It was early evening before Judith Niles picked up the phone and asked Jan de Vries to join her in her office. While she waited for him she stood by the window, staring out across the garden that flanked the south side of the Institute. The lawns were increasingly unkempt, with the flower beds near the old brick wall showing patches of weeds.
"Midnight oil again? Where's your dinner date, Judith?" said a voice behind her.
She started. De Vries had entered the open office door without knocking, quiet as a cat.
She turned. "Close the door, Jan. You won't believe this, but I did have an offer of dinner. A wild offer, with all the old-fashioned trimmings—he suggested oysters Rockefeller, veal cordon bleu, wine, and the moonlit Avon River. Oysters and wine! My God, you can tell that he's from way out in space. He honestly believed we'd be able to buy that sort of food, without a contract or a special dispensation. He doesn't know much about the real situation. One of the scary things about all the government propaganda is that it works so well. He had no idea how bad things are, even here in New Zealand—and we're the lucky ones. Oysters! Damn it, I'd give my virginity for a dozen oysters. Might as well hope to be served roast beef."
Her voice was longing, and it carried no trace of the usual authority. She sat down at her desk, eased off her shoes, and lolled back in her chair, lifting her bare feet to rest them on an open desk drawer.
"Far too late for any of that, my dear," said Jan de Vries. "Roast beef, good wine, oysters—or virginity, for that matter. For most of us they've fled with the snows of yesteryear. But I'm just as impressed by the other implications of his offer. Only somebody out of touch with the climate changes and literally out of this world would want to look at that ghastly river—not when it's eighty-seven degrees and ninety percent humidity."
He sat down gracefully, reclining on a big armchair. "But you turned down the invitation? Judith, you disappoint me. It sounds like an offer you couldn't refuse—just to see his expression when he could compare reality with his illusions."
"I might have taken it if Hans Gibbs hadn't made me the other offer."
"Indeed?" Jan de Vries touched his lips with a carefully manicured forefinger. "Judith, from one of your strongly heterosexual tastes, those words ring false. I thought you longed for offers like that, attractive beyond all other lures—"
"Stow it, Jan. I've no time for games just now. I want the benefit of your brain. You've met Salter Wherry, right? How much do you know about him?"
"Well, as it happens I know a fair amount. I almost went to work on Salter Station. If you hadn't lured me here, I'd probably be there now. There's a certain je ne sais quoi to the notion of working for a aged multibillionaire, especially one whose romantic tastes before he went into seclusion were said to coincide with mine."
"Does he really own Salter Station? Completely?"
"So it is rumored, my dear. That, and half of everything else you care to mention. I could never discover any evidence to the contrary. Since the charming Mr. Gibbs works for Wherry, and you met with him for many hours this afternoon—don't think your long cloistering passed unnoticed, Judith—I wonder why you ask me these things. Why didn't you ask Hans Gibbs your questions about Salter Wherry directly?"
Judith Niles padded back to the window and stared moodily out at the twilight. "I need to do an independent check. It's important, Jan. I need to know how rich Salter Wherry really is. Is he rich enough to let us do what we need to do?"
"According to my own investigations and impressions, he is so rich that the word lacks real meaning. Our budget for next year is a little over eight million, correct? I will check the latest data on him, but even if Salter Wherry is no richer now than he was twenty years ago, this whole institute could be comfortably supported on the interest on Wherry's petty cash account."
"Maybe that's his plan." Judith swung back to face into the room. "Damn it, he certainly timed it well."
"Money troubles again? Remember, I've been away."
"Bad ones. I've had it with our brainless Budget Committee. They want to squeeze us another five percent, and already the place is falling apart around our ears. And we can't keep some of our experiments and results secret indefinitely, much as I'd like to. Charlene Bloom and Wolfgang Gibbs are stumbling over the same lead that we found. Wherry couldn't be approaching us at a better time. It could work out perfectly."
"As I have told you many times, Judith, you are a genius. You can maneuver simple innocents like me around like puppets. But you are not—yet—a manipulator to match Salter Wherry. He is the best in the System, and he can call on seventy years of experience. When you think of your own objectives, and your hidden agenda—which I do not even pretend to be privy to—remember that he undoubtedly has a hidden agenda also, with quite different goals. And if you are a genius, he is an undoubted genius also in finance and organization. And he has a reputation of getting his way."
De Vries crossed his legs carefully and adjusted the sharp crease on his trousers. "But from the look on your face I suspect I'm digressing. What's this great offer you want to discuss? Why aren't you off by the great gray-green greasy Avon River, dining on strawberries and cream to the sound of trumpets—or whatever other delights of dalliance the sadly out-of-touch Mr. Gibbs had in mind?"
Judith Niles rubbed delicately at her left eye, as though it was troubling her. "Hans Gibbs brought me an offer. They're having problems on Salter Station. Did you know that?"
"I have heard rumors. The insurance rates for Station personnel have been raised an order of magnitude above those for conventional space operations. But I fail to see any connection with the Institute."
"That's because you don't know what the problems are. Jan, the offer I had today was a simple one. Hans Gibbs came here with authority from Salter Wherry. The budget of the Institute will be quadrupled, with guaranteed funding levels for eight years. In addition, the schedule of experiments that we conduct here will be free from all outside control or interference. So will our hardware and software procurement."
"It sounds like paradise." De Vries stood up and went to stand next to Judith. "Where's the worm in the apple? There must be one."
She smiled at him, and patted his shoulder. "Jan, how did I get along before you joined the Institute? Here's your worm: to get all the good things that Salter Wherry promises, we must satisfy one condition. The key staff of the Institute must relocate—to Salter Station. And we must do our best to crack a problem that has been ruining the arcology construction projects there."
