Hieroglyph (49 page)

“What do you mean, give him a chance?” Zak said, his tone bitter. “We're dead. We're not giving anybody a chance. It's over. He won.”

“Listen,” Steve said.

Even as Steve said that, another, fainter sound was beginning to penetrate Zak's awareness. He had been hearing it intermittently, when the wind abated, but not recognizing it, just another noise buried in the shriek of the wind and the rumble of grinding icebergs.

Zak turned around and grabbed one of the life vests from the package he'd salvaged, ripped open the plastic, and yanked hard on the lanyard. The orange vest inflated with a soft whomp, and the tiny strobe light on the collar pierced the dimness like a flash of lightning.

He waved it over his head. The wind slackened for a moment, and in the abrupt quiet, all of them heard it. In the distance, but steadily getting louder, the sound of motors.

Rounding an iceberg ahead of them, first one, and then the other, two bright yellow Zodiac boats skipped toward them over the swells.

WHEN THE ZODIACS HAD
brought them to the cutter, Anjel Earth welcomed them on board. With his chestnut beard and piercing eyes, he seemed perfectly comfortable in the weather, as if he were born to live in Antarctica. He poured them each a large mug of hot tea from an enormous thermos, instructed them to call him “Anjel” and then corrected their pronunciation, and took them to a large cabin at the back of the ship to warm up.

The tea was sweet and seemed to be half milk, not the way Zak ever drank it. It was, he thought, the best tea he had ever tasted.

After they had shed their cold-weather gear and wrapped themselves in thick quilts that Anjel had provided for them, Steve looked at Zak. He looked over at Mrs. Binder, who nodded at him to start the conversation. He looked at the walls. They were covered with posters, some with phrases like “Act before it's too late” and “Save the planet,” and others with photographs of rain forests and desert flowers.

“Well,” he said, “we owe you a debt, Mr. Earth. Thank you for the rescue.”

Anjel smiled. “Yes. Out here, we learn to look out for each other.”

“I'm surprised, though,” Zak said. “Why did you save us?”

“You must think we're barbarians,” said Anjel with an exaggerated expression of shock. “We talk with McMurdo. They said they lost the signal from your plane's transponder, and they were snowed in but feared you were in trouble. I said we'd go take a look, render what assistance we could.”

“Thank you for that.”

“Well, you're welcome.” He paused. “You work for Mr. Mistry, am I right?” Zak nodded, and he continued. “A hotel.” He paused, apparently lost in thought. “A hotel in Antarctica. How about that.”

“Yeah,” Zak said. “It was a dumb idea. We all can see that now. This is no place for it. It's just too hostile.”

Anjel Earth waved his hand. “Nonsense. Wait a few days, and the sky will be such a clear and crystalline blue it will dazzle your eyes. You won't believe it's the same continent. You'll change your mind.”

Zak stared at him. “But I thought—”

“I saw the paper you had in
Acta Astronautica,
” Anjel continued. “The one comparing a hotel in Antarctica to a moonbase.” At Zak's blank look, he said, “What, do you think I only read nature magazines? You had some good ideas there. I like the way you think. The idea that we have to learn how to make an ecosystem work. Perhaps if we do, we can begin to understand just how wonderful our planet is, how everything works together.”

Anjel Earth fixed Zak with his eyes. “When I first heard rumors of your hotel, I wasn't sure. I wrote the article in my magazine, trying to figure out what to think about it—that's what I do; I write to sort out how I think. What surprised me was the reactions I got. Some were against it. But almost half the letters asked when it was going to open, where to get reservations.

“My people wanted your hotel, Mr. Cerny. And I thought, what if they're right? Maybe it would be a good thing. Getting people to really experience Antarctica and the ecosystem and the ice and the interconnectedness of it all—isn't that just what we were working for? It's a mistake to lock Antarctica away, keep it as a preserve that nobody ever sees. If it were done right, like a moonbase, self-sufficient, and not trashing the land the way humans have done for thousands of years, it would be an example to the world.

“Make your hotel, Mr. Cerny.” Anjel Earth's eyes bored into Zak's. “Give us that example. We need you.”

Zak lowered his head. What was Mistry's motto? Obstacles. Stepping-stones.

Through the window, the sky was still dark, but at the very horizon, a line of sky showed brilliant blue, above icebergs glistening white in the sunshine.

“We will try,” he said. “We will try.”

Edel/Shutterstock, Inc. & ArchMan/Shutterstock, Inc. (building & penguins)

FORUM DISCUSSION
—
An Idea Is Born

Geoffrey Landis introduced the concept of a hotel in Antarctica to James Cambias,
Hieroglyph
coeditor Ed Finn, and other Hieroglyph community members in June 2013. Watch the idea gain momentum at hieroglyph.asu.edu/hotel-antarctica.

STORY NOTES
—Geoffrey A. Landis

In my first-ever attempt at crowdsourcing a story, I wrote this story with assistance of the participants on Project Hieroglyph's web forum, http://hieroglyph.asu.edu/forums. Contributions to the discussion were made by Ed Finn, Aleks Antic, Larry Orr, James L. Cambias, Will Holz, John Fogarty, Brenda Cooper, and Bruce Sterling. Not all of your comments made it into the final story, but I would like to thank you all for helping me with your imagining.

Particular thanks to Will Holz for pointing me to the “penguin poo map,” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090602122621.htm, a novel way of locating colonies of penguins.

FORUM DISCUSSION
—Location, Location, Location

What's the best spot for a hotel in Antarctica? Observe Geoffrey Landis's brainstorm at hieroglyph.asu.edu/hotel-antarctica.

