Ben Bova: The Precipice

“Better than the old days, huh?” George said, still chewing prime rib. Fookin’ soyburgers and recycled piss for water.”

Dan ignored the younger man’s attempt to jolly him. “Has Teresa gone home?” he asked.

“Nope.”

Nettled, Dan glanced at his wristwatch. “She’s not my nursemaid, double-damn it.

I don’t want her hovering over me like—”

“That Humphries bloke is still waitin’ to see you,” George said. “Now? He’s out there now? It’s almost nine o’clock, for chrissakes. What’s wrong with him? Is he stuck here because of the storm? Doesn’t Teresa have the smarts to put him up in one of the guest suites?”

George shook his shaggy head. “He said he’ll wait until you’re ready to see ’im. He did have an appointment, y’know.”

Dan let his breath out in a weary sigh. I just got back from the funeral and they expect me to stick to a schedule made out weeks ago.

“Teresa says he’s makin’ her nervous.”

“Nervous?”

“He’s comin’ on to her. I can see it meself.”

Frowning, Dan muttered, “Teresa can take care of herself.”

“The voice of experience?” George grinned.

“He’s been hitting on her all the time he’s been waiting for me?”

“Want me to shoo ’im off?” George asked.

For a moment Dan relished the image of George hustling his visitor out of the building. But then he realized that the man would simply come back tomorrow. I’ll have to get back to business, he told himself. Can’t avoid it forever. “Take the tray out,” he said to Big George,” and show this Humphries guy in.”

George smacked his lips. “I can bring in dessert and coffee.”

“Fine,” Dan said, unwilling to argue. “Do that.”

Grinning, George scooped up the crumb-littered tray in one hand and started for the door. Dan saw that the desktop was sprinkled with crumbs, too. Annoyed, he brushed them to the carpet.

Teresa appeared at the door. “Mr. Martin Humphries,” she announced. She looked tense, Dan thought. Humphries must have really rattled her. Martin Humphries looked quite young. He was on the small side, a couple of centimeters shorter than Teresa, and he seemed soft, with rounded shoulders and a waistline that was already getting thick, despite the careful drape of his burgundy blazer. He seemed to radiate energy, though, as he strode confidently across the office toward Dan’s desk.

Dan got to his feet and extended his hand across the desk.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, making himself smile. Humphries took Dan’s hand in a firm grip. “I understand,” he replied. “I’m sorry to intrude on your grief.”

His eyes told Dan that the words were nothing more than an expected ritual. Martin Humphries’s face was round, almost boyish. But his ryes were diamondhard, cold and gray as the storm-lashed sea outside the window. As they sat down, George re-entered the office bearing a tray of pastries and the same carafe of coffee, with a pair of china cups and saucers alongside it. For all his size, Big George walked with the lightfooted step of a dancer — or a cat burglar. Neither Dan nor Humphries said a word as George deftly deposited the tray on the desk and swiftly, silently left the office.

“I hope I haven’t kept you from your dinner,” Dan said, gesturing to the pastries.

Humphries ignored the tray. “No problem. I enjoyed chatting with your secretary.”

“Did you?” Dan said thinly.

“She’s quite a piece of work. I’d like to hire her away from you.”

“Not a chance,” Dan snapped.

With a careless shrug, Humphries said, “That’s not important. I came here to talk to you about the current situation.”

Dan waved toward the window. “You mean the greenhouse cliff?”

“I mean the way we can help the global economy to recover from the staggering losses it’s sustained — and make ourselves a potful of profits while we’re doing it.” Dan felt his brows hike up. He reached for one of the delicate little pastries, then decided to pour himself a cup of coffee first. Dan’s firm, Aslio Manufacturing Inc., was close to bankruptcy and the whole financial community knew it. “I could use a potful of profits,” he said carefully.

Humphries smiled, but Dan saw no warmth in it.

“What do you have in mind?” he asked.

“The Earth is in chaos because of this sudden climate shift,” said Humphries.

“The greenhouse cliff, yes,” Dan agreed.

“Selene and the other lunar communities are doing rather well, though.”

Dan nodded. “On the Moon there’s no shortage of energy or raw materials.

They’ve got everything they need. They’re pretty much self-sufficient now.”

“They could be helping the Earth,” said Humphries.” Building solar power satellites. Sending raw materials to Earth. Even manufacturing products that people down here need but can’t get because their own factories have been destroyed.”

“We’ve tried to do that,” Dan said. “We’re trying it now. It’s not enough.” Humphries nodded. “That’s because you’ve been limiting yourself to the resources you can obtain from the Moon.”

“And the NEAs,” Dan added.

“The Near-Earth asteroids, yes.” Humphries nodded as if he’d expected that response.

“So what are you suggesting?”

Humphries glanced over his shoulder, as if afraid that someone might be eavesdropping. “The Belt,” he said, almost in a whisper. Dan looked at Humphries for a long, silent moment. Then he leaned his head back and laughed, long and loud and bitterly.

They were gaining on her.

Still wearing the spacesuit, Pancho Lane zipped weightlessly through the lab module, startling the Japanese technicians as she propelled herself headlong down its central aisle with a flick of her strong hands against the lab equipment every few meters. Behind her she could hear the men yelling angrily. It any of those dipbrains have the smarts to suit up and go EVA to head me off, she thought, I’m toast.

It had started out as a game, a challenge. Which of the pilots aboard the station could breathe vacuum the longest? There were six Astro Corporation rocket jockeys waiting for transport back to Selene City: four guys, Pancho herself, and the new girl, Amanda Cunningham.

Pancho had egged them on, of course. That was part of the sting. They’d all been hanging around the galley, literally floating when they didn’t anchor themselves down with the footloops fastened to the floor around the table and its single pipestem-slim leg. The conversation had gotten around to vacuum breathing: how long can you hold your breath in space without damaging yourself? “The record is four minutes,” one of the guys had claimed. “Harry Kirschbaum.”

“Harry Kirschbaum? Who the hell is he? I never heard of him.”

“He died young.” They all had laughed.

Amanda, who had just joined the team fresh from tech school in London, had the face of an angelic schoolgirl with soft curly blonde hair and big innocent blue eyes; but her curvaceous figure had all the men panting. She said, “I had to readjust my helmet once, during a school exercise in the vacuum tank.”

“How long did that take?”

She shrugged, and even Pancho noticed the way it made her coveralls jiggle. “Ten seconds, perhaps. Fifteen.”

Pancho didn’t like Amanda. She was a little tease who affected an upperclass British accent. One look at her and the men forgot about Pancho, which was a shame because a couple of the guys were really nice.

Pancho was lean and stringy, with the long slim legs of her African heritage. Her skin was no darker than a good tan would produce back in west Texas, but her face was just plain ordinary, with what she considered a lantern jaw and squinty little commonplace brown eyes. She always kept her hair cut so short that the rumor had gone around that she was a lesbian. Not true. But she had a man’s strength in her long, muscled arms and legs, and she never let a man beat her in anything — unless she wanted to.