the bottleneck years

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 73 Table of Contents Chapter 75 Chapter 74 Waiting, September 18, 2059 I went back to the university and sat in my office. Luckily I didn't have any more classes that day. I tried to work, but it was no use. I ended up scanning half a dozen news channels looking for information about the sunshield and the rockets. Finally I felt so useless, I headed back home. That meant I was offline for 35 or 40 minutes while I walked. I could have monitored the net with my padd, but I have always tried to pay attention to the real world around me: Be here now and…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 72 Table of Contents Chapter 74 Chapter 73 Sabotage, September 15, 2059 Anna was coming up on her fourth birthday when the rumblings of discontent from the Asian Union began to get louder. A mid-August snow in Japan had laid waste much of their fall crop. China was complaining about a loss of solar photovoltaic power. Shortly after the Japanese snowstorm, Carillon admitted that there were some kinks in the system that needed to be worked out. The idea had been to keep the sunshields shading the northern hemisphere and have them switch dynamically…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 71 Table of Contents Chapter 73 Chapter 72 No Miracles, April 30, 2059 All that winter and spring, the sunshield count slowly increased. We passed 3,000, but nothing changed on Earth. Methane levels were still rising. Drought, flood and fire were constant. Grain reserves were less than a week, and some challenged those statistics, claiming they were just to make us feel good. The demand went out for more sunshields. Brahmaputra got more money. That meant more factories and railguns to be built on the moon. Some 150 people in Hipparcus were running…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 70 Table of Contents Chapter 72 Chapter 71 Decision Point, February 23, 2059 At UNGETF things were getting worse. Our Earthside measures were not working. Methane and carbon dioxide levels were still rising. There were a lot of grim faces around. I put those concerns aside and turned my attention to Matt's sunbugs. Matt's multimedia files required an advanced and expensive Fraunhoeffer chemical synthesizer which the university did not have. A quick web check showed why. They cost over 5 million credits. I began to appreciate how Matt's money had…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 69 Table of Contents Chapter 71 Chapter 70 Sunbugs, February 12, 2058 We adjusted slowly to the changes in our household. It felt funny sleeping in dad's old bed. Edie didn't say a word when I got rid of the old mattress and rearranged the room. I think she understood perfectly. The guest room became Anna's new bedroom. She was proud to have her own room, until it came to sleeping alone. It was not unusual to wake up and find her curled up beside us. My sex life with Olivia had been boisterous and exuberant. With Edie, love making was quieter and…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 68 Table of Contents Chapter 70 Chapter 69 Engagement, February 1, 2059 As I walked home from the station, it started to snow --- a wet, big-flaked snow which seemed entirely appropriate. By the time I got home, I was soaked to the skin and shivering uncontrollably. Edie took one look at me and said, "Jump into a hot shower. I'll get dry clothes for you." Half an hour later, I was sitting on the couch, bundled up in a comforter, drinking hot toddy and feeling foolish. I started apologizing. "I didn't plan properly. I should have worn warmer clothes…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 67 Table of Contents Chapter 69 Chapter 68 Estrangement, February 1, 2059 I hadn't seen Jon in the flesh for almost three years. I was shocked by how much he had changed. He was harder and smoother somehow, as if he had an invisible barrier just above his skin. Nothing stuck to him. At first I thought it was shock over Matt's death, but there was more to it than that. Jon drifted through the funeral like an alien. He talked, he laughed, he shared old stories, but it was all surface. There was a distance and a calculation in him that made me uneasy.…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 66 Table of Contents Chapter 68 Chapter 67 The Body, January 18, 2059 I put off planning the funeral because I had no idea when Matt's body was going to arrive. Relations between the North and South American continents are not exactly smooth. You could say that, except for diplomatic and scientific contacts, they are defined by the wall across the ithmus below Mexico. I had to work through ConSec, and that meant Carman. This was a difficult period for me. It was xmas and I was far from seasonally happy. My thoughts seemed always to come back to Matt…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 64 Table of Contents Chapter 66 Chapter 65 Matthew Fontaine, December 11, 2058 Over the course of that summer and fall, the number of sunshades slowly increased. It became part of the weather report. "And today the sunshade count is ..." On clear days the sun was too bright, but on cloudy days the smudge on the side of the sun was easily discernible. One morning in early December, I had the radio on during the usual rush to get ready and they mentioned a food riot in Brazil. As ususal I wondered if Matt were still in South America, but didn't dwell…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 63 Table of Contents Chapter 65 Chapter 64 The Eclipse Machine, September 7, 2058 I woke up early from a bad dream. My father was talking about the animals of the north that were disappearing --- caribou, muskox and bears. Then I was a bearman breaking into a shack. Some guy was shooting at me. I woke up with a start, when a bullet hit me in the shoulder. I lay in bed totally still --- listening. The house was quiet. The clock read 5:13 and there was no way I was going back to sleep. With a sigh I rolled out of bed and into the