The Next Continent (48 page)

“That's not a problem,” Henderson said casually. “Any kind of storage tank will work. Put it in the shadow zone. The temperature is close to the boiling point for hydrogen there.”

“I see…That's great advice. Thanks. I'll get Gotenba to work out the details.”

“Glad to be of assistance.” Henderson waved as if to say
no problem
. “What's up with the ice blanket? Have you run into something?”

“I'm not sure. Gotenba doesn't want to seal the blocks in position yet. I don't know why. There's no way we'd move them once they're in place.”

“I would say not.” Henderson shook his head ruefully. “It might be on the off chance that you end up having to sell the blocks to NASA. We sure could use them at Liberty Island.”

“What ‘off chance'?”

“If you guys can't pay your creditors, say. One of the senior people at Johnson made a comment to that effect. He said your equipment and materials were put up as collateral for your loans.

If you default, your banks might end up selling them to us.”

Yamagiwa and Sohya gaped in surprise. “Did you hear anything about this?”

“No. The guys back on Earth aren't telling us everything.”

“They probably don't want to demoralize you,” said Henderson. “Look, I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't even have mentioned it.”

Seeing their increasing bewilderment, he hastened to reassure them. “Seriously, I wouldn't worry about it. Don't forget, the Moon Treaty is still in force. As far as the UN Court of Justice is concerned, this is a SETI research facility, not a commercial operation. Converting what you have here into loan collateral probably wouldn't stand up in court.”

Yamagiwa sighed. “I hope so. You know, John Swigert had to worry about the IRS while he was fighting for his life on
Apollo 13
. Even up here, we can't get away from the bullshit back home.”

“Well, we'd best leave that sort of thing to our bosses on Earth. Worrying about it won't do us any good.” Hoping to change the subject, Henderson looked around the interior of Xiwangmu. “It's strange. Here I am, an American astronaut, visiting a spacecraft designed by the Russians, built by the Chinese, and operated by the Japanese.” He smiled. “It's got to be some kind of miracle.”

“Just hard work,” said Sohya. “There are no miracles in space.” Henderson was about to say something, but Sohya's expression stopped him. There had been no miracle for Shinji.

Henderson nodded. He moved toward the air lock. “Good luck. Hope to see this place completed soon. Don't let the bickering back home get under your skin. NASA's rooting for your success.”

“Good luck to you too, Commander.”

Henderson waved farewell and disappeared into the air lock.

For the next two months, block production proceeded smoothly. A Turtle made six trips into lunar orbit and back. Sixty tons of supplies arrived from Earth aboard the tug and were brought down to the surface. But on its seventh journey into orbit, the Turtle's engine exploded. A round-trip took three burns—one to climb into orbit and two to return to the surface—so the engine had managed a total of twenty ignitions before giving out. This was three more than expected, which meant this test to failure could be counted a success. The explosion had been anticipated, and the side of the habitat module facing the landing pad had been shielded with regolith by the multidozers. The only collateral damage was the loss of a few panels on the solar array.

At some point the tug's main engine would also fail. No engine yet developed had an unlimited operating life; the next challenge was to determine a safe schedule for replacing the engines before they failed. Otherwise the tug could not ferry humans to the moon.

Every success produced a new challenge. This alternating cycle of progress and challenges was something Tetsuo Sando had anticipated. Every problem that arose was reported to Gotoba for resolution by its team of engineers.

At the end of May, the first team wrapped six months of work on the surface and prepared to return to Earth. This first six months on the surface had been filled with hurdles, but they had pressed ahead and managed to complete all their objectives. They had planned to wait for the arrival of the second team before departing but were told that the launch had been delayed at the last minute by bad weather. Gotenba ordered them home on schedule. But when they emerged from the core on the runway at Tanegashima, they saw that all the launch pads were empty.

“
TAE, ARE YOU
here? Tae!”

Sohya was knocking on the door of a house near Nagoya International Airport. After a minute, Reika Hozumi peeked out.

“Sohya, how did you find this place?”

“Ryuichi. Tae's wearcom isn't responding. Is she here?”

“Yes, but…”

“He only told me after I'd looked everywhere else. I've got to see her.” He brushed past Reika into a corridor that gave onto a spacious living room. Tae was sitting on a sofa in the corner of the room, wearing her usual monotone ensemble. She was leaning back on the cushions with her eyes closed.

Sohya advanced toward her. “What's the deal? Things are falling apart. This is no time to go underground.”

“Sohya, don't. She's exhausted.” Reika tried to pull him aside. “She just got back from Guyana this morning. Before that she was in Riyadh, and Paris before that—”

“I just got back from the moon. I've been gone six months. I can barely walk on this planet anymore.”

“You don't know how hard she's been working!”

“Reika.” Tae waved a hand and leaned forward. She ran her fingers through her tousled black hair and sighed. “I'm fine.”

“But—”

“It's all right. Sohya should know everything.” She kept her eyes on the floor. “Sit down.” Perplexed, Sohya sat beside her. “I was in Paris to ask the ESA for help,” she said, still staring at the floor.

“What kind of help?”

“They told me to talk to their sponsors. So I flew to Riyadh. I talked to Arabsat. ESA launches their satellites.”

“What did you need help with?”

“But Arabsat said they only launch geostationary satellites. They're not part of the problem. So I went to Guyana. To ESA's Phaedra launch center. If the sponsors wouldn't talk to me, I thought maybe the people at the space center would.”

“I still don't follow you.”

