Even so, they had to train me. Twenty years earlier I’d spent a week in the Belt. It wasn’t enough. Training and a Belt citizen’s equipment used up most of my savings and two months of my time.
Time had brought me to Mercury, and the lasers, eight years before.
Light-sails are rare in the inner solar system. Between Venus and Mercury there are still lightsail races, an expensive, uncomfortable, and dangerous sport. Cargo craft once sailed throughout the asteroid belt, until fusion motors became cheaper and more dependable.
The last refuge of the light-sail is a huge, empty region: the cometary halo, Pluto and beyond. The light-sails are all cargo craft. That far from Sol their thrust must be augmented by lasers, the same Mercury lasers that sometimes hurl an unmanned probe into interstellar space.
These were different from the launch lasers I was familiar with. They were enormously larger. In Mercury’s lower gravity, in Mercury’s windless environment, they looked like crystals caught in spiderwebs. When the lasers fired, the fragile support structures wavered like a spiderweb in the wind.
Each stood in a wide black pool of solar collector, as if tar paper had been scattered at random. A collector sheet that lost fifty percent of its power was not removed. We would add another sheet but continue to use all the available power.
Their power output is dangerous to the point of fantasy. For safety’s sake the Mercury lasers have to be continuously linked to the rest of the solar system across a lightspeed delay of several hours. The newer solar collectors also pick up broadcasts from space, or from the control center in Challenger Crater. Mercury’s lasers must never lose contact. A beam that strayed where it wasn’t supposed to could do untold damage.
They were spaced all along the planet’s equator. They were hundreds of years apart in design, size, technology. They fired while the sun was up and feeding their square miles of collectors, with a few fusion generators for backup. They flicked from target to target as the horizon moved. When the sun set, it set for thirty-odd Earth days, and that was plenty of time to make repairs—
“In general, that is.” Kathry Perritt watched my eyes to be sure I was paying attention. I felt like a schoolboy again. “In general we can repair and update each laser station in turn and still keep ahead of the dawn. But come a quake, we work in broad daylight and like it.”
“Scary,” I said too cheerfully.
She looked at me. “You feel nice and cool? That’s a million tons of soil, old man, and a layer cake of mirror sheeting on top of that, and these old heat exchangers are still the most powerful ever built. Daylight doesn’t scare you? You’ll get over that.”
Kathry was a sixth-generation Belter from Mercury, taller than me by seven inches, not very strong, but extremely dextrous. She way my boss. I’d be sharing a room with her…and yes, she rapidly let me know that she expected us to be bedmates.
I was all for that. Two months in Ceres had shown me that Belters respond to social signals I don’t know. I had no idea how to seduce anyone.
Sylvia and Myron had been born on Mars in an enclave of areologists digging out the cities beneath the deserts. Companions from birth, they’d married at puberty. They were addicted to news broadcasts. News could get them arguing. Otherwise they behaved as if they could read each other’s minds; they hardly talked to each other or to anyone else.
We’d sit around the duty room and wait and polish our skills as storytellers. Then one of the lasers would go quiet, and a tractor the size of some old Chicago skyscraper would roll.
Rarely was there much of a hurry. One laser would fill in for another until the Monster Bug arrived. Then the robots, riding the Monster Bug like one of Anton’s aircraft carriers, would scatter ahead of us and set to work.
Two years after my arrival, my first quake shook down six lasers in four different locations, and ripped a few more loose from the sunlight collectors. Landscape had been shaken into new shapes. The robots had some trouble. Sometimes Kathry could reprogram. Otherwise her team had to muscle them through, with Kathry to shout orders and me to supply most of the muscle.
Of the six lasers, five survived. They seemed built to survive almost anything. The robots were equipped to spin new support structure and to lift the things into place, with a separate program for each design.
Maybe John junior hadn’t used influence in my behalf. Flatlander muscles were useful when the robots couldn’t get over the dust pools or through the broken rock. For that matter, maybe it wasn’t some Belt tradition that had made Kathry claim me on sight. Sylvia and Myron weren’t sharing; and I might have been female, or bend. Maybe she thought she was lucky.
After we’d remounted the lasers that had survived, Kathry said, “They’re all obsolete, anyway. They’re not being replaced.”
“That’s not good,” I said.
“Well, good and bad. Light-sail cargoes are slow. If the light wasn’t almost free, why bother? The interstellar probes haven’t sent much back yet, and we might as well wait. At least the Belt Speakers think so.”
“Do I gather I’ve fallen into a kind of a blind alley?”
She glared at me. “You’re an immigrant flatlander. Were you expecting to be First Speaker for the Belt? You thinking of moving on?”
“Not really. But if the job’s about to fold—”
“Another twenty years, maybe. Jack, I’d miss you. Those two—”
“It’s all right, Kathry. I’m not going.” I waved both arms at the blazing dead landscape, said “I like it here,” and smiled into her bellow of laughter.
I beamed a tape to Anton when I got the chance.
