Free Limits by Larry Niven Page B

Firestone Diamonds—which had been manufacturing flawless blue-white diamonds in a laboratory for the past year, and which actually was owned by a man named Firestone—had apparently swamped the engagement ring market, and was now making chandeliers. A diamond chandelier would cost half a year’s salary, of course, but that was expected to go down.
    The “alleged Mafia chieftains” now held without bail awaiting trial numbered in the thousands. I was surprised: I hadn’t thought it would go that far. When the dollar went worthless, apparently Mafia bribe money went worthless too. Maybe I’m too cynical. Maybe there was an epidemic of righteous wrath in government.
    Evidently someone thought so, because a bond issue was approved in California, and people were beginning to pay their taxes again.
    Something for everyone. I thought the Mafia item would cheer Jack up, but he was sitting there staring at the screen as if he hadn’t seen a thing and didn’t give a damn anyway. My call was announced and I went in to talk to Inco. When I came out Jack had left, not even waiting for his own call. Lack of sleep can do terrible things to a man.
    I wasn’t surprised when Jack had a long talk with McLeve, nor when Jill moved back in with him. Jack would promise anything, and Jill would b e lieve anything favorable to her mad scheme.
    The next day Jack’s smile was back, and if I thought it was a bit cynical, what could I do? Tell Jill? She wouldn’t have believed me anyway.
     
    They unveiled The Plan a week later. I was invited to McLeve’s house to hear all about it.
    Jack was there spouting enthusiasm. “Two problems,” he told us. “First, keeping us alive during the trip. That’s more Jill’s department, but what’s the problem? The Shack was designed to last centuries. Second problem is ge t ting out there. We’ve got that figured out.”
    I said, “The hell you do. This isn’t a spaceship, it’s just a habitat. Even if you had a big rocket motor to mount on the axis, you wouldn’t have fuel for it, and if you did, the Shack would break up under the thrust.” I hated him for what he was doing to Jill, and I wondered why McLeve wasn’t aware of it. Maybe he was. The Admiral never let anyone know what he thought.
    “So we don’t mount a big rocket motor,” Jack said. “What we’ve got is just what we need: a lot of little motors on the solar panels. We use those and everything else we have. Scooters and tugs, the spare panel engines, and, last but not least, the Moon. We’re going to use the Moon for a gravity sling.”
    He had it all diagrammed out in four colors. “We shove the Shack toward the Moon. If we aim just right, we’ll skim close to the lunar surface with everything firing. We’ll leave the Moon with that velocity plus the Moon’s orbital velocity, and out we go.”
    “How close?”
    He looked to Dot. She pursed her lips. “We’ll clear the peaks by two kilometers.”
    “That’s close.”
    “More than a mile,” Jack said. “The closer we come the faster we leave.”
    “But you just don’t have the thrust!”
    “Almost enough,” Jack said. “Now look. We keep the panel thrusters on full blast. That gives us about a quarter percent of a gravity , not nearly enough to break up the Shack, Corky. And we use the mirrors.” He poked buttons and another diagram swam onto McLeve’s drafting table. “See.”
    It showed the Shack with the window mirrors opened all the way for maximum surface area. My smelter mirror was hung out forward. Other mirrors had been added. “Sails! Light pressure adds more thrust. Not a lot, but enough to justify carrying their mass. We can get to the Belt.”
    “You’re crazy,” I informed them.
    “Probably,” McLeve muttered. “But from my viewpoint it looks good.”
    “Sure. You’re dead anyway, no offense intended. We’re playing a game here, and it’s getting us nowhere.”
    “I’m going.” Jill’s voice was very low and very convincing.