Riddled Space Page 7

  The Uzbek lowered his cup. “I don't suppose it has anything to do with this McCrary fellow, now, does it? We Uzbeks might be late to the table, but that doesn't mean we are complete rubes, my dear Director.”

  Subramanyan nodded miserably.

  “So, the position is gone, my engineer has nothing to do in Florida, accommodating your special consideration has already cost us much, and I don't see any UN salary money coming back our way.”

  “I will return the special considerations, of course,” said Subramanyan.

  “Good. Beginnings are such delicate times. So much can go wrong. Do you know that my government is taking the money for your special fee out of my office budget? As a way to punish me for making such bad decisions. The money you are returning will go back to the general fund, and not my office budget.” Sihâbeddîn lifted the delicate cup and took another sip. “Delicate times indeed, like this cup.

  “But I am now on the hook to do something for Engineer Karadag. He has been forced off his plum project to accommodate you for what appears to be nothing. Now, I must appease him. I am very unhappy, Director. So unhappy that I think I might brainstorm how UNSOC recruits senior personnel with members of the international media here in New York.”

  Subramanyan was close to panic. Exposure would mean his dismissal from the United Nations. The outcry would force a forensic audit of every single decision of his, going back years. He had seen others go through audits, only to be reduced to utter poverty in the end. After they completely ruined him, the UN would declare him persona non grata and remove his diplomatic immunity. The United States would expel him and ship him back to India. India! A billion people crammed onto the subcontinent, and almost half without running water or sanitation. Subramanyan and his father finagled his way into UNSOC so Subramanyan could escape and never have to go back there!

  “I would prefer that it not happen, my dear Minister.” Subramanyan choked out.

  “Shall we say, perhaps, that after you refund this special fee of yours to the people of Uzbekistan, you also refund a second fee directly to me, so I might make up the shortfall in my office budget? If so, I will try to be happier.” The Minister took an appreciative sip of the hot coffee.

  Subramanyan was trapped. The money was already spent! He would have to make it up somehow. “Agreed. All funds will be transferred to an account of your choice by week's end.”

  “That is so nice. By the way, I'd hate to think that Engineer Karadag made the long trip to Florida in vain. His whole family accompanied him so that they could watch him blast off. Now, I guess, we'll have to send them all back. It's a shame we'd have to do that when there are so many things to do in the area around the Cape. Orlando. There are some theme parks around there, I understand.”

  “How about overlapping all-week passes to all the major parks, as a way to make the Karadag vacation in the US more interesting?”

  “Don't forget the walking around money for Karadaq,” said the Minister, patting his ample lips with a cloth napkin.

  Twist the knife, you bastard. I hope you get your money's worth. Your miserable country will never get another UNSOC dime.

  “No, of course not,” said Subramanyan.

  “It's so pleasant to do business with you, Subby,” the Minister said, pushing the check towards Subramanyan and departing.

  Eddie on Final

  UNSOC OTV Betsy, July 20, 2080, 0637 hrs

  Eddie Zanger, taxi driver, thumbed his microphone switch one last time. “Moonbase Collins, Pilot Zanger on OTV Betsy. I am in receipt of your control beam, relinquishing control. Out.” Lifting the yellow-striped cover, he pushed the large lemon-colored button down and gingerly removed his hand from the three-axis controller. “And, that's that.” Turning to his passenger seated behind him, he said, “It's all over but the shouting now.”

  “Wouldn't be too sure of that,” the stocky man said laconically.

  “Ah, but my Betsy has never muffed a landing.”

  “Only takes one,” said the passenger.

  Eddie took some time responding to that, as the engines continued firing with a muted roar while he scanned the instruments. McCrary, who Eddie knew only by reputation, used his words as if he had to buy them individually, paying retail. After the first day and a dozen attempts at conversation, Eddie, a naturally gregarious man, retreated to listening to music on headphones and ignoring his passenger whenever possible.

