“Any last-minute problems?” Nigel asked.
“No. It’s all going remarkably smoothly.”
“We reached point two five light-years per hour on the last test flight,” Tu Lee said. “That’s our operational target, so we’re on the green for tomorrow.”
“Listen to you,” Nigel said. He grinned proudly at her.
“Stop it.” She gave him a sharp look.
“Tu Lee is my great-great-great-granddaughter,” Nigel said to Wilson. “Four natural-born generations; you don’t get a stronger family tie than that. Can you blame me for being proud of her?”
Wilson couldn’t remember that being in Tu Lee’s file.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Tu Lee said, her dark eyes gazing intently up at Wilson. “I never said anything, because I wanted to make the crew on merit.”
“You succeeded,” Wilson said. He suddenly wondered why none of his own family had ever made it through the qualifying stages.
“A Sheldon and a Kime finally flying together, eh,” Nigel said happily. “We’ve got it covered from every angle.”
“Looks that way.” Wilson was having trouble keeping his smile intact.
“I understand you’re taking a lot of weapons on your flight,” Thompson Burnelli said.
“The great debate,” Wilson said, not quite mocking. “Do we shock culturally superior species with our primitive warlike behavior, or do we go into the unknown with sensible protection that any smart alien will understand.”
“Given what we’re facing, a degree of self-defense is appropriate,” Nigel said.
“Huh,” Thompson snorted. “What do you believe, Captain? Is the barrier a defense against some psychopathic race armed with superweapons?”
“We’ll find out when we get there,” Wilson said mildly. “But I’m not taking a crew anywhere unless I stand a chance of bringing them back alive.”
“Come on, Thompson, this is supposed to be a party,” Nigel said. “Stop giving the man a hard time.”
“Just making a point. I’m still not convinced this is the best way to deal with the Dyson Pair. There’s a strong body of opinion saying we should leave them well alone for a few centuries.”
“Yes,” Anna said. “The Guardians of Selfhood for one.”
Thompson flashed her an angry look.
“Any news on them?” Wilson asked Rafael Columbia.
“We’ve made over two hundred arrests in connection with the raid. Mostly black-market arms merchants and other underworld military types. My Chief Investigator is confident they will provide us with enough information to finally track down the organizer.” He didn’t sound impressed.
“She seems to be doing a good job so far,” Oscar said. “There hasn’t been a hint of trouble since the raid.”
“Sure that doesn’t have anything to do with the level of CST security?” Elaine Doi asked demurely.
Oscar raised his glass to her, ignoring the dark expression on Columbia’s face. “That’s probably about ninety-nine percent of the reason, yeah,” he conceded.
She looked around at the four crew members. “So, are you nervous?”
“It would be stupid not to be,” Wilson said. “The fear factor is a significant part of our racial survival mechanism. Evolution doesn’t like arrogance.”
“A healthy attitude. For myself, I wish there was some way of communicating with you. To be cut off from information seems barbaric somehow.”
Wilson smiled a challenge at Nigel. “I guess our best hyperspace theorists aren’t quite up to that.”
Nigel raised a glass, but didn’t take the bait. “That’s the whole reason for me getting Wilson here to captain the mission. As they can’t refer every decision back here for review by your committees, I wanted someone who could make a decent judgment call. Unless you’d like to go yourself, Vice President.”
Elaine Doi glanced from Nigel to Wilson. “I’m satisfied that you’re in charge of the mission, Captain.”
“If we had more than one ship, communications wouldn’t be such an issue,” Oscar said.
