Delta-v, page 35
“Is that right? I might as well go bankrupt now and save myself the trouble.” Joyce looked to Rochat.
Rochat had no idea what to say.
Joyce said, “Twenty percent.”
Rochat was shocked this discussion was even happening.
Goff and his attorney consulted. “Thirty-five.”
“If this mission isn’t going to save me, then I won’t—”
“Fine. Twenty-five percent.”
“Twenty-three point six percent.”
Goff was taken aback. “Strangely precise. Intended to make me believe that you anticipated this juncture and that this is the very best you can offer.” He laughed. “You might be a fair poker player after all. Okay, Nathan. Twenty-three point six percent it is.”
“Net of all expenses.”
“We will agree upon what constitutes expenses—and there will be audit rights.”
Joyce nodded.
Rochat leaned in, whispering, “You are not seriously contemplating this, Nathan?”
Joyce gripped Rochat’s arm, whispering, “You have no idea how fucked I am, Lukas. I won’t just lose everything. I’ll go to jail. I’ll lose my reputation.” Joyce turned to Goff. “Agreed. In principle. But for that I get your nondisclosure. And I want your signature so that if the news comes out later, you’ll take the heat, too.”
“Why would I reveal any of this, Nathan? It’s not credible. Besides, I hope to be making good money with you—at least, that is, until your people at Ryugu expire. Poor, brave souls. However, I’m not the one who sent them there, am I? And they are beyond saving in any event.”
Rochat felt like he was in a conference with devils, and then he realized he was one of those devils.
Is this what success is—gambling with other people’s lives?
He couldn’t recall how he’d gotten here—and how it had all become so awful. He thought of the crew of the Konstantin. Their straightforward, noble view of things. How had he ever thought Joyce was brilliant? And yet, Goff’s supposedly high-minded principles were satisfied by a cut of the action. The man was as heartless as his machines.
Though it was morning, Rochat suddenly needed a stiff drink.
Joyce said, “Your robots mine only the sunlit side. We mine the dark side.”
“That sounds appropriate, but given Ryugu’s rotational rate, it’s not workable. However, we can constrain our high-altitude movements to the sunlit side.”
After a moment of consideration, Joyce nodded.
“Your crew appears to be readying a robotic tug for a return trajectory to Earth. I want a manifest of what’s on that shipment—and its orbital elements. Realize that I have surveillance cameras that will be able to monitor your crew’s activities.”
“I want back the eleven thousand kilos of water your mining robots stole from me. The nitrogen and ammonia, too.”
Goff considered this. “We hardly stole it. It was a misunderstanding, but I’ll have your containment bags left in a terminator orbit. They might be damaged, but there’s nothing I can do about that. My representatives at Ryugu aren’t as adaptable as yours.”
Joyce stared intently. “Alan, you need to understand how vital it is that I return as much tonnage as possible to cislunar space. If I’m going to keep my house of cards standing, I need that first shipment to be big. Seeing as you’re now my partner, I expect you to not get in my people’s way.”
Goff put up his hands. “Perish the thought. I have nothing but sympathy for those people.”
With that Joyce stood.
Rochat was about to get up when Joyce put his hand on Rochat’s shoulder.
“Stay, Lukas. Work out the details with Ms. Cano, and get back to me with a written draft as soon as possible. This remains entirely confidential. No emails.”
Goff nodded. He also passed a card across his desk. “Since we’re now partners, Nathan, here is my public key. I suggest you give me yours as well—in case we need to discuss any news from Ryugu.”
Joyce cast one more glare at Goff before grabbing the card and storming out.
Rochat felt utterly corrupted as he remained behind.
CHAPTER 35
Breakdown
MARCH 23, 2035
James Tighe stared at a holographic projection of the orbits of Ryugu and Earth floating above the galley table. Amy Tsukada and David Morra watched along with him from across the galley table as they ate breakfast.
