The passenger ship containing the diplomatic delegation from Earth approached the largest moon of Neptune, Triton. In orbit around Triton was Dannelon, the capital of the Outer Planets Organization. Dannelon could not be called a habitat; it was way too large. It was too large to be a city, and maybe too small to be a nation, but it was a little of both. It consisted of a loose collection of habitats, modules, flexitubes, passageways, tanks, living spaces, life support modules, storage modules, and assorted other junk. Pieces of Dannelon ranged from small house sized modules to large, city sized habitats, all interconnected via highways, passageways, and flexitubes. There were literally millions of pieces in orbit around Triton, stretching close to 1000 kilometers around Triton’s sphere. Triton itself was utterly inhospitable to human life, and so there was no human habitation on its surface. But Dannelon, in its orbit around Triton, was a thriving center of humanity, with a population of 40 million souls.
It had been growing steadily since its establishment as a
habitat a century ago. It was from the
beginning the center of trade and commerce in the outer planets, loosely
defined as extending from Saturn on out.
As the diplomatic ship approached, the disc of Triton filled
the view port. Dannelon, from this
distance, was an incomprehensible confusion of lights, reflections, and barely
perceived shapes in a band across the face of the moon. As the ship got closer, more and more detail
could be made out. Imagine a layer of
kelp floating on the surface of an unseen ocean above the surface of
Triton. This layer was 1000 kilometers
long and 300 kilometers wide. The kelp
sparkled with lights, both man made and reflections from metal surfaces of the light
bathing the moon from
Closer now, and one could make out structures in the layer: cylinders, spheres, stars, prisms, cubes, and crescents. An elaborate network of elongated tunnels connected these shapes. The closer the ship approached, the more shapes there were. Hundreds, thousands, millions of them. Stretching from one horizon of the moon to the other. The mind rebelled; it could not comprehend the scale, the sheer majesty, the magnitude of the artifacts before it. It was like a fractal, more and more details to be taken in as it got closer; there seemed to be no end to the detail. It pulsated slowly, as structures gently oscillated, like kelp fronds rising and falling gently in the heavenly sea. It was almost a living thing. It was unreal. It was difficult to believe that it was as large as it was and that it housed so many people. It was impossible to believe that this was a man-made artifact, to those aboard the ship who had never seen it before. There were some who did see it as an artifact, as a work of art, an abstract work of impossible complexity, rather than as a practical habitat. It reminded some of the human nervous system, with its millions of neurons, all interconnected via their axons and dendrites.
Even with the sphere of Triton almost completely filling the view, and the web of Dannelon filling a significant portion, the ship was still hundreds of kilometers away. At that distance, the structures that were visible were still city sized. Gigantic cylindrical or spherical structures, called modules, housed thousands of inhabitants. They were strung together in a network of gossamer threads. There were even more structures of a smaller size, but they were invisible except as a faint darkening of the spaces between the larger structures. Streamers of light showed on the surface, like great collections of jewels sparkling amidst a dark background.
The approach was now perceivable as more and more small details in the web were revealed. It was like an embryo shown dividing in a high-speed film. Rather than approaching, one had the sense of descending. The web seemed more and more solid the closer the ship approached. The ship passed through giant shadows cast by the web, and being in shadow accentuated the lights and gleaming reflections from far away parts of the structure. Dannelon now seemed to stretch away forever in all directions, receding into the distance to become a featureless black horizon.
One could now make out spacecraft as they traveled from one structure to another. A great commerce of vessels traveled about their business. At any one time there were thousands of ships traveling both to and from Dannelon, and also ships traveling between parts of Dannelon. There were fewer and fewer ships traveling to and from Earth, however. Hostilities between Earth and the Outer Planets Organization (the so-called OPO’s) were heating up. Dannelon still had commerce among the habitats comprising its empire. But Earth was its main customer, and Earth had stopped trade with the OPO’s. For now, Dannelon was surviving. In other few months, the situation could become critical.
This situation was one of the reasons the diplomatic mission was traveling to Dannelon. This cessation in trade was bad for both sides. Earth was not getting its raw materials from Dannelon; and Dannelon was not getting its finished products from Earth. Dannelon was not supplying water to the mining habitats, which were loosely aligned with Earth. Dannelon was not getting metals from the habitats. This situation was indeed bad for all involved. The diplomats from Earth were making a last ditch effort to avoid an all-out war.
