Stephen Baxter - Ark

“Yadda yadda,” said Gordo. “You flew one bird out of there so far, didn’t you? One stick, one Ares I, unmanned, to orbit. How many launches you think you’re going to need to assemble your ‘starship in orbit’?”

Liu Zheng answered that. He tapped a touch pad, and the whiteboard lit up with graphics. “Fifteen launches, sir. Five of the heavy-lift Saturn V-class Ares V, unmanned, and ten of the human-rated Ares I sticks, each carrying eight or ten crew. The plan so far has been to reinhabit the abandoned ISS, the space station, and use that as a construction shack to-”

Gordo waved him silent. “Your deadline for completion of on-orbit assembly is still 2040. Right? You’ve managed one launch in the last four years. You imagine you’ll get through fifteen in the next four. Fifteen launches, and that’s without tests and failures, and you haven’t flown a single Ares V out of Gunnison yet. And you’re going to reoccupy the ISS, a station which has been mothballed for sixteen years. My God, at NASA we’d have looked at that alone as an activity that would likely take teams of trained astronauts years. It’s down here as a milestone on your chart-no resources assigned to it-nothing. Who’s gonna do that, the tooth fairy?”

Patrick steepled his fingers. “We’re at a point at which our schedule is expected to accelerate, as significant mission milestones-”

“Bull,” said Gordo simply. “This ain’t the first fucked-up project I’ve been involved with, Mr. Groundwater, and I recognize all the symptoms, and I heard it all before. We screwed up, we missed all the milestones so far, but the future is bright! And you’ll notice I haven’t yet come to the issue of antimatter production. Remind me. How much antimatter are you going to need for your starship?”

Liu Zheng said, “We believe half a kilogram. That may not sound much but such is the energy density of the-”

“Yes, yes. Let’s take a look at your production facility.” Gordo tapped the chart, and brought up live images of the ongoing disaster in the Denver suburb of Byers. The accelerator site was a crater from which protruded odd bits of wall or the skeletal tangle of reinforcing steel cables. Smoke snaked up from a dozen fires, and rescue workers crawled in their bright orange gear through mounds of rubble. In one place a refugee camp had been destroyed, canvas tents blown flat. On the fringe of the disaster zone, ragged protesters faced a line of cops and soldiers and Homeland goons.

“There’s your antimatter factory,” Gordo said. “A hole in the ground, which it would have been a lot cheaper to produce by dropping a fucking nuke. Let me tell you something. No matter what else comes out of this disaster, I don’t believe it’s going to be acceptable to President Vasquez to go back to manufacturing this stuff in the middle of Colorado.”

“Then we’re screwed,” said Jerzy Glemp, his damaged body twitching under his blanket. “Screwed. The whole point of the design is the warp bubble, Colonel. We can’t fly without that. And we can’t create a warp bubble without antimatter.”

“I’m aware of that,” Gordo snapped. “And I’m also aware of the short-cuts you took to get your precious atom-smasher up and running, Dr. Glemp.”

Glemp grew more agitated. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Like hell you don’t. I’ve seen the documentation trail. The asscoverers in your organization kept a record of every time you leaned on them to cut a test, disregard a safety precaution, push a design without a backup. If this was a court of law I’d have a case to prosecute you.”

“It is rich for you to berate us for schedule delays then accuse me of negligence for my attempts to meet targets.”

“It was always out of your reach,” Gordo said. “This dream of star flight. That’s the truth, isn’t it, Dr. Glemp? You always saw that more clearly than these others, and yet you pushed ahead anyhow, as far and as fast as you could, regardless of the risks-”

Edward Kenzie stood up again. “Colonel, it’s four years since President Vasquez made her Nimrod speech, her Kennedy moment. You were involved then, and you’re sure as hell involved now. But none of the problems we’ve faced since have anything to do with you-is that what you’re telling us?” He pointed a fat finger at Gordo. “Is that the game, Colonel? Blame?”

Jerzy struggled. “I want to say-oh, let me speak-” His voice broke up into a coughing jag that left him shaking.

Edward tried to speak again, and Patrick, and others joined in, and Gordo tried to shout them down. It was a room full of old people shouting at each other.

Holle tuned out. She felt stunned, emptied out. She hadn’t suspected that the project was so far behind schedule, or that such risks were being taken to accelerate it. And all for me.

Something in Gordo’s continual emphasis on the dates was working in her head. To her the flood had always been remote, something that happened to other people. Now she felt as if the world was closing in on her. In four years, when the flood waters would be lapping in this very room, she would be just twenty-one. Suddenly it wasn’t some abstracted future version of herself who would have to cope with all this. It was her who would have to face the future, and if the Ark failed it was her who would have to deal with the ultimate nightmare, the washing away of the very ground under her feet. A deep fear bit into her belly, like a fear of falling. She glanced across at her father, wishing she was nearer to him.

Kelly was watching her. “Hey. It’s OK. We’ll get through this. We’ll fly yet.” And she turned back to listen to the arguments, serene, confident, strong. Just for a moment, rivalries put aside, Holle could see why she was so popular with the public who watched the Candidates’ progress, their daily lives.

Gordo folded his arms, and silenced the room. “Then this is the crux. The way you have been progressing this project has led to delay and ultimately disaster. There’s no way I’m going to endorse the kind of launch schedule you put together here. It was always a fucking joke, and it’s certainly unachievable now. Unless you can come up with some new way forward, now, then the Ark don’t fly. So who speaks next?”

“Holle Groundwater,” said Liu Zheng.

Holle said, “What?” Liu seemed quite calm. He even smiled. “Ms. Groundwater. Once, in my class, we were ruminating on a design problem that at the time seemed insuperable.”

“I-”

“The size of the warp bubble.”

“Yes. I remember.”

“On that occasion, you raised a question. Not a solution, but it provoked a chain of thought that ultimately led to a solution. It was a good question. Perhaps that is your particular talent.” His smile widened, encouraging. “Now would be a good time to ask that question again.”

Patrick said, “What the hell are you doing, Liu? What kind of pressure is that to put on a seventeen-year-old kid?”

“It’s OK, Dad,” Holle said, though it wasn’t OK, not at all. They were all staring at her, her father with anxiety and pride, Liu with intensity, Edward Kenzie with bafflement-Kelly with frank envy. She could feel her heart hammer, the blood sing in her ears. She thought she might faint. What a situation. Speak. Say the right thing. Or else in five years you’ll either be dead, or starving on a raft made of plastic trash. “It’s just something my father always said. If the answer’s not the one you want, maybe you’re asking the wrong question.”

Liu Zheng closed his eyes and spoke rapidly. “Yes. OK. Now we have two apparently insuperable obstacles. First, the antimatter. We can’t make what we need. Then what’s the alternative to making it?”