Rock Killer Read Online Free PDF Page B

space, but I don’t see that as a problem.”
    “Well, you are ruining the pristine nature of space. You’re taking asteroids for your own, greedy purposes.”
    Alex smiled. “I guess,” he conceded. “But any asteroid we take, we discovered. We could take asteroids out of the belt for the next billion years at the rate we are now and there’d be no discernible effects.”
    “You’re killing the only other life found in the universe,” he attacked. “For profit.”
    “We’re killing a bacterium that gets energy from the heat of Europa’s rocky core. We have to in order to make the water we pump from that moon potable. The Denver water department does the same thing every day to make the water you drink safe. And we’re killing a minute fraction of the bacteria that is in Europa’s sea.”
    McConnell seemed to consider that for a moment while he crushed out his cigarette. Alex hoped he wouldn’t light another but, in a practiced, almost unconscious series of moves, McConnell had another tube of tobacco in his mouth and it started glowing red at the tip as he sucked on it.
    Then McConnell pounced: “How do you feel about the Los Angeles-New York tunnel project?”
    Alex looked at Kirsten, who was embarrassedly studying her green meal. Then he turned to McConnell.
    “I work for the Space Operations Division and before that the Security Division. The tunnel is being built by the Terrestrial Projects Division. I understand the basic technology and concepts, but other than that I don’t know much about it. I assume Terrestrial Projects’ engineers know what they are doing.”
    McConnell wasn’t put off. “But it’s all SRI, whether you’re in space or in that private army they euphemistically call ‘Security Division.’ And don’t you think this idea of drilling a tunnel straight through the Earth under the U.S. is dangerous?”
    “I’m sure our people know what they’re doing,” Alex repeated, realizing he was running out of arguments.
    “But it could destabilize the entire ecology of the continent. Plus, it would put thousands of airline, trucking, and train employees out of work. It’s just another rape of nature by a criminal corporation. And is it any coincidence that they’re doing it under the U.S? A Japanese corporation: Why don’t they do it under Japan?”
    Kirsten looked at Alex and saw his complexion grow darker.
    She gave him a pleading look but it was too late.
    Alex decided to ignore McConnell’s subtle racism. “Because Japan isn’t large enough to make it economically feasible,” he started. “Look, the tunnel, as I understand it, will provide quick, cheap, and pollution-free transportation between Los Angeles and New York.” Alex realized he was talking fast but anger was pushing his words out. “If it proves itself, SRI hopes to build tunnels between every major city in the world. Since gravity alone is used to move the trains, the only energy use will be parasitic. If the airlines are put out of business, that’s the price of progress. People who use that argument are no different from the Luddites who opposed the Industrial Revolution because steam engines would replace human jobs. It didn’t matter that those jobs were hellish, brute labor and the industrial revolution freed them to go do something better, like be psychologists, for example.”
    Alex stopped, having said more than he planned.
    McConnell looked at Alex while pulling smoke into his lungs. It seemed that great, bushy mustache was pointing straight out. “Those are the same kind of arguments they used for fusion,” he said softly. “That wasn’t all they promised.”
    “That’s because the paranoid, uneducated masses got it legislated to death with regulations. And they did the same thing to fission before that in the last century. We use fusion reactors on the asteroids and, while I’m deathly afraid of cosmic rays and solar radiation, I’ll sleep on top of a tokamak. These environmentalists,