engineering skills, Jie. But it took us four years to scale Spidex in bulk production.”
“Yes, but… I could…” Could what? Jie couldn’t think of how to continue. More than one company had bankrupted itself trying to scale a promising nanomaterial. His voice trailed off. So this is it. Shut down the company. Lose the apartment. Go work for a cosmetics company.
At least he’d have more time with Cheng.
He waited, expecting to be dismissed. Molari turned to study the masks on the wall, eyes distant, as if he were communing with the twisted wooden faces. Singh put a finger on his lips. A full minute passed, and then Molari swiveled to face Jie.
“Do you know what’s at stake here, Jie?” he asked solemnly. “You have a son, right?”
“Cheng,” said Jie.
“If we don’t come up with a faster alternative to the disk array, Cheng will grow up in a much-diminished world. We are gambling with Cheng’s future. Right now. In this room. So, do you believe Nanoglass could potentially work?”
Yes! Yes! But Molari’s expression squashed any trite reassurances. “I… I agree with Mr. Singh that it is very risky,” said Jie. “I cannot promise.” This is why I went into Nanotechnology. To create ! Images spun and grew in his head. Soap bubble sheets of Nanoglass. Hundreds, thousands, millions of square kilometers. A glass sky. ‹The most beautiful approach is the right one,› an engineering professor had once told him. This has to be right.
“I think I could make it work,” said Jie. “I really do.”
Molari nodded. “I don’t feel we have much choice here,” he said to Singh. “Tania Black estimates we’ve got only two years before we need sulfur again. It’s Nanoglass, or nothing.”
Singh shrugged. “I won’t argue with you. I wasn’t at the UN Climate Summit. I didn’t talk to her. If you think it’s a good idea, then we should send Jie to the loonies and see what they think.”
Jie was still trying to figure out what “loonies” meant when Molari closed his fist and bumped knuckles with him, North-American style. “Congratulations Jie. My business manager will arrange financing. I need you at the Xinjiang Space Center right away, working with the design team. The disk array plan has a lot of momentum. We have very little time to come up with our plan B.”
Chapter 6
JIE HAD MISSED the daily bus to the space center, so Molari chartered a car, a welcome luxury in a country where only the political elite avoided mass transit. The departure lot was at the north end of Urumchi, a maze of warehouses and storage containers that lapped against the glass cliffs of downtown. About 100 vehicles of various shapes and sizes were charging in neat rows underneath a solar-sheeting roof. Jie’s omni pointed him to a double-seater. It already had one passenger, a Chinese woman in a thick red sweater. She was a decade older than him – late forties maybe – with the lean face of an athlete.
Jie settled in, and the car glided out of the parking lot. They accelerated down what would have been a freeway before self-driving cars made interchanges unnecessary. The city soon gave way to endless tilled fields where summer irrigation coaxed crops out of the desert. The woman straightened her seat and swiveled so that she was nearly facing Jie.
“Sally.” She spoke with a southern accent, Chengdu maybe, and used her English name.
‹Jie.›
‹Disk array, am I right?› said Sally. ‹I saw the UN Climate Summit coverage.›
Jie nodded.
‹I knew it!› said Sally. ‹I was on a beach in Vietnam yesterday for my annual dose of sunshine and massages, and the space center cancelled my vacation. Though,› she leaned forward as if she were about to confide a secret, ‹I figured out weeks ago that something was up. The space industry stock index rose 50%.›
‹Well, you probably know more than me,› said Jie. ‹They’ve given me some broad outlines, but I won’t get a full reveal until this
“Yes, but… I could…” Could what? Jie couldn’t think of how to continue. More than one company had bankrupted itself trying to scale a promising nanomaterial. His voice trailed off. So this is it. Shut down the company. Lose the apartment. Go work for a cosmetics company.
At least he’d have more time with Cheng.
He waited, expecting to be dismissed. Molari turned to study the masks on the wall, eyes distant, as if he were communing with the twisted wooden faces. Singh put a finger on his lips. A full minute passed, and then Molari swiveled to face Jie.
“Do you know what’s at stake here, Jie?” he asked solemnly. “You have a son, right?”
“Cheng,” said Jie.
“If we don’t come up with a faster alternative to the disk array, Cheng will grow up in a much-diminished world. We are gambling with Cheng’s future. Right now. In this room. So, do you believe Nanoglass could potentially work?”
Yes! Yes! But Molari’s expression squashed any trite reassurances. “I… I agree with Mr. Singh that it is very risky,” said Jie. “I cannot promise.” This is why I went into Nanotechnology. To create ! Images spun and grew in his head. Soap bubble sheets of Nanoglass. Hundreds, thousands, millions of square kilometers. A glass sky. ‹The most beautiful approach is the right one,› an engineering professor had once told him. This has to be right.
“I think I could make it work,” said Jie. “I really do.”
Molari nodded. “I don’t feel we have much choice here,” he said to Singh. “Tania Black estimates we’ve got only two years before we need sulfur again. It’s Nanoglass, or nothing.”
Singh shrugged. “I won’t argue with you. I wasn’t at the UN Climate Summit. I didn’t talk to her. If you think it’s a good idea, then we should send Jie to the loonies and see what they think.”
Jie was still trying to figure out what “loonies” meant when Molari closed his fist and bumped knuckles with him, North-American style. “Congratulations Jie. My business manager will arrange financing. I need you at the Xinjiang Space Center right away, working with the design team. The disk array plan has a lot of momentum. We have very little time to come up with our plan B.”
Chapter 6
JIE HAD MISSED the daily bus to the space center, so Molari chartered a car, a welcome luxury in a country where only the political elite avoided mass transit. The departure lot was at the north end of Urumchi, a maze of warehouses and storage containers that lapped against the glass cliffs of downtown. About 100 vehicles of various shapes and sizes were charging in neat rows underneath a solar-sheeting roof. Jie’s omni pointed him to a double-seater. It already had one passenger, a Chinese woman in a thick red sweater. She was a decade older than him – late forties maybe – with the lean face of an athlete.
Jie settled in, and the car glided out of the parking lot. They accelerated down what would have been a freeway before self-driving cars made interchanges unnecessary. The city soon gave way to endless tilled fields where summer irrigation coaxed crops out of the desert. The woman straightened her seat and swiveled so that she was nearly facing Jie.
“Sally.” She spoke with a southern accent, Chengdu maybe, and used her English name.
‹Jie.›
‹Disk array, am I right?› said Sally. ‹I saw the UN Climate Summit coverage.›
Jie nodded.
‹I knew it!› said Sally. ‹I was on a beach in Vietnam yesterday for my annual dose of sunshine and massages, and the space center cancelled my vacation. Though,› she leaned forward as if she were about to confide a secret, ‹I figured out weeks ago that something was up. The space industry stock index rose 50%.›
‹Well, you probably know more than me,› said Jie. ‹They’ve given me some broad outlines, but I won’t get a full reveal until this
Similar Books
