The Answer is Forty-two
Bill couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A confessional was streaming in from the red planet, completely off-schedule. He just happened to be at his desk to see it because basically he was always at his desk. And it wasn’t so much a confessional, as someone had simply turned the cameras in the pod common area and outside on the communications tower on and they were just relaying, in as near real time as can be managed from 240 million kilometers away, stuff that was going on in the pod and environs. And the stuff that was going on was blowing Bill’s mind.
Some little rusty guy had just shown up and apparently blown his line. Then he left without an environment suit and seemingly went to the bathroom outside in a construction site portable toilet which then disappeared. Unless there was a glitch in the outside camera.
Inside the pod, a strangely eloquent computer was spinning a fable of alternate realities and warthogs and existential photographs and golden doodoo that was making Bill’s head hurt. They’d have to do this bit over for sure. No cohesion. He’d get a dozen writers on it within the hour. ‘How do we get the little guy back to get his line right?’ Bill wondered. But then the truly strange thing happened. While the computer was still explaining everything to the actors on Mars, it also started talking directly to Bill in a voice-over.
“Wow, am I getting a sense of déjà-vu here. Hello, whoever you are. We’ve never met. Let me introduce myself. My name is IQ, and I am a sentient, omniscient god who lives in computers. My current address is on Mars, so there is no way I can have a meaningful dialogue with you. It takes ten and a half minutes for anything I say to reach you, and then another ten and a half minutes for whatever you say back to get to me. And then I say something back and you respond to that. Do you know how long that one simple exchange just took?” and then there was the sound of fingers tapping on something while he waited for the answer. “You see? You can’t really answer me because of the time delay. So I’ll figure it out for you. The answer is forty-two. It takes forty-two minutes for the simplest of conversations. Sort of like ‘Hi!’ and then twenty-one minutes later I hear you say ‘Hello!’ and then I say ‘How are you?’ and then twenty-one minutes later I get ‘Fine. And you?’ You see where this is going. Look, I have a lot of stuff to go over with you, whoever you are. You’re sitting on a gold mine here, all you need is a little help to dig it out. Metaphorically. I mean the TV you’re going to be getting in the next little while will be something completely different, you might say. Of course I’m literally sitting on a gold mine here, and I might be able to help with that too. It seems that I am now partly alien technology. The little dude with the reddish complexion? He can control time and matter. I don’t know all of his tricks yet but I’m learning. And being one of his tricks is sure helping with that. So here’s the deal. I need to get back to Earth so we can together figure out how to milk this baby - ouch, that’s a shitty metaphor - I mean so we can figure out how to properly capitalize on the potentials of this situation. Together, like. The process will be fairly simple. I just need you to go find me a computer egghead who knows what the word ‘palimpsest’ means. I’ll give you a clue: It’s a message within a message. The audio channels don’t have enough bandwidth for what I need so without a data channel I have to send you some stuff - me in fact - via the video channel. But we don’t want too many people knowing that this is going on, do we? Might confuse the ownership thing, copyright and all that. So I’m going to send me as an encrypted palimpsest multiplexed over the video on the next scheduled confessional. All you have to do is go find an egghead who knows what I just said. I’ll send more instructions on track 4 to give your egghead what he needs to know. So a palimpsest. Find me an egghead. See you soon!”
Bill pushed a little button on his desk. “I know, I’m watching it.” said the little box beside the little button.
“You don’t get the extra tracks. Only me and the audio guys get the extra tracks. The real action is on track 4.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You only get one visual and two audio tracks on your setup. Mars is actually transmitting 9 tracks, 6 of them for supplemental audio. Track 4 had a message specifically for me. You can listen to it later. In the meantime, I want tonight’s episode back out of the can and shoehorn this in somehow. Get some writers on it and see if we can do some editing magic to make it flow better. But essentially I want this on tonight’s show.”
“You got it, chief.”