“If I was ever angry, I got over it, as I hope you’ve forgotten anything I said or did while I was, let’s say, running on automatic. I’ve found another life in deep space, not much different from what I was doing on Earth…though that may not last. These light-sail pusher lasers are a blast from the past. Time gets them, the quakes get them, and they’re not being replaced. Kathry says twenty years.
“You said Phoebe left Earth, too. Working with an asteroid mining setup? If you’re still trading tapes, tell her I’m all right and I hope she is, too. Her career choice was better than mine, I expect…”
I couldn’t think of anything else to do.
Three years after I expected it Kathry asked, “Why did you come out here? It’s none of my business, of course—”
Customs differ: it took her three years in my bed to work up to this. I said, “Time for a change” and “I’ve got children and grandchildren on the Moon and Ceres and Floating Jupiter.”
“Do you miss them?”
I had to say yes. The result was that I took half a year off to bounce around the solar system.
After I visited my kids and grandkids, I stayed three weeks with Phoebe. She’s second in command of a mining setup on a two-kilometer asteroid orbiting beyond Jupiter. They’ve been refining the metal ores and shaping them into scores of kilometers of electromagnetic mass driver, then running the slag down the mass driver: a rocket with real rocks in it and an arbitrarily high exhaust velocity, limited only by the length of the mass driver. The asteroid will reach Ceres as mostly refined metal.
I think Phoebe was bored; she was seriously glad to see me. Still, I came back early. My being away made us both antsy.
Kathry asked again a year later. I said, “What I did on Earth was a lot like this. The difference is, on Earth I’m dull. Here—am I dull?”
“You’re fascinating. You won’t talk about the ARM, so you’re fascinating and mysterious. I can’t believe you’d be dull just because of where you are. Why did you leave, really?”
So I said, “There was a woman.”
“What was she like?”
“She was smarter than me. I was a little dull for her. So she left, and that would have been okay. But she came back to my best friend.” I shifted uncomfortably and said, “Not that they drove me off Earth.”
“No?”
“No. I’ve got every
thing I once had herding construction robots on Earth, plus one thing I wasn’t bright enough to miss. I lost my sense of purpose when I left the ARM.”
I noticed that Myron was listening. Sylvia was watching the holo walls, the three that showed the face of Mercury: rocks blazing like coals in the fading twilight, with only the robots and the lasers to give the illusion of life. The fourth we kept changing. Just then it showed a view up the trunk into the waving branches of the tremendous redwoods they’ve been growing for three hundred years, in Hovestraydt City on the Moon.
“These are the good times,” I said. “You have to notice, or they’ll go right past. We’re holding the stars together. Notice how much dancing we do? On Earth I’d be too old and creaky for that—Sylvia, what…”
Sylvia was shaking my shoulder. I heard it as soon as I stopped talking: “Tombaugh Station relayed this picture, the last broadcast from the Fantasy Prince. Once again, the Fantasy Prince has apparently been—”
Starscape glowed within the fourth holo wall. Something came out of nowhere, moving hellishly fast, and stopped so quickly that it might have been a toy. It was egg-shaped, studded with what I remembered as weapons.
Phoebe won’t have made her move yet. The warcats will have to be deep in the solar system before her asteroid mine can be a deterrent. Then one or another warcat ship will find streams of slag sprayed across its path, impacting at comet speeds.
By now Anton must know whether the ARM actually has plans to repel an interstellar invasion.
Me, I’ve already done my part. I worked on the computer shortly after I first arrived. Nobody’s tampered with it since. The dime disk is in place.
We kept the program relatively simple. Until and unless the warcats destroy something that’s being pushed by a laser from Mercury, nothing will happen. The warcats must condemn themselves. Then the affected laser will lock on to the warcat ship…and so will every Mercury laser that’s getting sunlight. Twenty seconds, then the system goes back to normal until another target disappears.
If the warcats can be persuaded that Sol system is defended, maybe they’ll give us time to build defenses.
Asteroid miners dig deep for fear of solar storms and meteors. Phoebe might survive. We might survive here, too, with shielding built to block the hellish sun, and laser cannon to battle incoming ships. But that’s not the way to bet.
We might get one ship.
It might be worth doing.
• • •
• • •
The President was still laughing. “Somebody told me once that I’m not fit to mold the future because I’m only allowed to think up to the next election. Who is it that plans for the future of the human race?”
“Speaking.”
FOOTFALL, 1985
NIVEN’S LAWS
From time to time I publish this list; from time to time I update it. I don’t think it’s possible to track its publishing history. The most recent appearance was in NIVEN’S LAWS from Owlswick Press. In this version I’ve amplified a little.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
To the best I’ve been able to tell in fifty years of observation, this is how the universe works. I hope I didn’t leave anything out.
1a)
Never throw shit at an armed man.
1b)
Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man.
You wouldn’t think anyone would need to be told this. Does anyone remember the Democratic National Convention of 1968?
