The Zenith Angle - Bruce Sterling [122]
Tony cleared his throat. “Well, as Katrina points out so aptly, there you have it. It’s our way or the highway. The very good news is, we have successfully defeated the KH-13 satellite. Using this weapon, we burned the KH-13 so effectively that it will never be trusted again. We have proved that, with this telescope, we have a covert device which is also the world’s first and only effective spacewar weapon. With this laser capability in place, we can defeat any craft that any space power ever puts into orbit.”
“Into low orbit only,” said Mr. Gupta skeptically. “You cannot damage any spacecraft in the valuable geosynchronous Arthur Clarke orbit.”
“There’s nothing that far out but some harmless comsats,” said Tony. His wristwatch bleeped. “We need to wrap this up now all right? It’s time for our product demo.”
Electro-actuators kicked into life beneath the Lady’s great blue mirror. The digitized mirror was clicking and flexing, moving in tiny increments of a few wavelengths of light. The digital telescope sounded like a roomful of typists.
Tony spoke again. “I didn’t mean to interrupt our valuable negotiations, but it’s necessary to time this demonstration with care. We are about to attack the Iridium spacecraft that is carrying your phone signals, gentlemen.”
“How can you prove that?” said Sanjay.
“You’ll be able to hear the attack happening in real time,” Tony promised. “And so will your sponsors at home in your nations’ capitals.”
“You might be simply changing the phone signals inside this observatory building,” said Sanjay silkily. “So that proves nothing at all.”
“I was aware of that objection,” said Tony. “As you all know, my personal associate inside the National Security Council is extremely well placed in American cyberwarfare circles. It will be simple for Dr. Vandeveer to get the outage reports from the Iridium’s new owners. I can forward those reports directly to you. That will prove the power of my antisatellite capability.”
The spies listened silently to their satellite phones.
“The Iridium satellite is not being destroyed,” Mr. Gupta reported at last. “We hear only a faint crackling! We have not even lost our phone connection to New Delhi!”
“It’s an overcast night,” Tony explained. “The damage is mild. The ideal conditions for our laser are clear nights with a strong storm front through the local windmill farm.”
“Wind there, and yet no clouds here? How often do you get those weather conditions?”
“There is very good visibility up on this mountain. After all, this is a telescope.”
“Snow, rain, then they make your laser weapon quite useless?”
Tony tapped busily at his laptop for some time. Then he spoke again. “Of course it takes some time for a silent beam of light to destroy a metal satellite. We do not have enough wind power to destroy satellites instantly. Besides, it would be very foolish to detonate satellites, for then the Americans would know the truth at once. Think of this fact, though: we could attack Iridium satellites, weather permitting, very stealthily, for years. A reputation for bad technical performance would finish Iridium off for good. Then we could short their stock and buy Iridium competitors, such as Globalstar. That would be so profitable that it would easily pay for this telescope.”
“Globalstar loses money already,” said Mr. Gupta gloomily. “If satellite phones made money, our Indian ISRO would be launching telephone satellites! Millions of Indians have never made a phone call.”
“Maybe you would do that,” said Tony. “More likely, you would become a customer of Mr. Liang. China already has a financially sound commercial space-launch service.”
“Why is it getting so hot in here?” said the actress suddenly. “So