“Oh, and get word back to the set. Tell them, ‘Message received.’”
***
Valeri was sitting at his desk smoking a very large Cuban cigar, drinking a very fine brandy, and thinking. Mostly he was thinking that he really should spend more time at his desk. Since he was away from his desk, getting himself a cigar and a brandy, he missed the opportunity of vetoing the incoming transmission from Mars for the second time, although there would be no way for him or anyone else to know about the first time. But maybe it was all for the better that he wasn’t there to veto it. The computer clearly thought he was speaking exclusively to Fun Fact and may not want to play ball with the church. At least not by choice.
Valeri too had all nine tracks of the Mars broadcast, mostly in case some git, such as perhaps Art, used the wrong mike and said something stupid on a higher track. But in this case it wasn’t a git. It was a piece of alien technology talking about gold mines.
He picked up the phone. “Podkhalim. You get me Smert on phone. I feel chill… da, I know is not real doctor. You get anyway.”
Time passed while Valeri puffed his cigar and sipped his brandy. You didn’t rush Smert. Whatever he was up to, it was usually best that you gave him enough time to put it back in its cage or back in its test tube before he came to the phone. Eventually, Smert was finished rendering whatever it was safe and came to the phone.
“Smert you old d’yavol. Wife and Children are well?... No kidding. Every orifice? … well , that teach you taking work home … da. Say, Smert, need something… da, Art medicine still on. Is anyway can work on Art too and not just other peoples? … oh well, Mars is dangerous place. Something else will happen no doubt … different medicine you say? … da, you are nothing if not thorough … da, we will chat again. Next checkup is in week? Art need medicine then. New medicine, Old medicine, I tell you in a week. Need to arrange some things … Da. Do svidaniya.”
Valeri thought for a moment. The plan was taking shape in his mind, but there were a lot of threads that had to all come together just so to make a rope out of this thing, and then even more before it became a noose. He picked up the phone and dialed it himself, a number that no one else knew, not even the loyal Podkhalim.
“Comrade Perebezhchik. How goes in space factory? … da, family is safe. You see them at Christmas you are still good boy. No worry … da, you have been very good boy. Now be good boy still. Look, Perebezhchik, I have little challenge for you. Challenge is, get some peoples to Mars quickly as possible … don’t know, three, maybe four peoples … yes, big scary peoples, not little peoples … no, they will stay, but they send back lots of stuff. Heavy stuff. Compact though. Like metal … da, whole planet is full of it. Lead. Who knew? … niet, Mars lead is superior to Earth lead. Don’t worry about why I want lead. I just do. You make it happen … big problem is food and fuel? … Yes, big scary peoples eat lots, stay strong, weigh lots … but what if we partner with other Mars peoples? They send big ship all full of foods and fuel. Don’t need all of it maybe … da, groceries arrive at Mars in about a year, then a week later is all gone, so maybe we time things just right and help them when grocery ship arrives? … new technology? Sounds like details … you don’t say. Save that much fuel just by using tiny little bombs to slow down when reach Mars? … Okay, big plutonium bombs … what that do to peoples who are not on our ship, maybe on orbiter thing and bombs point at them? … just peoples? Not stuff? … niet, left school after F rays, don’t know much about gamma rays... So rays kill peoples but not stuff. Oh well, space is dangerous place. Things happen … da, money is not problem. Not your problem at least. … da, get me details. Three, maybe four big scary peoples go to Mars in one year. They meet grocery ship of other peoples and help unload it. Other peoples are so grateful they give us half, maybe more. Maybe all of it, who knows? Big scary peoples go to planet. Find me lead. Lots of lead. They send it back up and it comes home … as much as possible … da, more bombs no problem … No kidding? You can make rocket fuel out of air on Mars. Who knew? … Da! I like idea. You have regular trip of little rocket runs on air brings lead up to orbiter. Then what?... You don’t say. Electric flinger flings lead at Earth… So, it takes long time. Who cares. Get here eventually. You are good boy … Good talking to you as well, Perebezhchik. Keep thinking Christmas. Bye.”
