Troy Rising 1 - Live Free or Die (22 page)

“What about a big Mylar mirror?” Nathan said.

“It's not that easy,” Dr. Bell said. “Trust me on this. While you were going to
conferences where you minor planets guys were getting all excited about big pieces of
Mylar, I was at NASA conferences with guys who were trying to get small pieces of Mylar to
properly deploy. It's not as easy as it seems.”

“And I've got reasons for wanting a bunch of small mirrors and one freaking huge one,”
Tyler said. “I am hereby designating 6178, which, yeah, seems to be the best choice, as
Connie. We'll stay on Icarus for now. But as soon as we're done with Icarus we'll get
started on Connie.”

“Why Connie?” Dr. Taylor said. “Old girlfriend?”

“Because everything we're about to do with it is going to cause conniptions.”

***

“I know I don't have a freaking pilot's license, Bob,” Tyler said. “I'm not driving an
airplane. I'm driving an anti-gravity driven tug which I can do just fine. And as to
'airspace deconfliction', I now know why the Glantu and Horvath can hack our systems more
or less at will. The only problem with avoiding aircraft is the FAA's system is so
antiquated you can barely read it... Well, I've got to pick up a half a dozen mirrors in
Huntsville and then get them into space. What do they want me to do, truck it down? The
tug is the size of a freaking warehouse. And if the FAA wants to talk about deconfliction
can we please start with orbitals? The fricking space around earth is so full of junk you
won't believe it... No, I can't truck them up to Manchester, they're too fricking big. The
Glantu have been picking these up with no issues. What's the difference with an earth
pilot? Oh? Really? Then maybe they'd like me to take a course that
doesn't exist
? Maybe I should
teach
it! I'm the
only
guy on earth qualified to fly one of these things.”

“Marginally,” Dr. Foster said, grinning.

Tyler stared at Dr. Foster and continued on the phone. “Bob, I pay you one hell of a lot
of money to fix things,” Tyler said. “By the time I'm in Manchester, I expect clearance
from the FAA to fly from Manchester to Huntsville, I don't care what altitudes they assign
me, I'm perfectly comfortable with low-orbital, pick up some mirrors and some sort of
blanket clearance in the works so I don't have to go through this red-tape
bull crap
every time I need to pick something up on earth. Oh, and speaking of things I need to
pick up. By the time we're lifting off, I need a ship's cook. He doesn't have to have a
PhD, he just has to be able to cook and be willing to do so in space. Bring his own pots
and pans, there's a stove. And I need a ride from the airport to the spaceport... Because
I pay you a lot of money, Bob. Any time you don't want me to keep paying you a lot of
money, say so... Nice talking to you, too. Buh-bye.”

Tyler slammed the phone down and shook his head.

“What do I pay these people for?”

“Apparently so that you can shout at them,” Dr. Bell said.

“Robert Lyle is one of those attorneys under the impression I work for him,” Tyler said.
“If the Horvath couldn't push me around, he's not gonna.”

“And if you don't have clearance?” Dr. Foster asked.

“Then I'll fly down to Huntsville, pick up the mirrors, and get a new lawyer,” Tyler said.
“It's not like even the F-22 can shoot me down. We'll be gone at least two months setting
this up. By that time the furor will have died down and my new lawyers will have paid off
the right people to keep me out of jail.”

“That hasn't worked out for all CEOs,” Nathan pointed out.

“All CEOs don't own megawatt orbital lasers,” Tyler said, grinning. “Warren Zevon got the
order wrong. Bring lawyers, money,
then
guns.”

***

“What's up?” Dr. Foster said. Tyler was craning his neck out the window as the Gulfstream
rolled to a stop.

“Welcoming party,” Tyler said.

“Your people?”

“Nearly as bad. Bureaucrats.”

“Mr. Tyler?”

There were four people waiting for Tyler as he debarked. Two were obvious bureaucrat
types. JC Penney suits and acrylic ties. One was TSA. That was in case he got nasty. The
fourth was a big guy with a sort of goofy expression wearing a NASA golf-shirt.

“Tyler Vernon,” Tyler said. “And you are... ?”

“Howard Hagemann. I'm with the FAA. This is Mr. Stanley Burnell with the National
Aeronautic and Space Administration.”

“Hello,” said Bureaucrat Two.

