The Darwin Elevator

Chapter Twenty-eight

Gateway Station

7.FEB.2283

Secluded within his personal climber, Neil lay in a plush chair and let his mind drift back to the Elevator’s arrival.

Darwin had almost twelve years to grow around the Elevator at Nightcliff before the plague came. There was extraordinary luck in the location of it—an easily defensible piece of land, bordered on two sides by ocean, in a small but prosperous city within a nation at peace with the world. It couldn’t have been better, for Earth and for the Platz legacy.

Neil pictured the Darwin Elevator, stretching up from Australia, static electricity roiling along its length due to friction from the atmosphere. On up into space, through Gateway Station, and up, and up, and up, all the way to Anchor. To the shell ship.

And then he envisioned another. Another shell ship, floating into position next to its sibling. What purpose would it serve? Spin a mirror image of the original, all forty thousand kilometers of it? System redundancy—it made a kind of sense.

The first Elevator was faltering. Power seemed to be running out. A replacement, perhaps? A real possibility as far as Neil was concerned.

Whatever the case, he knew what must be done: regain control of Nightcliff.

And the council.

To achieve his goal, he needed more resources in orbit. More workers, more fighters, more weapons. He was getting old, and things were going too slowly. He cursed himself for relinquishing power in the first place.

Time to put all the cards on the table, he decided. Before it’s too late.

He could not wait for Tania’s analysis to be finished. Something approached. Therefore something had to be done.

Neil decided to work under the assumption that another ship would arrive over Darwin. Whether it came to repair the original, or replace it, or for some other purpose was impossible to know. Would remain impossible until it was too late to act.

He had to roll the dice. A replacement Elevator he could wrap his mind around.

He let himself out of the chair and made his way across the private docking bay, back into Gateway Station. Neil climbed down through the empty corridor that connected like a spoke to the outer edge of the ring-shaped structure. He could feel the artificial gravity slowly grab hold of him.

The satellite office had been deserted since he pulled everyone back to Platz Station after the security incident. Neil wandered the halls. The council would not reconvene for hours, and he was in no hurry to return to their company.

He needed a bargaining chip. Something that would keep his enemies from unleashing their superior firepower. Something that would force them to bargain, or even better, to cede power.

A plan began to take shape in his mind.

Before anything else, Neil needed to change the decoupling codes.

Since the company first started building space stations along the spine of the Elevator, Neil had insisted on manufacturing them in a central location and then moving them to their ultimate position. It was too expensive to move the manufacturing infrastructure to each location.

The added benefit was that the stations could be repositioned. It was a complex and difficult procedure, not often used. He knew the various station crews rarely reviewed the process. If not for the recent project to realign the farming platforms, Neil wondered if anyone would know how to do it without lengthy training.

As it stood, his scientists at Anchor would know what to do. Tania would know.

But first, the codes. He couldn’t let anyone cancel the procedure, once started. Neil went back to his climber, activated his terminal, and began the process.

The rest he would have to plan as things progressed.

Despite the dizzying array of hurdles before him, Neil couldn’t help himself. He felt excited. Alive. For the first time in years, he looked forward to a future of unknowns.

A future to be conquered.



Sofia Windon leaned forward in her chair, fingers folded in a tent on the cold marble table in front of her.

“The ayes have it,” she said softly. “Russell Blackfield will join the council.”

Alex Warthen locked an expectant stare on Neil, watching for some reaction. Hoping, perhaps, that Neil would fly into some rage.

Neil smiled, instead. “Well then,” he said. “It seems this meeting is over.”

Sofia said, “We still have a litany of issues—”

“Not me. I resign from this council,” Neil said.

His voice resonated in the room, with more authority than he thought himself capable of.

Alex Warthen coughed. “Excuse me?”

“I will not submit to a search by you and your incompetent security force. I will not negotiate for the water produced at my own desalination plants. I will not have the integrity of my research staff questioned,” he said, voice gaining volume as he went on, “and I will not share this table with Russell Blackfield.”

Alex didn’t move; he was dumbfounded. Sofia’s mouth hung open. The rest of the council sat perfectly still.

“You want the food produced by my farms?!” Neil shouted. “You want the water purified by my plants? I’ll consider any reasonable offer, from my headquarters. Good day to you all.”

He stormed from the room before anyone could respond. Even his brother, Zane, looked stunned.

Let them chew on that, Neil thought, while preparations are made. If he stayed a step ahead he would win this race.