  Eddie had seen McCrary around the station and thought he knew him. The man was polite around other people. Being trapped with him for four days while flying to the Moon lent a deep insight into his character that Eddie would just as soon have done without. The best thing about this trip so far, Eddie mused, was the receipt of the guide beam transmission that signaled that this particular sour milk run was soon to be over.

  “Well, we'll be down in about five minutes. You can just see Collins over that little rise behind you on the right. I've got Betsy sliding in face downward, and we're backing in.”

  “Seen it before,” replied McCrary. “Hasn't changed much.” With that, he lowered his helmet visor, locked it, and punched the oxygen feed on.

  “Wonderful,” groused Eddie, lowering his visor as well. This guy was supposed to be the new Chief Engineer of Moonbase Collins. Eddie was taking great delight in sending sly coded messages to his buddies on the base, filling them in on what a bastard their new boss was.

  The Chief is dead, thought Eddie. Long live the Chief. And, boy, did the Chief have his work cut out for him. The Moonrats were just hanging on. Barely self-sufficient. If anything happened to the base infrastructure, they would have to go, hat in hand, to UNSOC for more.

  The ship slowly aligned with the vertical as the control beam fed data into the ship's computer. Their horizontal motion over the surface of the moon was all but stopped now, and the engines were yielding to the gentle pull of the Moon's gravity. It was difficult to tell, just from the windows, how far above the Lunar surface they were. No matter how often he made this run, Eddie kept expecting clouds of dust to make an appearance, although the dozens of landings on this field had blasted all traces of dust away long ago. With a gentle jar, the pads made contact with the lunar surface. Eddie slapped the Master Arm switch to 'off' just to be sure, then started safing the engines. He clicked on the intercom switch.

  “We're down, and you may unstrap from your seat,” he announced. “Mr. McCrary, the base will send out a moon bus to mate with us.” Eddie peered at a gauge for a long heartbeat. “Pressure appears to be steady, so you can undog your helmet if you want.”

  “Thank you, no,” came the comment from his passenger.

  “Why not?” asked the astonished pilot.

  “Saw a window pop out once, about a minute after touchdown. Plume of white fog, then a crewman landed nearby. He left his helmet in the ship. Wasn't pretty.”

  Eddie, in the act of undogging his own helmet, hesitated, then resecured it. The thought crossed his mind that he was being a fool, but there was no sense making a worse impression than he already had. The minutes dragged past as the moon bus sidled up to the ship, the transfer tube made its connection, and the two of them could finally make their way out of the Betsy to the safety of Moonbase Collins.

  Along the way, Moondogs looked on in amazement at the fully helmeted spacemen. It wasn't until after the third airtight door that McCrary undogged his helmet and removed his gauntlets.

  “Three doors a charm?” asked Eddie.

  “Usually,” said McCrary. “Thanks for the ride. Professionally done.” Eddie didn't know it yet, but that was high praise from McCrary. It was, in fact, the third of four levels he used to rate performance, above 'competently done', and below 'excellent'. Nobody got rated at the fourth level twice. McCrary stalked off to the office of the Commander, Jeng Wo Lee. Eddie, shaking his head, retreated to the transient barracks to shower and change.

  Lee's New Chief

  UNSOC Lunar Colony Michael Collins, July 20, 2080, 1010 hrs


  Jeng Wo Lee was a slight, spare man, well accustomed to space, having spent twenty years in various positions in UNSOC. He spent a tour as executive officer aboard the UN Space Station Chaffee, as well as service and repair missions to the increasingly congested orbits of Earth. When the rumor mill started hinting about an opening for the commander's spot on UN Moonbase Collins, he began calling in favors he had built up for years to get the position. He had a light touch with the men and women who worked for him, and they, in turn, gave him their moderate best. It had been two and a half years so far, and he was looking to wangle an extension in command when Angus Turley took his fateful visit to The Works.

  Lee mourned Turley. One of the saddest and most frustrating calls he had ever made was to Angus's wife, in their ancestral home in the Scottish Highlands. Just as the slow steps of a funeral march reinforced the gravity of the occasion, the three second speed-of-light delay between question and response made the call just that much more somber.

