Analog SFF, December 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Security. Minders. They could be there only for one purpose—to keep her from going off planet. It meant they knew about the plan.

  She smiled to herself. They didn't know she knew they knew, at least not for a couple more minutes. She looked down; there was another balcony below her. Almost without thinking, she snatched a sheet from the bed, tied it on her rail, and was over and on the way down as the room announced Sasha's presence at the door.

  The lady in the room below had the double doors open. She looked up from a puzzle with wide-eyed shock as Hilda plopped down on her balcony.

  "Dr. Kremer! Is there something wrong?"

  "Yes, but I can't take time to explain. I need to use your room portal to get out!” Hilda said as she brushed by.

  "Of course, but..."

  Hilda was out the door and didn't hear the rest as she fled to the right. Security would be watching the outside, she imagined. So if she simply ran out of the building, it would likely be into the arms of her father's security forces.

  "Sorry!"

  Lost in thought, she'd bumped a group of Moslem women headed into the women's room. Hilda looked at the long dresses and beautiful headscarves and wished she had time to ask about Shira.

  "My fault. Not paying attention to where I was going ... Shira?"

  "Hilda! I hoped you might be here. My mother and aunt wanted to..."

  The two friends looked at each other.

  Shira pulled Hilda close to her ear. “What's wrong?"

  Hilda squeezed her arm. “It's too complicated to explain, but I have to get out of the building quickly, without someone seeing me."

  Hilda stared into her old friend's dark eyes, silently pleading. Shira would be risking a lot to help her.

  Shira didn't hesitate. “You could wear my scarf and coat, then leave with our group."

  Hilda was dumbfounded, but there was no time to argue. She nodded. “That might work."

  "Come!” Shira urged.

  The little tone in Hilda's head signaled an urgent message. It was from Sasha.

  Hilda, are you home? It's urgent!

  He must know about the people following him. They had gotten to him, of course. There's no way a twenty-year-old could resist that kind of pressure from authority.

  I'm with a friend, Sasha. Is everything okay?

  I'd better talk to you in person. Can't explain.

  It's going to have to wait a couple of hours. Make yourself at home. I'll be back about 1900.

  Then she exercised her option to drop off the net.

  Five minutes later, covered from head to toe and in the middle of a group of similarly costumed women, Hilda walked out of the lobby. Ten minutes later, keeping only the scarf on her head, she was on the tube headed for the spaceport.

  The Fram was in dock under the mammoth dome, due out in three hours, but getting on it would be a problem. If she tried to sign on the normal way, security would have her in a moment. Touching the net would immediately reveal her location, as would using any comm station. She made do with keeping her head down to avoid what comm cameras she could locate.

  Finally, she spotted a tall man in a uniform with a Fram crew patch on the margin of the landing field, watching some robots maneuver a large piece of equipment onto a dolly. Hilda removed her scarf altogether. She decided to take the chance and walked up to him.

  "Hello. I need your help."

  "Huh? You are?” He brushed a shock of sandy hair from his forehead and scratched his head. He had a thick moustache that wiggled a bit when he spoke.

  "Dr. Hilda Kremer. I have to get out to the project control center. Hans Bluth is trying to stop me, so the less I have to tell you about it, the less you'll be involved."

  "Security! What makes you think I won't call them right now?"

  "I've gotten lucky twice today. Once more is all I need."

  He laughed and offered his hand. “Vanya Karinoff. Are you sure you want to do this?"

  Hilda nodded.

  Karinoff sighed. “Well, I'm about done here, and I think this is something I should bump up to the Captain. Of course, he's on the ship.” He gestured to the huge dark egg standing to the side of the field.

  Hilda smiled. “Let's go."

  They had to walk almost a hundred meters across the cold polished rock, utterly alone in the crisp still air. This would never work, Hilda thought. She felt totally exposed. They would be watching for her. At any moment she expected a squad of security officers to surround her. It was the longest hundred meters she'd ever walked in her life. She watched her breath condense into a thin fog. Through it, hundreds of people wandered, ate, talked in the upper galleries around the landing field. Most watched her casually, some not so casually.