Jin Han pointed at a trajectory between the two celestial objects. “Just over two and a half years. No matter how I calculate it.”
Tighe leaned back in his seat. “You’re saying our first return tug won’t reach cislunar space until . . .” He observed the hologram animation complete. “. . . December 2037?”
“The math does not lie.”
Morra shook his head in disgust. “Meanwhile, Goff and his robots are headline news all over Earth as the first asteroid-mining operation.”
Tsukada asked Jin, “Who decided on our return tug’s trajectory?”
“It is not a decision. The tug only has a delta-v of 500 meters per second. Two and a half years is the fastest transfer it can do.”
“And Joyce said he wouldn’t announce our existence until our first shipment arrived in cislunar space.” Tighe looked up at a virtual TV screen showing an Earth news broadcast. “And he hasn’t. It’s like we disappeared off the face of the Earth.”
Morra headed to the kitchen with his empty cereal bowl. “This Goff guy knows we’re here. Why doesn’t he tell the world?”
Tsukada folded her arms. “And let us steal his limelight?”
“Let Joyce steal his limelight, you mean. That’s why I—”
Adisa’s voice came in over the comm link. “You should all see this. One of CRC’s mining ships is passing near us.” He made a hologram of Ryugu visible for everyone. An ethereal Konstantin rotated above both hab breakfast tables—with a radar blip coming in at a slow arc a kilometer below.
Morra growled, “They’re supposed to stay away from us.”
Adisa said, “Look closer,” and the hologram zoomed in on the mining robot.
Chindarkar’s voice said, “It’s tumbling.”
The several-ton mining robot was slowly turning on a couple of axes.
Tighe stared. “It looks dead.”
“The solar panels are covered with regolith.”
Morra said, “They’ll come out and get it.”
“It’s on its eighth orbit already.”
“Maybe their maintenance tugs are backlogged.”
“I would think retrieval of a tumbling ship would take priority over ones safely in a repair dock.”
Tighe looked at his shipmates across the table. “CRC wouldn’t just jettison a broken-down mining rig. That thing cost a few hundred million to bring out here. Letting it drift loose would be as hazardous to them as it is to us.”
Abarca spoke over the comm link. “J.T.’s right. We need to find out what’s going on.”
* * *
—
Sitting at his workstation on the first floor of Hab 2, Tighe used the VR capabilities of his crystal to control a Valkyrie robot as it glided just above the surface of Ryugu. The robot uncoiled several lengths of 100-meter tether cord behind it as it coasted toward the asteroid’s terminator line. The cord led back to a mule, concealed beyond Ryugu’s horizon. The mule had imparted forward momentum to his Valkyrie before he’d released his robotic grip on its handrail.
It always amazed Tighe how realistic the telepresence system felt. The cratered surface of the asteroid passed below in shades of green in his robotic night vision. Finally a blinding light up ahead washed out his screen, and Tighe switched to a normal camera view.
Bolts of electricity arced sporadically all along Ryugu’s terminator line. They looked like flashes of gunfire in the darkness. Tighe asked no one in particular, “What is that?”
Adisa’s voice came in first. “The difference in electrical charge between the day- and nightside. The terminator is a zone of electrical instability.”
Crossing into sunlight, Tighe spotted something rising above the horizon to his left, arcing up into space. “Hang on. I see something.”
In fact, he saw several things. A half dozen objects traversed the featureless blackness of sunlit space.
“We see it.”
Adisa’s voice: “Whatever that is, it is in a decaying orbit.”
Tighe dialed his camera zoom, tracking glittering metallic objects in the sunlight. “Mining robots.” There was also asteroid material, and what looked to be a charging station with shattered solar panels. “They look damaged.”
Chindarkar’s voice: “I count three more mining rigs. Dead, apparently. There’s a lot of debris.”
“A collision?”
Jin’s voice: “They all seem to have lost power.”