“And who’s going to pay for another ship?” Thompson asked quickly. His gaze flicked to one of the big portals set up along the far side of the courtyard garden. They all showed various images of the Second Chance. The starship was docked to its assembly platform, though the outer shell of malmetal had peeled back to a thick toroid skirt around the gateway. Of all the construction gridwork, only a tripod of gantry arms remained, like an aluminum claw gripping the rear of the starship. Sunlight fell across the four-hundred-meter length of the central cylindrical section’s snow-white hull, casting small gray shadows from every hatch, nozzle, grid, antenna, and handrail that stood above the protective cloak of foam. The huge life-support ring was rotating slowly around it, almost devoid of windows, except for a few black rectangles along the front edge. Tiny colored navigation lights winked at various points on the superstructure, otherwise there was no visible activity.
The sight of the massive vessel brought a flush of comfort to Wilson. Something that large, that solid, gave an overwhelming impression of dependability.
“Any subsequent ships would be cheaper now we’ve finalized the design,” Nigel said. “CST is certainly considering the formation of a small exploration fleet.”
“What the hell for?” Thompson said. “This expedition is bad enough, and we know something strange is out there. We don’t need to go looking for trouble any farther out.”
“That’s hardly the attitude that pushed us this far out into the galaxy, Senator. We’re not a poor society, thanks to that outward urge; we should continue to push back the barriers.”
“Fine,” Thompson said bluntly. “You want them pushed back, you pay for them. You certainly won’t have my support for further government funding. Look what happened with Far Away—we poured billions into that venture, and it still costs the government hundreds of millions a year. What have we ever got back out of it?”
“Knowledge,” Wilson said, surprised to find himself defending Far Away.
“Precious little of it,” Thompson grunted.
“Tell that to the Halgarths, they dominate force field manufacture thanks to the technology they acquired from the Marie Celeste.”
“What if we don’t come back?” Anna asked. The way the Council members all looked at her in a mildly scandalized silence made her want to giggle. “You have to admit, it’s a possibility.”
“We won’t abandon you,” Elaine Doi said smoothly. “If it is necessary to build another ship, then it will be done.” She gave the North American Senator a sharp frown as he gathered himself to speak.
“The ExoProtectorate Council has drawn up contingency plans for every possible scenario,” Nigel Sheldon said. “And quite a few implausible ones as well. As the Vice President says, every effort will be made should we face a worst-case outcome.”
“Does that include military action?”
Now even Wilson was giving her a look.
“I don’t believe that’s relevant,” Rafael Columbia said.
“It just strikes me as odd that very little is being done to beef up the Commonwealth’s defenses. Especially as one of the most plausible theories about the Dyson barrier is that it’s protective.”
“We are doing something about it,” Rafael Columbia said. “We’re sending you to assess the situation.”
“And if it’s bad?”
“We will respond accordingly.”
“With what? We haven’t had any wars for three hundred years.”
“There are seventeen Isolated planets, and each one was withdrawn from the Commonwealth because of military action. The last of those was only twenty years ago. Sad to say, our Commonwealth is actually quite experienced in such matters.”
“Those were guerrilla actions mounted by nationalist and religious groups. Most of the Commonwealth’s citizens weren’t even aware of them.”
“What exactly is your point?” Elaine Doi asked, irritation creep
ing into her voice.
“All I’m saying is, a few Alamo Avengers aren’t going to be much use against anything that’s seriously hostile out there.”
“We know that. Your mission profile was drawn up with the possibility in mind, and I welcomed Captain Kime’s input in the planning. Frankly, his cautious approach is one I favor. And to be realistic, if you do find anything as powerful and hostile as what you’re talking about, then they’re going to know about the Commonwealth anyway.”
The band struck up a light waltz that Wilson felt he should know. But he was thankful for the distraction as everyone turned to look at the western sky. A particularly bright star was rising above the palace rooftop.
They’d left the Second Chance in her highly elliptical orbit around Anshun; after all, the exact position made no difference to the wormhole gateway. Now as she glided up high over the horizon, still exposed to the full radiance of Anshun’s sun, she was the brightest object in the heavens. Fireworks zoomed over the palace to greet the starship, exploding in huge bursts of emerald, gold, and carmine with a cacophony of thunder cracks. The courtyard was swiftly filled with the rapturous applause of the elite guests. A laser projector drenched Wilson in a bubble of white light. Everyone turned to look at him, the sound of their applause rising. He bowed graciously, gesturing Anna and Oscar into the lightfield as the senior members of the ExoProtectorate Council sank away along with Tu Lee. Somehow Dudley Bose managed to appear beside Oscar, clasping his hands victoriously above his head.
