Just like Malcolm, Holly said to herself. He does everything in whispers.
“Selene manufactures its own water from oxygen in the lunar regolith,” Stavenger explained, “and hydrogen blowing in on the solar wind. We also extract water from the frozen caches at the poles.”
And they sell water to the other settlements on the Moon, Holly thought.
“However, if habitat Goddard could supply us water at a price lower than our existing costs, we’d be foolish not to consider the offer very seriously.”
That meant they would take it, depending on the price, Holly figured.
“On the other hand,” Stavenger said, “there’s a good deal of excitement in the scientific community Earthside about one of your people finding living creatures in the rings. The university consortium is already holding discussion with the IAA about banning all commercial activities in Saturn’s rings. If that happens, it would make mining the rings politically and legally impossible.”
Unless Malcolm’s willing to risk going to war with the IAA, Holly replied silently.
“The thing is,” Stavenger went on, “water is the key to expansion here on the Moon. And elsewhere in the solar system as well, I should think.”
Holly almost asked him what he meant, but she knew he wouldn’t hear her question for more than an hour. Instead, she continued to listen as Stavenger spelled out, “You see, we can get along all right on the water available to us now. We recycle pretty thoroughly. There are some losses, of course: no system is one hundred percent perfect. But if we had a reliable, continuous supply of additional water we could expand and build new settlements here on the Moon. Lord knows there are plenty of people anxious to get away from Earth and live here. But we’ve always had to limit our growth to our water supply. Increase the water supply and Selene can grow; we could even spin off daughter cities. We could raise the Moon’s population from a few thousand to millions.”
Holly sank back on her pillows. This is cosmic, she said to herself. We hold the key to the growth of human settlements all across the system!
“But the IAA is most likely going to ban commercial activities in the rings, at least until the scientists can thoroughly study the ring creatures, and that might take years.” Almost as an afterthought Stavenger added, “Maybe you should think of other sources of water. After all, you’re a lot closer to the TNOs than anyone else in the solar system.”
“TNOs?” Holly blurted aloud.
“I hope that answers your questions, Ms. Lane. Please feel free to call me personally if you’d like to discuss this further.”
The phone screen went blank, leaving Holly thinking: Trans-Neptunian Objects, that’s what he means. The Kuiper Belt. There’s zillions of icebergs out there; that’s where comets come from.
She shook her head, though. Too far away. We might be closer to ’em than anybody else, but they’re still more’n twenty Astronomical Units away from us. Just too far to be practical.
I think.
27 May 2096: Mission planning session
Urbain was surprised at how crowded the conference room was. His own team of a dozen mission control engineers sat along one side of the long table, talking among themselves, while this von Helmholtz person and his half-dozen technicians lined up along the other side. Then there was Gaeta himself, of course, and Dr. Cardenas. Gaeta looked quite relaxed; she was obviously tense, her normally sunshiny cheerful face drawn and tight-lipped. Below them Pancho Lane and Jake Wanamaker sat together, and down at the foot of the table sat Berkowitz, chatting amiably with Wanamaker. Why the news director had to be in on this meeting, Urbain could not fathom.
I suppose I should be grateful that Eberly didn’t insist on joining in as well, he said to himself.
From his chair at the head of the table Urbain called the meeting to order. The separate little conversations stopped. All heads turned to him.
“We are here this morning to make a final review of the mission plan,” Urbain said.
Halfway down the table, Pancho muttered, “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”
Suppressing a frown, Urbain said, “Herr von Helmholtz, if you please.”
Fritz touched a pad on the keyboard in front of him, and the wall on the opposite side of the room lit up. It showed an image of Titan’s surface with the location of Alpha indicated by a red dot.
“The plan calls for flying a transfer vehicle from the habitat to orbit around Titan. From there, our man will leave the transfer craft in an aeroshell protective heat shield and enter Titan’s atmosphere. At an altitude of three thousand meters above the ground, he will collapse the aeroshell and parasail the remainder of the way down, to land within one hundred meters of the Alpha machine.”
A dotted red circle sprang up around the red spot on the display.
Urbain interrupted, “The plan calls for him to land atop Alpha. He is not to set foot on the surface. He is not to contaminate the organisms living there.”
Von Helmholtz dipped his chin once, barely. “He will attempt to land atop the vehicle, but there is no guarantee that the parasail descent will be that accurate.”
“I’ll land on its roof,” Gaeta said. “Don’t worry.”
“Even if he lands on the ground,” said one of Urbain’s engineers, “Alpha itself has driven over the area. Its tracks have crunched through the ice.”
“But Alpha was thoroughly decontaminated before landing,” Urbain protested. “Sterilized by gamma radiation.”
Cardenas hunched forward in her chair. “Manny’s suit will be decontaminated by nanomachines. His boots as well. He’ll be just as clean as your lander. Cleaner.”
“Still—”
“I’ll land on your machine’s roof,” Gaeta repeated. “I’ve done a lot of parasailing. In that thick atmosphere with its low wind velocities, I’ll hit its roof. Don’t worry about it.”
Urbain wanted to reply but thought better of it. This is a compromise I must accept, he told himself. If this braggart of a stuntman can touch down on Alpha’s roof, fine. If not, I must depend on Cardenas’s nanomachines to prevent contamination of the surface. In the back of his mind, though, he worried about the nanomachines themselves. What if they were not deactivated after sterilizing Gaeta’s suit? What if they began to multiply there on the ground? Devouring everything in sight?
Von Helmholtz cleared his throat, forcing Urbain’s attention to return to him. He continued, “Once atop the landing vehicle, our man’s first tasks will be to examine the lander’s uplink antenna and then establish a communications link with your machine’s central computer.”
“And use the nanos he’ll be carrying to build a new uplink antenna,” said the communications engineer.
“If necessary,” said Habib. “He might discover a programming glitch that can be corrected on-site.”
Before the comm engineer could reply, Urbain said, “Yes, we all understand. Achieve a linkage with the master program, then use the nanomachines Dr. Cardenas has designed to build a new uplink antenna, if necessary.”
“Once an uplink connection has been made,” Fritz resumed, looking directly at Urbain, “our man will activate his escape thrusters and leave the surface. He will be picked up by the transfer vehicle waiting in orbit and returned here to the habitat.”
The wall screen now showed a yellow-gray ball representing Titan. A curving green line rose from its surface to intersect with a bright blue circle that represented the transfer craft’s orbit.
“Very well,” Urbain said, his eyes on the display. “Are there any questions?”
No one spoke.
“You all understand your duties and are prepared to carry them out?”