Asteroid Wars - The Precipice Part 8

"That's great!" Dan blurted. "Sai will be back with us-"

n.o.buhiko raised a hand. "Two problems, Dan."

"What?"

"First, there are very strong political forces opposing revival of any cryonically-preserved person."

"Opposing... oh, for the love of Peter, Paul, and Peewee Reese. The New Morality strikes again."

"Here in j.a.pan it's an offshoot of the New Dao movement. They call themselves the Flowers of the Sun."

"Flowers of crackpots," Dan grumbled.

"They have a considerable amount of political power. Enough to get nanotechnology banned in j.a.pan, just as your New Morality people got it banned in the States."

"And now they're against reviving corpsicles?"

A reluctant grin cracked Yamagata's solemn expression. "Delicately put, Dan. My father is a corpsicle."

Waving a hand, Dan said, "You know I don't mean any disrespect."

"I know," n.o.buhiko admitted. "But the unhappy fact is that these Flowers of the Sun are attempting to pa.s.s a law through the Diet that would forbid cryonics altogether and make it a crime to attempt to revive a frozen body." frozen body."

"Why, for G.o.d's sake? On what grounds?"

n.o.buhiko shrugged. "They say the resources should be spent in rebuilding our ravaged cities. They say that we don't need rich old people to be brought back among us, what we need are healthy young people who can work hard to rebuild j.a.pan."

"Bullc.r.a.p," Dan muttered. Then he brightened. "Hey, I know how you can get around them! Fly your father up to Selene. They'll revive him there. They can even use nanomachines if they have to."

n.o.bo sat on the bed, his shoulders sagging. "I've thought of that, Dan. I'm tempted to do it, especially before the government bars removal of frozen bodies from the country."

"They can't do that!"

"They will, before the next session of the Diet is over."

"G.o.ddammit to h.e.l.l and back!" Dan shouted, pounding his fist into his palm. "Has the whole stupid world gone crazy?"

"There's something else," n.o.bo said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Something worse."

"What on earth could be worse?"

"The people who have been revived. Their minds are gone."

"Gone? What do you mean?"

With a helpless spread of his hands, n.o.buhiko repeated, "Gone. The body can be revived, but apparently the freezing process wipes out the brain's memory system. Those we've revived are mentally like newborns. They even have to be toilet trained all over again."

Dan sank into one of the plush recliners. "You mean Sai's mind... his personality... gone?"

"That's what we fear. Apparently the neural connections in the brain break down when the body is frozen. The mind comes out a virtual tabula rasa." tabula rasa."

"s.h.i.+t," Dan muttered.

"We have our research scientists working on the problem, of course, but there's no point to reviving my father until we know definitely, one way or the other, how his mind has been affected by the freezing."

Dan hunched forward, forearms on his thighs. "Okay. I understand now. But get Sai's body to Selene. Now! Before these religious fanatics make it impossible to move him."

n.o.buhiko nodded grimly. "I believe you're right, Dan. I've felt that way myself for some weeks now, but I'm glad that you agree."

"I'm heading up to Selene next week," Dan said. "If you like, I'll take him with me."

"That's very good of you, but this is a family matter. I'll take care of it."

Dan nodded. "Okay. But if you need any help-anything at all, just let me know."

n.o.buhiko smiled again, and for the first time there was real warmth in it. "I will, Dan. I certainly will."

"Good."

The younger man rubbed at his eyes, then looked up at Dan again. "Very well, I've told you my problem. Now tell me yours. What brings you here?"

Dan grinned at him. "Oh, nothing much. I just need a couple of billion dollars."

n.o.bo's face remained completely impa.s.sive for a long moment. Then he said, "Is that all?"

"Yep. Two bill should do it."

"And what do I get in return for such an investment?"

With a chuckle, Dan replied, "A bunch of rocks."

LA GUAIRA.

Pancho looked up, bleary-eyed, from her desktop screen. Across the room that she and Amanda were sharing, Mandy sat at her desk with virtual reality gla.s.ses and earphones covering half her face, peering intently at her own screen.

"I'm goin' for a walk," she said, loudly enough to get through Mandy's earphones. Amanda nodded without taking off the VR gla.s.ses. Pancho squinted at the screen, but it was nothing but a jumble of alphanumerics. Whatever Mandy was studying was displayed on her gla.s.ses, not the computer screen.

Their dorm room opened directly onto the patio. Cripes, it's almost sundown, Pancho saw as she stepped outside. The late afternoon was still tropically warm, humid, especially after the air-conditioned cool of their quarters.

Pancho stretched her long arms up toward the cloud-flecked sky, trying to work out the knots in her back. Been settin' at that stupid ol' desk too d.a.m.ned long, she said to herself. Mandy can sit there and study till h.e.l.l freezes over. She's like a dog-a.s.s computer, just absorbing data like a friggin' machine.

Dan Randolph had put them to studying the fusion drive and working with the engineering team that was converting a lunar transfer buggy into the s.h.i.+p that would carry them out to the Belt. They saw Randolph rarely. The man was jumping all across the world like a flea on a hot griddle, hardly ever in the same place more than one night. When he was in La Guaira he drove the whole team hard, and himself hardest of all.

