Critical Mass, page 41
Kerner looked up and smiled, pulling away from the coordinator as Tighe and the others hugged him.
“How was the flight?”
He gave an unimpressed look. “Zephyr’s build quality is shoddy. Too lightweight for my tastes.” Kerner studied the walls around him. “But this . . . This was built to last. And it’s good to finally see it with my own eyes.”
Chindarkar smiled. “We couldn’t celebrate its completion without you here.”
Jin nodded. “Yes. Without you and your team, none of this would have been possible.” He paused. “Now, can you help us build a rescue ship?”
Kerner shrugged. “Of course. Unlicensed spacecraft are my specialty.”
* * *
—
A few days later, Tighe emerged from the South Hab elevator into the midst of a party. As he moved out into the crowd, someone shoved a cup of spiked punch into his hand, while others patted him on the back, or took selfies with him.
The “topping out” celebration might have seemed completely normal at first glance, with several dozen guests engaged in raucous conversation in a carpeted room framed by fabric wall panels—except that the floor, walls, and ceiling curved slightly upward, and people on the far side of the room appeared modestly tilted, relative to Tighe. It made for a surreal backdrop, but only if you weren’t used to it. Drinking helped.
Due to the cost of hauling liquor up from the bottom of Earth’s gravity well, “imported” drinks were hideously expensive; the going rate was twenty thousand USD for a shot of single malt, with only two bottles on board. However, some of the station’s chemists had furthered the frontiers of space science by utilizing Holstad’s starchy test crops to create a moderately passable vodka they dubbed In-shit-too, as an homage to both its origin and the slurring speech it induced.
For reasons of practicality and safety, not everyone aboard was present for the celebration, but it was still an impressive crowd. Ever since the founders of Clarke Station had moved in to West Hab, the crew seldom got a chance to see the now “famous deep space explorers.” So pretty much anyone who could wrangle an invite was here.
At some point, Jin, as captain of Clarke Station, held up his cup of punch and spoke loudly. “Everyone. Please, I would like to say a few words, if I may.” In the silence that followed he beheld the crowd. “We all know what was required to complete this space station. There are those who cannot join us tonight, although they deserve a place of honor. Nicole Clarke, after whom this station is named. David Morra, after whom Morra Base is named. Amy Tsukada, after whom the refinery and the spacecraft that will arrive next year are named. And of course, Robert Ecklund, for whom the world’s first lunar mass-driver is named—and the many others who sacrificed their lives to make this space station a reality. Their names are all commemorated on that wall.” He pointed at a series of engraved titanium plaques.
Tighe turned toward them. Fourteen in all. So far. As civilized as this environment seemed, those names were mute testimony that this was still a frontier. Clarke Station and everyone on it enjoyed a fragile existence at the very edge of the possible. Death was one mistake or malfunction away, and they seldom got a chance to forget it. Tighe’s cancer might have been in remission—perhaps even cured—due to gene-editing treatments, but he never took that to mean he’d survive long. There were no guarantees in deep space.
Jin raised his cup once more. “Today, let us honor their memory and their sacrifice. We owe our future to them all.”
The gathering replied, “Hear, hear.”
Afterward Tighe felt a profound melancholy and moved about the room with feigned purpose, more as a means to avoid conversation than to get anywhere.
There were over a dozen astropreneurs on the station now, each of them building out their sub-compartment to suit their business needs. The vagaries of commercial real estate were alien to Tighe, and the core team had turned issues of escalations and triple-net leases over to Rochat’s new space law division. Apparently Rochat’s leases included a requirement that the CCE retain a small percentage in each tenant’s startup. It seemed extreme, but then again, landlords back on Earth didn’t have to provide every essential of life in the midst of an endless sucking void. Plus, the funds would go back into the CCE, powering the blockchain and its smart contracts—whatever all that meant.
The population of Clarke Station was international and diverse—decided more by their skills and goals than their origin. English seemed to be their common tongue, and Tighe caught snippets of conversation as he moved among them.