  Then, finally, they reached the ramp, climbed it, and were in the ship.

  "This way.” Her escort led her down the toroidal corridor that circled the base of the ship.

  Hilda breathed a sigh of relief as they moved out of view of the entrance. With a great deal of good fortune, she would be in orbit by the time Sasha and his security escort ran out of patience.

  "Outboard number ten,” Karinoff said. “Captain Martee's in and will see you. I've got to run.” He tipped his cap.

  "Take care, and thank you, thank you!” Hilda gushed.

  He gave her a quizzical smile and a brief wave as he disappeared quickly around the bend.

  Was there a warning in that smile? Hilda knew nothing at all about Captain Martee. She briefly considered fleeing around the bend the other way and ducking into a closet or something to stow away. Probably wouldn't work, she decided. There'd be cameras and other sensors in every place big enough for a person. Instead, she focused her mind on the task at hand. She had one more person to sell on the merits of her cause. She touched the entrance pad of the door, and it hissed upwards.

  What she saw hit her like a brick in the stomach. The room was nicely appointed, with pictures of historical spacecraft on its curved walls and comfortable-looking aerogel furniture with shiny metal tables and a desk placed throne-like in its center. There, behind what was presumably Captain Martee's desk, sat her father, Wotan Kremer. He was not smiling.

  "You are going to answer some questions, Brunhilda,” he said.

  Focus vanished; she felt a renewed chill in her veins. Time momentarily stopped. Then a light jet of odorless gas caught her in the face.

  * * * *

  Four days later, Hilda and Naomi were brought to the council chamber by security escorts. Wotan was there, with Naomi's father Akaabe, Dr. Lobov, Security Minister Hans Bluth and several council members. The wall at the end of the chamber displayed an image of the still-accelerating impactor. The place smelled of a fresh cleaning.

  That smell reminded her of the hospital room where she had spent three of the last four days—in a drug-induced stupor. Presumably, she had told them everything she knew, but she couldn't remember anything more than soft lights, quiet voices, and the clean, antiseptic smell of the place.

  Yesterday, she'd woken in her bed in her hotel room, turned into a prison cell. The doors would not open and she had no net access. The last time Wotan had done that to her, she'd been eight years old. He was all smiles now. The beam projectors had been shut off four days ago, the off pulse arrived at the distant object two days ago, and the view of what happened would reach New Antarctica in a few minutes. He wanted to rub it in, she suspected.

  A very determined self-destruction, Hilda thought. Her father's reputation would never recover from this—he would pay for his role in sabotaging the project through as much of eternity as he cared to live. So let him have his fun now. She walked stiffly to a seat and glared at him, wondering if he would see any of the pity in her anger.

  "We are a community of laws and of authority deriving from the collective,” Wotan declared after everyone had been seated. “Five of us have tried to put themselves above those laws."

  Naomi's father jumped in before Wotan could say anything else. “Your daugh
ter represented the collective of humanity. One can make the case that it is you that has defiedit!"

  Wotan sighed. “Akaabe, I have the floor. Does disrespect run through your entire family? Wait your turn. If legitimate authority is not heeded, we have chaos. Is there some small chance that the message directing us to delay the impactor launch was not genuine? Perhaps. But the decision concerning what to do about it lies with the collective and not with individuals. We are here today to show that legitimate authority succeeds because it represents the will of many, and many have cooperated to uphold it. Colonel Maluk.” Wotan gestured to a man that Hilda recognized as the bearded “student” in Lobov's office, who now wore some kind of gray jumpsuit uniform with discrete pips on its shoulders along with the New Antarctica patch below his right shoulder.

