Between the Strokes of Night

Curious, Judith dialled into the Station’s central computer and requested a high-resolution image of Eleanora. The half-built arcology blinked into full-color display on the screen. The skeleton was finished now, a seven-hundred-meter spherical framework of metal girders. Wall panels were going in over half the structure, so that she could estimate the size of the rooms and the internal corridors that would exist in the final ship. Allowing for power, food, maintenance and recreational areas, the final Ark would comfortably house twelve thousand people — the biggest one yet. And it had more facilities and living-space per person than the average family enjoyed on Earth. Two more arcologies were starting construction in higher orbits, each supposedly even bigger than this one.

Judith stared out of the port, seeing again her own office back at the Institute. The group’s move up here (if it happened; Hans Gibbs had been gone a long time) had seemed such a big thing when it was first proposed. Compared with what Salter Wherry was planning for the arcologies, it was nothing. They were designed to be self-sustaining over a period of centuries and more, free-ranging through the Solar System and beyond if they chose, independent even of sunlight. From a kilo or two of water, self-contained fusion plants would provide enough power for years. As a backup to the recycling systems, each arcology would tow along an asteroid several hundred meters across, to be mined as needed. Judith shook her head thoughtfully. She swung her chair to look out of the Earthside ports. It was daylight below, and she could see the great smudge that shrouded most of central Africa. Parts of the desiccated equatorial rain forest were still ablaze, casting a dark shadow across a third of the continent. The drought-ridden area stretched from the Mediterranean past the Equator, and no one could predict when it would end. It was hard to imagine what life must be like down there, as the climate changes made the old African life styles impossible. And across the Atlantic, the vast Amazon basin was steadily drying, too, becoming the tinder that would flame in just a few more months unless weather patterns changed.

A turn of the head brought Eleanora back into view, far above. Down on Earth the arcologies seemed remote, the daydream of one man. But once you were up here, watching the ferry ships swarming between the Station and the distant, twinkling sphere of Eleanora…

“Interested in taking that trip?” said Hans Gibbs’ voice from behind her. “There’s plenty of space available for qualified people, and you’d be a prime candidate for a colonist.”

The spell was broken. Judith realized that she had been staring out mindlessly, more fascinated than she had ever expected. She looked around at him questioningly.

“It’s yes,” he said at once. He shook his head in a puzzled way. “I’d have bet my liver that he wouldn’t even consider seeing you — I told you, Salter Wherry never meets with anybody except a few aides these days. So what does he do? He agrees to see you.”

“Thank you.”

Hans Gibbs laughed. “For Christ’s sake, don’t thank me. All I did was ask — and I didn’t expect anything except a quick refusal. He agreed so quickly, I wasn’t ready for it. I started to give him arguments why he should make an exception in this case, then my brain caught up with my mouth. I suppose that proves how little I know him, even after all these years. If you’re ready we can go over right now. His suite is on the other side of Spindletop, directly across from here. Come on, before he changes his mind.”

CHAPTER SIX

Salter Station was built on the general double-wheel plan defined thirty years earlier for a permanent space station.

The upper wheel, Spindletop, was reserved for communications, living, and recreational quarters. It rotated about the fixed spindle that jutted up to it from the lower wheel. With a diameter of four hundred meters, Spindletop had an effective gravity that ran from near-zero at the hub to almost a quarter-gee at the outer circumference. The thicker under-section turned much more slowly, needing close to two hours for a full revolution compared with Spindletop’s one-minute rotation period. All the maintenance, construction, power, and agriculture systems resided on the lower wheel.