FORUM DISCUSSION
—Ice as a Building Material

The idea of using ice as the primary building material for the hotel was proposed and developed by Hieroglyph community members. Read their conversation with Geoffrey Landis at hieroglyph.asu.edu/hotel-antarctica.

FORUM DISCUSSION
—Through the Valley of Death

Geoffrey Landis discusses how to avoid the innovation “valley of death” at hieroglyph.asu.edu/hotel-antarctica.

RESPONSE TO “A HOTEL IN ANTARCTICA”
—George Basile

George Basile, an expert on green business practices and biotechnology at Arizona State University, responds to “A Hotel in Antarctica” at hieroglyph.asu.edu/hotel-antarctica.

PERIAPSIS

James L. Cambias

I WENT UP TO
Deimos for the contest two days after I turned seventeen. My father turned up at the Pavonis terminal to see me off. Good thing, too—just about every media feeder on the planet was there, hoping to get a word with me.

My baba drove a construction crawler and was built like a crawler himself. He lowered his head and stuck out his elbows and plowed through the crowd. I stuck close behind while people and flying eyes tried to get in my face.

Before I passed through the checkpoint, I turned to my father. “Thanks for coming. It was good to see you.”

“People say you shouldn't go,” he said, tipping his head back at the crowd behind him.

“I know.” I'd heard more about brain drain that past month than I ever wanted to hear in my life. “There are things I want to do, and I can't do them on Mars.”

He nodded. “You coming back?”

“I'll be back in a week if I don't get picked.”

“Don't come back,” he said. “Win it. Good luck, Ying.” He took my hand in his for a moment, then turned and shoved through the mob. He didn't look back. I stepped through the checkpoint. An hour later I boarded the elevator to Deimos.

Deimos was the Big Time, like Jakarta or Mexico City. It was the gateway to Mars, the launch point for the outer system, and even supplied volatiles to Luna and the Lagranges. The Deimos Community had its fingers in everything that went on from Low Earth Orbit out to the Kuiper Belt.

Smart, ambitious, and attractive people flowed toward Deimos. Everybody wanted to be there. It wasn't just to get rich—it was to be part of the scene, to be where the cool stuff was happening. To be
there
.

The Deimos Community picked a population target of two million and enforced it. The only way new people joined was when there was a deficit between births and deaths. Hardly anyone ever left voluntarily.

Most years only a few places opened up. The Community filled them by inviting scientists, artists, or other talented people to join. Sometimes they'd auction off a couple of slots, which just made Deimos that much richer.

But every so often the Deimos Community kept a couple of places open for young people with potential instead of grown-ups who already had a reputation. You had to be between sixteen and twenty-five, willing to leave your family behind, and confident enough to enter a competition without knowing what you'd be doing. Kids from all over the system applied. The top eight came to Deimos to compete.

I was the only kid from Mars who made the cut. My academics were decent, not great—90th percentile ratings in physics and math, but only 75th percentile in language. I had a couple of wrestling trophies and you've heard me play keyboard. I knew I was a long shot when I applied.

But I had one advantage: I'd spent the previous year at Eos working on exotic propulsion systems with the Cavorite Club. They were a bunch of underfunded young genius lunatics led by an old genius lunatic named Chou Yu, trying to find ways to break the laws of nature. I slept four hours a day in a public hot-rack, mooched meals, and learned more about engineering and advanced physics than I could have in a decade at Harbin or Monterrey.

I wasn't sure if being part of the Cavorite Club would work for me or against me when I applied to join Deimos. The Pavonis Treaty gave Deimos a monopoly on moving stuff from Mars into space and the Community frowned on Martians building spaceships. I guess being a teenage rocket scientist was impressive enough to make up for it.

Once news got out I got a lot of crap for wanting to compete. Moving up the string was like treason—and the fact that Mars's best and brightest kept doing it just made it worse. I lost a lot of friends when I applied, and the rest when I got accepted.

The Deimos Community put all eight competitors in the Hotel El Dorado. I wound up across the hall from Sofia Komu. Yes,
that
Sofia Komu. The first time I met her was when her suitcase banged into the door of my room. It sounded like some kind of horrible disaster, but there wasn't an alarm. I looked out and found a girl my age trying to manage two absolutely titanic bags. She was nearly my height and wearing a loose, warm-looking outfit that covered everything but her face.

I snagged one bag, and it almost pulled me out of my shoes. “What have you got in here?” I asked.

“The barest essentials,” she said. “Books and clothing.”

“You brought all this from
Earth
? I've only got twelve kilos and I rode the elevator!”

“These things are important, and they are mine,” she said.

Neither of us said anything as we looked each other up. She was Sofia Komu, from Rhapta Special Economic Zone. Her résumé was scary: accredited by East Africa Open University with near-perfect scores in art history, biochemistry, ecosystems, memetics, and statistical analysis. Top-rated dancer, won the landscape design competition for Rhapta's mangrove park, two organism patents. Related to a dozen big names in the Africa Renaissance. A serious rival.

Worse yet, it looked like we were falling in love. According to my biomonitor, my heart rate and hormone levels shifted when I spoke with her—four standard deviations above my usual when talking to a girl my age. The hallway sensor net confirmed that she had a strong positive reaction to me. Her pupils dilated like the lights had gone out, and her respiration and skin temperature both increased.

Like any proper Martian I took steps to damp all that down. Too many people packed into fragile habitats made that a matter of survival for the early settlers, and the habit stuck. I hit hard on dopamine antagonists to keep me from getting infatuated. I was going to need my serotonin and testosterone to stay competitive. I figured she was doing the same.

“Well . . . see you at the opening, I guess,” I said.

“Good luck,” she said, and moved her bags one at a time into her room.

THE COMPETITION GOT UNDER
way with a reception in Lupita Forest.