The zenith angle (23 page)

“Like he hooked up you and me,” Van said.

She looked at him innocently. “What, honey?”

Van pretended interest in the complicated bulk of a diachronic beam-splitter. He had almost put his foot in it, right there. “Oh, yeah, Tony used to talk to me a lot about how he got on DeFanti’s good side. This scope meant a lot to him.”

“I found out how he managed all this, you know.” She was proud. “See, Tony made good friends with all the people who really hated the project. They were mostly these hippie Green characters from Boulder, real not-in-my-backyard people. So Tony went to them, and he attended their meetings, and he gave them some of DeFanti’s money, and he said to them, well, we’ll just build it all Green! Everything Green! All renewable energy, everything recyclable, all local materials, and very organic. That was a lot less expensive than fighting their lawsuits. So, I live in, like, a real showpiece for Green construction methods. Most telescope facilities are like Sherpa camps compared to this place. Green people used to come up here in busloads just to gawk at us.”

There was something else weighing on Dottie’s mind. He could see it was something important. “So then what?” Van said.

Dottie shrugged. “So then, I guess they just got bored with us after a while. I mean, we’re just a bunch of astronomers. Besides, our telescope isn’t even up and running yet. We don’t even have a proper PR

department to do public outreach. I mean, I
am
the PR department now, basically. That’s me.”

“It’s all right now? Those Greenies don’t bug you anymore?”

“Oh, DeFanti gave them so much money that they put him on their board. They’ve got some really nice offices in Boulder now that were built by this same guy. He’s a really famous Green architect now. They, like, love him in Holland.”

Insight came to Van in a rush. Tony Carew had gamed the poor bastards. Tony had been their ruin. Because once upon a time, his enemy had been quick, and quiet, and probably always on time. A small, dangerous gang of Green fanatics. But with a warm smile and a big checkbook, Tony had lured them into the system. He made them get official and slow and bureaucratic, so that all these wild-eyed yarn-hat tree-huggers had to put on suits and ties, and play their office game, and totally lose their edge. Nothing left of their wild spirit now but their name and maybe their old logo . . . Was Tony that smart? Yes, of course Tony was that smart. If Tony had the opportunity, if he found a way to angle it just right . . .

“What was Tony’s angle in all this?” Van said.

“Well, DeFanti was just so thrilled. It was Tony’s idea to name this place after DeFanti’s real father,

‘Alfred A. Griffith,’ some totally obscure guy who died when DeFanti was seven. That was the best thing that ever happened to us astronomers. Tom DeFanti got this big reputation as this steward of the land . . . That was eight or nine years ago now. A major project like this takes a long time.”

“Where were Tony’s big bucks?”

“Do there have to be any big bucks? It’s a telescope!”

Van tugged at his beard. “You know this is Tony Carew, right?”

Dottie winced. “Oh, honey, he’s your best friend . . .”

“Yeah. I know. That’s why I know all this stuff.”

Dottie was hurt. She looked him in the eye and looked away. “Well, word does get around . . . I don’t really know this for a fact, but . . .”

“But Tony had an angle,” he said.

She lowered her voice. “Do you know about pipeline easements?”

“You mean like legal permission to lay fiber-optic? Yeah, sure.”

“Well, Colorado passed a lot of Internet easements once. They were trying to wire up the rural part of the state, you know, equal access rights to the Info Superhighway, and all that. But then, a couple of years later, DeFanti got that law changed in the state legislature into
gas pipeline
easements. Just a word or two in some state committee, real quiet. Then came that big energy crunch in California. That huge natural gas shortage they had. There were some really big energy companies involved in that. Companies with really big friends.”

Van grunted. The Grease Machine. Of course. There were only so many ways over the continental backbone of the Rocky Mountains. California’s thirst for energy was colossal. If you committted a corporate crime in a forest, and nobody knew it was there, was it even a crime at all? What if you turned right around and gave the cash to charity, like Carnegie did, or Rockefeller? The underprivileged kids of America, noses pressed to their computer screens so they could see their stars . .

. Van paced around the telescope, silent, chin up. He stared up at every beam and bolt and crevice of the great machine. She looked so clean. So remote from earthly doings.