  Lee shook himself. This was not the appropriate mood with which to greet the new Chief. Lee had known both Turley and McCrary, and whereas he preferred the sunny disposition of Angus, he had to rate McCrary by far the more competent engineer. Turley would be pleased when something worked well, but McCrary would push for excellence. Lee had gotten word when Zanger's Betsy was on final approach. He knew that McCrary would waste no time coming to greet him and get his orders. Just as he formed the thought, there was a dull thunk as McCrary's large knuckle impacted the aluminum door frame.

  “Come in, Chief McCrary, I've been expecting you.” Lee walked around his desk to greet the man, but stopped, momentarily baffled. McCrary was still in his space suit, helmet under one arm, footlocker under the other, leaving no hand free with which to shake the half-proffered hand of the Commander.

  “Commander Jeng, good to see you again,” he said, setting the footlocker down, transferring the helmet to his left hand, and extending the right. After a vigorous shake, he straightened and saluted. “Chief Engineer McCrary, reporting for duty as assigned.”

  Lee was half-expecting this, and managed a reasonable facsimile of the UN standard salute. He barely cracked a smile. “You could have waited to report until after you had gotten changed. There's no requirement to race up here on the bounce, you know.”

  “Sir,” replied McCrary, and fell silent.

  Lee was nonplussed for a second, then, remembering his previous encounters with this odd man, continued. “Well, now that you have reported, you can go change if you wish.”

  “Sir, with respect to the late Mr. Turley, I would rather stay like this until I have verified that the seals in the station are up to snuff.”

  “Good heavens, that will take weeks!” exclaimed Lee. “I hope you aren't planning to live in your suit for that long.”

  The Chief shook his head slowly. “Not weeks. No need to examine every single seal, either. A representative sample, plus some in the high-traffic areas should suffice. Then a regular program of preventative maintenance should catch any marginal ones.”

  “Still...” began Lee, but he was overridden by McCrary.

  “Remind the troops of the little things, the big things take care of themselves. Pardon my saying so, but you're under the gun, aren't you?” Peering at Lee's frowning face, he went on. “Let me guess, sir. Collins not paying its way, Chaffee gets all the headlines, the UN wondering why we're even here. Then Mr. Turley dies messily. They might want to pull the plug, right?”

  Lee nodded. “You get right to the heart of it. We've received bad press for six months now. It's getting to where we have to justify our existence.”

  “So now would be a terrible time to have a seal blowout, wouldn't it?” asked McCrary. “Will there be anything else, sir, or can I get along with my inspection tour?”

  Nodding dizzily, Lee went back behind his desk and sat. “We'll talk after you're satisfied with the seals.” McCrary nodded briskly and, gripping his footlocker, whirled out of the office.

  Lee's secretary, Mrs. Lange, came in. “He's a real fireball, isn't he? We better start thinking how to handle the worker complaints that are sure to come in.”

  CE McCrary Digs In

  UNSOC Lunar Colony Michael Collins, July 20, 2080, 1045 hrs

  Oddly, though, very few complaints were filed, and mostly, they came from people known for their knack for creative malingering. McCrary was one of those who believed that the supervisor should be able to do the jobs of those he led. The surprise seal inspection began at once. McCrary dropped his footlocker in the empty barracks room that once belonged to the late Mr. Turley, then departed for Engineering. Striding into the engineering spaces of the base, he went to the cubic where all the instruments and supplies were stored.

  “Head of instrumentation?” he asked the man working there who was staring at McCrary's spacesuit. At the other's nod, McCrary continued. “My name's McCrary, new Chief here. I need an ultrasonic seal tester and a smoke punk or two.” He then stood stock still and waited.

  The instrument man, Devore, blinked once, then quickly turned to the floor-to-ceiling lockers lining the walls. He grabbed a tester and a box of punks and handed them to the Chief.

