Debatable Space (40 page)

And one missile was fired into the Atlantic ocean, ripping through the water and detonating on the muddy bottom, causing a
huge vortex to be created that nearly touched the sky. The resulting tornados and tsunamis wrecked and flooded homes and lands
on every Atlantic coast.

Peter stopped short of dispatching plagues of frogs and locusts and holograms of the Four Horsemen of the Armageddon, but
in every other respect he constructed an invasion that was deliberately intended to evoke and echo Armageddon. There was mass
panic, and mass suicide – and entire armies threw down their weapons.

Faced with this overwhelming firepower, and unbelievable psych warfare acuity, the Earth President, a toad of a man called
Chapel, capitulated. My son came to power. And thus he became the first person in all of history to conquer the entire planet
Earth.

His first act was to abolish the World Council and the office of President of Humanity. Instead, in a glorious public relations
coup, he declared that all the “satellite” planets of Earth were, from this moment forward, to be independent and self-governing.
Unity would be achieved through trade, as Asimov had prophesied; and the days of imperial rule were over.

He also, in passing, established a Universal Trading Corporation of which he was sole shareholder and Chief Executive Officer.
The Corporation’s first act was to charge all planets for information sent or received on the Quantum Beacons. It was, in
effect, a massive and lucrative tax on all colonies, but no one realised that. The euphoria on all the inhabited planets of
the Universe was intense and palpable. Freedom from Earth’s tyranny!

Sadly, it didn’t turn out that way. The Corporation was not a government; but it had absolute power. And, through the technology
of the Doppelganger Robots, my son the Chief Executive Officer (Cheo) became de facto Emperor of the Human Universe.

Years later, he invited me to visit him, on Earth. Naturally I accepted.

As I explained, I was
lonely
.

Before visiting my son, I got myself a new liver and a skin rejuve. I burned all my clothes and chose a whole new wardrobe
from our designer collection. I went for a shiny ochre look with my clothing, and my hair was raven-black. I glowed, I was
sublime. And I looked as if I was going to see my lover.

I chose cryosleep for the journey. It doesn’t save you anything – your body still ages the same number of subjective years.
But it avoids the tedium of years in transit, playing auto-chess and rereading so-called literary classics.

I was woken when we reached Pluto. In Earth Time I had been away for 130 years or so. And in that time, the grand project
of transforming the Sol system had advanced hugely.

Jupiter had rings now. A vast space factory made up of hundreds of separate but interconnected units hung in permanent orbit
around the huge gas giant, powered by energy pumps in the heart of the planet’s boiling atmosphere. The man-made ring blended
with and accentuated Jupiter’s own natural but fairly anonymous ring system (which of course is invisible to most low-grade
telescopes from Earth itself).

Jupiter’s moon Europa is now a gleaming blue and green jewel, after the melting of its icefields turned it into the second
of the Aqueous Planets (after Earth itself). Vast green islands have been floated over this planetary ocean, and each year,
I’m told, the islands become bigger and bigger.

As my spaceship moved closer and closer into the Sol system, the breathtaking genius of human engineering became ever more
manifest. After the glory of Jupiter’s ring comes the magnificence of the Dyson Jewels. These orbiting diamond-shaped space
stations are each the size of the planet Mars. And thousands upon thousands of them are caught in orbit between Jupiter and
Mars. This is the region of space known as the Beltway, in honour of the Asteroid Belt which used to exist there (before it
was pillaged and annihilated for its raw materials).

The orbits of each Jewel are finely calculated and are set at a multiplicity of angles. To visualise this, imagine a sphere
with balls circling around it. One ball will circle the equator of the sphere; another will be set at an angle of 5° to that;
the next will be tilted at an angle of another 5°; and so on until the final sphere orbits the poles in a straight up and
down line. All the balls circle simultaneously, but their orbits only intersect at two points and so with a degree of careful
calculation, the balls will never collide.

