The
Earthmover
(Part Two)
By Richard K. Lyon
About the author
EVENTS
MOVED SWIFTLY AND QUIETLY. That was the General's style. The launch crew
at Cape Kennedy began an operational readiness exercise. It was exactly
like a prefiring countdown except that it was being done on a rocket NASA
didn't own and therefore couldn't fire.
Several of the General's friends in the CIA old boy network
were reminded of past favors. The General obtained the services of a highly
skilled computer thief.
The crew of the U.S. EOSS (Earth orbiting space station)
received orders to abandon all routine work and begin preparations for
an urgent task. The task involved taking two unspecified objects in Earth
Orbit and putting them together.
Money left the General's special account, was briefly
laundered, and went to certain people.
The tightest security section of the Defense Department
Computer Data Bank was penetrated tracelessly. The General received the
information he wanted.
All this was done by close of business Monday afternoon.
Monday evening the Friends of Nature held another meeting. Sentiment was
strong to continue the mass demonstration against the dam on the Branga
river but it was felt that the movement also needed a good lawsuit. The
problem was who to sue. After several lackluster suggestions someone mentioned
ERDA. The Energy Research and Development Agency was planning to take a
massive load of the radioactive garbage produced by nuclear power plants
and via rocket dump it into space.
By Tuesday morning the stage was set. Despite his hectic
campaign schedule, President Fairborn reserved the hour from 9 to 10 on
Tuesdays and Thursdays for running the country. This gave him enough time
to issue a few executive orders based on the unanimous recommendations
of his advisors. The number of orders he could issue was limited because
he refused to sign the recommendations without first reading them. The
recommendation on the top of the pile was from Banks, Margat and Chang.
It was odd; recommendations from General Chang had a habit
of being on the top of the pile. The title was "Recommendation for Terrestrial
Orbit Modification to Minimize the Hazards of Celestial Navigation". There
was a great deal of mathematics and technical jargon but Fairborn read
on until he came to the heart of the matter: Banks, Margat, and Chang stated
that the project (whatever it was) fell solely within the areas of responsibility
of their agencies and that it could be accomplished with surplus equipment
and funds already in their budgets. Fairborn signed and went on to the
next recommendation.
At 9:30 U.S. District Court Judge Harvey Wodd received
a petition from the Friends of Nature. The petition asked that the Energy
Research and Development Agency be enjoined from dumping radioactive nuclear
waste in space. The petition alleged that such dumping posed a grave ecological
hazard to whatever life forms resided in space. Further the space dumping
was entirely unnecessary since ERDA not only had alternative means of waste
disposal but was planning to use these alternative means as the long term
solution to the nuclear waste problem. Judge Wodd did not believe the petition
had any merit but obviously a case of this kind had to be heard. Accordingly
he issued an order enjoining ERDA pending a hearing 90 days hence.
Sam Goldstein, Director of ERDA, spent most of the morning
in a useless but necessary meeting, but at 10:30 he went to his desk to
check his mail. He was appalled. It was almost as if some demon had stayed
up all night devising insoluable problems to dump on his desk. He moaned
and set to work. As was his habit he divided the work into the difficult
and the impossible, then began to dispose of the former as fast as possible.
There was a request from Margat of NASA that NASA be permitted to use idle
capital equipment belonging to ERDA for their joint project with the Army
Corps of Engineers. Sam marked that approved and put it in his out box.
He worked through lunch and by midafternoon coffee break he could see light
at the end of the tunnel. Nearly all of the seemingly insoluble problems
were just a matter of people deciding they needed yesterday what they were
going to get next month. Sam was less paranoid than most executives but
it did seem an odd coincidence that all these people decided to be unreasonable
at the same time. A second cup of coffee got his nerves back into reasonable
condition, then the Marshall arrived with the Restraining Order.
It all happened so matter-of-factly that several minutes
passed before Sam could believe such a catastrophe had actually occurred.
His secretary didn't answer his first scream so he bolted up from his desk
and stormed out of his office into hers. As he suspected she
was watching the bootleg TV she kept under her typewriter. "Shut off that
idiot box and get me the Attorney General!" he yelled.