When the fireworks were over the band resumed a more traditional background piece. The buffet was opened and people surged across the garden. Elaine Doi stepped forward again. “Captain, I just wanted to say bon voyage.”
Even when it was over, Wilson regretted having to attend the official party for the personal time it stole from him on the eve of the departure. By the time the buffet started the affair had become immensely boring. Two hours in, he’d seen Oscar making a quiet exit with some handsome young lad, and wished he could do the same with Anna. But they’d be noticed; he’d forgotten the true price of fame.
There were compensations, however. At eight o’clock this morning he had arrived at the complex to walk through the gateway. Management staff, construction crew and technicians, designers, medical personnel, and a hundred others lined the last length of path before the wormhole, all applauding as Wilson led the senior officers through the gateway. Now he was sitting in the bridge, about to embark on the voyage that would put him on the same list as Columbus, Armstrong, Sheldon and Isaac. But not poor old Dylan Lewis.
To be honest, he did consider the bridge to be a bit disappointing. Even the old Ulysses command cabin had been more visually exciting, let alone the bustling chambers of a thousand unisphere fantasy drama ships. It was a simple compartment with consoles for ten people, although only seven were currently manned. A glass wall separated off the senior officer’s briefing room—basically, a big conference table with twenty chairs. At least there were a couple of large high-rez holographic portals in their traditional place on the forward wall, although (bad design, this) the consoles right in front of them blocked the lower portion from anyone farther back.
Not that he had much time for the standard images they were relaying from hull-mounted cameras. His virtual vision was on high intensity while his retinal inserts were filtering out most natural light. The result was an almost indistinct room flooded with ship-function icons. He rested his palms on the console i-spots, seeing phantom fingers materialize within the galaxy of graphics drifting through the air around him. When he tapped his customized chrome-yellow fingernail on the airlock icon, it expanded to show him the hull was now sealed. A simultaneous tap on the umbilicals told him all the tanks were full and on internal power. The only links to the platform were a high-band data cable and the mechanical latches.
“Crew status?” he asked Oscar.
“Everyone on board and ready.”
“Okay then; Pilot, please activate our force field and disengage us from the platform.”
“Aye, sir,” Jean Douvoir said. The pilot had spent decades working for several companies at the High Angel, flying engineering pods around the big freefall factories, shifting sections massing hundreds of tons with the casual precision of a bird of prey. Before that, he’d helped develop control routines for spaceplane RI pilots. Coupled with his enthusiasm for the project, it was a background that made him perfect for the job. Wilson counted himself lucky to have someone so competent on board.
A communications icon flashed in Wilson’s virtual vision, tagging the call as Nigel Sheldon. He tapped for admission.
“Captain,” Sheldon’s voice sounded across the bridge, “I’m accessing your telemetry. It all looks good from where we are.”
“And here.” There had been a great many of these pointless official talks on the Ulysses, too. All for posterity and media profile. One of his virtual vision digital readouts was showing the number of people accessing the moment through the unisphere: in excess of fifteen billion. “We’re ready to go.” His voice was somber and authoritative as the impact of the event finally hit home. One of the portals showed him a view of the three umbilical gantries swinging away from the starship’s rear section. Little silver-white fluid globules spilled out of the closed valves, sparkling in the sunlight as they wobbled off into space.
“Hopefully, we’ll see you again in a year’s time,” Nigel Sheldon said.
“I look forward to it.”
“Godspeed, Captain.”
