The Next Continent (21 page)

“Batteries. Just like toys.”

“Batteries, yes, but they produce power by reacting hydrogen with oxygen. Fuel cells are superior to other types of batteries. They don't need charging, and—uh-oh…”

The driver stiffened. The old man squinted.

The treads on Dozers 1 and 6 were twitching back and forth, slowly bringing Dozer 3 sideways and forward. Its treads had already gained some purchase on the dirt and were digging in. Dozer 3 was trying to add its own power to the effort.

Suddenly its right tread locked, perhaps jammed by a stone. The sound of its motor rose to a whine. Suddenly the entire right tread separated from the drive wheels with a clatter. Instead of stopping automatically, the drive wheels kept on revolving at high speed. Probably the vehicle had sustained some damage when it was pinned between the other dozers.

White smoke began pouring from the underside of the dozer. Apparently the heat of friction had ignited a fire. Now the other machines did something unexpected. Dozers 2, 4, and 5 moved away. Then 1 and 6, as if realizing nothing more could be done, backed away as well.

Bereft of support, Dozer 3 promptly plunged into the hole and out of sight. There was a dull crash, then a surprisingly violent explosion.

The girl had been watching intently. Now she cuttingly said to the driver, “They couldn't save one of their own. Don't you need to make more improvements?”

Slightly dazed, the driver struggled to answer, then gave up. At length he pulled himself together and spoke into his wearcom. He listened and nodded.

“Just as I thought. That wasn't a failure. The other dozers abandoned it intentionally.”

“Why would they do that?” asked the old man.

“The fuel in their batteries is similar to rocket propellant. There's no guarantee it won't explode. Even if it doesn't, an accident involving one dozer may end up involving others. In marginal cases, the protocol is to abandon the vehicle in trouble so as to minimize collateral damage. The control center advised that this was not just a cave-in response test. Dozer 3 was sacrificed to evaluate whether the other units could exercise logic and determine when a triage strategy was needed.”

“Abandon if necessary…” The girl scowled. No, she did not just scowl. She seemed to be having a complicated emotional reaction.

The driver studied her expression. “I'm sorry I didn't explain earlier. But it's not a system fault. On the contrary, the system is operating as intended. If you could just understand that—”

“Thank you.” The girl nodded and returned her gaze to the testing ground.

The white dozers were on the move again, carrying their blocks toward the center of the proving ground, unconcerned over the loss of their comrade. When they arrived at an indicator on the ground, they began lining up the blocks to make a wall. The blocks were laid out with a surveyor's accuracy.

Apparently the test was over. The girl turned to the driver. “Let's go.”

The girl and the old man got into the Jeep. The driver gave her a worried glance as he pulled back onto the road.

THE GREAT GLASS
walls of the control center gave a commanding view of the testing area. Inside, Gotoba's engineers congratulated each other.

“Passed with flying colors! This went better than the assembly test. I never thought they'd ace the triage problem.”

Gotoba's development process for robotic engineering equipment had been plagued with difficulties. From the construction of a chassis capable of withstanding the lunar environment to engineering attachments, power supply, peripheral gear, and the AI system software, everything had been a process of trial and error. After components had been developed, countless tests of everything from site preparation to block assembly were required.

The final stage was a failure-resolution test that presented the robots with an unforeseen situation. The test was designed to push their software/hardware integration to its limits.

Gotoba's multidozer development supervisor grinned broadly. “Now we can head for the moon with confidence. Those four years of suffering were worth it.”

“I think you exceeded your goals,” laughed Sohya Aomine, now a manager in Gotoba's Mobile Engineering Division. He would be overseeing the initial construction work remotely, from Earth. He shook the supervisor's hand. “But they won't be ready to roll for a while. Before that we have to perfect the concrete production system. They're still working on it down in Yamaguchi Prefecture, but they don't have the water supply figured out yet. They've got another 20 percent of the job ahead of them.”

“I know, but the plans are finished,” said the supervisor. “They've designed thirty-plus different systems covering all the possible ways water might be dispersed on the surface. They're bragging they can have a plant up and running within three months after they get the findings from Serpent.”

“That's what I hear. Man, I mean—us, the guys in Yamaguchi, the Phase Two base people in Nagoya—everyone's working like crazy. Even I'm impressed at what this company can pull off, and I work here.”

“It all flows from the top.” The supervisor dropped his voice to a whisper. “Did you hear about the Choshi offshore gas field?”

“What's going on?” Sohya whispered back. The supervisor chuckled.

“Shinnisseki Gas is running into problems getting the methane sherbet up from the seabed. Gotoba's offering them the dozers.”

“To work on the seafloor?”

“It's not so different from the lunar surface, an extreme environment where manned operation is difficult. It wouldn't be hard to retrofit them for undersea work. The boss is looking for ways to recoup some of our development costs.”

“Who'll do the retrofitting? Everyone has their hands full.”

“Gotoba will find a way. And he'll turn a profit. The boss is almost a god when it comes to construction engineering.”

“A god, huh? Hey…” Sohya froze. A white-haired old gentleman and a young woman were standing in the control center doorway, looking out of place.

“Who's that?” asked the supervisor.

“Another god. Our sponsor, the chairman of ELE. That's his granddaughter. Go tell the guys to quiet down.”

The supervisor hurried off to alert the rest of the team. Sohya walked over to the visitors and spread his hands in welcome.

“It's been a long time, Mr. Toenji. Nice to see you too, Tae—Miss Toenji.”

“How've you been, Sohya?” Tae Toenji was seventeen. She smiled in a grown-up way and extended her hand.

