Rainbow Mars Read Free

who really wants stars! I thought I could use the Institute to get him that,” Gorky said.
    Miya Thorsven half whispered to Svetz, “Dominance games.”
    â€œI’ve watched a lot of this,” Svetz said.
    â€œDirector Gorky swallowed up Ra Chen’s department. Would Ra Chen help him justify that?”
    Svetz told her what he thought Ra Chen would want her to hear. “If Ra Chen couldn’t protect what he had, there’s no point in asking for it back. If Gorky loses, the SecGen is likely to dismantle Time and Space and start over with relatives as his Chairs.”
    Gorky was saying, “We haven’t sent anything bigger than a bedsheet to the stars, but we’ve had the planets for a long time. Hibernation and an ion-fission drive took a crew of five to Jupiter. That technique would take us anywhere, given time. We could build another Jupiter ship and fire it at Four-four, if we had the time. ”
    â€œFour-four?”
    â€œ51 Pegasi 4–4, fourth moon of the fourth planet, is as close as we can find to another Earth for hundreds of light-years. Only, it’s early Earth. Reducing atmosphere. We’ve never found an oxygen world.
    â€œSo. Send a drone package to 51 Pegasi. Move back in time by as long as it takes. A thousand years? A billion?” Gorky brushed aside their attempts to interrupt. “Algae in the atmosphere starts the terraforming process. Add higher life-forms before anything competitive can evolve.
    â€œNow launch a manned ship. A hundred years to 51 Pegasi, we can manage that. We find Earth’s twin waiting for us! Drop a hundred and eight years into the past. Phone home. The laser takes eight years to reach Earth from Four-four. It gets there a month after the ship leaves, or a week. Ra Chen, I take it that won’t work.”
    Ra Chen was openly laughing. “I’d be all day telling you what’s wrong with that. Willy, did you ever think of asking?”
    â€œI thought you’d wind up owning me if I asked favors from the Institute for Temporal Research,” Gorky said.
    Svetz thought he was probably right, but Ra Chen chortled. “You see it, Svetz? He thought the extension cages were the time machines!”
    â€œAh.” Svetz told Gorky, “No, sir. The time machine is under the Center. The whole Center is just the top, like a lid on a jar, with a twisty folded-over quark accelerator underneath. The X-cage is the only part that moves.”
    Gorky asked, “What’s its mass?”
    Svetz didn’t know.
    â€œThree million eight hundred thousand tons,” Ra Chen said with some satisfaction. “Under Waldemar Eight and Nine we built it all as a laboratory. After we got it working we built over it to make the Center.”
    â€œHow much could you shrink it? Unlimited budget. We’re only talking, now.”
    â€œHow much mass can you put into orbit, Willy?”
    â€œWith the new heavy lifters, four thousand tonnes each flight.”
    â€œForget that, ” Ra Chen said.
    â€œYou’ve been running a gigantic hoax,” Svetz said. He missed Gorky’s fury and Ra Chen’s disapproval while he chewed new data. “What have you got? Willy, sir, what have you really got? Cities on the Moon? Mars? Asteroids?”
    â€œMoon and Mars,” Miya said. “Mars is just twenty people. Luna City is two thousand, I think, but buried, not much to see. The glass domes we showed Waldemar Ten came out of a computer.”
    â€œAnything on the asteroids?”
    â€œSome automated mining projects that broke down. One day we’ll get it right,” Miya said. “Mine the asteroids for metal. Put all the factories in orbit—”
    Svetz waved it off. “Heavy lifter?”
    Gorky said, “We’re building it. We’re building four. I could ask for forty now, but I’d have to justify the expense eventually.”
    â€œWill the Secretary-General