And so, in this way, the maximum amount of space can be filled by a series of huge orbiting balls, which form a kind of imaginary
sphere. And this of course is an extension of the principle of the Dyson Sphere – a theoretical construct of a man-made planet
which is mathematically calculated to occupy the greatest possible amount of space. Instead of a planet as a tiny ball orbiting
a huge sun – imagine that planet as a vast sphere
encircling
the sun. Such a place would be vast beyond our wildest imaginings! However, in reality the Dyson Sphere would be inconceivably
expensive to build and maintain, and would probably be irredeemably unstable. Niven’s proposed Ringworld is more tenable,
but also tricky.

But the Dyson Jewels offer a third and more pragmatic option. Each mini-world is self-contained; but the maximum amount of
space around the sun is utilised by their carefully calibrated orbits. They swarm around the sun, magically never colliding,
stealing every iota of its warmth and energy. And the Dyson Jewels collectively offer land almost without limit. There is
more room for humans to live and roam on in the Dyson Jewels than in all the planets of human-occupied space put together.

Inside each Dyson Jewel is a planet with green fields and blue skies and clouds, and horizons that curve
up
. And, for those with a head for heights, there are vast viewing areas where the people can look
out
, into space.

But for the most part, the citizens of the Jewels look
in
. The Jewels’ rotation creates an illusory gravity; but for the rest, their world is as real as any world. Real grass, real
trees, real animals, rivers, lakes and oceans.

And cities that are as organic as a Bavarian wood. In the Jewels, houses grow and deform over the years; streets digress and
meander, and sometimes spontaneously give birth to new houses thanks to stylishly mischievous computerised subprograms. Solar
power alone is, because of the huge planet-sized solar panels on the hull, enough to give each sphere near-limitless energy.
And so each Dyson Jewel has all the resources it needs. Each is a self-contained paradise, which exists in a state of total
freedom.

Except, that is, for the contractual requirement to pay weekly licensing fees to the Corporation, which owns the sun’s radiation,
and has copyrighted all the energy pumps, and leases all the computer software which makes human civilisation possible.

And, as if the Dyson Jewels weren’t marvellous enough, there is the Angel. An ever-changing man-made Aurora Borealis generated
by a micro-star that orbits high above the planetary ecliptic, at roughly the same distance as Uranus from the sun. The Angel
sends a radiance over the entire Sol system, illuminating the deepest recesses of space so that the whole system is, in effect,
lit by suns at each end.

As a result, uniquely in this planetary system, even in the depths of space it is always daytime. The stars become a gleaming
murky haze in the far distance when you are in the Sol system; and the planets themselves shine as though floodlit. For Earth
Humans, the sun always shines, and no one ever goes hungry.

I donned a spacesuit and flew from a tether on the outside of my ship as we sailed deeper and deeper into the Earth system.
The light of the Angel was reflected and refracted over the diamond surfaces of the Dyson Jewels, making them sparkle in a
million different hues. The rings of Jupiter shone with magical resonance. And the natural ring of Saturn had an ethereal
glow that sent shudders of eerie pleasure down my spine.

We soared at one-third light speed past Venus (a tropical rainforest now, with civilisations existing on the surface and in
the trunk and branches of the Aldiss Tree, which has its roots on the equator but spans the entire planet). We took a long,
looping detour so I could see the canals of Mars – this, I felt, was one of the grandest architectural triumphs of recent
years, as this barren planet was carefully transformed into a world of palaces connected by long tendrils of water, and in
which motorboats and hang-gliders are the universal means of transport.

But then our path arced back again and we headed for Earth, the blue and green central bauble in this Christmas array.

I am old enough to remember the Pessimistic Years, when humans feared that ecological disaster would bring the planet to the
brink of destruction. Well, they were right; but out of the wreckage of twenty-second-century Earth has come a revitalised
planet, more fecund and more beautiful than ever. The poles have refrozen, the rainforests have been replanted. And the tens
of billions who died in India and Africa and Europe and South and North America through a deadly cocktail of global warming,
thermonuclear pollution and biological warfare are now fertiliser in Earth’s rich soil.