Sohya shook it, a bit nervously. “Last time was in Paris, right?”

“Yes, when we showed our wedding dresses for the Paris collection and kicked off the Sixth Continent PR campaign. But we see each other all the time on the VPN, don't we? It hasn't
exactly
been a long time.” Tae stage-whispered this last statement and smiled.

“But I only see your face on the web. You…you're taller.”

“A hundred and fifty-nine centimeters. Maybe I won't be able to ride in the capsule if I get too much taller.”

“
Apple
is designed to carry five NBA players. We even got an inquiry from Johnson Jr. Of course, he's already hitched…I mean, married.”

“Mr. Aomine.” Sennosuke Toenji leaned closer to Sohya. “You don't have to put on a show for me. Don't be so formal.”

“So then, you know?” said Sohya, slightly embarrassed.

“I like to think of myself as close to my granddaughter. I know you're close to Tae as well. I don't think that's a bad thing. She's told you that she's the real force behind this plan, I believe. She wouldn't have done that if she didn't trust you.”

“Mr. Toenji…” Sohya was at a loss for words.

“Don't worry about me. Officially, I'm in charge of this project. I do have a lot of interest in it. I was one of the ones who came up with the idea. But making Tae happy is just as important to me.” Sennosuke gave Sohya a jaunty wink. “Now then, Sir Aomine, please give our princess her briefing.”

Twenty-nine-year-old Sohya was not thrilled to be treated like a hero in an adventure comic, but he did relax a bit. Over the past four years he had seen very little of Tae in person. She had been busy working with Eden's PR team on the global campaign for Sixth Continent. In the process, she had become something of a media figure herself. But they spoke over Sixth Continent's virtual private network several times a month. Naturally, much of their communication was personal, and Tae would have felt guilty keeping this from her grandfather, who was nearly her only family.

Now that Sohya had official approval, there was no need for pretense. He relaxed and said, “You're a little late. If you'd come an hour earlier, I could've shown you the final multidozer test.”

“We watched it from out there. The robots are amazing.”

“You saw the explosion?” Sohya was caught off guard. “That wasn't a system failure, you know. We wanted to see if the bots' networked AI could calculate the trade-off between the loss of one member and potential damage to the whole team.”

“Don't worry. The driver told us all about it.”

Sohya heaved a sigh of relief. When he had first met her, Tae had been just thirteen, yet she could already speak fluent English and easily grasped the principles of spaceflight. But four years of globe-trotting had definitely seasoned her. Still, she hadn't lost her innocent outlook.

“I feel sorry for the robots though.”

“Sorry? Why?”

“As soon as they're a burden, they're left behind. I guess it's efficient, but it's merciless.”

“Well, there's no other way.” Sohya remembered how upset she had been about the trash scattered across the surface around Kunlun Base. “We can't take a single excess kilo to the moon, so we have to recycle everything usable till there's nothing left to recycle. But sometimes recycling uses more energy and resources than just discarding things. When humans are present on the surface, we'll have the flexibility to recycle a lot of waste, but when it's just robots…sometimes we'll have to discard a unit.”

“I know. That's why we have to send humans. But I liked the way it was handled.”

Sohya shook his head, confused. “You did?”

“Yes. I liked the lack of mercy. The coldness to leave others behind if necessary and go for the goal.” Tae's expression had turned unnervingly hard. Sohya had seen this side of her before. It reflected her isolation, a girl who had abandoned the pleasures other women her age pursued to embark on a strange quest to build a base on the moon.

Then the carefree smile returned. “Listen, Sohya. Wouldn't you like to come to Tsukuba?” Here was something else that hadn't changed: her tendency to spring surprises.

“Tsukuba? You mean mission control?”

“Yes. Serpent lands today.”

“Oh, right. That was today.” Sohya scratched his head. The development supervisor joined them.

“Did you forget?” said the supervisor. “We were going to celebrate today's shakedown test with a live feed from Serpent as the main event.”

“Oh…yeah. Guess my mind was on the dozers,” said Sohya.

“So you
were
planning to go?” pressed Tae.

The supervisor slapped Sohya on the back. “In that case, we'd better turn him over to you. I'm sure he'd rather be with you at flight control than sitting in some pub watching it on TV with the guys.”

Sohya blushed and looked down. Tae extended her pendant wearcom toward the supervisor.

“Where is your party being held? At Gotenba? Okay, I have it. And how many? Forty-five? Right, got it.”

“What's going on?” asked Sohya.

“I hope you won't mind if I cover the costs.”

“Wow, are you sure?” said the supervisor.

“It's because those white dozers are hardworking and very courageous. Have a good time.”

The manager called out to the rest of the people in the control center. “Did you hear that, everybody?”

The team gave a cheer. Sohya was impressed with Tae's practiced way of handling people. It was hard to believe she was only seventeen. She took his arm. “Shall we?”

“Sure, but can we make it in time? The maglev doesn't stop at Tsukuba.”

“Mr. Aomine, that's what aircraft are for,” said Sennosuke.

Once again Sohya felt as if he were in the presence of people from another universe entirely. Filled with anticipation and hesitation, he followed them out of the control center.

[2]

SEVEN HUGE FLAT-SCREEN
monitors arranged in two rows dominated the flight operations control room of Tenryu Galaxy Transport's Tsukuba Space Center. The upper-right screen displayed a constantly changing array of red numerals.

JST 2029 05 01 17:30:45
MET 59:30:45

The main screen, in the center of the lower row, tracked the course of a white sphere. Its path through space was designated by a bright blue line.