in0 by Unknown Read Free Book Online

of - something - seemed to be obscuring the blackness of space. It was remarkably difficult to focus her eyes on the spot, however.
    The ferry’s pilot had announced that they were bound for PoleStar shortly after leaving Equatorial Station, and while the information had answered one of Lisa’s questions, it had generated several others.
    PoleStar had begun life toward the end of the last century as a power satellite. A giant orbiting mirror, it had focused sunlight on a generator to produce electricity. The electricity, in turn, had been transformed into microwaves and beamed down to a rectenna on the ground, where it was reconverted and distributed on the power grid. The project had produced a considerable number of kilowatt-hours, but never any profits. After a decade of losing money, the SolSat One Corporation had filed for bankruptcy.
    The power generators, habitat, and orbiting mirror had been moved out of geosynchronous orbit to free up the valuable parking slot they occupied. Years later, the big mirror and its accompanying habitat had been purchased by speculators who planned to change the orbit of the satellite. They reasoned that if they could place the mirror into a highly elliptical polar orbit, with its apogee above the North Pole, they would be able to provide several hours of illumination each day through the long northern winter.
    On paper, at least, the scheme had appeared a sure moneymaker. Unfortunately, the new owners had grossly underestimated the cost of changing the big powersat’s orbital plane from equatorial orientation to polar. They had also failed to foresee the problems associated with municipalities and other regional administrations signing up for their service. Since the mirror, renamed PoleStar, cast its light on subscriber and non-subscriber alike, people had little incentive to pay for the six hours of half-light they received each day. Eventually, PoleStar had gone bankrupt and was taken over by the weather directorate to be run as a public service.
    “I see it,” Lisa said as she gazed at the faintly luminous patch in the sky.
    “That’s the big mirror,” Pavel replied. “Naturally, the habitat module is still too small to see at this range.”
    “But why isn’t it glowing like at home?”
    “Because we aren’t in the sunbeam. All we see reflecting back to us from the mirror is the blackness of space. A mirror in space is practically invisible.”
    “I believe it.”
    Fifteen minutes later, they passed into the beam of light that was currently illuminating the Alaskan night.
    The transition was dramatic. One moment there was nothing to see. The next, a second sun appeared in the sky in front of them. This one, too, was a glowing yellow billiard ball, but with a difference. The second sun was too bright to look at directly, but as Lisa observed it with peripheral vision, she had the impression that it changed shape as it slowly drifted across the surface of the orbiting mirror.
    She asked Pavel about it. He explained that the mirror was a sheet of thin reflective film stretched out across a framework of gossamer braces nearly a hundred kilometers in diameter. It was the largest (and most fragile) artifact humanity had ever constructed. When it had been an orbiting power station, the mirror had been much more concave than at present, in order to concentrate the heat of the sun on a collector satellite. The current shape was nearly flat; curved just enough to ensure that the light beam was focused on whatever area of the Earth they were illuminating.
    Beyond the reflective sheet of the mirror was the tiny spherical habitat module. They watched it grow slowly larger as the second sun continued to keep pace with them. By the time they crossed out of the beam, the habitat had grown a bulge on one side. It took several minutes before the bulge resolved itself into a second globe half the size of the habitat.
    “It’s a survey ship!” Lisa exclaimed. “I wonder which