Termination Shock

It was all what Alastair described as “cruft,” meaning complicated and messy holdovers from obsolete code and discontinued operating systems. This was cruft of a geopolitical sort. But cruft was a real thing, it had consequences, and it had to be managed. It seemed that the world was asking Saskia to play some part in its management.

THE LINE

There was a catch, sort of. When in life, though, was there ever not a catch? During the after-dinner chitchat, Prince Fahd had strolled over for a bit of airplane talk. In an apologetic and self-deprecating tone—as if he had embarrassed himself by giving Princess Frederika the wrong type of jet airplane—he mentioned that its range was nothing like what a modern bizjet was capable of. Gone were the days of nonstop flights from Schiphol to Sydney. No, getting around in that thing was going to be more akin to traveling in the Beaver: shorter hops, more frequent stops. And, further compounding his shame, the stops couldn’t be just anywhere: obviously you had to put the thing down at a location where hydrogen was available. Of course, very few airports had that on tap. But in many of your more technologically advanced countries it was possible to have a truck deliver the stuff to the tarmac and pump it directly into the plane. It just required a bit more advance planning, which the prince’s staff would be glad to assist with until Princess Frederika and her people got up to speed.

Saskia had to suppress an impulse to confess that she no longer had “people” in that sense of the term. She was meaning to get some sooner or later. She could support a modest staff. But, for now, she was still enjoying the simplicity and freedom of not being anyone’s boss.

“If you are interested in taking the thing on a little shakedown cruise,” Fahd bin Talal went on, “I would draw Your Royal Highness’s attention to the Line. It is just within range from here, and as part of the kingdom’s commitment to decarbonization, we have, as a matter of course, equipped the airport with state-of-the-art facilities for the storage and delivery of hydrogen. It is easily the most hydrogen-friendly air terminal in the world today.”

Saskia had heard of this Line place. It was a completely new city, a hundred miles long and only a few blocks wide, that the Saudis were constructing on mostly unoccupied land. Its western end was on the Gulf of Aqaba at the head of the Red Sea, its eastern reached deep into the desert. They’d started the project years ago with high aspirations and a great deal of fanfare, but it had stalled out after the Khashoggi assassination, which had led many international corporate partners to back away from it.

The prince’s description made sense, though. When you were building a completely new airport from scratch, drawing on an infinite fund of petro-dollars, why not plumb it for hydrogen? Why not pave the runways in gold?

She wondered if she was being set up here for a photo op. And to his credit, Fahd scented her misgivings. “This would not, in any way, be a public visit,” he hastened to add. “On the contrary. Publicity would be counterproductive. Fortunately, we control the airspace.”

On that promise, Princess Frederika allowed as how she might consider a spontaneous shakedown cruise to the Line the next day, provided she could then fly back and be reunited with her good old Beaver. The prince took this as an unconditional yes and nodded. “Everything will be made ready,” he announced. “Departure will of course be at your convenience, but might I be so forward as to propose wheels up by nine in the morning?”

He was a hard man to say no to. He knew what he wanted, he was used to getting it, and his politeness was as a veil of finest silk draped over a brick. Thus did Saskia find herself suddenly obliged not only to accept the gift of the airplane but to sit in the co-pilot’s seat the next morning as Ervin flew it to the Line.

On the contrary. Publicity would be counterproductive.

Saskia ought to have been paying attention to the advanced controls and unusual features of the hydrogen-powered plane. Ervin was keen to show her these, on the assumption that one day she’d be piloting it herself. And she did manage to show a polite level of interest, but only by dint of a lifetime’s royal experience pretending to pay attention to things for the sake of other people’s feelings. She got the sense that Ervin was frustrated, or at least a bit nonplussed, by her tendency to drift off into long silences as she pondered the prince’s words.

Fahd wanted to show her something connected with the Line, something that must be climate-related but that was meant to be kept under wraps.

And there had been that stinger at the end: “we control the airspace,” with the emphasis on “we.” Kind of an obvious statement. Of course Saudi Arabia controlled Saudi Arabian airspace. Why bother even pointing it out?