Peculiar place for a corporate headquarters, Pancho thought as she walked from the housing complex out past the swaying, rustling palm trees, toward the seawall. La Guaira was more suited to being a tourist resort than a major s.p.a.ce launching center. Randolph had settled his Astro Manufacturing headquarters here years ago, partly because its location near the equator gave rockets a little extra boost from the Earth's spin, partly because he found the government of Venezuela easier to deal with than the suits in Was.h.i.+ngton.

Strange, though. Randolph was rumored to have been in love with President Scanwell. There were whispers about their being lovers, off and on, a stormy romance that only ended when the ex-President lost her life in the big Tennessee Valley earthquake.

It all seemed so far away. Pancho followed the winding path toward the seawall, her softboots crunching on the gravel. The Sun was just about touching the horizon, turning the Caribbean reddish gold. Ma.s.sive clouds were piling up, turning purple and crimson in the underlighting. With the breeze coming off the sea, making the palms bow gracefully, this was as close to a tropical paradise as she could imagine.

But the seawall reminded her of a harsher reality. It was shoulder high, an ugly reinforced concrete barrier against the encroaching waters. It had originally been painted a pastel pink, but the paint had faded in the sun, and the concrete was crumbling here and there where storm tides had pounded against it. The old beaches were all underwater now, except at the very lowest tides. The surf broke out there, long combers tumbling and frothing with a steady, ceaseless growling hiss. And still the sea was rising, a little bit more every year.

"Looks pretty, doesn't it?"

Startled, she turned to see Randolph standing there, looking glumly out to sea. He was wearing a wrinkled white s.h.i.+rt and dark slacks that had gone baggy from long hours of travel.

"Didn't see you coming up the path, boss," said Pancho. "Come to think of it, I didn't even hear you on the gravel."

"I walked on the gra.s.s," Randolph said, quite seriously. "Stealth is my middle name."

Pancho laughed.

But Randolph said gloomily, "When Greenland melts down this will all go under."

"The whole island?"

"Every d.a.m.ned bit of it. Maybe some of the gantry towers will stick up above the surface. The hilltops. Not much else."

"Cripes."

"This used to be part of the mainland, you know. When I first brought the company here, that strait cutting us off from the hills didn't exist. The sea level's gone up that much in less than twenty years."

"And it's still goin' up," Pancho said.

Randolph nodded gloomily, then leaned his arms on the shoulder-high seawall and propped his chin on them.

"How's the job going?" he asked.

"We're workin' at it," she replied. "It's a lot to learn, all this fusion stuff."

With a tired nod, he said, "Yeah, but you've got to know every bit of it, Pancho. It anything breaks down out there, you've got to be be able to diagnose it and fix it." able to diagnose it and fix it."

"We'll have an engineer on board," she said. "Won't we?"

"Maybe. But whether you do or not, you've you've got to know everything there is to know about the systems." got to know everything there is to know about the systems."

"Yeah. I guess."

"And you've got to get the new navigational technique down, too," he added.

"Point and shoot, yeah. Kinda weird."

With the thrust and efficiency of the fusion rocket, their s.p.a.cecraft did not have to travel in an energy-conserving ellipse from Earth orbit to the Belt. Fusion-driven trajectories were almost straight lines: travel times would be days instead of months.

"It's a lot to learn, I know," Randolph said.

She saw the weariness in his eyes, and yet there was something else in them, something more. Hope, she thought. Or maybe just plain mulish stubbornness. He wants to make this fusion s.h.i.+p work. And he's trusting me to drive it. Me and Mandy.

"We could use a weekend off," she said. "Or even a night on the town."

The sun had sunk behind the mainland's mountains. They could see the lights on the mainland beginning to wink on.

"Sorry, kid, no can do," Randolph said. He started walking along the seawall. "I told you when you agreed to take this a.s.signment, you stay here in the complex."

"Security, yeah, I know," Pancho said, following him.

"Your own security, too," Randolph said. "Not just the company's. You're very valuable now. You and Amanda are crucial to this entire operation. I don't want you running any risks."

Pancho thought it over. He's trusting us with this whole operation, right enough. Can't blame him for being careful. Still...

She looked across the strait again at the lights of the city.

Then a new thought struck her. Does he know I'm supposed to be snooping on him? Is he keeping us bottled up here so's I can't get in touch with Humphries?

"Can I ask you somethin'?"

Randolph smiled tiredly at her in the fading light. "Sure, go right ahead."

"I've heard rumbles that you were-well, that Astro's got money problems."

Randolph hesitated a moment. Then, "Corporations always have money problems."

"I mean, like, you're purty close to broke."

"Pretty close," he admitted.

"Then why're you sinkin' all this money into the fusion s.h.i.+p?"

The light was dying fast. Pancho could barely see his face. But she heard the determination in his voice.

"Two reasons, kid," he said. "First, if it works, Astro can get first licks at the Belt. Our stock will zoom up, our profits will skyrocket, and the only money problem I'll have is how to spend all the cash flowing in."

Pancho said nothing, waiting for his second reason.

"And also," Randolph went on, "opening up the Belt is crucial for the human race's survival."

"You really think so?"

He stopped walking and turned toward her. "We can't take much more of this climate warming, Pancho. Millions have died already, tens of millions. But the worst is yet to come. If Greenland goes-"

"And Antarctica," she interjected.

"And Antarctica," he agreed. "If they melt down, civilization drowns. Billions will die, not just from the floods but from starvation and disease. We can't support the Earth's population now, for G.o.d's sake! There's famine in half the world, and it's getting worse, not better."

"You think the asteroids can help?"