2)
Never fire a laser at a mirror.
3)
Mother Nature doesn’t care if you’re having fun.
You will not be stopped! There are things you can’t do because you burn sugar with oxygen, or your bones aren’t strong enough, or you’re a mammal, or human. Funny chemicals may kill you slow or quick, or ruin your brain…or prolong your life. You can’t fly like an eagle, nor yet like Daedalus, but you can fly. You’re the only earthly life form that can even begin to deal with jet lag.
You can cheat. Nature doesn’t care, but don’t get caught.
4)
F × S = k. The product of Freedom and Security is a constant. To gain more freedom of thought and/or action, you must give up some security, and vice versa.
These remarks apply to individuals, nations, and civilizations. Notice that the constant k is different for every civilization and different for every individual.
5)
Psi and/or magical powers, if real, are nearly useless. Over the lifetime of the human species we would otherwise have done something with them.
6)
It is easier to destroy than to create. If human beings didn’t have a strong preference for creation, nothing would get built.
7)
Any damn fool can predict the past. Military men are notorious for this, and certain writers too.
8)
History never repeats itself.
9)
Ethics changes with technology.
10)
Anarchy is the least stable of social structures. It falls apart at a touch.
11)
There is a time and a place for tact. (And there are times when tact is entirely misplaced.)
12)
The ways of being human are bounded but infinite.
13)
The world’s dullest subjects, in order:
A) Somebody else’s diet.
B) How to make money for a worthy cause.
C) Special Interest Liberation.
14)
The only universal message in science fiction: There exist minds that think as well as you do, but differently.
Niven’s corollary: The gene-tampered turkey you’re talking to isn’t necessarily one of them.
15)
Fuzzy Pink Niven’s Law: Never waste calories.
Potato chips, candy, whipped cream, or hot fudge sundae consumption may involve you, your dietician, your wardrobe, and other factors. But Fuzzy Pink’s Law implies:
Don’t eat soggy potato chips, or cheap candy, or fake whipped cream, or an inferior hot fudge sundae.
16)
There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it.
This one’s worth noticing.
At the first High Frontier Convention the minds assembled were among the best in the world, and I couldn’t find a conversation that didn’t teach me something. But the only newspersons I ran across were interviewing the only handicapped person among us.
To prove a point one may seek out a foolish Communist, 13th century Liberal, Scientologist, High Frontier advocate, Mensa member, science fiction fan, Jim Bakker acolyte, Christian, or fanatical devotee of Special Interest Lib; but that doesn’t really reflect on the cause itself. Ad hominem argument saves time, but it’s still a fallacy.
17)
No technique works if it isn’t used. If that sounds simplistic, look at some specifics:
Telling friends about your diet won’t make you thin. Buying a diet cookbook won’t either. Even reading the recipes doesn’t help.
Knowing about Alcoholics Anonymous, looking up the phone number, even jotting it on real paper, won’t make you sober.
Buying weights doesn’t give you muscles. Signing a piece of paper won’t make Soviet missiles disappear, even if you make lots of copies and tell every anchorperson on Earth. Endlessly studying designs for spacecraft won’t put anything into orbit.
18)
Not responsible for advice not taken.
19)
Think before you make the coward’s choice. Old age is not for sissies.
NIVEN’S LAWS FOR WRITERS
1)
Writers who write for other writers should write letters.
2)
Never be embarrassed or ashamed by anything you choose to write. (Think of this before you send it to a market.)
3)
Stories to end all stor
ies on a given topic, don’t.
4)
It is a sin to waste the reader’s time.
5)
If you’ve nothing to say, say it any way you like. Stylistic innovations, contorted story lines or none, exotic or genderless pronouns, internal inconsistencies, the recipe for preparing your lover as a cannibal banquet: feel free. If what you have to say is important and/or difficult to follow, use the simplest language possible. If the reader doesn’t get it then, let it not be your fault.
6)
Everybody talks first draft.
STAYING RICH
The average citizen of planet Earth is wealthier today than he has been throughout human history. From time to time we need to remember how much we’ve got to lose.
After all, you don’t feel rich.
Do you understand how it can be that more people feel poor today than ever before? I give you a hint. It isn’t smog, and it isn’t too few negative ions in the air. It’s the same effect that robbed the Vietnam War of any shadow of glory. It’s one aspect of the rising crime rate. It’s the reason everyone seems to be shouting in your ear. It’s the reason most of us wouldn’t consider powering our cars with liquid hydrogen.
It’s communications. Faster and better and more realistic every decade.
Remember the Hindenburg disaster? Giant dirigible that burst into flame as it pulled up to a mooring tower. Two-thirds of the passengers survived, did you know that? That doesn’t happen when a DC-10 crashes! But the Hindenburg disaster was the first such to be reported live on radio. The radio audience of the time had no defense against that vision of passengers writhing in a storm of flaming hydrogen. Later generations have learned not to respond so emotionally, not even when there are pictures and gory special effects to increase the impact.