"Why wouldn't I take precautions, Lem? And whom exactly should I be taking precautions for? These are unmanned vessels. If they blow up, no one dies."
"If they blow up, the entire drone enterprise blows up with them."
"I'm glad to see you taking an interest in management, Lem. But the company's bottom line is taking a temporary backseat to saving the human race."
"So this is a closed tour?"
For an instant it looked as if Father would ask him to leave, but then he smiled and made a sweeping gesture with his hand toward the warehouse. "On the contrary. I don't see you enough as it is." He put an arm around Lem's shoulder. "Mr. Bullick, it appears we're a party of four now. I hope that's not a problem."
"It's your building, Mr. Jukes. This way please." He turned and led them down the corridor. As Lem passed Simona, she gave him a look of pure contempt. He couldn't help himself. He winked at her.
The factory floor was immense. The entire fleet of drones filled the space end to end, with hundreds of workers crawling on the surfaces of drones, or standing in bucket lifts, or hanging suspended from harnesses, all of them building and cutting and welding and fastening, working feverishly to finish the order. Sparks flew, tools whirred, cranes panned left and right, carrying supplies.
Bullick moved to the drone nearest them. It sat in a large cradle, suspended in the air, with the glaser attached to its underside in a metal grill that encircled it like an iron cell. "This is the new cage system we've designed to hold the glasers in place," said Bullick. "Extremely tough. The drone will rip apart before this does. We shouldn't have any more detachment problems with this setup."
"Detachment problems?" asked Lem.
Bullick glanced at Father, unsure if he should reveal anything.
"We had a mishap a few days ago in testing," said Father. "They took a drone out in space, gave the glaser too much juice, and the glaser detached."
Lem looked appalled. "Was it firing?"
"Only for a fraction of a second after it detached. Then the fail-safe kicked in and it stopped. Nothing was damaged, son."
"You're lucky," said Lem. "What if it had been pointed at a ship? Or worse, at Luna or at Earth? This thing creates a field through the continuity of mass, Father. It stops gravity from holding things together. Do you have any idea how catastrophic that could have been?"
Father was annoyed. "I know what it does, Lem. I had the damn thing built."
"And you want to put fifty of these in space near Earth?" He suddenly realized the horror of that idea. "What if one of them deviates or the glaser breaks off and it fires at Earth? Have you considered that?" He suddenly didn't care about unseating Father or taking the company. The image of Earth separating into dust like the asteroid in the Kuiper Belt had him in a panic. "These things are planet killers, Father."
"We're taking precautions, Lem."
"The only right precaution is not to do it."
"And what would you suggest, Lem? Millions of people are dying. The Formics are moving into cities now. They're gassing everything. People's faces are melting off their bodies and turning into bloody puddles of goo. That's happening. As we speak. Are we taking an enormous risk here? Yes. But what else are we going to do? The military are idiots. Nothing they throw at the Formics is getting through. Not on Earth, and not up here. Shuttles, missiles, nukes. Nothing works. Space is our territory. Ours. We own it, not the five-star morons who run armies. We're far better equipped to take action than they are."
"Not with the glaser, Father."
"Yes, with the glaser. You want to throw coconuts at that ship? Be my guest. The rest of us adults will be saving the planet."
Lem walked away. It was old Father now, immovable, pigheaded, loud and blustery. And he was wrong. Lem saw that now, more clearly than ever. Initially he had worried solely about the economic risks of a drone attack. Now he worried about the real danger of it. The image of Earth disappearing into dust resurfaced in his mind, and it left him feeling sick.
He took the skimmer to the facility where Victor and Imala were working. He found them both kneeling by their ship welding a piece onto it, their faces covered in blast masks. Lem was shocked at the sight of the ship. They had completely transformed it. It looked like a piece of wreckage, down to the ship's markings on the hull and scorch marks from laser fire. Wires and conduit and structural beams stuck out everywhere. Had he not known what it was he would have dismissed it as junk.
"How soon can you be ready with this?" he asked.
Victor and Imala faced him and raised their blast masks. "We're moving as quickly as we can here."
"How soon? Two hours? Two days?"
Victor and Imala stood. Victor brushed the dust and fibers off his shirt. "Dublin and Benyawe are finishing up the decoy with the thrusters. We've got a few more hours on our end. Then we can do a test flight."
"Scrap the test flight," said Lem. "There's no time. We launch in a few hours, the instant it's done."
Victor and Imala exchanged glances. "All right," said Victor. "Why the sudden panicked urgency?"
"The Formics have begun gassing cities," said Lem. "We need to move now."