2.5
19 September
Clementine Cislunar Fuel Depot
Earth-Moon Lagrange Point 1
Cislunar Space
“This ellipse is the orbit of our next target asteroid, 101195 Bennu,” Orlov said, jabbing his finger at the rollup screen. The lines and symbols, green on black, seemed too small to contain the destiny of Orlov Petrochemical, and yet.
“It looks like it crosses the Earth’s orbit,” Sally said. “Is that a problem?”
“Yes, this object is quite hazardous.”
It was around midnight, Moscow time, and Orlov and Sally were at the observation window overlooking the asteroid outgassing oven, enjoying a rare moment of quiet. Dona had stopped shadowing the girl quite so closely, which he took as a good sign, and anyway most of the station was asleep right now.
The corridor lighting was in night mode, a very faint orange, and it was quiet enough that their voices sounded loud over the low hiss of the life support blowers. There were outward-looking windows in the station, including two in the outgassing oven itself, but all of these were dark now, as well. Every month, in the dance of Earth and Moon and Sun, Clementine fell into shadow for four hours, and thrice yearly, this eclipse would fall in the middle of a “night” shift on the station. This was one of those times. Orlov—who loved outer space more than people—had treasured these times of True Night for as long as he had lived on the station. He never wasted one by sleeping. It was hard to tell what Sally thought about such things, and he did not trust her to speak truthfully when she could butter him up instead. But he often found her wandering the corridors at night, breathing deeply of the purified air.
“Bennu will pass through cislunar space several times in the next few centuries,” he said, nodding. He tried to imagine this: both the chaos and alarm, and the majesty, as the asteroid’s mass flung it way, at orbital speed, among the great works of man. “We will move it slightly, to reduce this risk, and we will carve chunks off of it and shrink-wrap them and bring them here to EML1 for processing. No one will call us heroes for this.”
Orlov was showing Sally his prize, his white whale. He had decided, for reasons he did not completely understand, to teach her about the business she had so carelessly and casually upended.
“Why that exact asteroid?” she asked. “Just because it’s easy to reach?”
“Partly, yes. But it is actually the core of a dead comet, full of carbonates and water and volatiles. We’ve been going after much smaller, deader rocks.”
He pointed down into the chamber, where spiderbots were digesting the plastic wrap surrounding a chunk of rock the size of a mobile home. It was graphite-dark, and looked like money.
A month ago, those same spiderbots had extruded that same plastic around that same asteroid, out beyond the Moon’s orbit, from the small collection that had gathered at the ESL5 Lagrange point. The last of the small rocks, at least for a while.
“This little fucker,” he said, still pointing, “is 1.75 million kilograms of chondrite, about eight percent of which is extractable water. We’ll also get ten thousand kilograms of carbon out of this, and if we’re lucky, another thousand of nitrogen. It’s a good catch—enough carbon to fill a year’s worth of demand, which is good because kilogram for kilogram, carbon is our best money maker at the moment.”
“In the form of methane?” she asked.
It was not a stupid question, but it was a wrong one, and it annoyed him that she didn’t already know better.
Fixing her with a glare, he said, “Sometimes methane, yes. Sometimes propane or other shit people need for various things. But Sir Lawrence and his settlements on the Moon will take most of it as cyanogen. And because liquid hydrogen is too much trouble for Danny Beseman, his Mars ship is now configured to burn liquid oxygen and kerosene. Or what we call kerosene; it’s actually just pure isoparaffin, much different from your granny’s lamp oil.”
“Isoparaffin,” she repeated, as though the term were unfamiliar.
“I see you still have much to learn.”
She nodded at that, not stung but simply acknowledging. “Uh-huh. And what happens to all the leftover hydrogen?”
“Some of it we turn into ammonia, NH3, because that and carbon dioxide are what CHON synthesizers use. Ours and everyone else’s.”
“And the rest?” she pressed.
She was doing a better job of holding still in zero gravity than she used to, but still she drifted as she spoke. Which also annoyed him; she should stay close to a grab bar if she needed one so badly.