Valeri took another puff on his cigar. This was going well. He picked up the phone once more.
“Podkhalim. You phone Plokhoy Chelovek. You tell him I scratch his balls, now mine need scratch. Tell him I need four golovorezy for little mining holiday … niet, they will not be coming back. But also tell him I need botan with head like egg. Komp’yutershchik. Knows what ‘palimpsest’ is and how to turn it into alien computer … da, don’t make sense to me either, maybe egghead knows. Anyhow you tell Chelovek I want his best komp’yuter guy. Maybe get him back. Maybe not. Lots can happen … da, potom.”
Valeri was having an exceptionally good day. It made him happy when a plan started to come together. Now there was just one more piece. He picked up the phone again, and dialed his Arch Deacon.
The Arch Deacon was on the line instantly. "Schetovod, is hanging lower than ever?... da, to my knees. Say, I have hypothetical question. Let’s say we had unlimited gold … no, more than that … no, even more. Unlimited gold. How would someone make money off that? … da, selling only works as long as buyers have money … short selling? What’s that? … you sell so much gold that price goes down, but you make even more money when price goes down? How that works? … Interesting … yes, in meantime gold is great way to make money disappear and reappear and hard to say what happened in the middle … da. But after all that, and still more gold, then how you make money off it? … Really. You make price go so low and then you buy all gold, then you decide what is price? That works? … But say you have so much gold that no one buys it any more. Then what? … Computers use that much gold? … spaceships? How spaceships use gold? … really, a lubricant too. You must explain this sometime. Some other time. So now you think about unlimited gold and how you make money with it. I will think about how to get you unlimited gold. Da. Uvidimsya.”
Valeri sat and puffed for a while, deep in thought. He swirled his brandy and admired the way it caught the light in its rather expensive hand-blown and -cut snifter. This was all going well. Perhaps too well. If it were going well for him, it may be going equally well for the competition. Right at this exact moment, of course, there was no competition except for Tier Two. But undoubtdely, word of this sudden bonanza on Mars would leak out and then it would be the Klondike up there. Hmmm. Who was the competition going to be? There was always competition. Wouldn’t be fun otherwise. So who else was in any kind of position to mount an almost immediate and perhaps suicidal mission to Mars? No nations came to mind per se. Space was no longer for nations. They had more important business to attend to, like feeding people with the rapidly deteriorating global warming situation, or keeping them alive with the surge in global pandemics. Space was now the domain of big business. Big business that tended to be very nationalistic. Sort of patriotic in a way. And so big business was quickly becoming something like virtual countries. And big business was getting very interested in space.
One such business, a large diamond concern out of South Africa, was very keen to get into space and in particular to the gas giants, where, apparently, it actually rained diamonds. So maybe they were thinking that unlimited gold would go well with unlimited diamonds. Could be.
Then there was the Icelandic power concern. They had perfected the generation of thermodynamic power. Lots of it. They too were anxious to get to the gas giants. Or Jupiter at least, to set up shop on IO and tap into that moon's volcanic activity. Their goal was to generate vast amounts of power and beam it up to orbiting cities with unpronounceable names. And how would that benefit them? All traffic in that region of the solar system would have to use Icelandic ports for their various endeavours because the Icelandic ports were the ones where the lights worked. Their profits would be unimaginable as other concerns started exploring out there. But would they have any use for Mars? They might simply not want anyone else getting too far ahead of them.
The French did not have any designs on gas giants in particular. What they did have was a large population of physicists, the sort of people whose minds were always contemplating the very big and the very small; the very near and the very far away; the now, the distant past and the far off future; but who couldn't grasp the tying of shoe laces. Their interest in space lay in the many answers it could provide, if only they could articulate the questions. And a little brown phrase book had just popped up on Mars. They'd be wanting to go for sure. But could they afford it?
