Mission: Tomorrow - eARC (32 page)

“A prototype,” I echoed.

“Yep. Far as they were concerned, they thought they had hired me to test the system on a run to the Moon and back. I made them go through the legalities of selling the crate to my company, Sam Gunn, Unlimited. Told them it would relieve them of any legal responsibilities if something went wrong. They signed on the dotted line.” Sam grinned evilly. “Academics.”

“And your test flight?”

“I never intended to just waltz out to the Moon. Been there, done that. I figured a fusion-powered ship could get me to the NEAs in a jiffy. I’d claim a nice, fat asteroid, and that would pay for the damned fusion bucket plus making me a sizeable profit.”

I was stunned by his audacity. “You took their ship out here.”

“My ship,” Sam corrected. “I own this bucket. Not that it’s worth much.”

“Your crew—”

“What crew? I couldn’t ask anybody to risk their butts on this flight. It’s one thing to put my own ass on the line, it’s something else altogether to drag others along with me.”

“You came out here alone?”

“Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide, wide sea,” Sam quoted. I knew it was from some old British poem, but I couldn’t remember which one.

Before I could say anything, Sam added, “Besides, if I brought some crew with me and anything happened to them, the goddamned lawyers would be all over me.”

“But you didn’t register your flight with the International Astronautical Authority. You kept radio silence all the way out here.”

He grinned again. “What they don’t know can’t hurt me.”

“And now you’re marooned here on this asteroid.”

With a nod, Sam admitted, “Looks that way, unless and until I can get the fusion reactor working again. All it’s doing now is putting out a loud squawk up and down the radio spectrum.”

“The jamming.”

“Yeah. Sorry it’s screwed up your communications.”

“Can’t be helped, I suppose.”

Spreading his arms in a gesture that might have indicated welcome, or helplessness, Sam said, “Long as you’re here, why don’t you stay for dinner? I’ve got a fully stocked wardroom, complete with a small but select wine list.”

I realized that, like many capitalists, Sam was a hedonist. Imagine bringing wines along on a mission to the asteroids! On the other hand, though, I hadn’t eaten anything but prepackaged frozen meals since launching from Sinkiang. Nourishing but hardly a treat for my taste buds.

Sam coaxed, “Just take off that suit of armor you’re wearing and come on down to the galley with me.”

Something in those blue-green (or green-blue) eyes of his sent a warning spark along my nerves. Yet I reasoned that I was fully dressed beneath my space suit. But would it give Sam lecherous ideas if I disrobed, even partially? From what I had heard of Sam Gunn, he most likely already had lecherous ideas in mind.

Then he said, “I’ll go up to the galley and get dinner started. You can go to the lavatory, get out of your suit, and wash up.”

I allowed him to lead me to the lavatory, which turned out to be bigger than the entire compartment in my spacecraft. I locked the door, though, before I began to clamber out of my space suit. And looked around for hidden cameras.

Dinner was spectacular: ham and melon for appetizer, then roast duck, rice, a salad and real strawberries for dessert. Sam talked nonstop through the whole meal.

“. . .so I figured that if I could claim a couple of asteroids rich enough to mine profitably, I could recoup what I’d lost on the orbital hotel deal and go on to bigger and better things.”

He told me about his magnetic “garbage remover” device for clearing orbiting debris from low Earth orbits, his zero-gravity “honeymoon hotel,” his hopes for building a tourist entertainment center on the Moon.

“There’s plenty of money to be made in space,” he said as he scooped up the last of the strawberries. “Mucho dinero.”

I finally managed to get in a word. “I suppose so.”

Then he said, “So I guess you’re going to have to rescue me. I mean, with my ship crippled I can’t get off this rock. I might have enough supplies to last another month or so, but I really need to be rescued.”

I actually blushed with shame. “I . . .I can’t, Sam. My spacecraft isn’t big enough to carry two people.”

He broke into a lopsided pout. “Really?”

“Really. I can call the IAA, once I get out of range of your jamming—”

“It’s not intentional!”

“I know. But once I’m away from this asteroid I can call the IAA. They’ll send a rescue mission.”

“Maybe.”

“Of course they will! They’d have to!”

Sam didn’t look convinced of that. But then he said, “You know, you’ve got to be on the body you’re claiming when you send your claim in to the IAA.”