Van’s footsteps echoed from the distant vault. This place was like an opera stage, and here, wired for sound, was the diva. Mondiale had spent billions laying fiber-optic easements across America. Out here, DeFanti found a quiet way to cross the Rocky Mountains, sliding through the wilderness, with a giant firehose of natural gas. Gas pipelines were notorious for exploding. Gas pipelines were very dangerous and dirty, never the kind of thing you could build right out in the open. But that infrastructure had to get built somehow. People needed the energy. Everybody happily used the gas pipes. Nobody faced up to the consequences. So the pipes got built by quiet operators. Guys like Tony. A guy who could do a little sleight-of-hand with those telescope mirrors and the all-natural windmills. Who would ever guess that building a telescope was all about natural gas?

Was he being too cruel, too suspicious? His work had changed him. All that dirty work on computer security, stuck inside some bombproof vault. Was he a professional paranoid now? Was he a mean bastard, because he’d spent so much time thinking about terrorists and crooks? Maybe he should have more trust for the motives of big business. Like those fine people of Enron, Arthur Andersen, Global Crossing, and his own beloved Mondiale.

Van rounded the telescope. He spoke to Dottie again. “These walls were built out of hay, right? Don’t you worry about that?”

“It’s strawbale, honey. Strawbale is very safe. When strawbale is packed down tight and walled off like this, it can’t catch fire. Straw is very light, and it’s Green and organic, and it’s great insulation. A telescope spins to follow the stars, you know. This whole building spins just like a top.”

He smiled briefly. “Then it’s great.”

“Everybody asks me that question, about the straw. That’s my number one Frequently Asked Question. The straw is great, honey.”

Dottie drove their electric buggy back to the Facility. Van found himself tired but clearheaded. That ugly failure at Cheyenne Mountain still rankled him, but the sting was fading. Yes, everybody he knew faced a compromise or two. Real life was never made of spun sugar.

Was it so bad that he’d blown it, trying to tackle some satellite’s bureaucracy? Was it that bad that his best friend politically faked people out, so that he could sell them the power and energy those very same people had to have?

Then Dottie took Van into his element. The Facility’s Network Operations Center was three stories high, glass-fronted, and nestled right into a cliff.

“We never thought we’d have so much telecom equipment in here,” she told him. “Our architect built this place for our public relations people. This was supposed to become their office here, a kind of big tourist attraction, but . . .”

Van was thrilled. Every Internet2 office he’d ever seen was like a tomb compared to this fantastic place. It didn’t even spoil his enjoyment that all the hardware was 1990s vintage. Cisco Catalysts, Juniper T640s, Force10s, and Chiaro optical switches . . . They were up and running, too, their fans were humming busily. They were dumping the power of hundreds of toasters into the February air. Van walked past a glass library of color-coded backup tapes. He skirted open metal cabinets, draped with thick gushes of fiber-optic cable.

“Over here”—Dottie beckoned—“there are stairs.”

“Just a sec,” said Van. He had discovered the local network technician on duty. The guy, an Indian, was wearing a bright polyester T-shirt, sky-blue jeans, and joggers. He had a thin hipster chin beard and was leafing through a magazine called
Stardust.

He glanced up politely as Van approached him.

“So,” said Van. “How’s that big Code Red attack working out for you guys?”

“Oh, sir! Do I look worried?” The tech chuckled indulgently. “We’re an OpenBSD shop here!”

Van’s eyebrows rose. “Good man! Well then, how about those new RPC vulns?”

“Is just not a problem at all! Using ‘nfsbug’ and patched it all weeks ago.”

“SNMP traps?”

“Oh, no, sir, for already we installed version three! We encrypted the protocol data unit, also!”

Van gazed at his new friend in deep satisfaction. “I don’t suppose you guys have agent-based packet filtering yet.”

The tech put his magazine down. “ ‘Agent-based packet filtering’? Isn’t that a
theoretical
solution to attacks?”

“Not anymore,” Van told him.

“Honey,” Dottie objected, walking up.

“Should I know you?” said the tech. “I know your face, I think, sir.”

“I’m Derek Vandeveer.” Van stuck out his hand.

“You are
Van
!” shouted the tech, vaulting from his Aeron chair. “You are the
Van
! Oh, sir! This is such an honor.” He ignored Van’s offered hand and lunged straight for Van’s shoes. He reverently brushed Van’s Rockports with his fingertips. “Oh, sir, I’ll never forget your paper on traceroute mapping.”

“This is Rajiv,” said Dottie as Rajiv stood back up. “Rajiv gets a little enthusiastic.”