“I wanted a partner to help with Phase E.” Tae looked up at him. Her eyes were welling with tears. “Almost all the debris belongs to the world's space agencies. It didn't come from us.”

“Why talk to Arabsat? What about the Americans? Or the Russians? Most of the junk is theirs.”

She shook her head. Sohya suddenly remembered that she'd sued the Russian government after Shinji's death. That had gone nowhere though, and she'd had nowhere else to turn.

“It's no good. I went all over the world. They just slammed the door in my face.”

“But why did you have to go to all that trouble? Sixth Continent is a private venture. We've already done everything we can to deal with the problem. Even if we can't solve it single-handedly, it's great PR.”

“Of course it is. We told the world! But it's no use.” Tae's voice was filled with despair. “We can't beat them!”

Sohya drew back. He'd never heard her wail like this. “Joyful Homeland is attacking us with numbers,” she continued. “Real numbers. They're right. Our PR isn't working. The only way we can fight back is with numbers of our own. But we don't have any.”

Sohya wasn't sure how to respond to this litany. He said to Reika, who was leaning against the back of the sofa, “What's Phase E accomplished so far?”

“We've eliminated 112 pieces of debris with five puffballs. We certainly proved the effectiveness of the approach.”

“But it's nothing compared to the forty thousand objects larger than ten centimeters that are still out there,” Tae whispered, her voice trembling. “Getting rid of them all would take almost two
thousand
puffballs. It's completely hopeless.”

“Is that why you're hiding here?” Sohya tried to keep the edge out of his voice. Reika shook her head.

“We knew we could never eliminate all the debris on our own. The problem is we can't even clean up the debris that Sixth Continent is generating. Phase E isn't going to have much effect if it can't accomplish that.”

“So—can it?”

“We need to launch two more puffballs. If we can launch two more, we can clean up everything over ten centimeters in the orbital band that Sixth Continent is using. TGT is modifying their designs. Future spent boosters will automatically deorbit and burn up. So once the cleanup is done, we won't be generating any more junk.”

“That doesn't sound so bad.”

“Each mission costs three billion yen,” murmured Tae. “We don't have the funds. No one will lend to us. Joyful Homeland has made sure the banks don't see a future in Sixth Continent.”

Suddenly Henderson's statement about collateral made sense to Sohya. But it still didn't explain why Tae had to go into hiding.

“Reika, I'd like to talk to her alone.”

“All right. I'll make a fresh pot of coffee.” Reika gave Tae a look of concern and left the room.

“We haven't had a chance to talk like this for a year,” said Sohya. “Not since Shinji died.” Tae didn't answer. She stared at the floor. “There's something I need to ask you. I want you to tell me the truth.”

“What is it?”

“What do you want?”

She looked at him, puzzled. He peered at her steadily. “You seem to be taking the long way around to happiness. I have no idea what it is you really want. I asked you eight years ago. I'm going to ask you again. Why are you doing this?”

Tae's lips were dry. They moved fitfully, but the words would not come. At length she said, “I…I want friends.”

“Friends.”

“Yes. I'm going to wait on the moon for visitors from another world. Sixth Continent will be there to welcome—”

“That's the first time I've heard that. So that's what the SETI package is for. Okay, I'm sure you're telling the truth. But that's not why you're doing this. You don't know yourself, do you? It's all just a means to an end.”

“An end? What end?”

“You're obsessed with Joyful Homeland. They're no bigger than the other challenges we've faced. But your father is behind them. That's why they bother you so much. It didn't hit me till I heard you talking just now.”

Tae pressed her lips together grimly. She shook her head.

Sohya spoke softly. “I'm right, aren't I?”

“No. You're wrong.”

“Am I? I don't know what happened between you and your father. But everything points to him. People all over the world think you're a genius, but it's never made you smile. There's only one person you care about, but he won't give you what you want.”

“I'm twenty-one years old! What do I need approval for?”

“Age doesn't mean a thing. Let down the barriers for once, Tae. Sixth Continent is all about getting approval from your father—isn't it?”

“My mother is dead. It was his fault!”

This was unexpected. “Are you sure of that?”

Her shoulders were trembling. She closed her eyes. “There was an accident. At the park. People were hurt.”

“What happened?”

“It was one of the rides. A design problem. Twelve people were injured. Of course someone senior, a company representative, had to visit them in the hospital. But the whole management team was overseas, except my mother. So she had to go to the hospital. A truck hit her car on the way there. She died instantly.”

“So it was an accident, right?”

“Maybe. But it was the kind of role my father always shoved off on her. He would never have gone to the hospital himself.” She shook her head. “All he cared about was his own convenience. I hate him. He wouldn't even take time off for a proper wedding ceremony—”

“Tae, listen to me.” Sohya gently grasped her shoulders. “You're building a wedding palace for your mother and father.”

He watched her. Her eyes were wide-open now, brimming with baffled tears. He put a hand on her cheek. It was burning.

“Try to remember. There must have been a time when your parents were happy together. That's what you want to recapture.”

There was no answer. She blinked several times, staring into some far distance. All her life she had been marching determinedly away from her past. Now her mind was retracing those steps.

At last she regained her voice. “No…it can't be. It's not true…”

“Relax. Take some time and think about it. We'll figure out Phase E later. I have an idea.”

Tae groaned, as if she were about to faint. Her eyes were blank. She was shaking. Sohya quietly moved away from her. Some space inside her that she had walled up long ago was breaking open. Only she could gaze into that darkness. He would just have to wait for her to return when she was ready.