The Elder continued with tired patience. “I really must ask what they teach you people in school these days. I’m an Elder of the True Church. It’s my job to know where people come from. And go to. And what their genealogies are.” He delivered this last glaring directly into Asach’s eyes, did not drop the stare when he’d finished, and continued. “Not sure my memory is still up to a word-for-word quote, but I think the ruling was something like:
‘in the absence of challenge by any interested party, we conclude that the craft qualifies as a spacecraft of marginal performance characteristics, and may be accepted as evidence of limited space-faring capability existing on Prince Samual’s World at the time of application for membership.'
That about right?”
The Librarian spared Asach making any reply. “Verbatim, actually. And lest anyone feel tempted to slander me with a charge of treason for confirming that quote,”—this to HG—”I will tell you that I first read those words in the New Utah True Church Temple Archives last month.”
“Why?!”
“No idea. They were queued up on a reader when I arrived.”
“Who!”
“Again, no idea. It was a public reader. I can only presume some local space buff.” And, tit for tat, Barthes was looking directly at the Elder now.
“Why did you not just say—”
“Forgive me, but I think it has been made quite clear that I am not at liberty to say anything. I’d just hoped that, the point having been made, we might move on, because as an observer, it is also clear to me that anyone attempting to charge that the newsreader in question did not already exist here would simply be wasting more of His Majesty’s time.”
“Newsreader?”
“Yes. Bog-standard news release, for general circulation. Clearly, it circulated.”
“ENOUGH!”
Apart from Asach, the humans in the room started as one and snapped their attention to Sargon’s amazingly, perfectly, human voice.
“You will cease endless talk. You will list ways to launch. You will list ways to orbit. You will list ways to carry passenger. You will list ways to communicate. You will defend ar of this world. YOU, and YOU,” pointing to Barthes and HG with two right hands, “will record this Meeting. You,” pointing to Asach with the gripping hand, “will help explain words. You,” pointing to Laurel, “will speak for Him. You,” pointing to Geery, “will speak for human Engineers. You,” pointing to Michael Van Zandt, “will keep order. Begin. Explain.”
They sat for a moment, still stunned. Asach broke the silence. “Michael, I will interpret as needed, but, I think you will find that The Protector has rather a broader grasp of Anglic than you realize.”
“It’s no good,” Geery said. “It won’t make any damned difference. It’s not just the mass of the passengers that’s at issue here. It’s the mass of life support, and landing shields, and stabilizers. Hell, there’ll be eight gees of spin on that thing, never mind the launch. You could put a kid in there, but they wouldn’t survive the trip.”
“But how much mass are we talking about here? What do we really need for re-entry? And eight gees—so what? I mean, during the first flight ever Yuri Gagarin stayed up an hour and three-quarters, hit over eight gees on re-entry, then still managed to eject and land by parachute. Alan Shepard stayed up there over fifteen minutes, withstood six gees on takeoff, and then a whopping 11.6 gees on reentry. And that was over a millennium ago! Surely we can manage that much?”
Geery shook his head emphatically. “Look it up. Check your space history. Their rocket launch programs rested on the backs of huge existing military infrastructure and a few hundred million people. And then, even after nearly half a century of pretty regular orbital flight, two of five space vehicles broke up—one on take-off, one on re-entry. We get one shot at this, and we have—how many weeks?”
The—what to call it?—New Utah Planetary Executive’s rapid-fire internal discussion sounded like a cross between an aviary and an open-pit mine. The conference table vibrated with every basso communication; the window vibrated with the highs. Sargon spoke.
“You will explain again ways to launch and show Miners.”
Michael operated the conference table. The window darkened, so that what was projected on the table top in front of each seat was also projected on-screen for all to see. Asach spoke slowly. In summary. Among them, Sargon, Farmer John, and the Doctor interpreted. The engineers pulled and showed schematics.
“One. Rockets. We have a fireworks industry. We use small chemical rockets to launch weather instruments. The physics are known, but we have nothing capable of delivering a payload as large as an adult human, plus the fuel required, to orbit. We could use Lynx-type pocket rocket technology, but we run the risk of a ruling that it is of “offworld” origin, not our own.
“Two. A Prince Samual’s World-type chain cannon. Ironically, too primitive. Again, the physics are known, but we do not have the right style of heavy industry. We have no way to build either the cannon or the shells in time.”
“Three. Magnetic Linear Accelerator. The New Utah solar-powered mining flinger was unarguably developed from pre-Empire, local technology. It can handle the payload. Under ideal conditions, we might be able to push that payload to orbital velocity without blowing the top off the rails. But, in the time allowed, we can’t do it without killing the passenger.”
“Four. Space Planes. Back to the Lynx problem. This time, not with the motor, but with the airframe itself. We don’t have one. The SunFish is a long-wing solar glider. We could push it up to high-altitude atmospheric limits, but there’s no way to put it into orbit. It might work as a launch platform for something else, but what? We are back to the small-rocket problem. We don’t have anything big enough to carry a passenger plus life support into orbit.”
“Five. Laser launcher. We got excited about this for a minute, because no one can dispute our leadership in solar and light technologies. We arrived here with ‘em, and never lost ‘em. Even when spare parts became a problem. In theory, we could pool all of our laser capacity—rip everything we’ve got out of all that Friedlander armor; remount and refocus all of our mining cannons, you name it—pool all of our solar capacity to power it, and then drop a spinning, shiny thing like a child’s top, with a gas expansion chamber below it, into the photon stream to launch it. Two problems. Three. First, it’s not like shining a bunch of flashlights. We can’t get all of that aligned into one coherent beam. Second, payload. It takes a lot of light to do that. Third. Power. We’d definitely suck the grid dry and induce a planetary blackout. Not a great way to greet the Imperials: Hi! We have spaceflight, but no lights or refrigeration! Did I say three? Four. Fourth is spin. That’s what we were just talking about. Let’s assume that we could overcome the rest, and make a capsule big enough to hold a person. We’d have to put tremendous spin on it to stabilize its launch trajectory. Too much. We’d probably kill the passenger. Centrifuge the blood right out of their head.”
The room was quiet, hushed in the dark as the screen dimmed. They had, at best, weeks before the tramline opened and the Imperial Navy arrived. Never mind the engineering constraints; all humans there—clergy included—could see that none of the options were socially doable in time. They required too much coordination; too much cooperation; too much explanation.
A Miner boomed, quietly. Farmer John answered. They both swiveled toward Lagash. Lagash consulted his accountants, and then chirped in reply, apparently to the Miner. Hesitantly, the Miner stepped forward to the table. It boomed again, to Sargon. Sargon actually leaned toward Asach, but spoke directly.