaming down the power are big, fragile targets, vulnerable as hell.”

“Up there in space? How could they be vulnerable?”

“Lasers, missiles, sabotage, you name it. No nation is going to put itself in a position where its enemies can cut off its water. Look what happened to Syria and Iraq after Turkey built those dams to cut off their water.”

“That’s how the Neo-Turkish Empire came into being,” conceded Turi John. “Maybe in California?”

“We-ell, being the inde-goddamned-pendent Westerners that they are, Californians supported the idea, as long as they weren’t going to have to pay for it. The rest of the country is tired of developing the West, and the bill never got out of committee.”

“We aren’t doing anything in this office then?”

“Right now, Doctor Ramos, things are pretty much at a standstill. What can be done technically is either utterly forbidden or totally unfunded.”

“These pictures are very nice,” Admiral Fontaine said, admiring the portfolio Dr. Ramos had brought in. “They look rather like Chesley Bonestell’s work.”

“People have told me that,” Turi John said.Then he laughed. “The computer software I used does all the hard stuff. Me, I wouldn’t have the patience to fiddle with shadows and angles and all the little detail sh—” he caught himself “—tuff.”

Captain Bauman’s eyebrows went up. “Shtuff? Right. Now what was it you were saying we should be doing with this cockamamie thing?”

“It’s a way to get rid of the world’s plutonium stockpiles,” he replied. “An end result devoutly to be desired.”

“Look, Doctor Ramos,” growled the white-haired man. “Finding a sink for plutonium isn’t our business.”

“It has a lot of popular support, sir.”

“Not in the Defense Department. You must know that the joint chiefs are very skeptical about giving up anything they can’t get back.”

“They gave up nuclear missiles,” replied Turi John.

“But not the plutonium. Push comes to shove, the inventory can be remade into warheads.”

Which is why everybody wants to get rid of the awful stuff, thought Turi John sadly. “Are they going to do it before you retire?”

The admiral smoothed back his white hair. “Not bloody likely” he conceded at last.

“So this will put some life into our moribund space program. All we really need is to get our project excused from the Geneva Convention. Once that happens, there will be such a gush of funding that we won’t be able to spend it all.”

Captain Bauman looked bemused. “Now, now, Doctor Ramos. Doubling the US Squadron of the High Skies Fleet would soak up more cash than will ever be forthcoming.”

“High Skies Fleet?”

“A little Navy humor, there. The several models of the Delta Clipper that replaced the shuttle are a so-called fleet under the nominal command of the UN, the various squadrons being under the command of the nations that paid for the individual ships, the US, Russia, Japan, Germany, a joint Franco-British squadron, and China.”

“Well,” said Turi John, doubtfully. “I’m sure the joint chiefs will get all those Delta Clippers under a unified command at the appropriate time. What we do first, see, is design an Orion Starship.”

“Like your drawings?” she asked delicately.

I know my limitations, you bitch. No need to rub my nose in it . “ My drawings? No, no, do it right, put your back into it, use classified research, that sort of thing.”

“Hmm,” said Fontaine, his grey eyes thoughtful. “Do you know how much stuff we don’t know how to build? You’re talking a hundred-year trip here.”

“So we start off small,” said Captain Bauman. “A research ship to find out what we need to know.”

“The joint chiefs won’t like it,” said the admiral.

“You? You’re retiring in less than a year” she said. “What do you care if the joint chiefs don’t like the idea? We don’t have to build anything, you know.”

“Not build anything?” Turi John was distressed. “What do you mean?! Building the Orion Starship is the whole idea!”

“No,” said Captain Bauman pensively. “If the admiral agrees, I’ll turn in a six-iteration preliminary design… which, off the top of my head, will weigh in at 100,000 tons, just like Freeman Dyson suggested. Then Doctor Ramos here will run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes.”

“Wait a minute,” said Turi John, suddenly apprehensive. “What is it I’m going to be doing?”

“You, Doctor Ramos, are a political appointee,” she replied. “What you do is pretty much inde-goddamned-pendent of what I, or the admiral or the joint chiefs or the secretary want. Right?”

You bitch, you’re going to get rid of me, aren’t you? “Uh, yeah. Yes, I guess so.”

“So what we do here in this office, really, is design stuff that never gets built. For you, we’ll design an Orion Starship prototype, with the clear understanding that it is a prototype, that it’s going to need work. You, in turn, will hold an unauthorized press conference, in which you announce that you have found a sink for the world’s plutonium.”

“But, but…” My God, thought Turi John, dismayed, even the senator couldn’t get me out of the mess that will stir up. “…that could cost me my job.”

“Well, yes, Doctor Ramos,” said the admiral in his kindliest manner. “That is the down side of the idea. You’ve been telling us how wonderful this Orion Starship is, so surely you ought to be willing to take a few chances for your brainchild.”

“You want me to get my people started on the thing?” asked Bauman.

The grey eyes were hooded in thought. “Explain the circumstances to them,” said Fontaine at last. “It might be good for morale.”

Dr. Sioux Kerry finished the adjustment and came off the top of the four-meter ladder with an easy drop against the gentle lunar gravity. “Now try it,” she said. Winslow hit the switch, and the huge optical cable, thicker than a man’s arm, pulled back from the light pipe it was insolating, and rolled on the semi-circular track, throwing a powerful beam of sunlight across the inside of the vaulted room as it did so. Finally it aligned itself with the second light pipe which insolated a second growing chamber, pushed itself forward into position, and locked itself in place with a gentle click. The first chamber was now dark, the second brightly lit.

“Works fine,” said Winslow, approvingly. “Break for lunch?”

Kerry nodded, and folded up her utility tool. “Prototypes. If I was doing it over again, I think I’d lose the damn track, though.”

“You need to have the on-off cycle so the plants will grow don’t you?” During the two-week lunar night, the alternation was done with electric lights, which presented no switching problems. During the two-week lunar day, the two chambers alternated day and night by piping in raw sunlight, and the switching was easy once you figured out what needed to be done.

“Yeah, sure. Only the way we built it, there’s too much play, too much gross motion. You see how that cable keeps getting out of adjustment, don’t you? This is the third adjustment in two months. What I’d do is have the optical cable coming in from the parabolic mirror, I’d have that cable stop up there on the ceiling. Then we’d put a secondary optical cable on each light guide, and make the switch between the two chambers by going…” She made a hand gesture to indicate turning a switch and snapped the utility tool into its pouch.