The Barsoom Project

It was all that Harmony could do to keep his voice from cracking. “Alex, I was drunk! I should never have said anything at all!”

“ So there you have it.” Through the skeletal derrick Alex could see four “skyhooks” on the dome at once: tower, Star-whale, Beanstalk, and a tremendous spinning cable whose endpoints dipped into the Earth’s atmosphere. “ Even the cheapest of these projects would be expensive; the others are much worse. Each of these fantasy devices could lift cargo to space at a few dollars a pound. Each would cause awesome destruction if it failed. And each would be far cheaper, easier to build, less massive, and less dangerous if built to serve Mars!”

Mars replaced Earth. “ Mars rotates in just over twenty-four hours, but is far less massive than Earth. Stressed by only two-fifths of a gravity-” Sudden close-ups of the Beanstalk and Pinwheel showed each to be considerably shorter and much more slender. The rings being fired up and down the tower moved more slowly; the Starwhale was scores of miles long instead of hundreds of miles.

“ Each of these devices can serve Mars for around fifteen percent of their cost at Earth. Their lower energies make each far safer. More to the point, they may loft their goods from the surface of Mars and land supplies for the colonists and materials for the terraforming project; but if they fail-”

They failed all at once. The Beanstalk wrapped Mars in fire. The endpoints of the Pinwheel, which had been dipping low above the surface six times per orbit, now pounded the desert itself until shock waves shattered it. Misdirected rings shredded the tower. A rising spacecraft entered the orbiting rail gun off-center and tore it into a chaff of shredded superconducting wire.

Disasterlight painted Harmony’s broad, battered face with crimson highlights. His eyes blazed.

Alex could see the panic there. He asked, “What do you think I’m going to do? Publish a letter in the Times? Activate the Dream Park hit squad?” Alex’s mind’s eye built him an army of three-dimensional cartoon figures dressed as Ninjas. A black-robed Minnie Mouse, a sword-wielding Baby Huey, and Popeye the Sailor covered with Yakuza tattoos, closed in on a whimpering Fekesh…

“Alex!” Harmony’s voice was rigid with alarm. “Stop smiling like that.”

“Sorry. I’m easily distracted.”

“Dammit, this is serious. You’re likely to stir up more problems than you’ve ever dreamed of!”

Behind them, with staggering sound and visual effects, Martian colonists were battening hatches and shoveling Marsdust to cover glass walls. Mars was ringed in fire and meteoroids.

Alex pulled back from his friend, deeper into the shadow of the derrick, away from the illumination of the fireclouds. “Thadeus, you hired me because you trust me. Not just to do the day-to-day work, but on the big things. And just maybe you hired me specifically for this.”

Harmony wagged his head regretfully. “I was crazy. We’re talking about a hundred billion dollars. At least. Alex-”

Something on Alex’s face must have given Harmony pause, because suddenly he was speechless.

“Thadeus,” Alex said softly. “Did somebody get to you?”

“ If they fail, the meteors will pound only a lifeless world. We’ll build again. And again, until we get it right. And then we can build skyhooks for Earth. And then the solar system is ours!” Spacecraft rose from Earth and Mars, all sizes, all shapes, in ever-denser numbers, flung outward by Beanstalks and Pin-wheels. They spread across the solar system… but Alex Griffin and Thadeus Harmony saw none of that.

Harmony wiped a broad hand over his vast forehead, checked the palm for sweat. “No, Alex. They’re just watching all the time. Sometimes I feel like a goldfish in a bowl. Listen, I’m worried.”

“You should be. But, Thadeus, now it’s in my lap.”

“We backed down before that son of a bitch.” Harmony had glimpsed Fekesh. He studied the tall Arab, then abruptly looked away. “We backed down, but we had reason. We don’t do that lightly, Alex. He had us.”

“You’d almost whipped yourselves before Fekesh ever got there. You told me about it, remember? We’re stronger now, Thadeus. And the girl came back. Raw coincidence, the stuff of dreams and parables. if there’s a trace of superstition in Kareem Fekesh, he must think the fates have come for him.”

Harmony’s mouth opened and shut twice without producing sound. Then: “You’re dreaming.”

“Maybe.”

“Will you at least let me know what’s going on?”

“Minute by minute.”

Harmony gave a long, sighing exhalation. “All right, all right. I’m going to go and make a public face. Just… hell. I’ll be in touch.”

Harmony slouched away, a big, worried bear with an artificial smile plastered across his face, trying to make happy with the guests.

Alex watched him. Harmony wandered across the room shaking a hand here, clasping a shoulder there. Then, as if in response to Alex’s somewhat sadistic prayer, found himself facing Kareem Fekesh.

Both froze. Then Fekesh smiled graciously, walked around Harmony, and disappeared into the crowd.