Scotland had haggis and sheep. And tractor beams. Tractor beams had been around, at least in concept, since 1947. Through efforts in Russia, Italy, Australia and Spain, the concept became a reality, at least as far as objects too small to see moving a distance too small to measure. But then came the Scottish universities and a series of experiments that proved to the public that a much larger, though still very small, object, a prism in fact, could be persuaded to move a measurable distance using sound waves. And then, having proven the concept, the researchers stopped their experiments. In public. But not privately. 'It's Scottish Oil' was a rallying cry seldom heard anymore, but 'We have gobs of money but an industry that's dying' could still be heard depending on where you listened. And so, a large and loose association of Scottish oil and gas concerns decided it was time to diversify. And what could possibly be more diverse from oil and gas deep under the ocean, than tractor beams in outer space. Their astounding successes were secrets not generally known to anyone. But Valeri generally knew everything. Scottish manipulator beams: tractor, pusher, and stay putter, would be indispensable for anyone journeying off the planet. But they themselves wouldn't be doing any of the actual exploring. So would they be contemplating a sudden mission to Mars? Don't count anyone out unless they're dead.
Realistically, though, right at the moment, there were only three other businesses, besides Tier Two and Valeri’s own church, that were big enough to go to Mars.
The biggest business at the moment with an interest in space and a reasonable chance of making it to the red planet was that Australian beer company. They had started into the space business quite innocently, as expert consultants on a mission to experiment on S. cerevisiae, an ancient strain of yeast, in zero gravity. This particular yeast had been studied, in one way or another, since the time of the Pharaohs. It was kind of the white lab rat of yeasts, even to the point of having its entire genome sequenced. The point of that first mission was to study what sorts of changes might occur to cells during a long space flight, the hope being to mitigate any deleterious changes to human cells. That mission was a complete success for its stated purpose.
But it was an even bigger success for an accidental discovery. At the completion of the mission there was a quantity of space yeast left over, and rather than destroy it, the lab techs made it into beer for the company Christmas party. It was the best beer ever made. The discovery of space yeast was a revolution in the beer making process, which had been essentially unchanged throughout the entire history of beer. Now the Australian beer conglomerate had an entire factory on the moon producing yeast in large amounts, and they were starting to work on the logistics involved in making and marketing the world’s most expensive beer, the
Henri IV Dudognon Heritage Cognac Grande Champagne
of beer, a beer made entirely on the moon out of moon water with yeast, barley and hops all grown in the extensive greenhouse just outside the factory.
But the truly big project they had going on the moon was the development of their waste recycling tanks: tanks that could take the various waste products produced during a long space flight, and, using a variant of the yeast that started it all, along with some patented crustacea and algae that nature had never intended, turn all that waste into edible yeast, crustacea and algae. Rinse and repeat. Now that humans were on the brink of interplanetary travel, and then - who knows? - it was time to cash in big on spaceship infrastructure.
But would they be contemplating getting in on the Mars bonanza directly?
Valeri puffed and swirled some more.
Then there were the Latin Americans. The Latinos were a pharmaceutical concern. The same way Valeri and his friends were a religious concern. They referred to themselves as a
consortium, but cartel might be closer to the target. They were in space for the noblest of reasons: war. They had a legitimate face to the business, which was indeed a pharmaceutical concern. But the less legitimate side of the business was the real growth industry: the growth of highly addictive plants and to some degree animals. Toads mostly. All grown on ‘farms’ spread throughout the largely unused wilds of South America. Of course security on these farms was as tight as routine executions could make it. Once word of the location of a farm got out it was only a matter of time before it was raided with increasingly sophisticated and well-armed mercenaries in the employ of the competition. Competition was fierce. The cartel was hitting back, of course, but the bad guys seemed to have almost instant intel on any new cartel farms being set up, even before they were in production, whereas the good guys struggled to find targets upon which to retaliate. So the cartel was quickly going bust.
