Ishtar Rising (Book 2) - Michael A. Martin [15]
Shabalala asked, “You’re saying somebody could be changing the field’s shape deliberately?”
“I think so, yes.”
Gold said nothing, focusing instead on the tale unfolding on the main viewer. As he watched, the single elongated tube of force split itself into two, then four, then eight and more progressively narrower tubes. He quickly lost count of the tubes, so quickly were they appearing, bringing to mind a sped-up recording of living cells dividing ad infinitum. He was, however, able to see that the bases of the force-tubules seemed to plunge themselves deeply beneath the planet’s surface—
—piercing the exact center of seismic and volcanic activity with almost surgical precision.
Gold smiled. “Haznedl, try to get me a real visual on what’s going on down there.”
Also smiling, the young woman turned back to her console and said, “Yes, sir.”
The tactical display vanished, replaced by a hash of static that slowly gave way to a grainy, computer-enhanced image of the Venusian dayside, no doubt relayed down either directly from Ishtar Station or from one of the many automated support satellites that ringed the planet. The resolution was poor, but understandably so given the current local weather.
Gold quickly found the spot where the force-field network had morphed itself into such peculiar shapes. Although the fields themselves were invisible, the material that was rising with projectile speed along the narrow, rapidly multiplying vertical tubes of force was quite noticeable. The material became white-hot as it shot through the cloudtops and into space, passing at least one hundred kilometers above the highest-altitude layers of the atmospheric “blowoff.”
The pitiless brightness of the sun made the nature of the ejected material immediately apparent. Recalling what Soloman had said about needing to relieve pressure, Gold looked around the bridge. He spent a moment watching the awestruck faces at each station as everyone present seemed to grasp the enormity of what they were witnessing.
The main mass of the lava flow was being diverted from the remaining ground stations and flung into a high orbit about Venus. No one seemed able to pry his eyes from the viewer as the molten material continued to be blasted hundreds of kilometers away from the greenhouse-desiccated world below.
The molten material continued trailing fire across the ochre sky, slowly turning dark as it exited the funnel-shaped, spaceward terminus of the reconfigured force-field network, gradually surrendering its heat to the airless void.
Haznedl finally broke the silence that had engulfed the bridge. “Somebody,” the ops officer said, “has obviously figured out how to turn the force-field network into a colossal mass driver.”
“Looks like the pressure may finally be off,” Shabalala said, still looking awed. “The lava’s being funneled off into space.”
Shaking her head, Haznedl said, “This is truly amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Gold sat back in his chair. “Just another day at the office for the S.C.E., Haznedl.”
Chapter
7
Pascal Saadya stood alone in his darkened office, staring down at the great yellow world through the wide transparent aluminum window. As he looked upon the daylit face of Venus, an old joke sprang to mind: What’s the difference between God and a terraformer?
He spoke the punch line aloud. “God doesn’t think he’s a terraformer.”
The bulk of the force-field network—along with more than eighty percent of Venus’s original hothouse atmosphere—had been carefully and safely lowered nearly an hour earlier. The vast majority of the atmospheric probes remained intact and functional. According to a quick report from the ever-busy Adrienne