Rajiv placed his palms together, beaming. “Oh, Mrs. Vandeveer, I should have known this is him, your famous husband, here at last! Oh, what a joy to meet you, sir. That work with Grendel you have been doing. There’s so much to discuss!”

Dottie’s face wrinkled. She was “Dr.” Vandeveer. She hated being called “Mrs.” Vandeveer. Van stroked his beard. “So, uh, tell me, would you be that guy, ‘Rajiv23,’ who posts on Alert Consensus List?”

“Oh yes sir, that is indeed me!” cried Rajiv, thrilled to be recognized. “And what a contribution you are making on that list, sir. I forward all your notes to the Bangalore Linux Group!”

“So will you be at Joint Techs this year?”

“Oh, of course I hope so, sir.”

“Then let’s have a beer, dude. We’ll talk!” At Dottie’s insistence, Van left him. Dottie trotted up a set of stairs to the building’s third floor, Van clomping behind her. She turned and frowned down at him. “I hope you don’t mind me boring you to death with my little GRAPE-6

simulators.”

“Oh, don’t mind that guy, honey.” Van was hugely pleased with himself.

“Derek, I get maybe forty-eight hours with you, and you would have talked to that man all day.”

“He doesn’t kiss like you do, baby.” Van gave her a sharp pat on the rump. After a moment, Dottie laughed.

Upstairs, things were much busier. Dottie greeted half-a-dozen colleagues, but after scolding him for talking to Rajiv, she was much too sheepish to chat with them about her own work. She settled in next to a console. “I guess I shouldn’t show this silly little thing to ‘the Van,’ but I’ve been working on this cluster simulation for four years.”

“Honey, I always love your demos. Just run it.”

“These GRAPE-6’s were designed for n-body problems by a Japanese physics department. GRAPE, that means ‘Gravity Pipe.’ ”

“Boot it up, sweetie, come on.”

“We’re directly integrating equations of motion into model globular cluster dynamics,” Dottie said smoothly. “We’ve had n-body codes since the sixties, but we broke loose by an order of magnitude up here. These GRAPE cards do a hundred teraflops. I’ve got the rest of the system modeling stellar evolution and mass transfer. Oh, and collision models. If we get a cluster core collapse, then the collision model really gets hairy.”

Van silently watched a black-and-whiteLOADING bar crawl across Dottie’s screen.

“We’re down to five or six simplifying assumptions now,” Dottie said, “and we’re spanning fourteen orders of magnitude, from the diameter of a neutron star to the size of the cluster itself . . . Okay, wait, here we go now.”

Van stared at Dottie’s screen, stunned. Of course he had seen Dottie’s cluster simulations before. He could remember them from grad school, as crude little X’s and O’s crawling sluggishly around on a plain green screen. The thing he was looking at now was busier than a swarm of bees. There were stars inside Dottie’s box, millions of stars. It looked for all the world like a Hubble photo, but alive. The stars were wildly churning in balletic interactions. Plunging. Knocking into each other. Doing orbital tangos. Looping, kissing, hovering.

The round cluster of stars was seething. It was boiling away like hornets at war. It took computers to prove that a jeweled globe of stars was unstable. In any telescope, a globular cluster looked as solid as a baseball, but it was a temporary enterprise. Stars tumbled into the core. They suffered unbearable close encounters there. They got slung like shot out of their family. They flew into the awesome darkness and solitude of intergalactic space.

The sight of it set the hair up all over Van’s head. What if you were
living
around a star like that, thought Van, just living on some nice, sweet little planet. What if your daylight sky was boiling with neighboring suns as big as beachballs. And then, oh, my God, what if you flew too low and too close to one. In just a few dozen human lifetimes, the constellations would warp like putty. The heavens would turn against you and your world, and would blow you away at half the speed of light. You and yours, your innocent civilization, expelled into some unbearable icy exile, never to be retrieved.

“We call this process ‘evaporation,’ ” Dottie said. “Sooner or later, all the stars have to leave the cluster family. Let me run you this other model, the one with the galactic tidal action.”

This time the unhappy cluster was taken in hand by forces beyond its ken. What could a little cluster do in the horrendous grip of a superpower galaxy? Clusters were mere golden bubbles. Galaxies were vast flat saucers, cold, spinning, implacable. The uneven force of their gravity bent and tore at the bubbles. There was a mighty tide.