The “dampers” could now be made out. These were robotic ships that traveled from module to module, giving each a slight nudge. The idea was to make sure that small waves of vibration didn’t turn into large waves. There were Giga-MIPS of computing power running night and day, figuring out just where to apply the nudges and directing the thousands of dampers throughout Dannelon. The dampers were like little mosquitoes, flitting from place to place, pausing only long enough do their job, then moving on. For this reason, many people referred to them as “skeeters”. They traveled in packs, combining to provide the necessary thrust to dampen out dangerous drifts.
In the early days, resonant vibration had been a persistent problem in the semi-flexible structure of Dannelon. A module would drift slowly, pulling on its flexi-tubes against other modules, which would pull on other modules, and so on. Two modules would drift toward each other, only to reach the end of the tether of other flexi-tubes, arresting their deadly approach. Under the right combination of circumstances, a module’s slow drift would build up into a dangerously fast oscillation. The people inside the module would be thrown around like toys. There were several disasters before the dampers were introduced. They succeeded for the most part, although there was still an occasional “quake” felt in Dannelon.
The diplomatic mission approached the area of Dannelon reserved for spacecraft arrivals and departures. Interestingly enough, Dannelonis called this area the “airport”. It was a not an airport in the archaic sense of the word, but the name had been adopted early and stuck. The airport was composed of seven huge cylindrical modules, each easily a kilometer in length and maybe a quarter kilometer in diameter. The cylinders were floating in space above Triton side by side, with many flexible highways and tunnels connecting them. It was only when one learned the size of the cylinders could one appreciate that the connecting tunnels were themselves huge, hundreds of meters in width. The surfaces of the cylinders were studded with airlocks, in various stages of admitting and disgorging craft through their doors.
The diplomatic ship floated serenely through the doors of one of the many airlocks, slowing and finally stopping in the berth, with no more than a gentle bump to signal the passengers that the ship was finally docked. Umbilicals snaked out to the ship. The airlock doors closed and the airlock was pressurized. The process of preparing the ship and the airlock for debarkation of the passengers took quite some time.
The hatch door on the ship opened, and the delegation started emerging from the ship. A Danneloni delegation greeted them as they emerged. There was a Danneloni for each Earthling. This was more than a matter of courtesy. Most of the members of the Earth delegation were not accustomed to getting around in zero G, having spent most of the trip out under acceleration. The Dannelonis were there to help the Earthlings maneuver. They were there to teach the earthlings how to use their personal thrusters, or PT’s, under the practiced tutelage of their hosts. In most cases this meant that an Earthling would latch on to a Danneloni and allow himself to be carted around. There was not enough time during this urgent mission to spend learning how to operate a PT.
One Earthling had a different plan in mind. Danson T. Mossburg had lived in habitats all of his life. He had put in plenty of zero G hours, and could handle a PT fairly well for an Earthworm. His assigned Danneloni, a pretty, young woman who introduced herself as Dara Zaro, quickly realized that he didn’t need to be carted around. She let him maneuver by himself, and traveled beside him as they exited the airlock and entered the tunnel leading to the taxi stand. Mossburg had traveled to Dannelon twice before, and was familiar with Danneloni travel conveyances.
Today, a large luxury car was waiting to carry the delegation to its quarters. This group would not travel in the little one and two person cabs at the taxi stand, the mode of travel favored by the masses traveling to and from the airport. Mossburg was a little disappointed. The open cabs were the way to travel in Dannelon, the way to experience it, to see it in all its glory, to smell it, to hear it, to feel it, to taste it. In contrast, the luxury car shut off the outside world, except what little you could see outside your window.
The thing about Dannelon was that
you had to think in three dimensions. If
you were looking for something, you had to look in all directions: forward,
backward, left, right, up and down. In
zero-G, people tended to take advantage of all available space. Most habitats in Dannelon
were in the form of large cylinders. The
cabs and other vehicles traveled in tracks along the inner wall of the
cylinder. The rest of the cylinder wall
was usually covered with habitations.
Most habitats also had a honeycomb of struts and structural members
extended across their width. But the
struts were more than just structural supports.
They also served as anchor points for buildings which extended into the
space in the middle of the cylinder.
