The Hesperian Dilemma Read online

  Kai picked himself up from the edge of the pond and hurried over to the hall where Wu sat on his wooden throne, serenely resplendent in a carmine toga. He wore a helmet surmounted by a golden coxcomb, a sign he was an enlightened one. Wu signalled with his finger, and Kai chanted, ‘Which fish cannot swim to the end of the ocean?’

  ‘Well?’ said Wu.

  ‘Thiosh,’ said Kai, and Wu roared with laughter, rocking on his throne, his helmet askew.

  ‘That’s very good,’ said Wu, ‘I’ll tell the authorities. Pack your things. You’ll be going to the Dongfeng Aerospace City in Gansu Province. There’s much for you to learn there.’

  ‘It is a long way to Gansu,’ said Kai, feeling obliged to say something.

  ‘Yes, but Jupiter is so much further,’ said Wu. ‘So much further.’ He cackled and chortled until tears ran down his face and onto his robes. His echoing guffaws transfixed the monks in the midst of their activities, as if they’d been caught in a photograph.

  Nearly three years had passed. Kai had completed basic celestonaut training and was now seeking a qualification as a pilot captain. He’d done well in the written examinations but he still had to demonstrate leadership skills. Previously he’d had his evaluation interviews with his commander. But this time Kai’s line manager, Tang Linto, had asked Kai to see him. Tang was Director of Operations, in charge of all launch missions. However, Dongfeng Aerospace City was a notorious hotbed of political intrigue. Kai suspected Tang spent most of his energy expanding his power base, rather than dealing with technicalities.

  Even though Kai was five minutes early, he knocked on the Director’s door. Tang called him to come in and Kai entered.

  Tang was leaning back on his leather-bound chair, his hands clasped over his considerable girth. He smiled broadly. ‘Thank you for coming early, but there’s no rush. I’ve told my secretary to make sure nobody disturbs us.’

  ‘Sir, I am honoured you have chosen to do my training evaluation yourself,’ said Kai. ‘But have you time to counsel me, a mere trainee?’

  ‘To tell the truth, I’m curious about you, Kai. It’s unusual to have such a variation in grades.’ Tang tapped the screen of his com-pad and displayed Kai’s assessment matrix on a wall-mounted screen. Kai studied the evaluation data, dozens of performance parameters, each with as many possible attainment levels.

  ‘Your practical skill as a pilot is outstanding,’ Tang continued. ‘In all our tests you have shown exceptional self-control and steadiness under pressure. But, and this is what worries me, you’re way below average against other parameters. Association, for example. You appear to have made no effort to cultivate anyone with influence in Aerospace City. Why’s that? Do you not know you need good contacts to succeed?’

  ‘I have learnt to be the pioneer of my own path, sir. Do the scriptures not teach that?’

  ‘Hm, I’m not sure that’s relevant. You’ve scored low on Procedural Compliance too. I understand you made an unauthorised change to one of the simulator programs. According to the training supervisor, you created a new fault scenario without permission. Is that true?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I combined a solid-fuel booster failure with a main thruster flame-out.’

  ‘Then you left it as a random launch occurrence without telling anyone.’

  ‘I believe we should consider all possibilities, sir. Is it not written that ignorance is the impurity that exceeds all impurities?’

  ‘No, that’s totally irrelevant, Kai. Trainees must keep to the approved programme. Such a combination of faults is virtually impossible. You’ve wasted everyone’s time and failed to reach your scheduled targets. Team Synergy, for example. You’ve not filed any reports for at least six months. Team building is essential to ensure your crew all think the same way.’

  ‘Should not everyone work out their own salvation with diligence, sir?’

  ‘Listen Kai, you’re not toeing the line, d’you hear me?’ The Director’s voice was beginning to crack. He paused to gulp down some water, and then lowered his tone. ‘Let your crew play some team-bonding games,’ he continued. ‘They’ll enjoy that. And don’t be so damned aloof. Go down to the Tigercat Saloon and relax a little. And stop inventing new fault scenarios for the simulator. It’s hard enough dealing with the ones we know about already. Next time I see you, I’ll expect you to have shown an improvement!’

  Kai found a free meeting room and summoned the two members of his crew.