  "Thank you, Mr. President. Formally, this is a disciplinary hearing to state charges and recommendations concerning the behavior of Brunhilda Kremer and Naomi Abila in willfully disobeying lawful directives of the representative of the council. A jury of peers will be assembled to judge the gravity of the offense, the prospects of a repeat, and the appropriate action, unless the respondents waive that procedure in favor of a determination by the council president. Which, I might add, would save a great deal of trouble in an open-and-shut case. The three who have fled in exile to Bee have, for all intents and purposes, chosen their own fate."

  Hilda barely heard a word, the voice itself taking all of her attention. It was, of course, that of the dark stranger who had accosted her on the way to visit her father after the conversation with Dr. Lobov. Colonel Maluk, of course, was a Consolidationist and probably had been promoted as such by Hans Bluth.

  Wotan nodded. “Thank you, Colonel. We will hear from respondents and representatives in a moment. Now is the time to see the futility of their efforts. In precisely ten seconds, the beam will cease to push the impactor."

  All eyes went to the screen. At the appointed second, the glowing ring at the head of the impactor vanished and a wave of darkness shot backward, extinguishing the aurora of its progress.

  "Thy will be done,” intoned Hans Bluth.

  Wotan frowned at him. “We have a secular proceeding here. And it was our collective will."

  The security minister smiled. “As you will have it, Mr. President."

  "Damn!” Colonel Maluk shouted and pointed at the wall, “That isn't funny. Give us the real feed again."

  Hilda turned to the wall screen again and gasped. The reflection aurora was back again, somewhat wider, she noted, and the cone looked like it was coming in at an angle to the impactor, as if from a different direction.

  Wotan closed his eyes momentarily, then said in low, measured tones. “It is not, apparently, a jest. The beam that has resumed pushing the impactor is coming from Bee."

  He glared down from the council table, first at Naomi, then at Hilda, looking for all the world like a cornered animal prepared to deal death to its tormenter at the first opportunity.

  "Ted did it!” Naomi squealed. “He got Bee to keep pushing the impactor."

  Wotan brought his ceremonial gavel down on the desk so hard that it broke, but nobody so much as tittered in the silence that followed.

  "We are still in session here,” he said, “the stakes of which have been raised considerably by this unforeseen treachery.” He turned to Maluk.

  "The respondents didn't know about this,” growled the Colonel. “Our methods are reliable."

  "Wotan,” Hans Bluth said. “This is what you get for being so sanguine about those elitists setting up their own government."

  "And what would you have done?” Wotan snapped back. “Organized some kind of an expedition against them? Start interstellar warfare?” He turned to Hilda. “Brunhilda, I don't care if you didn't know about this ... this scheme. You are responsible for it. I hold you completely responsible."

  Then he sighed and shook his head. “For chaos’ sake, what can we do now? Allow me for a moment the fantasy of thinking I have been correct in this, and assume that we have sent an impactor six months ahead of schedule. What are our options?"

  Hilda spoke as evenly as she could. “We send word ahead. Our transmissions will arrive months before the impactor. It wouldn't receive terminal guidance anyway and would miss the impact site by several astronomical units. Then we send the other one on the revised schedule. This is what we should have planned to do anyway; the effort to not send the impactor on the original schedule was never anything more than a Consolidationist plot to sabotage the project!"

  "The remorsefulness of the respondents is noted,” the security minister intoned, getting nervous chuckles throughout the room for his irony.

  "Enough, Hans,” Wotan said. “Brunhilda, I suppose you would maintain that it isn't necessary, but would you humor me and send word forward as to what has happened?"

  "I'll need to have my net access back."

  "Wotan...” the Colonel growled.

  "Peace, Maluk,” the security minister said. “She's done all the harm she can. Your access is restored, Dr. Kremer."

  It was like having her sight restored. Hilda quickly had the incoming backlog sorted for messages from the Solar System; there were a dozen text messages and a video of a celebration at the BHP institute. Tse Wen, Sarah, and Brad were there. Hilda checked the time stamp and smiled inwardly.

  "This needs to go on screen, everyone,” Hilda announced seriously.

  Wotan shrugged and nodded.

  The party scene lit up the room in contrast to the previous spacescape. Dr. Sarah Levine, in a painted-on black thing with an impossibly plunging neckline, came to the fore.

