Ishtar Rising Book 1 - Michael A. Martin [22]
“With luck,” Saadya said, “this will be the final simulation.”
“Have you planned a retreat?” Corsi asked.
“Excuse me?” Saadya looked momentarily bewildered.
“If there is a problem, do you have any way to reverse the procedure safely during the blow-off?”
Now Saadya blanched. “Reverse it? Not precisely, no.”
“Well, I think it would be a good idea to run some simulations for that possibility,” Corsi said, noting from the corner of her eye that Stevens was nodding.
Saadya regarded her for a moment, silently. Then, with a curt nod, he said, “Yes, well, thank you for that bit of advice, Security Chief Corsi. But I think I’ll take it up with the engineers if we can’t perfect our calculations on this run. In the meantime, I prefer to look at this project somewhat more positively than you do, rather than with a defeatist attitude.” He began to turn away. “If you’ll excuse me, Commander, I think we’re ready to begin.”
Corsi watched him walk away toward some of his technicians. She turned to Stevens, and in a low voice said, “That could be a big problem. If he hasn’t built in enough margin for error, he’d better hope there aren’t any more errors. Otherwise, we just might find ourselves trying to run from that tidal wave.”
* * *
Perfection, Saadya thought forty-five minutes later, as a cheer rang out across Ishtar Station’s holodeck. This time the simulation had not only gone without a hitch, it had also moved the bulk of the holographic Venusian atmosphere into space with minimal strain on either the force-field network or the ground station shielding. And it had done so with vast amounts of power to spare.
As his technicians cheered, hugged, and mobbed each other happily, Saadya scanned the room. Catching the eye of the dour security officer he had spoken with earlier, he gave her a large grin, and an exaggerated thumbs-up sign just as someone popped a champagne bottle.
Corsi smiled back politely as glasses clinked and the spontaneous cheers, applause, and embraces continued. After the demonstration he had just delivered, surely even the hard-nosed Lieutenant Commander Corsi had to be a believer now.
Tomorrow, his work here—the real, nonvirtual work—would prove just as successful as had today’s demonstration. And he would enter the history books as the man who tamed Venus.
Chapter
7
It seemed to Soloman that the transporter took an extraordinarily long time to reassemble him inside Ground Station Vesper. He wasn’t surprised, however, given the unusually dense Hadley cell—in essence, a hemisphere-spanning bubble of slow-moving, superheated, convection-lifted carbon dioxide—that had been observed hanging directly over the station for the past several days.
The moment the transporter beam released him he tapped his combadge. “Soloman to da Vinci. I have arrived safely.” Aware that the safe operation of the transporter depended upon perfect targeting of the narrow gaps between the networked force-field nodes, Soloman hoped that no hasty departures would be needed. In that eventuality there was no guarantee that the “node gap” necessary for transport would be available.
“Understood, Soloman,” responded the voice of Captain Gold, somewhat distorted by its passage through the thick atmospheric blanket. “We’re maintaining a transporter lock on you and everyone else in your ground station. And we’re prepared to assist Station Ishtar in evacuating any of the other ground stations, if they should run into any serious problems. Just in case.”
“Acknowledged,” Soloman said. “However, the last round of simulations indicates that you might be taking an overly cautious approach.” I hope.
“Maybe so. But considering what became of Ground Station Hesperus, Gomez and Tev are recommending we wear a belt and suspenders both. Gold out.”
From directly behind him,