“And this is Mr. Stephen Asaro,” Mr. Howard continued, gesturing to the guy in the NASA
shirt. “Also with NASA.”

“Hey!” the guy said, shaking Tyler's hand. “Great to meet you, Mr. Vernon!”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Asaro,” Tyler said, recovering his hand from the death lock. The
guy had a grip like a steel vise.

“In consultation with your legal representation and noting the importance to earth of your
missions,” Mr. Howard said, “and in consultation with policy makers in the FAA and NASA we
have agreed to come to a compromise on the subject of your over flight of American
territory by an experimental craft.”

“It's...” Tyler almost said 'older than the United States Constitution, how can it be
experimental?' and then had a sudden case of intelligence... “hardly experimental.”

“We do not have flight characteristics data on it,” Bureaucrat Two said, pointedly.

“Well,” Tyler said, scratching his head. “That's because it doesn't really fly, per se.
Flying is aerodynamics based. It's aerodynamic ability is pretty much that of a brick. If
the grav drive goes out, which is pretty unlikely given the redundancy, it's going to have
exactly
the flight characteristics of a brick. A really, really
big
brick. A big
steel
brick. With screaming people in it.”

“You're not making your case here very well,” Asaro pointed out.

“I'm not trying to make a case,” Tyler said. “
Paw Four
has been moving rocks and going in and out of gravity wells since before any of us were
born and I had it fully serviced before I left Glalkod Station. So it's going to be able
to get to Huntsville without incident. What we're talking about here is that I'm not
playing your games. Fine, I don't play your games. I've got well-paid attorneys and
lobbyists and MBAs to play your games. If you wanted to be petted, you came to the wrong
guy. And the people I'm talking to are just messenger boys so I don't even have to worry
about burning bridges. But you can pass on to your policy people that they might as well
get something regular going. Because I, and additional pilots as they become available,
are about to start moving in and out of orbit on a regular basis. And if what you come up
with is stupidly onerous we're going to
ignore
it. I'd
much
rather have a
good
aerospace control system than try to pick my way through the crap that's in orbit on my
own. But I don't figure
either
agency has a chance in hell of managing that. God knows NASA can't maneuver its way out
of a wet paper bag without a five year study to study what they're going to have to do a
ten year study on. Which is why when Glalkod ships head in to Terran orbit they contact
Space Command not Houston. So, what's your compromise?”

“Mr. Asaro is a qualified Space Shuttle pilot,” Mr. Howard said after a moment of looking
as if he was sucking on a lemon.

“What the hell are you doing in Manchester?” Tyler asked.

“Boston,” Asaro said. “I was doing a lecture at MIT on near earth navigational obstacles.
You're right about the orbitals. They're chock full of junk.”

“As I was saying,” Mr. Howard said. “Mr. Asaro is a qualified pilot. If you will agree to
let him accompany you on this... mission and ensure the safety of your movement, NASA and
the FAA will raise no further objections.”

“Sweet,” Tyler said. “We get a real astronaut along. That'll be helpful. Did you bring
your spacesuit?”

“No,” Asaro said. “When are we leaving?”

“Takes about twenty minutes to ride to the Manchester Spaceport,” Tyler said. “So... about
thirty minutes.”

“You're going to need to file a flight plan!” the FAA representative snarled. “At the very
least you need to file a flight plan!”

“It's already filed,” Tyler said. “You do allow electronic filing, thank God. I filed it
while we were talking. I'm still waiting for them to figure out how to vector me. They
want to put me in normal lanes which is... silly. I can get up to orbit, crank her up, and
be in Huntsville about thirty minutes after take-off. Taking the lower routes not only
means you've got my brick flying around 767s, it means going at 767
speeds
. No thanks. It's like putting a Ferrari in the truck lane. I don't drive fifty-five.”

“Take the Speedbird route up at seventy grand?” Asaro said.

“Makes more sense. I can beeline Huntsville that way then pick my way down through the
crunchies. If I 'conflict' a bird it's going to do a crunchy on the
Paw
which might not even notice. I really don't want to do a crunchy. People will, and I'm
not being melodramatic when I say this, die.”

“Which is why we don't want an absolutely unqualified pilot,” the FAA representative said.
“That is the whole point.”

