The Precipice

MASTERSON AEROSPACE CORP.

“You can’t see them, Mr. Randolph.” Dan was startled by Douglas Stavenger’s words. “I was staring, wasn’t I?” he admitted. Stavenger smiled patiently. “Most people do, when they first meet me. But the nanomachines are all safely inside me. You can’t get infected by them.”

The two men were sitting in Stavenger’s spacious office, which looked more like a comfortable sitting room than a business center. Wide windows made up two of the room’s walls. No desk, not even a computer screen in sight; only upholstered chairs and a small sofa off to one side of the room, with a few low tables scattered here and there. Dan had to remind himself that the windows were really transparent, not holoviews. They looked out on Selene’s Grand Plaza, the only public greenspace within nearly half a million kilometers. Douglas Stavenger’s office was not buried deep underground. It was on the fifteenth floor of one of the three office towers that also served as supports for the huge dome that covered the Grand Plaza. Masterson Aerospace Corporation’s offices took up the entire fifteenth floor of the tower.

Spread out beyond those windows was the six-hundred-meter-long Plaza itself, a grassy expanse with paved footpaths winding through it, flowered shrubbery and even small trees here and there. Dan could see people walking along the paths, stopping at the shopping arcades, playing lunar basketball in the big enclosed cage off by the orchestra shell. Kids were doing fantastically convoluted dives from the thirty-meter platform at one end of the Olympic-sized swimming pool, twisting and somersaulting in dreamlike slow motion before they splashed languidly into the water. A pair of tourists soared past the windows on brilliantly colored plastic wings, flying like birds on their own muscle power in the low lunar gravity. “It’s a pleasant view, isn’t it?” Stavenger said.

Dan nodded his agreement. While most people on the Moon instinctively wanted to live as deep underground as possible, Stavenger stayed up here, with nothing between him and the dangers of the surface except the reinforced lunar concrete of the Plaza’s dome, and a meter or so of rubble from the regolith that had been strewn over it.

And why not? Dan thought. Stavenger and his family had more or less created the original Moonbase. They had fought a brief little war against the old United Nations to win their independence — and the right to use nanotechnology even though it had been banned on Earth.

Stavenger was filled with nanomachines. Turning his gaze back to him, Dan saw a good-looking young man apparently in his thirties smiling patiently at him. Stavenger wasn’t much bigger than Dan, though he appeared more solidly built. Smooth olive complexion, sparkling blue eyes. Yet Douglas Stavenger was at least his own age, Dan knew, well into his sixties. His body was filled with nanomachines, tiny, virus-sized mechanisms that destroyed invading microbes, kept his skin smooth and young, took apart plaque and fatty deposits in his blood vessels atom by atom and flushed them out of his body. The nanomachines apparently kept him youthful as well. Far better than any of the rejuvenation therapies that Dan had investigated. There was only one drawback to the nanos: Douglas Stavenger was forbidden to return to Earth. Governments, churches, the media, and the mindless masses feared that nanomachines might somehow get loose and cause unstoppable plagues or, worse, might be turned into new genocidal bioweapons.

So Stavenger was an exile who lived on the Moon, able to see the bright beckoning Earth hanging in the dark lunar sky but eternally prohibited from returning to the world of his birth.

He doesn’t look upset about it, Dan thought, studying Stavenger’s face.

“Whatever they’ve done for you,” he said, “you look very healthy and happy.”

Stavenger laughed softly. “I suppose I’m the healthiest man in the solar system.”

“I suppose you are. Too bad the rest of us can’t have nanos injected into us.”

“You can!” Stavenger blurted. Then he added, “But you wouldn’t be able to go back Earthside.”

Dan nodded. “We can’t even use nanomachines to help rebuild the damage from the flooding and earthquakes. It’s outlawed.”

Stavenger hunched his shoulders in a slight shrug. “You can’t blame them, really. More than ten billion people down there. How many maniacs and would-be dictators among them?”

“Too damned many,” Dan mumbled.

“So you’ll have to rebuild without nanotechnology, I’m afraid. They won’t even allow us to sell them machinery built with nanos; they’re frightened that the machinery is somehow infected by them.”

“I know,” said Dan. Selene built spacecraft of pure diamond out of piles of carbon soot, using nanomachines. But they were allowed no closer to Earth than the space stations in low orbit. Stupid, Dan said to himself. Nothing but ignorant superstition. Yet that was the law, everywhere on Earth. It also made more jobs for people on Earth, he realized. The spacecraft that Astro used to fly from Earth’s surface into orbit were all made basically the same way Henry Ford would have manufactured them; no nanotechnology allowed. Typical politician’s thinking, Dan thought: bow to the loudest pressure group, keep outmoded industries alive and turn your back on the new opportunities. Even with the greenhouse warming wiping out half Earth’s industrial base, they still think the same old way.

Leaning back in his easy chair, Stavenger said, “I understand you’re trying to raise the capital to develop a fusion drive.”

Dan smiled crookedly at him. “You’re well informed.”

“It doesn’t take a genius,” Stavenger said. “You’ve had talks with Yamagata and most of the major banks.”