“Oh!” I hadn’t thought of that. I couldn’t claim the asteroid unless I was physically on it when I made the claim. And as long as Sam’s fusion reactor was blocking all the comm frequencies, I couldn’t get a message back to Earth while I was still on the asteroid.

He saw the crestfallen expression on my face. Getting up from the table—slowly, carefully, in the light gravity—Sam said, “I’ll try to fix the damned reactor.”

I expected him to act like a male chauvinist and leave me to clear the table. Instead he picked up everything and tossed them all—dishes, glasses, dinnerware—into what looked like a dishwasher.

“Come on,” he said, “let’s have another whack at that goddamned fusion reactor.”

As we shuffled along the passageway, Sam asked, “So China wants to start mining asteroids for rare-Earth metals.”

“Oh no,” I corrected. “China is already the world’s leading producer of rare-Earth metals. We have no intention of mining more of them from asteroids. Why should we go to such expense? An increase in their supply would only bring down their prices.”

He shot me a perplexed look. “You don’t intend to mine this asteroid? Then why claim it?”

“To prevent others from mining it. We have a near monopoly of rare-Earth metals on Earth. Why should we allow others to compete against us by mining asteroids?”

Understanding dawned in Sam’s hazel eyes. “Cutting the competition’s throat,” he muttered.

“It is a legitimate business tactic,” I said.

“Uh-huh.” We had reached the compartment where the fusion reactor’s controls were housed. Sam turned to me and said, “But there are zillions of asteroids. You can’t claim them all. Others will get to at least some of them.”

I smiled with the knowledge of superior wisdom, “Sam, you’re thinking of the Asteroid Belt, which is four times father from the Sun than the Earth is.”

“Out beyond the orbit of Mars,” he said.

“That’s much too far for commercial operations. The cost of transportation would be too much to make mining asteroids in the Belt profitable.”

“I guess.”

“But the near-Earth asteroids are reasonably accessible. Our astronomers have studied the NEAs very carefully. Although there are hundreds of them sizeable enough to be considered for mining, only a handful have amounts of rare-Earth metals that might be possible competition for the People’s Republic of China.”

“And you’re sending people out to claim each and every one of them.”

“Of course. I am only the first. There will be others. Our only fear is that private companies such as yours will claim a few of them.”

“That could cause you trouble, eh?”

“Competition,” I said.

“Well, for what it’s worth, I’m ’way ahead of those other companies. I’m the first guy out here among the NEAs;
my
competition is still making paper studies and trying to raise capital.”

“We are well aware of that. In fact, Sam, our planners in Beijing didn’t even consider you as a possible threat. You were too small to alarm them.”

Sam grunted. “But I got here first.”

“True.”

“Lot of good it’s going to do me,” he muttered, “unless I can get this tin can working again.”

He went to the chair in the middle of all the reactor controls. I stood behind him, resting my arms on the chair’s high back. Sam looked like a little boy sitting in an adult’s chair; his feet barely reached the deck. He began poking and tapping the keypads and switches set into the armrests, grumbling so low I could not understand his words.

I realized I had a moral dilemma on my hands. I could leave Sam here and return to China, of course. Once I was beyond the inadvertent jamming, if I called the IAA and told them of Sam’s plight, they would send a mission to rescue him, I felt certain. But if I did that, Sam would claim the asteroid and my own mission would be a failure. I would return home in disgrace. The great ones in Beijing would not be pleased with me. Not at all.

On the other hand, I could leave the asteroid and not say a word about Sam being there. I could bring a few pebbles and samples of dust to prove that I had been on the asteroid, and perhaps the IAA would accept that as proof and award China the rights to utilize its resources. Then my mission would be a success.

But Sam would die. And I would have killed him.

Sam seemed to sense my feelings.

“Listen, Song, you do what you have to do. Get off this rock, take some samples with you, and don’t tell the IAA or anybody else about me. You make your claim, don’t worry about me.”

All the while he was fingering the controls on his seat’s armrests like a pianist playing a Bach fugue. But I didn’t see any of the graphs or gauges on the status screens change by a millimeter.

“But, Sam,” I said, “you’ll die on this rock.”