She reached across her desk, picked up the phone and dialed,
all without taking her eyes off the TV screen. The first wave of
outrage past, Sam began to think again. NASA had a joint project with the
Army Engineers. That meant General Chang. In a moment of haste he had okayed
General Chang's use of "idle capital equipment." Capital equipment was
anything which cost over $2000 which a Saturn rocket certainly did and
now the Restraining Order made the rocket idle.
No wonder his desk had looked like the floor of an overcrowded
stable; that little yellow mother had been up all night shoveling it on.
Fortunately it wasn't too late. "Miss Grackel," he snapped at his secretary,
"run down to the mail room and get back that letter I sent to NASA."
"Can't. It was picked up by special messenger. Here's
your call to the Attorney General."
Sam stared at the phone for an instant then grabbed it.
"Charlie, this is Sam Goldstein. I'm in a fix and I need some help fast.
Maybe you can get the FBI to do something. The situation is --"
"What a beautiful liftoff," murmured Miss Grackel.
For the first time Sam saw the TV. The Saturn rocket soaring
up into heaven like a great fire bird was indeed beautiful.
Sam staggered back into his office and for a long time
he just breathed. What to do? Technically General Chang's only crime was
making a fool of Sam Goldstein. It wouldn't do to say that publically,
besides which punishing Chang wouldn't help get the rocket back. Nothing
would, and therefore a long chain of unpleasant events must occur. Nuclear
waste was produced by nuclear fuel rod reprocessing plants. He would have
to notify the plants that ERDA could not space dump their waste and the
alternative waste disposal system wouldn't be ready for three months. That
meant the plants would have to shut down, which in turn meant --
Sam slowly began to smile. There was going to be a disaster
but no one could blame him for it, and the job of straightening out this
mess would inevitably go to the Army Engineers.
"General, you have greatly overstepped your authority. Because of this remote comet danger, you've created an international incident. Your plans call for the United States to violate the Test Ban Treaty by detonating a nuclear device in space. Ambassador Zarbotz has not filed a formal protest only because I assured him that you could not possibly obtain the hydrogen bomb needed for this absurd scheme."
"But surely the Honorable Secretary realizes that a lunar explosion is not a space explosion and is therefore beyond the scope of the Test Ban Treaty?"
"That doesn't matter. There's also a treaty forbidding the placing of nuclear weapons in space and you can't get a bomb to the Moon without first placing it in space."
"On the contrary I can. In fact we already have our bomb."
"You're lying. It's absolutely impossible for you to have a bomb."
"This unworthy person does not wish to argue with the distinguished Secretary of State. Since we can't actually have a bomb, I trust you have no objection to our using it as planned?"
Klots sighed. "Alright Chang, how did you get this bomb and how do you plan to get it to the Moon without placing it in space?"
"Perhaps you are familiar with the legend of Atlantis, the Continent which sank long ages ago, leaving no trace on the face of the Earth? We have found what is probably the last relic of Atlantis floating in orbit around the Earth, an ancient Atlantean hydrogen bomb in a state of incredibly fine preservation. The treaty forbids putting bombs into orbit around the Earth, but we are removing this bomb from orbit which is in accord with both the letter and spirit of the treaty."
"Have you taken leave of your senses?" roared Klots. "Of all the insane fairy stories --"
"Again this unworthy person does not wish to argue with the distinguished Secretary, but how can it be otherwise? A solemn treaty forbids placing nuclear weapons in orbit around the Earth, but the bomb is there. Since no modem nation will admit to owning it, whose can it be, except the ancient Atlanteans?"
There was a long silence, while the Secretary of State and the Russian Ambassador looked at General Chang and each other with acute discomfort. Finally Zarbotz spoke. "No doubt you are correct that this object is an ancient relic but announcing this discovery might raise questions awkward for both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Instead let us simply announce that our nations are cooperating to avert the comet danger."
By Thursday the orbital maneuvers were completed, the bomb loaded and the second stage of the Saturn rocket had blasted out of orbit for the Moon as per schedule. President Fairborn interrupted his campaign to fly to Geneva where he and Russian President Kortoz signed the Treaty of Planetary Defense. In his speech Fairborn modestly gave most of the credit for this treaty that literally saved our world from destruction to Secretary of State Klots.