  ‘Gentlemen, we have been set a task by no less a person than our Director himself. Chen, please empty the contents of the box on the table.’

  ‘Aiya!’ said Chen. ‘Jenga blocks. Are we playing game?’

  ‘We are going to design and build a tower, and then we will measure its height.’

  ‘Ta ma de!’ Huang swore. ‘You have not fallen for this Team Synergy crap, have you, Kai? I thought as a potential pilot captain you had more sense.’

  ‘Think of it as a test of obedience,’ said Kai, trying hard not to smile.

  ‘I know what this is,’ said Chen. ‘Tang Linto, he choose best crew for next transport to Mars. Our team and Zhejiang in competition. We build biggest tower and we get countdown.’

  They ran through the build options: horizontal stacks, square-based legs and platforms, bricks either flat or on edge. ‘2D arched pyramid is best,’ said Chen. ‘It have secure base and use less bricks.’

  ‘This is just great,’ said Huang. ‘After three years of celestonaut training we are going to build walls with children’s blocks.’

  ‘By the way,’ said Kai. ‘Our final score will be tower height divided by the time taken for design and construction. And we have already had ten minutes.’

  Huang swore again and began rapidly placing Jenga blocks on end. Tang Linto slipped quietly into the room, holding a tape measure.

  Later that day, Kai, Chen and Huang were having dinner together in the celestonaut accommodation, dipping slices of tripe in boiling chili sauce made according to Kai’s own recipe. It was usually Chen’s favourite, but this time he seemed to have no appetite. Once they’d cleared the table, Huang announced he was going to take Chen down to the Tigercat Saloon. ‘It might cheer him up. Why not come as well, Kai?’ he asked, smiling broadly.

  ‘I will look in later,’ said Kai, enjoying Huang’s look of surprise. ‘I am supposed to do some “association”. It could be a good place to start.’

  Huang and Chen were watching a girl with Hesperian features swinging from a rope. She’d been wearing a tiger-skin bikini, but now the noisy crowd below were tossing both parts in the air. Huang bent down to shout a crude remark in his companion’s ear, but Chen seemed to be thinking of something else. He downed his sixth glass of baijiu and staggered across to the table where the Zhejiang crew were playing cards. Tai Qiu Wu was dealing, but Chen knocked the cards out of his hands. ‘Hey, baboon bollocks – I saw photo of your tower – you had more bricks. I hope your son born with no anus.’

  Tai spat and, holding a bottle by its neck, smashed it against the edge of the table. For a big man Huang could move quickly. He overturned the card players’ table, gripped Tai by the arm, and twisted. Crack! The bones snapped like brittle plastic. Huang prepared to throw Tai over the bar, just as Kai walked in. Huang froze, holding Tai by the scruff of his neck, dangling him half a metre above the floor. The music died, the girl stopped swinging, and a murmur went through the crowd, ‘It’s the Holy Man!’

  In one coordinated gesture, Kai patted the air and beckoned with his fingers. Huang dropped Tai and steered Chen back into the street.

  First Dive

  It was the day Geoff had agreed to dive with Maura. The thought weighed him down. Then he calculated the relative positions of Jupiter’s nearest moons and immediately felt better. In Europa’s ever-changing gravitational field, his weight was actually at its maximum.

  He downloaded the hazard analysis for bathyscaphe dives onto his com-pad, but quickly closed the page without reading it. It would be dangerou
s, but he had to go diving regardless. He boarded the maglev cage and dropped down the two-kilometre-long vertical shaft through the ice. A member of dockside service personnel helped him change into a thermal suit and led him to the airlock. Geoff squeezed down the vessel’s entrance tunnel leading to the observation gondola, but he stepped into the cramped space too quickly, banging his head on an overhead valve. He thought Maura was about to laugh, but was relieved when he realised her smile was one of sympathy. He squatted down, hunched on the spare seat. Maura continued to fill in data records, relaying information to the support crew at Port Authority Control.

  The basic design of a deep-sea bathyscaphe hadn’t changed in two centuries. The main part of the vessel was a streamlined tube containing tanks for buoyancy and hoppers for ballast, and the gondola was a thick-walled steel sphere slung underneath. The internal diameter was no more than two metres, and the only place where Geoff could stand upright was in the centre. Maura, being petite and agile, had no such difficultly moving around.