When I left Earth, much had already had been achieved. Africa was in better shape; China was battling with its population
crisis; pollution was at its lowest level for decades. But there was much left to do.

But a century and a half later, the progress made was astonishing. Things had changed at an exponential rate. Energy had become
abundant. The Solar system had been fully colonised. The Dyson Jewels had been built. And Earth had renewed itself after all
the thousands of years of human abuse and neglect.

The phoenix had risen from the ashes; Earth was reborn.

I floated on my tether. I put my visors on “Amplify”. I peered at the now unfamiliar cities in the only-too-familiar land
formations of my home planet.

Was that London? I wondered. Then I recognised Big Ben.

I was home.

How can I write of the beauties of Earth and the Sol system? How can I praise and venerate the genius of humankind’s intellect
and imagination and inventive powers?

I cannot. It is a glory beyond praise. Our oceans teem with Dolphs, our skies flock with light-boned flying humans. Our cities
are wonders of delight. And the grandeur of Nature is enhanced, not diminished, by our careful tending and landscaping. The
Rocky Mountains, the Himalayas, the South Pole, the savannahs of Africa, the tropical rainforests, the Highlands of Scotland,
the forests of central Europe, the deserts of Africa, the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the cities of the Incas and Aztecs, the
White House, the Houses of Parliament… all these treasures remain intact, restored and magnificently showcased, and are
venerated.

But for me, during my stay on Earth, it came to seem strange to live somewhere where
everything
is beautiful, and wonderful, and perfect. This was a civilisation where there was no poverty, where education was available
to all, where the average intelligence was genius level, thanks to superior training and the benefits of brain-chip implants.
And it was a civilisation where no one aged, and where beauty was a prerequisite. There were no flat-chested women; there
were no small-dicked men. No one died of a stroke, or a heart attack; in fact, by and large, hardly anyone died at all.

And for a long while, it all seemed marvellous. I revelled in my experiences on Earth. I savoured the company. I laughed and
got drunk and travelled and helped my son plan his trading strategies.

I revisited Florence, and was able to savour the paintings in the Uffizi without having to endure long queues of babbling
foreigners. I went to Venice, and found gleaming hygienic toilets in every bar and hotel. I went to Paris, and was awed by
the courtesy of the waiters. I visited New York, and was beguiled by the calm, uncluttered quality of life. I toured the Midwest
and drank fantastic cappuccinos, and dined in elegant gourmet ranch restaurants.

I travelled round India and did not see a single beggar. I went to St Petersburg, and discovered fabulous service and cuisine
of the highest calibre. I saw no crime or pollution, no overcrowding, no bad manners. Road, rail and air travel was easy and
reliable and free. The clothes were beautiful too – and richly varied, and idiosyncratic. And the racial mix was exhilarating.

In short, everything I used to hate about my own planet had been improved; and nothing, so far as quality of life was concerned,
had been made worse. What’s more, I was surrounded by pleasant, witty, funny people. Having endured years of desiccated solitude
on Rebus, I finally had friends and a social circle.

What could be more wonderful!

And Peter always found time to be with me. We dined together once a week. He introduced me to the best new wines. He told
me amazing stories of his adventures on Meconium. I was delighted to find he had acquired a flair as a raconteur. And he was
so amazingly nice to me. Eager to please me in every way, in fact. Desperate to please me, if truth be told.

He’d read every article ever written about me. He had databanks of all the memos I’d drafted. He had multiple copies of all
my books, though he admitted that he had difficulty reading them. He brought me his girlfriends for my inspection. He asked
my advice on his advisers, he showed me the transcripts of his Cabinet meetings. There was much he didn’t burden me with,
but I became an invaluable influence on his strategy and person-management.