Tighe followed the objects with his robotic eyes. “I say we try to lay eyes on the mother ship.”
There was a momentary silence, and then Abarca said, “Okay, but keep your head on a swivel.”
“It literally is on a swivel.” Tighe kept watch for CRC mining robots as the Valkyrie kept gliding forward. Below, Ryugu’s sunlit surface was obscured by something resembling haze. “How is there fog? Ryugu has no atmosphere.”
Adisa’s voice again: “Dust levitation. The solar wind gives particles a positive electrical charge on the dayside. It can create a fog-like layer. Perhaps this layer caused the failure of CRC’s robots.”
The Valkyrie neared the end of its coil of tether, and Tighe squeezed his robotic hand on the line to slow to a smooth stop.
Several kilometers straight ahead a large spacecraft floated off Ryugu’s equator.
“Would you look at that.”
A cloud of metallic debris glittered in space above and around the mother ship, Argo. The ship’s dozen docking bays were all empty. Closer at hand was a maintenance bot locked in an embrace with a mining rig—both of them seemingly inert. On Ryugu’s surface a few hundred meters ahead, a mining bot had impacted the ground at high speed, leaving its own crater and a tangle of sparkling wreckage.
Tighe looked first one way, then another. “They’re all down. I don’t see a single CRC rig still in operation.”
Morra’s voice: “Looks like somebody screwed up.”
Adisa said, “Perhaps regolith got into their circuit boards—caused short circuits.”
Jin observed, “Whatever it was, CRC failed to anticipate it.”
Tighe said, “The mother ship still has power, though. Look.” He zoomed his robot eyes in on it.
Sure enough, red, green, and blue LED lights were still active in the equipment bays. The mother ship’s large solar array was clear.
“But I’d say our competition is out of business.”
* * *
—
Nathan Joyce waited in his office for the encrypted video call to go through. In a moment a hologram of Alan Goff floated before him. Lukas Rochat observed, waiting off to the side, unseen.
Goff’s ghostly image grimaced. “Nathan, I prefer to restrict our contact to scheduled calls. I’m very busy.”
“I imagine you are—especially with your entire Ryugu mining operation broken down.”
Goff stared in silence. He then spoke to someone off-screen, waited a few moments, then loomed larger. “We are working on the problem.”
Rochat could see it in Joyce’s eyes—ready to twist the knife, relishing it.
“There’s your tell, Alan. I have some very detailed video that indicates Ryugu chewed up your machines and spat them out.”
Goff said nothing.
“A small design error, perhaps? Some forgotten detail? What was that I said about failing fast and often?”
A vein in Goff’s neck visibly throbbed. “I suppose you’re enjoying this.”
Joyce clearly was. “I have a proposition for you, Alan. Your entire mission does not need to end in failure.”
Goff stared. “Go on.”
“I have people on site who may be able to help. For a price.”
Concerned, Rochat snapped alert.
Goff closed his eyes and sighed. “What price?”
“Reversing our deal. You pay me 23.6—”
“I will merely refrain from exposing your crew’s presence at Ryugu, saving you from criminal prosecution.”
Joyce gave him a sideways look. “But my going to jail won’t help you. And of course, then everyone will know you’ve failed.”
“Unlike you, this setback does not ruin me. I didn’t sink everything I had into this. I will be able—”
“But your mission is so very public. Do you think you’ll ever get another dime from your investors? All you’ve done is proven your designs don’t work. But think how close you were. You were outproducing us, Alan. Now I guess we’ll never know if you could have succeeded.”
Goff stared.
“We both know robotic asteroid mining will generate trillions in profits. Too bad you won’t be participating. On the bright side, they might teach CRC as a case study—a lesson on what not to do.”
Goff stared at the screen for several moments. “Five percent.”
Joyce slapped his desk. “Done.”
“You asshole. You just wanted to be on top, didn’t you?”
“Be thankful my people can help.”
