The Foundations of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke [46]
Even by terrestrial earth-moving standards, such a mass was hardly trivial. It was equivalent to a sphere of rock about two hundred meters across. Morgan had a sudden image of Yakkagala, as he had last seen it, looming against the Taprobanean sky. Imagine lifting that forty thousand kilometers into space! Fortunately, it might not be necessary; there were alternatives.
Morgan always let his subordinates do their thinking for themselves. It was the only way to establish responsibility, it took much of the load off him, and on many occasions his staff arrived at solutions he had overlooked.
“What do you suggest, Warren?” he asked quietly.
“We could use one of the lunar freight launchers, and shoot up ten megatons of moon rock. It would be a long and expensive job, and we’d need a large space-based operation to catch the material and steer it into final orbit. There would also be a psychological problem—”
“Yes, I can appreciate that. We don’t want another San Luiz Domingo.”
San Luiz had been the—fortunately small—South American village that had received a stray cargo of processed lunar metal intended for a low-orbit space station. The terminal guidance had failed, resulting in the first man-made meteor crater—and two hundred and fifty deaths. Ever since that, the population of planet Earth had been very sensitive on the subject of celestial target practice.
“A much better answer is to catch an asteroid. We’re running a search for those with suitable orbits, and have found three promising candidates. What we really want is a carbonaceous one. Then we can use it for raw material when we set up the processing plant. Killing two birds with one stone.”
“A rather large stone, but that’s probably the best idea. Forget the lunar launcher—a million ten-ton shots would tie it up for years, and some of them would be bound to go astray. If you can’t find a large enough asteroid, we can send the extra mass up by the elevator itself—though I hate wasting all that energy if it can be avoided.”
“It may be the cheapest way. With the efficiency of the latest fusion plants, it will take only twenty dollars’ worth of electricity to lift a ton up to orbit.”
“Are you sure of that figure?”
“It’s a firm quotation from Central Power.”
Morgan was silent for a few minutes. Then he said: “The aerospace engineers really are going to hate me.” Almost as much, he added to himself, as the Venerable Parakarma.
No—that was not fair. Hate was an emotion no longer possible to a true follower of the doctrine. What he had seen in the eyes of former Dr. Choam Goldberg was merely implacable opposition. But that could be equally dangerous.
21
Judgment
One of Paul Sarath’s more annoying specialties was the sudden call, gleeful or gloomy, as the case might be, which invariably consisted of the words: “Have you heard the news?” Though Rajasinghe had often been tempted to give the general-purpose answer “Yes—I’m not at all surprised,” he had never had the heart to rob Sarath of his simple pleasure.
“What is it this time?” he answered, without much enthusiasm.
“Maxine’s on Global Two, talking to Senator Collins. I think our friend Morgan is in trouble. Call you back.”
Sarath’s excited image faded from the screen, to be replaced a few seconds later by Maxine Duval’s, as Rajasinghe switched to the news-analysis channel. She was sitting in her familiar studio, talking to the Chairman of the Terran Construction Corporation, who seemed to be in a mood of barely suppressed indignation, probably synthetic.
“Senator Collins, now that the World Court ruling has been given—”
Rajasinghe shunted the entire program to RECORD, with a muttered “I thought that wasn’t until Friday.” As he turned off the sound and activated his private link with ARISTOTLE, he exclaimed, “My God, it is Friday!”
As always, Ari was on line