He looked up at me with that lopsided grin of his. “‘Under the wide and starry sky, dig the grave and let me lie.’ This isn’t such a bad place to go.” His grin turned wistful. “I’ve seen worse.”

Well, his self-sacrifice literally overwhelmed me. That, and the fact that he kept telling me he thought I was beautiful. We ended up in his bed—a real bed, in a handsomely-fitted bedroom that was twice the size of my entire spacecraft. Somewhat to my surprise, Sam was a gentle lover, tender and very affectionate.

But when I woke up—after a long, luxurious sleep—I saw that I was alone. Sam was nowhere in sight.

I showered (hot water!) and dressed quickly, then went past the galley and down to the control center. No sign of him. And no sound of him, either.

A terrible flash of realization hit me. The scoundrel has left me here and gone to my spacecraft! He’s taken some samples from the asteroid and he’s going to fly back to Earth in my spacecraft and make his claim, leaving me here to starve to death!

The scoundrel! The seductive, scheming, selfish scoundrel!

“Good morning.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. Sam had come up behind me while I was fuming silently. I whirled to face him, and in the low gravity swung myself completely off my feet and into his arms.

“Hey, whoa, take it easy,” he said, laughing as he held me safely in his arms. I grabbed both his ears and kissed him soundly.

“Wow,” he said. “You’re really glad to see me, huh?”

“I thought . . .” My breath caught in my throat. I couldn’t tell Sam that I thought he’d left and marooned me.

“Let’s have some breakfast,” Sam said. And he started down the passageway toward the galley, whistling horribly off-tune.

I followed him to the galley. Sam seemed happily upbeat, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Was it our love-making that made him so cheerful? After all, one of us was going to leave for Earth while the other waited for a rescue that might never come.

He busied himself frying eggs while I put a pot of water in the microwave to boil for tea.

“You’re very cheery,” I said, as I impatiently waited for the microwave to chime.

He gave me a delighted smile. “Why not? I got the reactor working.”

Again I felt my heart leap. “You did?”

Nodding vigorously, he said, “Got it all cleared up. You can call in your claim.”

“But, Sam, you were here first.”

He flipped the eggs in his frying pan like an expert chef. “Yeah, but you’ve got your higher-ups to answer to. I’m my own boss.”

“But you’re entitled to claim this asteroid.”

“And what happens to you if I do?”

“But you’ll have come all this way for nothing. You’ll be broke.”

He shrugged as he slid the eggs onto two dishes. “I’ve been broke before. Besides, I’ve got this ship. The first fusion-powered spacecraft to go beyond the Earth-Moon system. That’s something.”

I stared at him. He seemed honestly pleased at the situation we were in.

“Sam, China will claim all the rare-Earth asteroids among the near-Earth objects. The PRC intends to keep as tight a monopoly on rare-Earth metals as it possibly can.”

“So I’ll look for a metallic asteroid that contains a few thousand tons of gold.”

“I can’t let you do it,” I said.

He countered, “I can’t let
you
do it.”

We argued all through breakfast, then settled our differences in bed.

So I went back to my spacecraft and called the International Astronautical Authority to claim asteroid 94-12 for the Peoples Republic of China.Then I returned to Sam and we spent our last hours together. I had to start back for Earth, my supplies would barely see me through the return mission.

“What’s going to happen to you, Sam?” I asked him, with tears in my eyes.

He grinned that lopsided, gap-toothed grin of his at me. “Don’t worry about me, Song. I’ll make out all right. Maybe I’ll find an asteroid made of pure gold.”

“Be serious.”

He kissed me, gently, sweetly, and said, “You’d better get back to your own ship, kid, before I lose all my good intentions.”

We were never destined to be together for long, I know. Sam was not the kind of man a woman could expect to hold onto for more than a fleeting encounter.

I returned to China with a heavy heart, although I was feted and honored and even invited to a special reception in the Forbidden City. Sam disappeared. No trace of him was found among the near-Earth asteroids. I feared he had died out there, alone, unloved, his dreams of wealth vanished forever. Because of me.

It was almost a year later that Sam electrified the world by claiming an asteroid in the Asteroid Belt, far beyond the orbit of Mars. He had flown his fusion-powered spacecraft farther than any human had gone before. Over the next ten months he claimed ten asteroids, including two that were rich in rare-Earth elements.