the President had asked Della to take responsibility for Malenfant’s project, in her capacity as chair of the Space Council.
Nemoto said, ‘If she is a friend of yours –’
‘Hardly that. More an old sparring partner. Mutual, grudging respect. I haven’t seen her for a long time – certainly not since she got here.’
‘Do you think she will support us?’
‘She’s from Iowa. She’s a canny politician. She is – practical. But she has always seen a little further than most of the Beltway crowd. She believes space efforts have value. But she’s a utilitarian. I’ve heard her argue for weather satellites, Earth resources programmes. She even supports blue-sky stuff about asteroid mining and power stations in orbit. Moving the heavy industries off the planet might provide a future for this dirty old world … But robots can do all that. I don’t think she sees much purpose in Man in Space. She never supported the Station, for instance.’
‘Then we must hope that she sees some utility in our venture to the Red Moon.’
He grimaced. ‘Either that or we manage to twist her arm hard enough.’
As they entered the Oval Office, Vice-President Maura Della was working through documents on softscreens embedded in a walnut desk. The desk was positioned at one of the big office’s narrow ends – the place really was oval-shaped, Malenfant observed, gawking like a tourist.
Della glanced up, stood, and came out from behind the desk to greet them. Dressed in a trim trouser-suit, she was dark, slim, in her sixties. She shook them both briskly by the hand, waved them to green wing-back chairs before the desk, then settled back into her rocking-chair.
The only other people in the room were an aide and an armed Marine at the door. Malenfant had been expecting Joe Bridges, and other NASA brass.
Without preamble Della said, ‘You’re trying to get me over a barrel, aren’t you, Malenfant?’
Malenfant was taken aback. This was, after all, the Vice-President. But he could see from the glint in Della’s eye that if he wanted to win the play this was a time for straight talking. ‘Not you personally. But – yes, ma’am, that’s the plan.’
Della tapped her desk. Malenfant glimpsed his own image scrolling before her, accompanied by text and video clips and the subdued insect murmur of audio.
Maura Della always had been known for a straightforward political style. To Malenfant she looked a little lost in the cool grandeur of the Oval Office, even after three years in the job, out of place in the crispness of the powder-blue carpet and cream paintwork, and the many alcoves crammed with books, certificates and ornaments, all precisely placed, like funerary offerings. This was clearly not a room you could feel you lived in.
There was a stone sitting on the polished desk surface, a sharp-edged fragment about the size of Malenfant’s thumb, the colour of lava pebbles. No, not stone, Malenfant realized, studying the fragment. Bone. A bit of skull, maybe.
Della said, ‘Your campaign has lasted two weeks already, in every media outlet known to man. Reid Malenfant the stricken hero, tilting at the new Moon to save his dead wife.’ She eyed him brutally.
‘It has the virtue of being true, ma’am,’ Malenfant said frankly. ‘And she may not be dead. That’s the whole point.’
Nemoto leaned forward. ‘If I may –’
Della nodded.
‘The response of the American public to Malenfant’s campaign has been striking. The latest polls show –’
‘Overwhelming support for what you’re trying to do,’ Della murmured. She tapped her desk and shut down the images. ‘Of course they do. But let me tell you something about polls. The President’s own approval ratings have been bouncing along the floor since the day the tides began to hit. You know why? Because people need somebody to blame.
‘The appearance of a whole damn Moon in the sky is beyond comprehension. If as a consequence your house is smashed, your crops destroyed, family members injured or dead, you can’t blame the Moon, you can’t rage at the Tide. In another age you might have blamed God. But now you blame whoever you think ought to be helping you climb out of your hole, which generally means all branches of the federal government, and specifically this office.’ She shook her head. ‘So polls don’t drive me one way or the other. Because whatever I decide, your stunt isn’t going to help me.’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Nemoto. ‘But it might help the people beyond this office. The people of the world. And that is what we are talking about, isn’t it?’
Malenfant covered her hand. Take it easy.
Della glared. ‘Don’t presume to tell me my job, young woman.’ Then she softened. ‘Even if you’re right.’ She turned to a window. ‘God knows we need some good news … You know about the ’quakes.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Malenfant said grimly.
This was the latest manifestation of the Red Moon’s baleful influence. Luna had raised tides in Earth’s rock, just as in its water. Luna’s rock tides had amounted to no more than a few inches.
But the Red Moon raised great waves several feet high.
Massive earthquakes had occurred in Turkey, Chile and elsewhere, many of them battering communities already devastated by the effects of the Tide. In fault zones like the San Andreas in California, the land above the faults was being eroded away much more rapidly than before, thus exposing the unstable rocks beneath, and exacerbating the tidal flexing of the rocks themselves.
Della said, ‘The geologists tell me that if the Red Moon stays in orbit around Earth, it is possible that the fault lines between Earth’s tectonic plates – such as the great Ring of Fire that surrounds the Pacific – will ultimately settle down to constant seismic activity. Constant. I can’t begin to imagine what that will mean for us, for humanity. No doubt devastating long-term impacts on the Earth’s climate, all that volcanic dust and ash and heat being pumped into the air… When I look into the future now, the only rational reaction is dread and fear.’
‘People need to see that we are hitting back,’ Malenfant said. ‘That we are doing something.’
‘Perhaps. That is the American way. The myth of action. But does our action hero have to be you, Malenfant? And what happens when you crash up there, or die of starvation, or burn up on re-entry? How will that play in the polls?’
‘Then you find another hero,’ Malenfant said stonily. ‘And you try again.’
‘But even if you make it to the Moon, what will you find? You should know I’ve had several briefings in preparation for this meeting. One of them was with Dr Julia Corneille, from the Department of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History. An old college friend, as it happens.’
‘Anthropology?’
‘Actually Julia’s specialty is palaeoanthropology. Extinct homs, the lineage of human descent. You see the relevance.’
‘Homs?’
‘Hominids.’
