Worlds in Chaos (14 page)

“What’s on?” Keene asked. “Business dinner? Press Club? Some kind of civic function?”

“My stepdaughter Anna is playing the cello. It’s her first appearance in public, and it would be more than my life’s worth not to be there.” Curtiss looked pleased that Keene had asked. He seemed quite proud. Keene liked it when tycoons showed a human touch. It meant there was hope for the race yet.

He called Vicki immediately afterward and caught her at the house just as she was about to leave for the office. “Something came up at the Kronian party last night that could be important,” he told her. “Can you pull Judith off that Japanese project and ask her to take a look at it—maybe give her a hand. I want you to access the Kronian research files and find some data they’ve been collecting on changes in the electromagnetic properties of the space environment during the past ten months. You can get it from the databank in the
Osiris
—no need for all the delays in dealing with Saturn. I’ll send details and access codes to you at the office.”

“Changes?” Vicki repeated, looking surprised.

“Yes. It seems that all that stuff that Athena’s spewing out has been altering the inner-system free-space permeability and permittivity—for a while, anyway, until the solar wind blows it away. But in the meantime we’re in a more electrically active neighborhood. I want to compute the forces that would act on a hot, massively charged body and how they would affect its orbital characteristics.”

“You want
us
to do this . . . ?”

“No, no—not all on your own, there, anyway. I’ve just talked to Marvin. He’s going to have Jerry Allender set it up in his department over there. But they’re all in a panic this morning over something else that’s going on. I just want us to do the go-betweening with the Kronians for them. You might need to involve a specialist too. I can think of a couple of names you could try. I’ll send them with the other stuff.”

Vicki stared at him for a few seconds, thinking rapidly. “Are we talking about Venus?” she asked at last.

“Could be,” Keene answered noncommittally.

“Are you saying that our scientists here don’t know about this already?”

Keene shrugged. “All too busy writing begging letters to Congress or getting themselves into the Washington black-tie cocktail-party circuit.”

The significance was slowly sinking in. Vicki shook her head, looking disbelieving. “Lan . . . do you realize that what you’re talking about could upset half of astronomy all the way back to Newton? I mean, you just call on the phone when I’m leaving for work and mention it as casually as if it were a bookshelf you want ordered. . . .”

“Yes, I know, but I haven’t got time to go into raptures over the philosophy of it right now. There’s probably a cab waiting for me downstairs already.”

Just then, a blurred voice called something in the background behind Vicki. She looked away. “I said on the table in the kitchen,” she directed to somewhere off-screen.

“Robin getting ready for school?” Keene said.

Vicki turned back again. “You guessed. How do you do it, Lan?”

“And how is he? Anything new with the dinosaurs?”

“It’s led into mammoths. But don’t ask me right now; I’ll mail you a note if you’re interested.”

“Sure, I’m interested.”

“You want to say hi to him?”

“Sure.”

“Robin, it’s Landen on the line. Like to say hello for a second?”

A few seconds went by, and then Robin moved into the view alongside the image of Vicki. “Hi, Lan. How’s Washington? Did you get to meet the Kronians?”

“Sure did. I’ll tell you all about them next time I stop by.”

“Is that it?” Vicki asked Robin, gesturing at a blue folder that he was holding.

“Yes. I was sure it was upstairs.”

“What’s in it?” Keene inquired.

“Oh, a project we’re doing at school, in the science class. We have to write an essay on the Joktanians and the kinds of things that have been turning up in the places they’re digging at.”

“That’s the old civilization from around Arabia and Ethiopia that was only discovered in the last few years,” Vicki supplied for Keene’s benefit. “So give the school system some credit—they’re keeping up to date.”

“Ah yes,” Keene was able to reply airily. “Named after Noah’s grandson. Legend says the earliest peoples of southern Arabia were descended from him. The Arab word is Qahtan.”

Vicki stared hard and blinked. “I didn’t think you’d know that.”

Keene managed to keep a straight face and replied nonchalantly, while inside enjoying every moment of it. “Why not? I thought everyone did.”

She shook her head. “Lan, you never cease to amaze me.”

“Just call it talented. Got to go. Check your mail when you get in. I’ll probably stay in town tomorrow too. See you Thursday.”

The final thing Keene did before leaving the hotel to begin his schedule for that day was call David Salio. Salio was surprised to hear back from him so soon, but pleased. Yes, it turned out that he was flexible that week and could be available. Keene arranged to see him on Thursday and changed his flight arrangements to stop off in Houston on his way back to Corpus Christi. Things seemed to be moving along.

12

The Aerospace Sciences Institute was both a research and educational establishment, set up jointly by a consortium of contractors and allied interests. It was funded privately and made no appeals to the public purse, the goal being to ensure an adequate supply of competent specialists in the fields essential to the industry, without complications arising from any yielding of standards to political agendas. NASA layoffs and the ensuing contraction of the Johnson Center had provided much of the initial recruitment and been one of the reasons for choosing Houston as the location.

Keene was no stranger there, although he had not dealt previously with the Planetary Studies section, which was where David Salio worked. The principal interests of the founder corporations were commercial and defense-related, leading them to focus essentially on launch and Earth-orbit activities, with some involvement in lunar pilot schemes and the scientific endeavor on Mars, the latter of which was a small-scale operation in any case. But putting some effort into theoretical studies of longer-term possibilities bolstered the image of exploration and adventure that excited the public, gratified stockholders, and worked wonders for recruiting ads. And besides, despite their stereotype to the contrary, many of the executives responsible for policy were genuinely curious.