  “Only need a couple,” said McCrary.

  “Take a box, Chief, we've got plenty,” said Devore.

  “No open boxes?” he asked, with a hint of disbelief.

  “Um, no.” Realizing what it implied, Devore stammered. “I'm sure we just finished one up, sir.” He wound down at McCrary's raised hand.

  “Don't worry about it,” admonished McCrary. He then picked up the testing supplies and returned through the hallways to his barracks room. Curious, Devore followed a minute later. He watched McCrary put on his helmet, turn off the ventilation fan, light a punk and shut the room's hatch. He opened it a few minutes later to find Devore gazing quizzically at him.

  Devore began, “I was wondering if you had spotted a leak in here.”

  Removing his helmet, McCrary said, “When it's my life, I check things personally.” He extinguished the punk, walked back down to Engineering, and repeated the process with his office, much to the consternation of the workers and managers. Some of the more alert people made a run on punks and testers. McCrary put a stop to that.

  “We are not going to be haphazard. Everyone put the supplies back.” He turned to the Instrument Head. “Devore, lock that cabinet. Managers in my office now, please. Everyone else, back to what you were doing.”

  ***

  McCrary won over Horst Nygaard, his second in command, by his willingness to assist in any maintenance task. Horst was a slender Norwegian with short blonde hair and ice-blue eyes that missed nothing. No matter what time of day or night, the Chief could be found with a maintenance crew, working a problem. The engineers in the habitat previously performed maintenance as if their lives depended on it, because they did. Under Mr. McCrary's example, though, they grew even sharper. After a month, McCrary was able to report back to Commander Jeng that all life-safety systems were up to his exacting standards. He reported that he was now ready to tackle the reconstruction of The Works.

  “Fantastic,” said Commander Jeng. “We're on the knife edge of sustainability now. Nothing must get in the way of our shipments to the Chaffee.”

  “Chaffee, oxygen, yes sir,” said McCrary. “Got some ideas I'd like to try out.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Oxygen's a byproduct of aluminum refining.”

  “Yes, that's right. We dump ore from the hills into the roaster, then into the electrolytic cells. The molten rock leaves aluminum on the cathode, and oxygen on the anode. The slag settles to the bottom. It's a batch process and only works when the Sun is up, of course. Did you think of something else?”

  “I was in China once. They'd refine magnesium non-electrolytically. Oxygen byproduct. They'd sell it to cityfolk.”

  “But there's little magnesium in the rocks around here.”

  “Other side of the ringw
all's got a lot. Whatever hit a billion years ago dug down to the olivine.”

  “That's the greenish rock. I've got a lump in my office. I thought it was rare.”

  “Normally, yes. Not around craters. Crush olivine to dust, heat it, run carbon dioxide through it, you get silicon dioxide, magnesium carbonate, iron oxide, bunch of other stuff. Magnesium carbonate plus heat equals magnesium oxide and your original carbon dioxide. Decompose iron and silicon oxides with a UV laser, suck off the oh-two, heat them with the magnesium oxide, and you get magnesium metal.”

  “That sounds pretty complicated,” Lee said dubiously.

  McCrary grew excited and started using more words. “Not really, sir. It's just a matter of moving the reactants around in the right vessels. Gonna have to bootstrap off of the current setup. It's doable if we just get focused.

  “In a year, we'll be shipping oxygen, silicon, magnesium, and even iron to the Chaffee. Not just first-step products. Semiconductor grade silicon. Precisely alloyed aluminum and magnesium. Silica left over from the process makes reentry tiles, aerogel, even debris shielding! Mr. Turley did a fine job getting the plant running from nothing. We can use that plant to bootstrap up to more integrated products. We'll have the chance to finally pull our own weight here in space!” McCrary's eyes were snapping fire.

  Commander Jeng, taken aback by this uncharacteristic show of enthusiasm from his normally dour Chief Engineer, remarked, “That's, uh, pretty spirited for you, Mr. McCrary. Do you have any data to support this?”