  ‘Just waiting for clearance to dive,’ she told him. ‘Prof made me plan the temperature surveys myself, so I thought we’d start with the Cronus Rift. It’s not deep by Europan standards, only ten thousand metres, but there’s some volcanic activity on the seabed that causes local heating.’

  ‘Could there be some sulphur-eating microbes, by any chance?’ said Geoff, trying to sound more nonchalant than he felt.

  ‘There could be, right enough. But it would be grand just to find an amino acid. Just think, if the building blocks are present, then the whole universe must be teeming with life.’

  Geoff heard the excitement in Maura’s voice and it made him smile.

  ‘Just sit tight ’til we get to the bottom,’ she said. ‘Then we’ll turn on the lights and see what’s there.’

  Geoff waited, fidgeting periodically in an attempt to get comfortable, until the Port Controller’s voice broke the silence of their tiny cabin. ‘Cleared to dive. Bon voyage!’

  Maura detached the magnetic hooks tethering the craft to the quayside, and the dive began. Geoff felt more relaxed now they’d set off. Maura would have to pilot the craft manually – there were insufficient data on currents and other hazards for her to use auto-control. This was an advantage for him, he realised as he perched on his chair facing Maura, less than a metre away. She was oblivious to his gaze while he watched her frowning and pursing her lips as she made course corrections.

  Cybernetics was one of Geoff’s specialisms. He was fascinated by the way she scanned the screens, operated the controls to adjust the craft’s buoyancy and drove the propulsion units. But he also studied her face, in frank appreciation of her perfect complexion, green eyes and chestnut-brown hair which cascaded in curls to the top of her shoulders. He felt certain her youth was genuine and, like him, she had never resorted to the regenerative drugs that were commonly used to reverse the effects of ageing. His own self-denial had left him, aged thirty-five, with pepper-and-salt hair and a beard to match. He wondered about her age. No more than mid-twenties?

  Maura had been reporting to base at fifteen-minute intervals, but the Port Controller’s voice had become increasingly distorted the deeper they dived.

  ‘Why is the line so bad?’ Geoff asked.

  ‘We have to use acoustic signals to communicate,’ Maura explained. ‘No one has found a way of using radio signals in deep water.’

  ‘It seems to be getting worse.’

  ‘We’re getting close to the volcanic activity on the seabed. It’s drowning the signal.’

  Geoff gave her a ‘wouldn’t you just know it’ sort of smile. He could feel the vibration through the walls of the gondola. It was as if the whole cabin was trembling. But what with – excitement? Or something else?

  ‘Are you sure you want to carry on?’ asked Maura. ‘If we go any deeper, we’ll be on our own.’

  Geoff had known the Cronus Rift would be dangerous before they began the dive. He’d look like a coward if he backed out now. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s have a quick look around and then get back up.’

  ‘Right then, get ready with the camera and shoot anything that looks interesting.’

  Geoff turned on the lights and peered out of the observation window. ‘Wow!’ he said in amazement. ‘It’s like a scene from the Industrial Revolution. I can see hundreds of chimneys belching black smoke.’

  ‘Sure, they’re on Earth’s seabed too, you know.’

  ‘Really?’ Geoff felt he should have done more research.

  ‘It happens whenever hot water from geothermal springs erupts into cold sea. The sulphides deposit out, making black smoke, and the build-up of minerals at the blowholes creates hollow towers.’ Geoff lifted his eyebrows but made no comment.

  They drove over vast fields of ‘black smokers’ and reached an area where many of the chimneys had fallen in random piles. ‘What’s happened here?’ Geoff asked. ‘Did they get too high?’

  ‘We’re on a fault line in the crust’s tectonic plates. I think a seismic tremor brought them down.’

  ‘I’m panning with the camera. There’s a piece of debris that seems to be moving around.’

  ‘Jaysis,’ said Maura. ‘We’ve hit the feckin’ jackpot. There’s something alive down there. I’ll try to steer between the chimneys and get in close.’

  A violent jolt threw Maura and Geoff across the cabin and an ear-rending crash reverberated through the structure of the bathyscaphe. The vessel had come to a dead stop and was now tilting down at thirty degrees.

