"Dr. Dublin is equally respected, Lem."
"Are you turning down the promotion?"
"Not at all. I'm honored. I just want to make sure you understand my qualifications don't exceed his."
"You take risks when he doesn't." And more importantly, your actions haven't been influenced by Father. "Now, prove to me I've made the right decision."
*
The test was over as soon as it began. One second the asteroid was moving through space. The next second it tore itself to smithereens. The largest surviving rock fragment spun away from the blast toward the ship, but the collision-avoidance system sprang into action and blasted the rock fragment to dust long before it reached the ship.
Lem and Benyawe were watching from the observation room. Lem lowered the scope glasses. "Well that was rather theatrical. Would we call that a success, Dr. Benyawe?"
Benyawe was already tapping on her data pad, calling up the video of the asteroid implosion and watching the footage again at a slower speed. "We clearly don't yet know how to control the glaser to the degree we would like," said Benyawe. "The gravity field was obviously too wide and too powerful. We still have adjustments to make." She looked at Lem. "Dublin's hesitations were not without reason, Lem. The glaser creates a field of centrifugal gravity, a field where gravity stops holding mass together because it all aligns with the glaser. It creates a field through the continuity of mass. The field spreads with the explosion of the mass, then it keeps destroying until the mass is so dispersed that it no longer works as a unit of mass. The question we have to answer is, How far does the field persist in relation to the mass? Do bigger asteroids generate a wider field? And would that field stretch far enough to reach the ship? We better hope not, because if it did, the same thing that happened to that pebble would happen to us."
"The field seemed contained to me," said Lem.
"On a rock this size, yes," said Benyawe. "But what about a bigger mass? That's why we need to continue testing, choosing targets that are incrementally larger than the previous test subjects."
Lem didn't want to wait. He wanted to send a very clear message to Father now. One that showed Father how free and clear Lem was from Father's manipulations. If Father thought he could control Lem with the pebbles, then Lem would go to the opposite extreme. Right to the big leagues.
"In an ideal world," Lem said, "yes, we would inch our way up to bigger asteroids. But this test just proved that Dublin was unnecessarily cautious. I say we move directly to a rock a hundred times the size of that pebble."
"Your Father wouldn't agree with that."
Which is precisely why we're going to do it, Lem wanted to say but didn't. "My father's assignment to me was to prove that the glaser could be a safe and effective mining tool. He wants to operationalize this as soon as possible. Juke ships will be mining big rocks, not pebbles."
Benyawe shrugged. "As long as you know the risks."
"You've been very clear. I'll find our next target while you and Dublin prepare a brief yet thorough report for my father and the Board. Text only. Send the video in a subsequent message. I want them to receive the good news as soon as possible." Lem knew that laserline messages with a lot of memory moved slowly through the company's data receivers. If he wanted to get a message to Father fast, a brief text message was best.
Lem climbed into the push tube, adjusted his vambraces, and gave the command for the magnets to propel him to the helm. Of all the rooms on Makarhu, the helm had been the most difficult for Lem to get used to. Shaped like a cylinder, with the flight crew positioned all along the inner circular wall, the helm could be a little dizzying. As you entered the room at one end, there were crewmen all around you--above, below, left and right, all standing at their workstations with their feet held securely to the wall with greaves. In the center of the room was a spherical system chart, a large hologram surrounded by projectors. A small hologram of the ship was at the sphere's center, and as the ship moved, so did the celestial objects in space around it, keeping the holo of the ship forever in the center. Lem launched himself to the system chart and came to rest beside his chief officer, an American named Chubs.
"Nice shooting," said Chubs. "We can officially erase that pebble from the system chart."
"We need a new target," said Lem. "A hundred times the size of that pebble. Preferably close and rich in minerals."
Chubs took his stylus from the front pocket of his body suit. "That's easy." He selected an asteroid on the system chart down near the ship and enlarged it so it filled the chart. "It's called 2002GJ166. It's not Asteroid Belt big, but it's big for out here."
"How far away?" asked Lem.
"Four days," said Chubs.
Considering that this was the Kuiper Belt and that most big objects were usually months apart from each other, that was ridiculously close. "Sounds perfect," said Lem.
Chubs looked hesitant. "Actually, not perfect. Not if you want to blow it up with the glaser."
"Why?"
"We keep a constant watch of movement around us," said Chubs. "Our boys here know where all the other mining ships are in the vicinity. Your father was very particular about us conducting these field tests far from the snooping eyes of WU-HU or MineTek or any other competitor. So if somebody is nearby, we make it our business to know about it. And this asteroid, 2002GJ166, is currently occupied."
"Someone's mining it?"
Chubs made a few movements with his stylus. The asteroid minimized, and a holo of a mining ship appeared. "A free-miner family. Not a big clan. Just a single ship. It's called El Cavador. According to the files we have from the Lunar Trade Department, they're a Venezuelan family. Their captain is a seventy-four-year-old woman named Concepcion Querales. And the ship isn't any younger. It's probably been patched up so many times over it looks like space junk at this point. It comfortably holds sixty people, but knowing free miners, they probably have closer to eighty or ninety people on board."
"We can't conduct the test if they're there," said Lem.
"I'm sure they would appreciate not being blown to smithereens," said Chubs. "But don't expect them to pack up and leave any time soon. They've been at the rock for a few weeks now building mineshafts. They have a lot of time and mon