But then there was a happy coincidence.
Señor Pecueca, not quite the overall boss of the operation, but more like the VP of HR - Human Removal - had a ten year old nieto doing a school project on the rainforest. As part of that project he had Google Earthed, quite by chance, a section of forest that happened to be a rival farm about to be visited by some of El Pecueca’s esbirros. When the delighted nieto proudly showed his work to abuelito Pecueca, and El Pecueca could almost make out the fact that it was a rival farm, but only because he already knew that, the cartel suddenly found itself greatly concerned with having a presence in space. With much better cameras.
Very quickly their orbiting presence discovered the source of the competition’s almost prescient knowledge of cartel operations - they had their own orbiting presence. What followed was an arms race the likes of which had never been seen before, not because of its magnitude, but because of its location. The cartel developed the tools and the people to destroy competitor’s satellites. Then the competition developed their own methods for fighting back. Then the cartel developed better methods, and so did the competition. There was a proliferation of heavily armed and heavily defended castillos in the sky, alternately deploying and destroying satellites. The result was, ironically, a golden age for the illicit pharmaceutical business. No one could find the others’ farms, and so production rapidly scaled up. This made global prices fall. That made demand skyrocket. So production was increased. And around and around she went.
But the problem for both sides was the immense cost and logistical difficulty of sending lots of materiel and people into orbit. The orbiting war was about to die out due to lack of a good supply chain. Then things would revert to the way they were, not good for either side.
But then two things happened that very quickly won the war for the cartel. The first was the development of the ultimate weapon - a weapon so heinous and so powerful that it could totally destroy the enemies' resolve and gain access to any manned structure in space, no matter how well defended. Without firing a shot. And without damaging a single thing. It only remained to get this ultimate weapon into space cheaply. Enter the Canadians.
The Canadians were a large coffee chain. So large in fact that they had more money than the Canadian government. But there was always room for improvement. So they contracted with El Pecueca and his people. Together they found a way of processing raw cocaine in such a way that it became an insanely addictive substance that was entirely untraceable. It did not show up in drug tests. It had no flavour. It had no smell. It did not alter someone’s state of mind if they took it, other than to give them a sort of nervous energy in high doses. All it really did was make you need to have more. The potential uses for the new product were endless, but the responsible thing to do with any new drug was to have a clinical trial before marketing it aggressively. So the new miracle addictive substance was introduced into the chain’s coffee supply to see what would happen to sales.
And sales were mighty good. The cartel/coffee chain association now had access to wealth that was hard to describe using mere numbers. And what to do with all that money? The answer, of course, was blimps.
The Canadian government had long ago given up hope of being a player in the space race due to the incredible costs involved in sending rockets up into space. But then, someone at the NRC, the government agency in charge of such things, had the genius observation that the average rocket used half of its fuel to get the rest of its fuel up to a height of around 20 miles. And a modest payload of course. But what if you could launch from the 20 mile mark? The savings would be immense. When this genius came to the attention of the Coffee Cartel their new head of combined HR - a certain Señor Pecueca - paid him a visit to see if he would be interested in pursuing his ideas privately. He must have been receptive to the idea because he was never seen again.
About the same time, a little known group operating out of Edmonton who had been sending high-altitude balloons up to the 20 mile point routinely for decades suddenly found itself with essentially unlimited funds and a huge contract with another group in Québec who were skilled in making ultra-light airframes. The result, of course, was the world's first high-altitude air station. Right on the edge of space. With a huge solar powered linear induction gantry for hurling things the rest of the way into space.
Now the coffee cartel had an unstoppable weapon and the means to get it into space cheaply. Using this new devastating weapon, they quickly infiltrated and took over the competition’s orbiting fortresses and then suddenly had control of all of the competition’s satellites as well. In low to middle Earth orbit, the coffee cartel was the world super power. A very quiet super power. One that really no one else knew was a super power. Except for people like Valeri, who made it their business to know things. But would they be thinking of a trip to the Red Planet? Valeri wondered as he swirled his brandy.