“Plus the double-damned GEC.”

Stavenger’s brows rose slightly. “And now you’re talking to me.”

“That I am.”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Randolph?”

“Dan.”

“Dan, okay.”

“You can help me save those ten billion people down there on Earth. They need all the help they can get.”

Stavenger said nothing. He merely sat there, his face serious, waiting for Dan to go on.

“I want to open up the Asteroid Belt,” Dan said. “I want to move as much of Earth’s industrial base into orbit as we can, and we need the re-sources from the Belt to do that.”

Stavenger sighed. “It’s a pretty dream. I believed in it myself, once, but we found that it costs more than it’s worth.”

“Selene’s sent spacecraft to the NEAs,” Dan pointed out. “Not for many years, Dan. It’s just too expensive. We decided a long time ago that we can live on the resources that the Moon provides. We have to. No asteroids.”

“But with fusion, it becomes economically feasible to extract resources from the NEAs. And even the Belt.”

“Are you certain of that?” Stavenger asked softly.

“Positively,” Dan agreed. “Same situation as the Clipperships. Your Clipperships brought down the cost of going into orbit to the point where it became economically feasible to build space stations and solar power satellites and fullscale factories.”

“They’re not my Clipperships, Dan.”

“Masterson Corporation is your family’s outfit, isn’t it?” Stavenger shifted uneasily in his chair, his smile fading. “Masterson was founded by my family, true enough. I still own a big slice of its stock, but I’m only the Chairman Emeritus. I’m not really involved in the company’s operations any longer.”

“But they still listen to you.”

The smile returned, but it was more guarded now. “Sometimes,” Stavenger said. “So how would Masterson like to come in with me on this fusion system? It’ll be a gold mine.”

Stavenger hesitated before replying, “I’ve been told that Humphries Space Systems is backing your fusion program.”

“Martin Humphries has offered to, that’s true,” Dan admitted.

“But you’re not satisfied with his offer?”

“I don’t know if I can trust him. He comes waltzing into my office and drops this fusion deal in my lap. Why? Why didn’t he do it for himself? What’s he want me for?”

“Maybe it’s Astro Manufacturing that he wants,” Stavenger said. Dan nodded vigorously. “Yep, that’s what scares me. The man has a reputation for being a grabber. He’s built Humphries Space Systems by swallowing up other companies.”

Again Stavenger hesitated. At last he said, “He’s on the verge of acquiring a majority of Masterson’s stock.”

“What?” A jolt of surprise flashed through Dan.

“I’m not supposed to know, really,” Stavenger said. “It’s all been very hush-hush. Humphries is on the verge of buying out two of our biggest shareholders. If he’s successful, he’ll have enough clout to load the board of directors with his own people.”

“Damn,” grumbled Dan. “Double dammit to hell and back.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to play with Humphries whether you like it or not. In his court.”

Suppressing an urge to get up and pound on the walls, Dan heard himself say, “Maybe not.”

“No?”

“There’s one other possibility.”

“And what might that be?” Stavenger was smiling again, as if he knew precisely where Dan was heading.

“Selene.”

“Ahh,” said Stavenger, leaning back in his cushioned chair. “I thought so.”

“Selene has trained technical personnel and manufacturing facilities. I could bring my fusion people up here and we could build the prototype together.”

“Dan,” said Stavenger gently, “who would pay Selene’s technical personnel? Who would pay for using our facilities?”

“We could share the cost. I can divest a couple of Astro’s operations and raise some cash that way. Selene could donate—” The expression on Stavenger’s face stopped him. It reminded Dan of the look that his geometry teacher would give him, back in high school, when he went off on the wrong tangent.

“You know something that I don’t,” Dan said.

Stavenger laughed gently. “Not really. You know it, too, but you’re not thinking of it. You’re overlooking the obvious.”

Dan blinked, puzzled.

“You are staring at the solution to your problem,” Stavenger prompted. “I’m looking at you and you say that I’m—” The light finally dawned in Dan’s mind. “Oh for my sweet old Aunt Sadie! Nanomachines.” Stavenger nodded. “Nanotechnology can build your fusion engine for you, and do it faster and cheaper than the orthodox way.”

“Nanotechnology,” Dan repeated.

“It would mean your spacecraft could never get any closer to Earth than low orbit.”

“So what?” Dan exclaimed. “The double-damned ship is for deepspace operations.

It’ll never touch down on Earth or any other planetary surface.”

“Then you should have no problem,” said Stavenger.

“You mean Selene will back us?”

Very carefully, Stavenger replied, “I believe the governing council will allocate personnel and facilities to demonstrate that a prototype fusion engine can be built by using nanotechnology.”

Dan grinned widely. “Yep, and once the prototype proves out, Selene will have a major new product line to manufacture: fusion drives.”

“And access to the asteroids.”

“Damned right! And any comets that come waltzing by, too.”

“Selene and Astro Manufacturing will be partners,” Stavenger said. “Partners!” Dan agreed, sticking out his hand. Stavenger gripped it firmly and they shook on the deal.