washroom. It's a good…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 62 Table of Contents Chapter 64 The Atlas, August 16, 2058 When I got home today, the Electronic Atlas was sitting on the kitchen table. The Atlas was one of six prototype devices for a project a business buddy of Matt's had abandoned. It was a thin display surface half a meter square in the centre of which was a slowly rotating image of the Earth. If you touched any part of the planet, it would get larger. You could flip through different views: topographical, political, meteorological, agricultural and so on. More detailed statistics on various…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 61 Table of Contents Chapter 63 Chapter 62 Baumgarten, July 2, 2058 I got another late night call from Rhamaposa. He looked terrible --- shaken and drawn out. "What happened to you?" I asked. "I did a tour across the Sahel." He shook his head and shuddered. "Oh." He grimaced. "Starving cattle. Dead children. What a time to be in a dry country!" "Where are you now?" "Djibouti." I looked at him in surprise. I wasn't aware that UNGETF had any official contact with the Caliphate. "The Arab Democratic Union asked me to update them on our projects, but…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 60 Table of Contents Chapter 62 Chapter 61 Crystal Jellies, March 19, 2058 The first time I saw a telescopic view of the L1 sunshades, I remembered standing in an aquarium watching crystal jellyfish. These tiny, delicate creatures were so beautiful I could scarce believe such miracles existed. I was transported. For a second, I was back watching those fluttering pink mauve miracles, but I wasn't. It was a swarm of sunshades illuminated by brilliant sunlight. Here and there, the deep blue of an ion drive could be seen. I thought of the sunshades and…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 59 Table of Contents Chapter 61 Chapter 60 L1 Roustabouts, February 15, 2058 The L1 crew were not like the moon colonists. They were cowboys. We didn't get up-close and web-personal with them. The corporate imagery around them played up rugged individualism and avoided any mention of colonization. They were all young men, no women, no families. Anytime we saw them they were sparring, jousting and joking with each other in good natured bonhomie. Or acting like boy scouts. It was all completely phony. Arguably what the L1 astronauts were doing ---…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 58 Table of Contents Chapter 60 Chapter 59 Asteroid Disaster January 27, 2058 Last week I got a late night call from Rhamaposa. He was stone cold sober and didn't waste time with preliminaries. "We've lost contact with the Daedalus group." "What happened?" "We're not sure. We're waiting for the 24 hour summary." Because of the distance and the danger involved, UNGETF had insisted on an automated video summary which would be transmitted by the computer every 24 hours. It was basically a compressed stop-frame video record. The algorithm tracked…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 57 Table of Contents Chapter 59 Chapter 58 Ecology 110 - Water Vapour, January 6, 2058 Occasionally I am caught flat-footed by questions from students. It is one of the hidden benefits of teaching --- being kept on your toes. Theories of education differ, but generally I aim for the broad middle band. I know there are some impatient, high percentile types who think my lectures slow and pedantic. Just as there is a segment of determined plodders who get through more by hard work than brainpower. Between them ranges the middle group who will…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 56 Table of Contents Chapter 58 Chapter 57 Moonchild, December 11, 2057 The moon consists primarily of iron, aluminum, silicon and manganese, with some calcium and oxygen. Some areas have concentrations of titanium. That was why the Hipparcus crater had been chosen. Once the smelter was set up and they had full power, the mining began in earnest. It was all open pit. They used a large wheeled dragger to scoop up the material. They wanted aluminum and titanium. The lack of free oxygen on the moon made steel production problematic, but aluminum,…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 55 Table of Contents Chapter 57 Chapter 56 Petrov, October 19, 2057 The Daedalus reached Petrov in late September. On the internet a coterie of space enthusiasts and the climate concerned had followed their reports religiously, but until then there was little coverage in the corporate media. For twenty-four hours they were media stars again. The trip had been uneventful, which in the tech-besotted, bloodless language of the space agencies and corporations meant there were no major accidents and nobody died. The asteroid was less than a kilometer in…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 54 Table of Contents Chapter 56 Chapter 55 Spacemen, September 11, 2057 From my vantage point in UNGETF, I was able to monitor the activities of the various groups. All year, I heard about rocket launches, mostly by the Swiss-German consortium Brahmaputra, but the odd one was by the L1 construction group Carillon. The Group 6 cloudmakers had their first batch of ships sailing for Antarctica. More of the old tankers were being refurbished weekly. The target number of vessels for north and south had been raised to 600. Sometimes when things don't work…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 53 Table of Contents Chapter 55 Chapter 54 Greenhouse, May 31, 2057 Things were not looking good. At UNGETF, we were all too aware of of the unfolding disasters. The storms and wildfires, the floods and droughts were bad enough, but food production was down again. The methane levels kept rising. Nothing we were doing seemed to have any effect. I left the meeting with a heavy heart. As I headed for home, it was already hot. This was May. When spring starts in February, the season seems to go on forever. Calling April the cruellest month seemed like a…