“The de-growth crowd back on Earth doesn’t seem to realize that others will expand to fill whatever space they give up.”
“. . . transfers possible to Venus, and an atmosphere thick enough to aerobrake. You could scoop CO2 and nitrogen from the atmosphere and ship it back here to . . .”
“Earth trojan asteroids like 2020 XL5 and 2010 TK7 represent hundreds of millions of tons of resources—and they’re right here in cislunar space. And now they can be cost-effectively accessed . . .”
“I’m telling you, telepresence adventures on the Moon could be huge. Tourists on the cycler would have low latency . . .”
Gazing out at this second wave of astropreneurs, Tighe increasingly felt like an old prospector who had helped launch a gold rush—but who no longer really belonged in the town that grew around it.
There were advantages to this prodigious growth, however. A commercial-grade kitchen was being installed in North Hab—which would finally be able to prepare proper food. Lynne Holstad’s Ag Lab was cultivating even more plants, and the new Synbio Lab was synthesizing everything from cultured meat to coffee in bioreactors—even cultured wood (which somehow involved growing wood without the need to grow a whole tree). The entire “biofacturing” craze seemed like black magic to Tighe. Still, it was nice to be able to taste a real steak. Or real enough. He’d eaten enough freeze-dried food on the Konstantin expedition to last him a lifetime.
As Tighe walked through the party, people nodded to him. Now that Clarke Station was finished, more would be arriving soon—astropreneurs eager to make use of a location in deep space with access to thousands of tons of elemental resources and energy, but also with spin-gravity and life support. Incoming companies included startups developing chargeable atomic batteries, ZBLAN fiber optics, metallic hydrogen research, even rubber made from dandelions. Spacecraft manufacturing, satellite servicing and support, chemical synthesis, robotics, data centers, debris cleanup, solar satellite manufacturing—the list went on. There was an atmosphere of excitement here that went beyond the location.
He passed by Ramón Marín, who was conversing with the representative of a low Earth orbit crypto-mining concern. Diplomatic and trade relations between the LEO-crypto and deep-space-crypto communities were apparently expanding, but that entire industry was still a mystery to Tighe.
A Black man in his early thirties approached Tighe, trepidation evident as he extended his hand. He wore the green jumpsuit that identified him as a commercial tenant. “Mr. Tighe. Jimiyu Onyango of Proteonics, Nairobi, Kenya. I wanted to thank you for selecting our firm for tenancy on Clarke Station. This has been such an incredible experience.”
Tighe shook his hand. “Don’t thank me. It’s Gabriel or Lukas back on Earth who choose.”
“Of course.” Onyango tapped his head. “You are no doubt busy on many weighty matters, but I want you to know that it is an honor to meet a historic figure such as yourself.”
Tighe laughed. “Well, I assure you, I don’t feel historic. Old, maybe. What does Proteonics do, Mr. Onyango?”
“Please, call me Jimi. We are utilizing the microgravity at the station’s core to research protein crystallization for new drug discovery—specifically new classes of monoclonal antibodies. The combination of spin-gravity and microgravity research facilities in one location is transformational to our work. I hope you’ll come by and take a look.”
“It sounds like it would all go completely over my head.”
Onyango laughed. “I would be happy to explain it.”
Tighe spotted Chindarkar nearby, speaking with several of the international observers—eliciting laughter as she chatted them up. She always had that knack. Her diplomacy was probably helping with Earth relations—though it was hard to tell. Some days it seemed like her efforts were just pulling them into Earth’s dysfunction.
Onyango noticed Tighe’s distractedness. “Well, once more, Mr. Tighe, it is a pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise, Jimi.”
Onyango stepped away with a nod.
Chindarkar excused herself from the knot of international observers, and approached Tighe. “Making small talk with the tenants. That’s good.”
“The idea that we have tenants out here is pretty strange, but I get it: we’ll need some of these people if we want to build the rescue ship on time.”
