Orson Card - Earth unavare

“I do love watching engineers at play,” said Lem, just loud enough for everyone to hear.

The room fell silent. The engineers turned to him. Without looking, Lem tapped his wrist pad, and the eye assault that was the wall-screen dimmed to half-light.

Dublin stepped off the wall to the left and stood upright on Lem’s floor, bending awkwardly as he adjusted his vambraces. Such a brilliant mind, and yet as graceful as a turnip.

“Mr. Jukes,” said Dublin, “thank you for coming. I apologize yet again for this delay. It appears that the source of the problem-”

“I am not an engineer,” said Lem with a cheerful smile. “Explaining the problem won’t hasten its repair. I don’t want to distract you any more than necessary from solving the problem. That would be a much better use of your time, wouldn’t you agree?”

Dublin swallowed and attempted a smile. “Oh, well, yes, that’s very kind. Thank you.” He took a step backward.

Lem looked at their faces. “I want to thank all of you for your tireless efforts,” he said. “I know that many of you are functioning on a few hours of sleep, and I recognize that the glitches and delays we’ve experienced are more frustrating to you than anyone else. So I appreciate your patience and perseverance. My father assured me that he had assembled the best team possible, and I know that he was right.” Lem smiled to show them that he meant it. “So let’s pause for a moment and take a deep breath. I know it’s still morning, but except for the people physically working on the fix, let’s take a two-hour break. A nap, for many of you. A meal for others. Then we’ll come back and tear that asteroid apart like a sneeze in a wet tissue.”

Lem made a point of not looking at Dublin, though he noticed that a few of the engineers did. If the laser wouldn’t be ready within the next two hours, this was Dublin’s chance to have a spine and speak up.

Silence in the room.

“Wonderful,” said Lem. “Two hours.”

Lem launched off the floor and headed toward the push tube. He caught himself at the entrance and turned back, as if struck by an unrelated thought. “Oh, and Dr. Benyawe, would you see me in my office, please?”

Dr. Benyawe nodded. “Yes, Mr. Jukes.”

Five minutes later Dr. Benyawe was standing opposite Lem in his office, anchored to the floor with her greaves.

“You have put me in a delicate situation, Mr. Jukes,” she said.

“Have I?” said Lem.

“Calling me to your office. The other engineers will assume that I’m meeting with you to give you an account of the test’s failure. They’ll think I’ve come here to point fingers and pass blame.”

“I was the one who called this meeting.”

“They’ll assume that I’ve been speaking with you for some time without their knowledge, giving you information behind their backs.”

“So they’re bureaucrats, then, and not engineers at all, is that what you’re saying, Dr. Benyawe?”

“They’re human beings first, Mr. Jukes. Engineers second. They’re worried about their livelihoods.”

“If we don’t return to Luna with anything short of absolute success, Doctor, I think all of our careers are over.”

“That is a fair assumption, yes,” said Benyawe. “But that’s true all the time, isn’t it? Fail, and you’re looking for a job.”

“Just one question, Dr. Benyawe. If you had been in charge, would you have already conducted the test?”

“You want to know if I blame Dr. Dublin for the delay.”

“I want to know if you’re willing to proceed despite some degree of uncertainty. I want to know if you’ve reached the point where you think we’ll learn more from failure or partial success than from further dithering about possibilities.”

“Dr. Dublin found some of the pretest readings unsettling,” said Benyawe. “I appreciate his caution. Had I been in his position, however, I would have continued with the test. The glaser is built to accommodate a margin of error within the readings we found.”

“So if you were in charge of this team, we’d already have our results.”

“The gravity laser, Mr. Jukes, is not a device to be taken lightly. Gravity is the most powerful force in the universe.”

“I thought love was.”

Benyawe smiled. “You’re very different from your father.”

“You’ve worked with my father for a long time.”

“He’s given me a chance to be part of great things. He also turned my hair white by the time I was fifty.”

“So why didn’t my father put you in charge of this team, Doctor? You have far more experience than Dublin. And every bit as much knowledge of the gravity laser.”

“Why aren’t you running your own corporation? You’ve certainly had plenty of opportunities to do so. You helped launch four IPOs before your twentieth birthday, you took nine different divisions and companies from the brink of bankruptcy into the black, and the rumor is that you’ve built a private investment empire that knows few equals. And yet here you are, heading up a testing expedition in the Kuiper Belt. Your father doesn’t always make decisions based on resumes.”

“I took this job, Dr. Benyawe, because I believe in the gravity laser.”

“But this test is dangerous. If it works wrong on a massy object like an asteroid, this ship could simply disappear.”

“I’m willing to take risks. Is Dublin?”

“Maybe Dublin was given strict instructions by your father to make sure you came home alive.”

Suddenly Dublin’s dithering and delays took on an entirely different meaning. “So Father put me in charge but gave instructions for Dublin to take care of me?”

“Your father loves you.”

“But not enough to let me make my own decisions.”

Lem knew he sounded petulant, but he also knew he was right. Father didn’t trust him. After all these years, after everything I’ve done outside of Father’s shadow, all of my achievements, all of the ways I’ve exceeded his expectations, he still thinks me incapable of making decisions, he still thinks me weak. And he won’t ever think otherwise until I take this company. That was the solution. Lem had known that for a long time. Taking Father’s throne was the only achievement that Father couldn’t argue with or question. It was the only way to get Father to see Lem as an equal. That was why Lem wasn’t running his own corporation elsewhere as Benyawe suggested. He could have easily done so. There had been several offers. But Lem had turned them down. Any other corporation wasn’t enough. Father would always look down on it.

No, Lem was going to take Father’s greatest achievement and make it his own, and he was going to do it so convincingly that the whole world and even Father himself would realize that Lem deserved it. No coup. No trickery. What would be the point of that? Father needed to be a willing participant. He needed to know that Lem had earned it without a scrap of help from Father. Otherwise Father would always believe that it was his achievement and not Lem’s. No, taking the company was the only way to end it all. Only then would Father realize that there were no more snares to lay, no more games to play or lessons to teach. School was over.

But what if what Benyawe had said was true? What if Father’s only motivation was love? It was possible, of course, though it felt like such an alien idea to Lem that he couldn’t quite take hold of it. Father was never that transparent. There were always motivations behind motivations, and the deepest ones were usually selfish. Lem didn’t doubt his Father’s love. He doubted the pure, distilled form of it. That was something Lem had never seen.

Lem smiled to himself. See what you do to me, Father? You always keep me guessing. Just when I think I have you figured out, you make me question you all over again.