“But you're sort of missing my point,” Tyler said. “And, again, a pointless audience but
I'll make the point anyway. The
Paw
is a
space
craft, not an
air
craft. Its maneuvering methods are entirely different. It can, and does, turn on a dime
and accelerate in a way that makes it look like... well, a UFO. The
Paw
has up to a
thousand
gravities of acceleration. Admittedly, its inertials won't take that so you can't
actually
maneuver
at a thousand grav. Not if you don't want to be paste. But it can maneuver so fast it
looks and acts unreal. I can and will maintain normal maneuver when I'm in areas that have
traffic. But treating it like an aircraft makes exactly no sense. And saying that I'm not
qualified to fly it makes no sense. Because I'm the only person qualified to fly it that
was born on the planet earth. You can't find anyone else qualified to fly it. Among other
things, it works off of implants and, for anyone with the proper codes and implants, flies
itself
.”

“Uhm,” Asaro said, raising a hand. “I get all that. But my spacesuit is in Houston.”

“I'm not going to try to get them to let me go to Houston,” Tyler said with a sigh. “You
got any clothes with you?”

“In the car.”

“Since we're not planning on going EVA, don't worry about it,” Tyler said, “We're going to
be picking up the mirrors then dropping them off and moving some other mirrors around.
Then we're going to heat up an asteroid and start mining it. Along the way we'll probably
be sending tugs back to earth to pick up more mirrors...”

“And who will be piloting
them
?” Mr. Howard asked.

“I will,” Tyler said. “From wherever the
Monkey Business
is. So I'd guess you'd say they'll be UAVs. By the way, the way that I pilot the
Paw
? I have to work through the comp on the
Monkey Business
. The
Paw
is just that. It's an extension of the ship that is currently in geosynchronous orbit
over Brazil. Which I control, from here, through neurological implants. What fun. For that
matter, one of the Glatun on the
Monkey Business
can fly the
Paw
. But they're not. The pilot is going to be
me
to make a
point
. Which is that a human can learn, in a month, enough to be able to work safely in space.”

“Cool!” Asaro said. “Can I get some of those?”

“They cost, at current exchange rates...” Tyler closed his eyes for a second. “Two hundred
and fifty billion dollars. Got the stones?”

“Ouch!” Dr. Foster said.

“You can understand why I just try to think in terms of Glatun credits,” Tyler said. “The
whole conversion thing is just silly. Okay, Asaro can come along. It's all good. I'll even
have give him a mike and a screen so he can see I'm not going to plow an airplane.”

“Very well,” Mr. Howard said. “You will fly directly from here to Huntsville and...” He
paused and shook himself. “Where are you going to
land
?”

“Where the freighters usually land,” Tyler said with a sigh. “At the AMTAC facility.”

“Very well,” Mr. Howard said, shaking his head. “I think I'm getting too old for this.”

“You're only as old as you feel,” Tyler said. “Mr. Asaro, if you're coming along you'd
better grab your flight bag.”

***

When they were in the limo and, temporarily, out of the clutches of bureaucrats, Tyler
heaved a relieved sigh.

“So, Mr. Asaro,” Tyler said. “I'm Tyler. Not Mr. Vernon. The big one is Dr. Nathan Bell...”

“Howdy,” Nathan said, shaking hands.

“...Also known as Nathan, our small planetary objects guy who is a small planetary object
of his own. Buddha is Dr. Bryan Foster...”

“Mr. Asaro,” Dr. Foster said, shaking hands.

“And you are... ?”

“Steve,” Asaro said. “Or... hell. Astro.”

“As in the Jetson's dog?” Nathan said.

“I was an astronomy geek,” Astro said, shrugging. “And my last name is Asaro. Go figure.”

“And a pilot,” Tyler said, nodding. “Which is good. Can you keep a secret, Astro?”

“Depends,” Asaro said, shrugging. “I'm on NASA's payroll. They're going to want a full
mission eval when I return.”

“Well, this part you can keep off the mission eval,” Tyler said. “If you had plants, I'd
have you take the whole mission. Because while I can
do
it, I'm not so arrogant or stupid as to think I'm properly trained or qualified. Oh,
don't get me wrong. I can get us to Huntsville and pick up the stuff and get it into
orbit. Among other things, our Glatun comrades were told to watch me carefully. But as
soon as I can get a properly trained, and prepped, pilot I'm handing this off. Also, the
Monkey Business
can respond to verbal commands. As soon as you're familiar with the interface, you're the
third shift pilot and backup in case something very stupid happens to me
and
the Glatun pilot.”