She extended her arms, and they hugged, kissing each other on the cheek. “Congratulations. To all of us. That we’re here at all is a miracle.”
He nodded. “I’ll feel better when we have our ship design resolved. We only have a couple years left.”
She held up her cup. “Is this half empty or half full, Mr. Tighe?”
“It’s entirely full, if you include the air.”
“Ha! Good answer.”
The international observer from Brazil came up to her and extended his hand as the station band started up. “May I have this dance?”
She laughed. “See you, J.T.”
The two of them migrated to the dance floor as the station band played a cover version of “The Air That I Breathe” by the Hollies. Dancing to live music—that was another first in space. “Put that on the wall!” Isabel Abarca would have said.
Tighe took another sip of punch. He now had a good buzz going.
A few couples were slow dancing—which was the only dancing advisable on a spin-gravity ship of this radius.
The band was composed of researchers and scientists who had built their electronic instruments in situ.
The song ended and an emcee took to the mic. “The Ka-band, ladies and gentlemen!”
The crowd applauded.
Tighe waited a respectable period of time before passing by Jin and Yak and indicating with his thumb that he was headed out. He took the elevator up to the core and crossed over to the West elevator bank. His face and RFID tag unlocked the elevator car, and within a minute he entered the lobby of the CCE. He found himself unwinding as if arriving at his own apartment—which, in a way, the CCE was. Four stories and 2,400 square meters of space in space. Both Yak and Chindarkar had been actively engaged in the build-out, and there were now partition walls, carpeted corridors, and a main reception desk (not yet staffed).
As Tighe entered the lobby he studied the new metal sculpture on a pedestal that occupied the center of the circular room. It was an orrery fashioned by a previous crew member, metallurgist Nicolau Ivorra—father of the first child conceived in deep space. It had Ivorra’s signature brutalist style, replete with scorch marks. However, instead of the entire solar system, this orrery consisted of the Earth, Moon, and Clarke Station. It was, Tighe had to admit, crudely beautiful.
Cushioned seating was arrayed around it, presumably for the day when supplicants would arrive here for meetings. Thankfully, now there was just the four of them and a few CCE staff—probably Marín’s security people. And also Kerner, come to think of it. Tighe, Chindarkar, Jin, and Yak had private quarters in each corner of H3. Tighe entered his own suite—a space 7.5 meters by 10 meters, subdivided between a living area, tiny kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom.
It was modern and sterile—reminding him of the corporate apartment Catalyst Corporation had leased for him in Luxembourg City. And yet, he felt more rooted here than he ever had down on Earth. Strange, since this apartment was rotating while simultaneously hurtling around a Lagrange point on the far side of the Moon.
There was a sectional sofa, basic nylon carpet, a brushed metal and glass coffee table (glass was a new addition to the station’s industrial repertoire), and armchairs. Nothing was high quality, but they were lavish considering the location. That he had a bedroom with a queen-sized foam mattress, plus a private bathroom with shower—that was once almost impossible to imagine in deep space. In fact, it would have been impossible if they’d had to drag it all up from Earth. In situ resource utilization really had changed everything.
Tighe settled onto a chair in his small living room and instantiated a virtual orrery for the inner solar system that highlighted the current location of the asteroid Ryugu in relation to Earth. Right now, it was almost on the opposite side of the Sun—320 million kilometers away.
Suddenly it seemed obvious to him that Isabel and Ade were both dead.
He decided he’d had too much to drink—Tighe didn’t have alcohol all that often these days. So he dismissed the orrery and headed to his bedroom. As he undressed, he glanced at a framed photo on his nightstand that he’d recently reprinted using what little paper there was on board. Tighe lifted the frame and studied the image of his father as a handsome young man. Eternally standing at a trailhead, heavy pack on his back, turned slightly toward the camera. Gone to the wilderness and never seen again. Tighe was now a decade older than his father would ever be.