“We vent it into space,” he said, and sighed. The market for gaseous hydrogen had really dried up these past few years. Though it angered him to throw away what someone ought to buy, that was today’s reality. He couldn’t make people want it, nor could he store it—not in the quantities in which it was produced.
“Ouch,” she said.
“Indeed. And most of that specimen down there will wind up as silica slag, which we can’t sell anymore, either. People used to want it for radiation shielding, but Renz Ventures has stepped in with better materials at nearly the same cost.”
“Maybe we can sell it to the Cartels,” she said.
Ignoring her, he said, “Bennu will change all of that. It’s seventy billion kilograms—big as a mid-sized soccer stadium. And it has more of the things that make us happy, so we are modifying our procedures to do more of the work on site. We’ll carve it up like a fattened goose, taking only the best pieces and leaving the slag where it belongs.”
“We also sell plastic wire for 3D printers,” she said. “Can we put more hydrogen in that?”
Apparently, she was not going to leave that alone. Her persistence could be an asset, or a problem. Or both. She continued, “What’s a printable polymer that uses lots of oxygen and hydrogen, and not much carbon or nitrogen? What about a chlorine-terminated siloxane?”
“There are problems with silicones,” he told her, and turned again to watch his little asteroid getting undressed.
“What problems?” she persisted. “Are they worse than throwing away all this material? Or . . . Could we make superconducting wire? Vanadium hydride, that kind of thing?”
“You surprise me,” he said, without looking at her.
“I surprise a lot of people.”
Ignoring her again, he said, “It’s possible some kind of metal hydride wire could be made to work, and that customers could be made to buy it from us. Take it up with Voronin in the morning, and he will connect you to the people who can answer this.”
Then, after a pause: “There is no way the great Magnus Orlov could have engaged in a business such as ours. When oil and gas and coal and uranium were the only sources of energy, he could helicopter around and look at things and nod. Strike fear in the workers, ask a few pointed questions. But then always back to his mansion or his dacha or his boat. The man liked his luxuries, his pointless roskosh. As do you. This is a weakness, Sally.”
“I have wasted a lot of money,” she admitted.
Still not looking at her, Orlov waved a dismissive hand. “The money is nothing. I pocket much more each day than a thousand people could spend on roskosh. Much more. But my attention is more valuable, girl. Attention is the most valuable thing you own, and you’ve flung it around pointlessly, to Burberry and Louis Vuitton and first-class lounges.
“My father owned, at one point, the largest yacht on Earth, do you know that? He spent years of his life selecting materials and supervising construction, and then of course he had to ride on the thing. So much time and energy squandered for the sake of his vanity. Magnus was no fool, except in this regard. Other fools waste their precious bandwidth on religion or fine dining or the theater, or a hundred other things, and so produce nothing but excrement. What is the point of existing, Sally, if you produce nothing but excrement?”
He turned now and looked at her again—really looked. Her hair was tied back in a practical manner, but she seemed always to suffer from stray hairs, which she was always puffing and swiping away from her face. And yet, she refused to cut it short. She still stank of perfume, and though she wore the uniform of Clementine, she had not yet really surrendered to the place.
She asked him, “You have no hobbies?”
“I have pleasures, as everyone must. But my legacy demands as much attention as I can reasonably give it.”
She nodded at that, looking like she might actually think about it, and then she turned her attention back to the asteroid beyond the window. For a minute, they just watched in silence as, against the backdrop of white-enameled walls, the spiderbots finished their work, ingesting the last bits of plastic wrap, leaving the rock as naked as the day it was made.
In another twenty minutes, the Sun would come out from behind the Moon, and there would be an excess of power once again. At that time, spalling lasers and beams of focused sunlight would start their work, cooking off the accessible volatiles, which would be sucked up by vacuum pumps and routed to the refinery for processing. But for now, the rock sat quiet.
Finally, Sally said, “Where will we put the Miembros?”
That was a word from Spanish, and apparently what the Cartel leaders called themselves, and each other. Los Miembros de la Organización—or simply the Members. A ruse, perhaps, to hide the true importance of their positions, or else a bit of pointless underworld slang, for the thousands of men (and hundreds of women) who worked for them were also called Miembros.
“Space is large,” Orlov said, “and nearly anywhere can be reached from here with minimal energy.”