Long flexible anchor lines extended in a haphazard fashion from strut to
strut, and these lines served as anchor points for more buildings, houses, and
places of business. It often got so
crowded that one could not see across to the opposite side of the cylinder, and
one needed maps to navigate the crowded city “streets”. The buildings in the center of the cylinder
were usually places of business, and so the center of a cylinder was usually
referred to as the “
The most popular form of transportation in Dannelon were the taxis. They rode on tracks which ran along the inner hull of the habitat. One boarded the taxis at “cab stands”, or stations, along the track. Using the taxis, one could travel most anywhere along the inner surface of a habitat. Cab stands were invariably built at the point where struts intersected with the habitat wall. There were flexi-tubes surrounding the struts, and pedestrians used these to travel between cab stands and city center.
For travel between habitats, there were the Inter-Tubes. Most habitats had two or three gateways at which the taxi tracks converged. The gateways were the entrances to Inter-Tubes, large flexible thoroughfares which connected modules. Cab tracks ran in spirals along the length of the tube. There were occasional free-running vehicles traveling down the axis of the tube. Danson’s first experience riding a cab through an Inter-Tube was an exhilarating experience. It was noisy and smelled of oil and ozone, and the experience was accentuated because the cabs were open to the air. The Tube gently undulated as it carried vibrational waves between modules. And to think that just outside the tube’s walls was the vacuum of space.
Mossburg promised himself to find the time to do a little sightseeing while he was here. Maybe Dara would be willing to act as tour guide, he thought, eyeing her appreciatively on the other side of the car. A little on the thin side, he thought, like all Dannelonis. Still, she was quite fetching.
Spending time with Mossburg was the last thing on Dara Zaro’s mind. She didn’t want to be here with these fat Earthworms. The only reason she was here was that her duties as apprentice in governmental foreign affairs required it. She found Earthworms repulsive. They were not just fat, they were ugly, they were ignorant, and they had an arrogant air about them that just completely turned her off. They thought they were so much better than others, and they thought they could push everyone over to their way of thinking. They just couldn’t seem to understand that not everybody wanted to be like them.
It was enough to make her want to quit her job. Still, it was temporary duty during the college break and the pay in the diplomatic service was more than enough to make it endurable. She would smile sweetly and laugh at the Earthworm’s jokes. She would show them around, and take them to the best restaurants, and introduce them to all of the right people. Soon enough they would leave.
“We have to find a way past our differences”, one of the diplomats, Anne Wilder, was saying. “A war will be disastrous for all of us. It would disrupt key economic balances that have developed for centuries. The result will be utter chaos. If we can negotiate a strong agreement on this trip, one which benefits both sides, then we may be able to calm the tensions.”
“That is, of course, assuming that the principals want peace” said Danson Mossburg. “I’m afraid the president of the Outer Planets may have decided that he is strong enough to make a power play. His failure in the mining habitats notwithstanding, he can surely muster up all the support he needs in the Outer Planets Organization. That may be enough to tip the military balance in their favor. I personally think that if the OPO’s unite, they will become a formidable force. Earth will no longer be able to dictate its own terms.”
“Then we must find out what the president wants, and see if we can give it to him without fighting”, said Wilder. “At the same time, we have to find a way for Earth to save face, to avoid accusations of caving in. Earth can ill-afford a long drawn out war across inter-planetary distances. And despite the OPO’s feelings of strength, they still need Earth. If Earth’s economy crashes under the weight of an inter-planetary war, all economies in the Solar System will soon follow.”
Dara followed this conversation with interest. It was unusual for diplomats to be so candid, especially Earthling diplomats, especially when there were an equal number of Danneloni diplomats. Dara thought maybe Wilder and Mossberg were carrying out a carefully rehearsed performance for the benefit of the Danneloni delegation. She had studied Wilder’s dossier. Wilder had achieved quite a bit of fame in her career as a diplomat. She had won the prestigious Cantor Prize for her role in the resolution of the Martian conflict. Her admirers tended to ignore the fact that the Martians had ended up far worse off after the resolution. Dara thought Wilder easily capable of deep, Machiavellian manipulations designed to satisfy her own agenda.
Mossburg was a bit of a puzzle. The Danneloni diplomatic corps had been unable to find any significant data about him. He had participated in trade negotiations between Earth and Dannelon several times. He had never distinguished himself, and had none of the marks of greatness such as Wilder exhibited. And yet, Earth kept sending him back. This at once suggested to Dara that he wasn’t what he seemed. There had been suggestions among the Danneloni camp that he was an agent. Dara decided that since she was assigned to him, she would find out more about him. She would find out what his true mission was and report that information to her superiors. All for the benefit of Dannelon, of course.