Time. Stephen Baxter

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СКАЧАТЬ fact that I didn’t blow the whistle immediately I got back from the Mojave – I’m becoming seduced into considering not just rocket engine firings, not just a private launch system, but the NEO mission itself.

      This seems to be Malenfant’s modus operandi: to build up an unstoppable momentum, to launch first and answer questions later.

      The usual forces of darkness are already gathering in Congress to oppose this. It’s going to be a struggle.

      But I already know I’m not going to walk away from Malenfant, despite his outlandish, covert scheming.

      You see, I happen to think Reid Malenfant is right. For the cost of one more space launch – which is undisputed, financial and environmental – it might be possible to reach a near-Earth object, actually to start exploiting one of those sun-orbiting gold mines, and so, just as Malenfant’s corporate title suggests, bootstrap a new human expansion into space.

      I think we’ve all become desensitized to the state of our world.

      We live in a closed economy, an economy of limits. Grain yields globally have been falling since 1984, fishing yields since 1990. And yet the human population continues to grow. This is the stark reality of the years to come.

      It seems to me our best hope for getting through the next century or so is to reach some kind of steady state: recycle as much as possible, try to minimize the impact of industry on the planet, try to stabilize the population numbers. For the last five to ten years I have, in my small way, been working towards exactly that goal, that new order. I don’t see that any responsible politician has a choice.

      I must say I entered politics with rather higher hopes of the future than I enjoy now.

      But even the steady state, our best-hope future, may not be achievable without space.

      Without power and materials from space we are doomed to shuffle a known – in fact diminishing – stockpile of resources around the planet. Some players get rich, others get poor. But it’s not even a zero sum game; in the long term we’re all losers.

      It isn’t just a question of economics. It’s what this does to our spirit.

      We are frightened of the future. We exclude strangers, try to hold on to what we have, rather than risk the search for something better. We spend more energy seeking someone to blame for our present woes than building for a better future. We’ve become a planet full of old people – old in spirit, anyhow. Speaking as a sexagenarian I know what I’m talking about.

      The point is that if we could open up the limits to growth, then we can all be winners. It’s as simple as that.

      That is why I’m prepared to back Malenfant. Not, you’ll note, because I like his methods. But the ends, I suspect, in this case justify the means.

      However all this is going to take some extremely delicate opinion management. Especially over what Malenfant is doing at Key Largo …

      Sheena 5:

      … And, in the warm, shallow waters of the continental shelf off Key Largo:

      The night was over. The sun, a fat ball of light, was already glimmering above the water surface, which rippled with flat-light. Sheena 5 had spent the night alone, foraging for food among the sea bed grasses. She had eaten well, of small fish, prawns, larvae; she had been particularly successful using her arms to flush out hiding shrimp from the sand.

      But now, in the brightness of day, the squid emerged from the grasses and corals, and rose in the water. The shoals formed in small groups and clusters, eventually combining into a community a hundred strong that soared in arcs and rows through the water. Their jets made the rich water sing as they chattered to each other, simple sentences picked out by complex skin patterns, body posture, texture:

      Court me. Court me. See my weapons! I am strong and fierce. Stay away! Stay away! She is mine! …

      It was the ancient cephalopod language, Sheena knew, a language of light and shadow and posture, the ‘words’ shivering one into the other, words of sex and danger and food. It was a language as old as the squid – millions of years old, much older than humans – and it was rich and beautiful, and she shoaled and chattered with joy.

      … But there was a shadow on the water. And Sheena’s deep gravity sense told her of an approaching infrasonic rumble, quite characteristic: it was a barracuda, a vicious predator of the squid. This one was young and small, but no less dangerous for that.

      The sentinels, scattered around the fringes of the shoal, immediately adopted concealment or bluff postures. Their simple words blared lies at the approaching predator, and warned the rest of the shoal.

      Black bands on the mantle, arms limp, swimming rapidly backwards: Look at me. I am a parrotfish. I am no squid.

      Clear body, dark arms in a downward V: Look at us. We are sea grass, sargassum, drifting in the current. We are no squid.

      A pseudomorph, a squid-shaped blob of ink, hastily emitted and bound together by mucus: Look at us. We are squid. We are all squid.

      Turn to predator, spread arms, white spots and false eyes to increase apparent size: Look at me. I am strong and fierce. Flee!

      The dark shape lingered close, just as a true barracuda would, before diving into the shoal, seeking to break it up.

      Sheena knew that there would be no true predators here, in this garden-like reserve. Sheena recognized the glimmer of steel, the camera lenses pockmarking the too-smooth hide of the beast, the regular churn of the propellers in back. She understood that the shadow could only be a watching Bootstrap machine.

      But she sensed a dull recognition of this fact in the glittering animal minds of her cousins, all around her; they were smart too, smart enough to know they were safe here. Besides, so sophisticated were their defences that the squid were rarely troubled by predators. So there was an element of play in the darting concealment and watchfulness of the shoal.

      And then came the hunt.

      The slim cylinder cruised through the posturing, half-concealed squid. Recognition pulsed through the shoal. Some of them spread their arms, covered their mantles with patterns of bars and streaks. Look at me. I have seen you. I will flee. It is futile to chase me.

      Now one of the squid shoal, a strong male, broke free and jetted in front of the barracuda. A pattern began to move over his skin in steady waves, a patchwork of light and dark brown that radiated from his streamlined body to the tip of his tentacles. It was the pattern Dan called the passing cloud. Stop and watch me.

      The barracuda cruised to a stop.

      The male spread his eight arms, raised his two long tentacles, and his green binocular eyes fixed on the barracuda. Confusing patterns of light and shade pulsed across his hide. Look at me. I am large and fierce. I can kill you.

      The metal barracuda hung in the water, apparently mesmerized by the pattern, just as a predator should have been if it had been real.

      Slowly, cautiously, the male drifted towards the barracuda, coming to within a mantle length, gaze fixed on the fish.

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