"What! Up into orbit. I hope you didn't agree to it."
"No, not yet. But I might. I have to go up there and see for myself—Hans Gibbs will make the arrangements this weekend." As Jan de Vries became more and more doubtful, Judith looked more relaxed.
"And since I'll be gone, Jan," she went on, "somebody else has to look at the initial list of key staff members, just in case we decide to do it. I know my own choices for the top people, but I'm not close enough to all the support staff—and we'd need some of them, too. Who are the best ones, and who is willing to go to Salter Station?"
"You sound as though you have made up your mind already."
"No. I just want to think ahead in case it does happen." She went across to her desk and picked up a handwritten page. "Here's my first selection. Sit down again, and we'll go over it together."
"But—"
"Get Charlene to help you on this while I'm away."
"Charlene? Look, I know she's good, but can she be objective? She's a mass of insecurity."
"I know. She's too modest. That's why I want her to know she was on my preferred list from the start. While you're at it, take a look at this." She handed him a couple of pages of printout. "I just ran it out of the historical data banks. It's the statement that Salter Wherry made to the United Nations when he started his industrial space activity, thirty years ago. We need to understand the psychological make-up of the man, and this is a good clue to it."
"Judith, slow down. You're pushing me. I'm not at all sure that I want to—"
"Nor am I. Jan, we may be forced to do this, even if some of us don't like the decision. Things have been absolutely falling apart around here in the past few months, bit by bit."
"I know times are hard—"
"They'll get worse. The way the Institute is getting screwed around, we can't afford to do nothing. If we're being raped we have to fight any way we can; even if it means risking Salter Wherry trying to screw us too."
He took the sheets from her hand, sighing. "All right, all right. If you insist, I'll blunder ahead. Let's all become experts on Salter Wherry and his enterprises. But Judith, must you be so crude? I prefer to avoid these unpleasant suggestions of rape. Why can't we regard this overture as the first touch of Salter Wherry's perfumed hand in our genteel seduction?" He smirked happily. "That makes it all positively appealing; in seduction, my dear, there's so much more scope for negotiation."
From the invited address of Salter Wherry to the United Nations General Assembly, following establishment of Salter Station in a stable six-hour orbit around the Earth, and shortly before Wherry withdrew from contact with the general public:
Nature abhors a vacuum. If there is an open ecological niche, some organism will move to fill it. That's what evolution is all about. Twenty years ago there was a clear emerging crisis in mineral resource supply. Everybody knew that we were heading for shortages of at least twelve key metals. And almost everybody knew that we wouldn't find them in any easily accessible place on Earth. We would be mining fifteen miles down, or at the ocean bottom. I decided it was more logical to mine five thousand miles up. Some of the asteroids are ninety percent metals; what we needed to do was bring them into Earth orbit.
I approached the U.S. Government first with my proposal for asteroid capture and mining. I had full estimates of costs and probable return on investment, and I would have settled for a five percent contract fee.
I was told that it was too controversial, that I would run into questions of international ownership of mineral rights. Other countries would want to be included in the project.
Very well. I came here to the United Nations, and made full disclosure of all my ideas to this group. But after four years of constant debate, and many thousands of hours of my time preparing and presenting additional data, not one line of useful response had been drafted to my proposal. You formed study committees, and committees to study those committees, and that was all you did. You talked.
Life is short. I happened to have one advantage denied to most people. From the 1950s through the 1990s, my father invested his money in computer stocks. I was already very wealthy, and I was frustrated enough to risk it all. You are beginning to see some of the results, in the shape of PSS-One—what the Press seems to prefer to call Salter Station. It will serve as the home for two hundred people, with ease.
But this is no more than a beginning. Although Nature may abhor a vacuum, modern technology loves one; that, and the microgravity environment. I intend to use them to the full. I will construct a succession of large, permanently occupied space stations using asteroidal materials. If any nation here today desires to rent space or facilities from me, or buy my products manufactured in space, I will be happy to consider this—at commercial rates. I also invite people from all nations on Earth to join me in those facilities. We are ready to take all the steps necessary for the human race to begin its exploration of our Universe.
It was past midnight by the time that Jan de Vries had read the full statement twice, then skipped again to the comment with which Salter Wherry had concluded his address. They were words that had become permanently linked to his name, and they had earned him the impotent enmity of every nation on earth: "The conquest of space is too important an enterprise to be entrusted to governments."
De Vries shook his head. Salter Wherry was a formidable man, ready to take on world governments—and win. Did Judith have the equipment to play in Wherry's league?
He closed the folder, his chubby face completely serious. A move to Salter Station. It would be fascinating. But the government outrage and hypocrisy over Wherry's actions still continued, undiminished (perhaps increased) by success. The popularity of the arcologies, and the flood of applicants to embark on them, only added fuel to the official anger. If the Institute moved, everyone there would have to understand that the decision to join the Wherry empire would add to the outcry. They would all be branded as "traitors" by the U.N. official press.
And once they went out, what then? For many of them there would never be a return home. Earth would be lost to them forever.
The building hummed quietly with the subdued murmur of a thousand experiments, going on through the night. Jan de Vries sat in his easy chair for a long time, musing, peering out of the window into the humid night but seeing only the cloudy vision of his own future. Where was it likely to lead? Would he be in space himself, ten years from now? What would it be like out there?
The ideas were difficult to grasp, drifting away from the periphery of his tired brain. He yawned, and rose slowly to his feet. Ten years—it was too far to see. Better think of near-term things: Judith Niles' list, the budget, the still-unfinished trip report. Ten years was infinity, something beyond his span.
Jan de Vries could not possibly have known it, but he had his crystal ball wrongly focused. He should have been looking much farther ahead.