The Institute was run in a spirit that conformed to the open-door tradition of regular universities, more sensitive and secretive work being conducted elsewhere. Accordingly, a little over ten minutes ahead of the appointed time, Keene sauntered in from where the airport cab had dropped him in front of the Glenn Building, verified from the lobby directory that Salio’s office was on the fifth floor, and went on up without need of signature, badge, or security check. The elevator delivered him to a carpeted area with plants, padded leather seating arranged around a glass-topped table, and a wall of picture windows looking out over one of the Houston freeway interchanges. A sign directed him past a vending area into a corridor of similar-looking numbered doors and occasional bulletin boards, where eventually he arrived at 521, with a nameplate alongside indicating it to be the office of David R. Salio. Keene tapped, waited for a moment, and then eased the door open. A voice from inside called out, “Dr. Keene? Yes, do come on in. I won’t be a second.”

The office was the familiar combination of overflowing desk, computer work station, raggedly packed bookshelves, and wall board that seemed to characterize the natural habitat of
Homo sapiens technicus
the world over. Salio was at the computer, clicking through a series of data-contour images on the screen, pausing to flag a point here and there or add a comment to the caption. “Must get this off to somebody at JPL right away. It won’t take a minute. Could you use a coffee or soda or something?”

“I’m fine, thanks. I had plane-food on the way.”

Keene judged Salio to be in his mid-twenties to maybe thirty. He had straight black hair, a shadowy chin, and heavy-rimmed glasses, giving him a studentish look that seemed mildly incongruous in combination with the plaid shirt, blue jeans, and pointy cowboy boots. There was an intense, birdlike nervousness about the way he peered at the screen, pecking at icons and hammering quick staccatos on the keys. The desk to one side bore a framed family print showing an attractive woman and two young, happy-looking children. On the wall behind was a poster showing climbing routes up the face of El Capitan in Yosemite, and beside it a cork board with departmental notes, postcards from various places, and a cartoon collection.

Finally, a mail screen appeared and Salio sent the package off to its destination with a flourish. Then he stood and extended a hand. “Sorry about that. One of those things that couldn’t wait. Let’s see . . . we need to make some room for you.” He lifted a pile of books and papers from a chair by the wall and cleared some space for them on top of a file cabinet. Keene sat down, and Salio moved around to pull up his own chair on the far side of the desk. He looked across and pushed his hair up from his eyes. “Well, I admit I was flattered when you got back to me so quickly. I never expected to see you here in person. We don’t exactly get a lot of celebrities stopping by in this office.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t attach too much significance to that,” Keene said. “You know how it is. They’ll all have found someone else by the end of the week.”

“What’s your title with Amspace, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I’m not exactly with Amspace. I run a technical consultancy on nuclear dynamics that’s been working with them for a number of years: Protonix—also based in Corpus Christi.”

“Ah . . .”

“That’s what I really do. The stunt and commercial last Friday were coincidental.”

“It’s stirring up a lot of hostility out there,” Salio said. “But you knew that had to happen.”

“If you hope to do anything, you have to be visible,” Keene answered. “As I said when we talked, Amspace, myself, and various other interests that we’re associated with are trying to help promote the Kronian case because we believe it’s too important an issue to let politics and scientific dogmatism get in the way of the truth—which is what’s happening. You said you’d like to help. We’re interested enough that I’m here.”

“This is all very gratifying, Dr. Keene. It’s something I’ve been battling over for years.”

“ ‘Landen’ is fine. So can we talk about the kind of work that you and the other scientists that you said you’re in touch with have been doing? Particularly about Venus being a young planet. You said a lot of evidence points to it.”

“I can’t say whether or not it had anything to do with Moses,” Salio cautioned. “Things like that aren’t written in thermal signatures or atmospheric compositions. But what I can show you is that practically everything we know about Venus is consistent with the notion of a young, recently very hot body.” Salio tilted his chair back and clasped his hands behind his head. “The first thing every schoolkid knows is that what the first American and Russian probes found back in the nineteen sixties came as a big surprise—at least it did to the orthodox theory. The expectation had been that since Venus was about Earth’s size and had clouds, it would be pretty similar—maybe a little warmer through being nearer to the Sun. What they found was virtually a volcanic cauldron: surface temperature seven-hundred-fifty degrees K and more—enough to melt lead—and an atmosphere of acids and hydrocarbon gases at ninety times the pressure of Earth’s. Not the kind of place to put on your list of vacation spots.”

“Supposedly a runaway greenhouse effect,” Keene supplied. It was what all the texts said, and not something he had ever had much reason to doubt or look into.

Salio pulled a face. “Yes, ‘supposedly’—a good choice of word, Mr. . . . Landen. That theory was contrived as an attempt to square the facts with the established assumption of an ancient planet. But it really doesn’t stand up. The main weakness is quite simple: a real greenhouse has a roof that stops the hot air inside from convecting upward and being replaced by cooler air circulating down from above. A planet doesn’t have such a lid, and so there’s nothing to stop the hot surface gases from mixing with the freezing upper layers. A greenhouse process might raise the temperature some, but maintaining a difference of over seven hundred degrees just isn’t credible. You’d reach thermal equilibrium through convection and radiation back into space long before it got anywhere near that. The only way such a difference could be maintained is if the heat source is the planet itself, not the Sun.”