Transmat World: Chapter 8, Episode 3
In transit to the Stephen Hawking space habitat; Wednesday, October 6, 2145 A.D.
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Vince was standing next to his mother watching his father. His dad looked good in his new suit — his only suit. Hank took the golden scissors from Harvey Dunworth, the venture capitalist that funded Transmat. David and Laura Dunworth watched from the side. Maria was behind and to the right of Vince on the same side as his mom, Nancy. Members of the Board of Agreement were there along with Board security. As Hank bent to cut the ribbon on the new Transmat headquarters building, the shot rang out. Like lightning, the bullet had gotten there before the sound. Hank’s body was already dropping as the last echoes of gunfire die away. Vince ordered Nancy and Maria to take cover behind a concrete curb. Seconds later he was by his father’s side, kneeling on the concrete, holding his hand and checking his pulse. There was none. Maria disobediently knelt on the other side of Hank’s body. Most of the crowd had scattered, looking to get behind something that would stop a bullet.
Through the screams and shouts he heard his mother sobbing, and the scene froze. Vince scanned a tableau of people freeze-framed running, yelling, gesturing, and crying. Tears hung in the air catching sunlight, becoming little four-pointed stars of light. Everything was silent as a vacuum. Out of the corner of his eye is a flicker of movement. He turned to see a humanoid shape. Composed of blocks of color like three-dimensional pixels that flickered in and out of existence, it gave the overall impression of a weak digital holographic signal striving for coherence. Out of this shape came a voice. In a disjointed sound full of static and overly precise in its pronunciation, like early computer speech generators or somebody new to a language, it said “Others” and winked out of existence.
The space habitat Stephen Hawking was the mother of all space eggs, the nickname given space habitats of similar construction. Vince followed work on the Hawk as a kid. It was a time of great excitement for mankind. The space elevators were up and running. Governments were looking for a big project to prove the elevators were money well spent and their commitment to the Agreement by moving thousands off planet.
Two tunnels were excavated into the lunar surface at 25 degrees with superconducting coils installed along their length. They connected to the power output of an 8,000-square-yard photovoltaic panel array on the lunar surface. These coil guns shot eleven-ton slugs of lunar regolith wrapped in conductive smart foil. Once in orbit, the smart foil changed from mirror reflective to matte black in different areas on its surface. Photon pressure differences herded the lunar soil together into one clump orbiting the Moon. It took 72,000 loads and ten years to get the material in orbit.
The Earth’s orbital mirrors used to reflect sunlight and prevent global warming began their second career. These huge, diaphanous machines focused the reflected energy of the sun onto the mass of lunar rock, turning it into a molten sphere. Ceramic pipes inserted water under pressure where it became steam. The steam turned to hydrogen and oxygen, which burned to form water, which turned to steam and so on until it inflated like a glass bauble. After cooling, it was 165 yards in diameter with walls nine feet thick and an internal surface area of 700,000 square feet.
More internal shells created a total habitable area of more than 2 million square feet. Towed to the L5 Lagrange point and set spinning in a stable position relative to the Earth and Moon, it shared the space with minor space debris and old satellites. Air flowed through the new habitat. Two thousand people moved in during the next five years. One of them was Vince Miller.
They stepped out of the Transmat booth into Vince’s apartment on the Hawk. Lord Greystoke met Ferdinand and Ookie in a mid-air collision. The result was a ball of fur, feathers, and scale drifting to the floor like a cartoon fight — a blurry cloud of activity punctuated by the occasional extension of paw, wing, or tail. It was a traditional greeting between Ferdinand and Lord Greystoke. Ookie, having dropped the peanut disguise, joined in for the fun of it. Hedbots had an affinity for animals that Vince found surprising. They knew the physiology and psychology of animals, and pets responded. While this greeting scuffle played out, Vince got a text message on his visor from Ookie.
Heart rate’s way up, Bud. You OK?
Everything is fine, said Vince, using subvocal text mode to reply, and he took his hedset off at the same time Maria was doffing hers.
“You Okay?” asked Maria.
“Oh, hell. You too? All right, I had a Transmat induced memory recall of Dad dying.”
“I am so sorry, Vince,” said Maria. She gave him a hug and whispered in his ear,
“You were so brave.”
Vince held her at arm’s length. “Like you weren’t?”
He looked away at the hedbots and Lord Greystoke still mock fighting and back into Maria’s eyes. If he told no one else, he had to confide in Maria.
“There was something else.” He described what happened.
“If you don’t think the mushrooms or the Martian ouzo had anything to do with it, you should mention it to Mark. He knows what happened. He’s done more research on it than anybody else,” said Maria.
“I don’t think it was culinary malfeasance, so I guess I’ll talk to Mark about it. He’s delighted the CEO of his company is having trashbacks using the product that keeps him off the dole. Very perplexing.”
Lord Greystoke and the hedbots settled down to nuzzling and grooming each other. Vince and Maria followed their lead, heavy on the nuzzling and light on the grooming. They lay on the bed afterwards, courting sleep. Vince sat straight up — an easy feat in half gravity resulting in his butt following his torso up and bouncing on the bed.
“Hey, what did your dad want to tell me?” he said.
“He detected a linear path of gravity anomalies thirty light years away. Wondering if you had come up with a way to check it out or not,” Maria mumbled and went to sleep.
Vince lay there awake. “Others,” he whispered to himself. He heard a faint beep and saw the communicator light on his hedset blinking. Ookie had pretended to be asleep beside Lord Greystoke, but big lizard eyes now popped up at the edge of the bed along with an announcement in a soft, distinct voice, “Mark”.
Vince took the hedset to the bathroom. “Mark, how have you been? It’s been so long, like…what, two hours since I saw you last? I’m tired. Aren’t you tired?”
“Enrique is about to land on the moon,” said Mark.
“Okay, I’m moving,” said Vince. History waited for no man.
Vince dialed up coffee on the little kitchen Transmat and woke up Maria to tell her what was happening. It was not a milestone like Lindbergh’s landing at Le Bourget field in Paris, but Vince admired Enrique Ramirez’s chutzpah. A lot of people wished they had joined the 100,000 greeting Charles that day. Vince did not want that kind of regret. Maria swilled coffee, donned her tiara hedset, and gathered up Ferdinand. Vince scratched Lord Greystoke behind the ears, grabbed Ookie, and they headed for the Transmat booth as Lord Greystoke curled up and went back to sleep.