  ‘Feckin’ hell, I’ll check for damage.’ Maura scanned the alarms on the viz-box. ‘Forward buoyancy tank pressure zero. For’ard water tank zero. Port-side transverse propeller kaput. Both bow floodlights are dead. Try the infrared camera.’

  ‘There’s a chimney right across the bows,’ said Geoff. ‘Can we go backwards?’

  ‘Aft propeller on full power now. Still stuck fast. I’m dumping the for’ard ballast. Nope, no change. I could ditch the aft ballast. The risk is we’ll be out of control when we surface. We’ll smack into the ice cap like a champagne cork. Shall I try it?’

  ‘Just do it. We’ve got to get off the seabed somehow.’

  ‘Okay, I’ve opened the aft ballast hopper. We’re about as light as we can be, but we’re still not going anywhere.’

  ‘Can we call for help?’ Geoff asked, trying hard to keep his voice steady.

  Maura switched on the acoustic modem and a sound like a rocket exhaust filled the tiny cabin. She turned off the receiver. ‘Any other ideas?’

  After an hour of trying to free their craft from under the stone cylinder, Geoff and Maura were strangely quiet. Geoff knew ranting and raving about their fate would only use their remaining oxygen more quickly. Even so, he felt oddly composed.

  All the sensory inputs to Geoff’s brain had become more intense. The lights were brighter, and every creak of the damaged superstructure was amplified a thousand-fold. Ignoring his emotions, Geoff’s analytical brain began to break down the smell of the gondola into its separate components: the grease on the mechanical linkages, the electrolyte used in the ultra-capacitors, the tang of his own perspiration.

  Once again, he studied Maura’s face. Her lips were pressed tightly together, her eyebrows were lowered, and she was glaring at the flashing alarms on the viz-box screen. What’s she feeling? It won’t help if she panics. But she’s not showing signs of fear. Her body language means something else.

  ‘You’re angry,’ he said.

  ‘You bet I feckin’ am!’ she said. She balled her fists and looked around as if she wanted something to punch. She settled for thumping the control desk and then kicking it.

  They stayed silent for a while. ‘D’you know why I’m fuming?’ said Maura. ‘It’s that feckin’ fish.’

  ‘Er, sorry?’

  ‘The fish – for the first time ever in the history of humankind, we found extraterrestrial life. And now it’ll stay secret.’

  ‘Someone will
find it again, one day.’

  ‘If humankind doesn’t destroy itself first!’ She looked hard at him. ‘You must regret coming with me. The only reason you’re here is because you wanted to help.’ She shook her head. ‘I suppose I may as well tell you now. I think we would have been good together.’

  Thanks, Maura, but this isn’t a good time. But I’m glad she’s talking. It’ll calm her down and give me more time to think.

  ‘Aren’t you seeing anyone, Maura?’ he said, while he scoured his brain for ideas of how to escape. If we throw our weight from side to side, could we shake off the cylinder?

  ‘Not really,’ said Maura, smiling sadly. ‘There’s been no one I wasn’t happy to leave a billion kilometres away. All my relationships have been disasters.’

  ‘Why didn’t they work out?’ said Geoff. Would we float if we detached the gondola and left the main hull behind?

  ‘Oh, there were lots of reasons. Some men wanted to lord it over me, and I wasn’t having any of that. Some accused me of trying to dominate them, which I never did, not at all. But they all seemed to want me for their own benefit.’

  ‘Of course they did,’ he said. ‘You’d be a benefit to anyone.’ If we discharged our compressed air into the sea, would that shake us loose?

  ‘I don’t mean in a good way,’ said Maura. ‘They wanted me just to hang on their arm, or make small talk to people they were sucking up to. I hated feeling I was being used.’

  ‘So, none of them really cared about you?’ he said. Keep thinking. There must be a way.

  ‘The bastards I met were so selfish. They would have been crap fathers, I know that much.’

  She’s getting angry again. I’ll ask her about her work. ‘I thought you were a career scientist?’

  ‘I wanted to use science to help endangered species,’ said Maura. ‘But I meant to settle down one day, maybe have a family.’ Her hair fell in swathes across her face and she tossed it back, fixing her eyes on him. ‘How about you? What’s your story, Geoff?’