CHAPTER 36
Hot Fix
APRIL 6, 2035
There’s no way in hell!” Isabel Abarca stared down a hologram of Nathan Joyce. Although their orbit had now swung back toward Earth again, they were still more than 154 million miles distant—which meant a transmission delay of nearly fourteen minutes. She may as well have been cursing at a television show.
Joyce’s hologram continued. “. . . CRC engineers have sent you complete schematics to guide you through the troubleshooting and repair of their machines.”
“He’s insane if he thinks we’re going to agree to this.” Abarca started pacing like a puma in a cage.
Tighe, Morra, and Abarca were crewing Hab 1 this rotation, with Jin, Adisa, Priya, and Tsukada in Hab 2. They were all linked, as usual, via the AR portal.
Joyce continued. “No doubt you consider this request unreasonable. However, Celestial Robotics is in a position to force our hand. Unless we help them get back up and running, their CEO, Alan Goff, intends to reveal to Earth authorities the presence of the Konstantin at Ryugu.”
Tighe shouted. “Good! It’s about damn time.”
“. . . will result in civil and legal action against me and Catalyst Corporation. The true extent of Catalyst’s liabilities will no doubt result in its liquidation to satisfy creditors. If that happens, I cannot be certain your mining contracts or your bonuses would be honored in any bankruptcy proceeding.”
Morra sat up. “What did he just say?”
Joyce continued. “Only by repairing and reactivating CRC’s mining equipment do we have a chance to keep the Konstantin’s existence confidential long enough to achieve success. The robot tug you’re launching back to Earth on June 10 will be that success. Once it arrives in cislunar space loaded with mined resources, we will no longer have any reason for secrecy. However, to enjoy that success, we must first cooperate with Goff in the short term.”
Chindarkar shrugged. “Screw the mined resources. Once word gets out we’re here at Ryugu, we’ll be famous back on Earth. We won’t need Joyce.”
Joyce pressed on. “You’ll find engineering and maintenance manuals, as well as 3D-printing files and updated operating firmware for CRC’s Klondike and Prospector robots in your inbox. Study these and message Gabriel when you’re ready to begin technical sessions with CRC’s engineering team. In the meantime, I must again emphasize how vital it is that you continue to maximize the payload on our first return shipment. For that reason, we should not begin repairs on CRC’s robots until our own tug is safely en route back toward cislunar space. All our mutual hopes depend on it exceeding a thousand tons payload.”
Abarca glared at the hologram.
“I hope you are all well and that you understand my reasons for this request. I promise you it will be worth it.” Joyce’s hologram dissolved.
Abarca shook her head. “This is the final straw. I won’t—”
Proximity alarms suddenly went off. Everyone scrambled to load the perimeter display. The hologram revealed a small radar blip coming toward them from around the asteroid.
Adisa’s voice said, “More mining debris. Baseball-sized—too slow to do damage.” He silenced the alarm.
The crew watched the radar blip sail through the Konstantin’s rotational arc and impact the metal side of the Hab 1 airlock. The clang reverberated like a bell throughout Hab 1.
Tighe looked at the ceiling. “It’s just luck that none of these have been large enough to cause damage.”
Morra said, “Our luck may run out yet.”
Chindarkar frowned. “Repairing CRC’s mining robots isn’t in our contract.”
Tighe said, “I say we just clean up this orbiting debris and salvage CRC’s robots for parts.”
Tsukada added, “I agree with J.T. and Priya. Screw CRC.”
Morra leaned forward. “Normally I’d agree with you, but if Goff does go public about our presence here, Joyce’s goose is cooked—he’ll be gone, sent to jail. Catalyst goes bankrupt. Then what happens to our contract?”
“Who gives a damn?” Tighe gestured to Chindarkar’s AR image. “Like Priya says—we’ll be famous back on Earth. The humans who’ve gone farthest and longest into deep space.”
Morra turned toward Tighe. “How much is fame worth?”