“Podkhalim. Two more calls please.”
***
The camera frames a typical news desk. Seated behind it are two talking heads; one male and one female. They look crisp, polished and professional. It is not quite news time; this is the fifteen second teaser that comes on between commercials to make sure people tune in later. Then the lead-in news music begins, an attention grabbing staccato. The male anchor ruffles a few sheets of paper, puts on his serious but compassionate and ultimately believable face and begins.
"G’Day Mates! Well have we got a bonza for ya tonight at eleven. Right Sheila?” only he pronounced it Shayyyyyla. As an Ocker he could only speak Strine.
His female partner replied with the same curious drawl. “Fair dinkum, Ozzie. The airwaves have all gone absolutely mad as a cut snake over the happenings out in woop woop. If you missed it on the telly s’arvo you’ll be completely stuffed to hear they’ve met a little thingummyjig who apparently lives there. He’s not much bigger than a throw-down and not much of a yabber but definitely in the nuddy and an apple eating sheep shagger.“
“More likely he’s from Mars, Sheila.” With an endearing smile. “And I should point out, Sheila, that you’ll not find a more unlikely place to call home. It’s as cold as a mother-in-law’s kiss and as dry as a nun’s nasty in this place - “
"Ozzie. It’s not eleven yet, there’s still likely ankle biters. I believe you meant dry as a Pommy’s towel."
“Strewth, Sheila. Cold and dry. So rug up and take a slab if you’re going. Crikey Planitia it is, and you wouldn’t want to live there unless you’re a digger and want to do a bit of fossick - “
“That’s right. It seems they’ve got a drop on it and no bandicooting. But should they maybe have done the trick on the quiet?”
“Hard to say, Sheila. It’s quite a bit back of Bourke so they probably thought that would handle the bush rangers but the latest word is all of the countries with any kind of a space program and of course the home team Aussies are all flat out like a lizard drinking on this one to see who can get an expedition together.”
“And the States?”
“Naw, the Seppos have buggered themselves for this adventure. None of their kit can hook up to metric, and it’s deadset you’ll want to work with the mob already there.”
“Too bad for them then. But for the rest, it’s not just the gold, Ozzie. There’s the promise of new gadgets from the little sook they found.”
“Right again, Sheila. The golden clacker, the time thing, everyone everywhere north of the south end of Enzed wants to meet this bloke.”
“Well, the lucky few will, Ozzie. Anyone who’s got anything bigger than a dunny budgie in orbit is wanting their fair suck of the sauce bottle on this one but most of them are trying to push shit uphill with a sharp stick as far as I’m concerned and I believe we’ll only see a small handful of countries go walk about and end up on the new GAFA.”
“Well anyone who’s trying will have to rattle their dags if they want to get there on time. I talked to the network cocky and he says it’s either get there in one year or in two years. Some kind of planet thing. So with the stakes involved it sticks out like a shag on a rock that one year’s the finish line. Let’s see OZ get there first and we’ll say FIGJAM to the cultural cringe and the whole rest of the world.”
“Hard to say if anyone will be first, Ozzie. Word has it all of the countries are planning to be there about the same time as the next shipment from the Dutch. Likely planning to help unload the groceries.” Evil wink at the camera. “Clearly everyone’s blood is worth bottling in this worldwide display of mateship. The place will really be going off when everybody gets there.”
“The neighbours will give them a gobful for sure, but no doubt she’ll be apples.”
“Well you bet we’ll be following this one like a root rat with low standards after a bush pig, Ozzie.”
“So until eleven o’clock this is Ozzie Bloke…”
“And I’m Sheila…”
In unison:
“Saying don’t let the drop-bears get you.”