  "Hi, Hilda, and everyone, from 11.63 years ago. We've timed this party scene to arrive as you celebrate the completion of your impactor launch..."

  There was an audible gasp from Wotan and several others. Dr. Lobov got up and made his way out of the room.

  "...when ours will be on its way, too,” Sarah's image concluded.

  The screen went dark. “You've made your point, Brunhilda,” Wotan said.

  "Can we go now?” Hilda asked.

  "This is still a disciplinary hearing,” Colonel Maluk said. “The merits of the issue are beside the point. I will remind you that a number of people here and in the Solar System do not regard a success of the BHP as a good thing. At any rate, you broke our laws."

  Wotan nodded. “You are out of order, Colonel Maluk, but correct."

  "Dad!” Hilda shouted. “We've saved your reputation. We saved you from the consequences of the biggest—"

  "Quiet!” Wotan shouted. Then he added, more gently, “Some things, however true, are better left unsaid. I appear to be acquiring some hard-earned wisdom in that respect. Unlawfulness is still intolerable, whatever the result. Will you accept my judgment? And will you, Naomi? Or do we have to go to trial?"

  Such a trial would savage her father, Hilda realized. He would lose his council presidency. Someone else would preside over the completion of the terraforming project. She couldn't do that to him, or to those who supported her. Wotan's blood was still strong in her, after all.

  "Mr. President,” she said formally, “Naomi and the others followed my direction. I had both project and local authority under you. What was done was my responsibility. Leave them alone and I will submit without trial."

  Wotan looked at his ministers who, under the circumstances, appeared to want a trial no more than he did. At any rate, Hilda saw all the heads nod. Colonel Maluk sat, impassive, lips tight.

  They were, Hilda knew, rapidly exchanging views over the net of what should be done with her. She had a pretty good idea of what the decision would be as well. It seemed the only one possible. All her dreams of coming home again, of reconciliation, of seeing New Antarctica bloom, were likely gone.

  Finally, Wotan tapped the gavel head on the desk, waited for quiet, and said one word, hard and cold. “Exile.” He looked to his right and left. No one objected. Then he got up and left.

  Ha
ns Bluth reached over and took the remains of the gavel. “I, I will entertain a motion to adjourn."

  One of the other members mumbled something.

  "Hearing no objection, these proceedings are adjourned.” He shrugged and set, rather than pounded, the amputated gavel head down. Everyone started talking as the councilors unceremoniously filed out of the room.

  As the chamber emptied, Naomi and her father came up to Hilda, who still had her security escort. The guard backed away a couple of meters to give her space.

  Naomi hugged her. “This will blow over. He'll get over it."

  Hilda shook her head as tears ran down her face. “I'll go to the Vertex, I think. Try to make myself useful there. Maybe I can come back someday."

  "I'll miss you. We'll all be thinking of you twelve years from now, you can count on that."

  Twelve years, Hilda thought bitterly. Twelve years was the time it would take the impactor to get to Vertex plus the time the news of what happened would take to get back. One fifth of her lifetime so far.

  She smiled inwardly at that thought and tried to imagine how she would view the passage of twelve years when she was a million years old, or a billion. Then she thought of some unfinished business with someone for whom a dozen years was still half a lifetime. The sentence would take effect quickly, she realized, and she might not get another chance.

  "Sasha?"

  He came over to her, looking miserable. “I'm sorry. They ordered me to cooperate, Dr. Kremer, and..."

  Hilda placed her finger on his lips, then wrapped her arms around him and gave him a long, sensual, unabashed hug. “No hard feelings,” she said. “Take care of yourself. Have fun. We'll see each other again, someday. Okay?"

  He smiled. There were the beginnings of tears in his eyes.

  She brushed her lips against them briefly, then wordlessly turned and left the room. Naomi walked back to Hadley's with Hilda, past the school, the lake, and the other places of their childhood. She had been home such a short time.

  She was off planet again by 3400 that day.