Jean Douvoir fired the small thrusters around the rear of the central cylindrical section. Second Chance started to slide away from the gateway. Acceleration was so tiny Wilson couldn’t even feel it affect the low-gravity bridge. The dazzling turquoise flames of the thrusters shrank away and vanished.
“We’re now at five meters per second,” Douvoir reported. There was a lot of amusement in his voice.
“Thank you, Pilot,” Wilson said. “Hyperdrive, please bring the wormhole up to flight level.”
“Aye, sir.” Tu Lee couldn’t help the strong twang of excitement in her voice. She began to shunt instructions into the ship’s RI that would handle the enormously complex energy manipulation functions.
Nigel instructed his e-butler to shift down his virtual vision intensity, and took his hands off the console i-spots. One hologram portal showed the assembly platform slowly shrinking behind them. The second had a small circular turquoise nebular glowing in the center. It began to expand, growing more indistinct, although no stars were visible through it.
“Course laid in?” Wilson asked.
“Want to consult our expert navigator on that?” Anna muttered under her breath. She still hadn’t warmed up to Bose.
Wilson ignored her, wondering if the rest of the bridge crew had overheard.
“As agreed,” Oscar said. He had his hands pressed firmly on his console i-spot, his eyes flicking quickly between virtual icons. “First exit point, twenty-five light-years from Dyson Alpha.”
“Wormhole opening stable, Captain,” Tu Lee reported.
“Inject us,” Wilson told her.
The blue haze folded around Second Chance like petals closing for the night. Their datalink to the assembly platform and the unisphere ended. Both portals showed the starship bathing in the wormhole’s pale moonlight radiance of low-level radiation.
Oscar canceled the camera feeds. The bridge portals switched to displaying the gravitonic spectrum, sensors around the ship detecting faint echoes resonating within the wormhole. It was a crude version of radar that allowed them to locate stars and planets to a reasonable degree, but that was all. For truly accurate sensor work they needed to drop out into real space.
Wilson upped his virtual vision again, taking another sweep of the starship’s primary systems. Everything was humming along sweetly. He came out and checked around the bridge. The engineers were all still heavily integrated with the ship’s RI, monitoring the performance of their
respective fields, but everyone else was already relaxing. Wilson glanced inquisitively at Oscar, who put on a contented expression as he sat back. There wasn’t much left for them to do. Not for another hundred thirty days.
THIRTEEN
Hoshe waited at the side of the street for her to arrive. It wasn’t midmorning yet, but already a small crowd of curious locals had gathered along the sidewalk. Two police cruisers had parked nearby, their constables directing the copbots as they set up temporary barriers around the thirty-story condo building. As he watched, yet another big police technical support van pulled up and slowly nosed its way down into the underground garage. His e-butler told him the precinct commander was on his way, and the city commissioner had asked for the Ice Department case files.
“Great,” Hoshe muttered. It was going to turn into one big jurisdictional free-for-all, he was sure of that. Now all the real work had been done, every other department in Darklake would be after a slice of the credit.
An unmarked police car drew up beside him. Paula stepped out. She was wearing a simple pale blue dress with a fawn jacket, her raven hair tied back neatly. Hoshe thought her skin was a shade darker than the last time he’d seen her, but then Treloar, Anshun’s capital, was in the tropics. She actually gave him a smile as he said hello.
“Good to see you again,” he said.
“And you, Hoshe. Sorry I left you carrying the ball on this one.”
“That’s okay,” he lied.
“But I appreciate the way you carried on, and for calling me today. That’s very professional.”
He gestured her toward the entrance to the garage. “You might yet regret coming, a lot of senior city police officers are on their way.”
“That I’m used to. You know, right now I’d actually welcome some of the old problems again.”
“Tough case?”
“You wouldn’t think so by the number of arrests we’ve made.” She shrugged. “But yes. My opponent is an elusive man.”
“Holmes and Moriarty, yes?”
“Hoshe, I had no idea you read the classics.”
The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle Page 48