“But what about time?” she asked. “Do we want them close to us, or far?”
“Arm’s length,” he said. “Too close and they could interfere with operations, or simply make a nuisance of themselves. A perilous nuisance. But if we put them too far, they will realize we are holding them hostage.”
“So, no stuffing them inside of Bennu?”
“Definitely not.”
In the outgassing oven, the asteroid lit up with bright emerald grid patterns as the scanning lasers mapped its exact shape. High points were marked in red; low points in violet.
“What about L5?”
He waved a hand in annoyance. “Which one, Sally? EML5 or ESL5? They are millions of kilometers apart. You must learn to speak precisely.”
“EML5, then. That’s one of the boundaries of cislunar space, isn’t it?”
“Not a boundary,” he snapped. “An attractor. EML5 is along the orbit of Luna, trailing sixty degrees behind. There are clouds of dust there, named for the Russian astronomer Kordylewski. It’s a place even school children know about. The boundaries of cislunar space are a million kilometers farther out.”
Then, fighting down his annoyance at how little she knew, he added, “It would enrage the world, if I put a colony of murderers in their precious EML5. That might be more heat than I care to take on. But EML4 is less sheltered and less romantic. When Earthmen paint visions of gigantic, pastoral space colonies, it’s never EML4 they dream of. And I like the distance. Arm’s length, yes; we will put the Miembros there, a week’s travel by slow boat. Three days by chemical rocket, or two if we don’t mind wasting fuel and charging them for the difference.”
In the chamber, the scanning lasers winked off, their work complete.
Sally said, “Speaking of pleasures and legacies, I’ve noticed none of the men on this station will sleep with me.”
“Nor shall they,” Orlov told her. “They are too old for you.”
“Are you suddenly a moralist?”
He chuckled, amused by the idea. Protecting his daughter’s virtue like a good father, ha! “I like to prevent problems,” he said. “You are one. You’re several. You will not create more.”
After a pause, she said, “You are, among other things, a hypocrite. Are you trying to drive me away?”
He laughed. “Little girl, if I wanted to put you in a shuttle, I would. I still may. And if you’d flee this place because the boys will not fuck you, then by all means, flee. You have your trust fund, yes? Your debts are paid off, yes? The Earth awaits.”
She said nothing.
“No?” he pressed.
Again, nothing.
“If you had a dick,” he told her, “the great Magnus Orlov might have liked you.”
She stared back impassively—an expression he recognized from photos and videos of himself. Was she mirroring his expression, or was she born with it? He supposed it didn’t matter.
“Did he like you?” she finally asked.
“No,” he admitted.
“Well, I do,” she said. “In a manner of speaking. It’s true, what I told you in my letter: the life Mother wants for me is boring.”
He grunted at that. In her short time here, Sally had stirred up more trouble than the crew of fifty combined. He knew her type: pleasure-seeking, novelty-seeking, easily bored. And fearless, or at least lacking in the sense to keep herself out of peril. It wasn’t obviously a good fit. And yet, the girl knew how to take action, and when to cut her losses, and when to ask for help. She had come here to ask for his help, and he had given it to her.
Interesting.
Looking back toward the asteroid again, he said, “I inherited my father’s empire when he died. You want to be a trillionaire? Is that it?”
“No. The money doesn’t matter. I have my trust fund, as you say. Give the rest to charity, if you like. Vent it into space.”
He snorted. “Then what are you sniffing around for, girl?”
“Can’t I dream?” she asked. “Can’t I just want the future in my hands? People live such tiny little lives. Can’t I just want to be part of something bigger?”
“And live in a can, breathing air that smells like balls? That’s a smaller life than you think. It gets very small, at times.”
“It’s not much worse than my school,” she said. “And with less nonsense. Those skirts! I’d rather wear a corset. Or a spacesuit.”
“Ah, so that’s it,” he said, suddenly getting it. “That’s what this is all about? You want to be an astronaut?”
She tossed her head, clearly annoyed. “What have I been saying, Father? All this time, what have I been saying? Yes, I want to be an astronaut! I always have.”
Then, after a pregnant pause: “Didn’t you?”