He wondered if recovering the man’s bleached bones would mean anything to him—like Abarca discovering her father’s frozen body near the summit of K2 had meant to her.
Tighe realized it wouldn’t. His father had disappeared when Tighe was small, and he’d barely known him. This photo had once evoked such longing, but now it seemed to belong to someone else. He slid the frame onto the nightstand and finished undressing. Then he paused.
Lately he’d been vexed by a recurring dream—a dream involving someone who had been like a father to him. He felt a sudden, intense guilt.
A man you killed.
He froze. It was an idea that was beginning to take hold of him: that he didn’t deserve to be here. The memory was too painful to recall, and yet it was waiting for him each night. Lately getting worse.
He had to face this, and he did have a way to access the real event.
Tighe laid back, donned his crystal headset once more, and searched his private folders for a recording he hadn’t seen in eight years—since before he’d attended Ascension Island training. It wasn’t hard to find. Tighe knew right where it was. After a moment he clicked on an inscrutable file name, and a virtual screen filled his view.
The video’s perspective was from his own helmet-cam, deep in an underwater cave, moments after an earthquake had destroyed his team’s supply of decompression gas.
Tighe felt his heart move into his throat as he beheld—for the first time in years—the face of Richard Oberhaus, his fifty-something mentor. Oberhaus was checking his dive computer, and his full face mask permitted him to speak over their radio link as he said with his slight German accent, “Without that deco station, there’s not enough gas for the two of us, James.”
Tighe’s voice responded, “We can make it work.”
Oberhaus looked up, calm as always, his voice was no longer tinny with helium. It was his normal baritone. “Yes, we can make it work. But not for both of us. One of us is not going to make it back this time.”
To survive at 90 meters depth, it was necessary to add helium into their gas mixture, but watching the video now, Tighe knew that Oberhaus had already made his decision. In shutting off his helium, he had already killed himself—and done so in order for Tighe to hear what he was saying, to hear his mentor’s voice.
Tighe, still unaware, said, “You go, Richard. I’ll stay.” His helmet-cam looked down as he began to unsling air bottles.
A gloved hand on his wrist. “We must be rational about this, James.”
Tighe tried to press an air bottle into Oberhaus’s hand.
Oberhaus pushed it away. “I have lived twenty-two years longer than you. My children are grown. You have so much of life ahead of you.”
Tighe’s helmet-cam shook vigorously, side to side. His voice, still squeaking from helium: “You said it yourself: you have a wife and children.”
“And you should have a chance for the same.”
“I refuse to go.”
Oberhaus was unslinging all his oxygen and nitrox canisters. “There is no gas to spare discussing this. Leave now and you may have enough to survive decompression. You are in better physical shape than me, James. You’ve always been better able to withstand nitrogen narcosis than I. Between the two of us, you stand the better chance of making it.”
Tighe’s helmet-cam remained focused on Oberhaus’s face.
“I will not remain conscious for much longer. Go.”
In the present, Tighe was once more gripped by grief. Staring into the face of the man who’d been a father to him. Those calm eyes, reassuring him once more.
“We do not have the luxury of a long good-bye. Say good-bye to me, James.”
Tighe heard his own voice squeak, “Good-bye.” His gloved hands accepted the gas canisters. He then embraced Oberhaus.
Oberhaus’s voice, weaker now. “Go!”
Tighe grabbed the controls of a diver propulsion vehicle and accelerated away, upward.
After a few moments, Tighe’s helmet-cam turned back to see Oberhaus’s aquaflash lights illuminating him. Oberhaus nodded as he receded into the gloom, and then the lights went out. Oberhaus had extinguished them purposely—so that Tighe could not look back.
Lying in the present, as grief coursed through him, Tighe decided that, rather than feel guilt, he would instead justify Oberhaus’s sacrifice. He would make it matter.
CHAPTER 38
Proliferation
CLARKE STATION POPULATION: 115
