All incoming messages passed through a central communications center at Union, where they were relayed to the appropriate addressees. And also were frequently lifted as “information copies” to other agencies that might be interested. The practice was officially denied, but it happened nonetheless. And because everybody benefited, no one complained or tried seriously to get it stopped.
“Okay, Peter,” she said. “Thank you.”
It was flat-screen traffic. First the Origins Project seal, God’s arm stretched out toward Adam’s as in the Michelangelo, followed by the director, Mahmoud Stein. Stein was reputed to be brilliant, but in Hutch’s view he was stiff, formal, self-important, scripted. Everything he said sounded rehearsed.
He was average size, in his sixties, with dark hair and deep-set eyes. He wore a permanent squint. “David,” he said, “we’ve got another sighting.” A banner at the base of the screen indicated the AI was interpreting from the French.
She didn’t know who David was, but suspected he might be David Clyde, one of the assistant directors at ISA in Paris. “We didn’t get this one on record, either. We’re just not equipped for that sort of thing. But three of our people saw it. They were working on the tracks, outside, when it showed up. Big black sphere. No lights.” He was seated, upright in his chair, looking grave. “When it got close, within a kilometer, it stopped. Hovered. Just sat out there for almost five minutes. Our people called in and we tried to get something on it, but it was well down the tube and we just didn’t have time.” His eyes revealed a touch of annoyance. He didn’t like having to deal with moonriders. They were an intrusion, something not provided for in the job specifications. “I’ve talked to everyone involved. Separately, as you suggested. They all tell the same story. David, there’s no question they saw something. It took off finally like a bat out of hell, unquote.
“The incident took place near Ring 66. If it happens again, I’ll get back to you.”
WHAT WAS GOING on? Hutch let the transmission run a second time. Whatever was happening, it was beginning to scare her. An hour later, Senator Taylor called. “Sorry to bother you at home, Hutch. I couldn’t reach the commissioner. Truth is, I’d rather talk to you anyhow.” He looked unhappy. “I keep hearing all these stories about moonriders. I’m worried about Amy.”
So was she, although there seemed no basis for it. “There shouldn’t be a problem, Senator. There’s no report of any hostile action being taken by these things. Ever.”
“Except throwing asteroids around.”
“We don’t really have a sense yet what that was about.”
“It sounds crazy.”
“I know.”
“And malicious.”
“Senator, Valentina’s one of the best people in the business. Nothing’s going to happen to them.”
He hunched down, as if to avoid being overheard. “Can you guarantee it?”
Hutch shook her head. “You know I can’t,” she said, finally. “I couldn’t guarantee Amy’s safety if she were sitting in my living room. But I don’t think there’s any need to worry.”
His eyes got a faraway look. “I’m sorry I let her go.”
“Senator, do you want me to bring the Salvator back? I can do it.” It probably didn’t matter at this point. The mission had become almost redundant.
That disconnected gaze turned inward. “If you did that, she’d know I was responsible.”
“I wouldn’t tell her.”
“It wouldn’t matter. She’d know.”
“Your call, Senator. We’ll handle it as you wish.”
“How much longer will they be out there?”
“They’re scheduled to go to three more places: Arcturus, Capella, and Berenices.”
“Okay,” he said. “Try to keep them out of harm’s way.”
TEN MINUTES LATER, Asquith called. “We’re putting together an impromptu conference,” he said. “I thought you might want to be part of it.” He was seated in an armchair in his living room, holding a glass of wine in one hand. A notebook rested against his knee.
Tor was watching a ballgame. She excused herself, retreated to her office, closed the door, and brought the commissioner and his armchair up on her desktop. Charlie Dryden appeared, seated behind a table. And two women and a man, none of whom she knew.
Asquith made the introductions. The strangers were Shandra Kolchevska from Kosmik, Arnold Prescott from Monogram Industries, and Miriam Klymer from MicroTech. “Hutch,” he said, “you should be aware that we’ve gotten clearance to divert the Terranova Rock.”
“Good.” Politically, it was a move that couldn’t lose. “Have we decided how we’re going to do it?”
He turned to Kolchevska. “Shandra, do you want to explain?”
She appeared to be an energetic, forceful woman. Middle-aged and blond, she’d have been reasonably attractive except for her eyes, which were unreservedly competitive. “Ms. Hutchins,” she said, “it’ll be a team operation. Kosmik will be diverting two freighters from salvage.” Nod to Prescott. “They’ll install drive units. MicroTech is doing the systems design for us, and they’ll provide the AIs.”
Klymer picked up the explanation. “The freighters will be taken out to Terranova—”
“Piloted by the AIs?”
“Oh, yes. Of course. The ships wouldn’t be safe. But we’re pretty sure we can get them there. Once they arrive, we’ll put them in front of the asteroid. Same course and velocity.”
“And,” said Prescott, “gravity will do the rest. The ships have sufficient mass to accelerate the asteroid. It’ll miss Terranova by a substantial margin.”
“Very good,” Hutch said. “I’m impressed.”
“Ms. Hutchins,” said Prescott, “when a contribution needs to be made, we can come together.”
She looked over at Dryden, wondering what role Orion Tours was playing.
Asquith delivered a broad, satisfied smile. “Hutch,” he said, “we want to announce the project at a joint press conference in the morning. Can you set it up?”
“Sure, Michael. I can do that.”
He looked at the others. “Is nine o’clock okay?” Nobody had a problem. “We’ll want you there, too, Hutch,” he said.
She turned to Dryden. “Charlie, can I assume Orion will also be part of the effort?”
“Yes, indeed.” He gave her a broad smile. “We’re contributing an engineering team to restore the freighters so they can make the flight.”
Asquith beamed and went on about how it was a shining moment for all of them. “A lot of people, and I’m thinking here especially of professional cynics like your friend MacAllister, would deny that major corporations can collaborate in a public-spirited enterprise.” He smiled at each of them in turn. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I think we can all take a bow.”
SO MUCH FOR a quiet evening at home. She had one of Eric’s staff members send out notifications for the press conference, explaining that it was concerned with the “recent events at Ophiuchi.” It prompted a quick flood of inquiries, which he duly passed to her. Had there been additional developments? More sightings? Online Express wanted to know if it was true that aliens had landed in Arizona.
Her workload had declined considerably as the missions dropped off. She had time now to wander the corridors, stroll through the grounds, listen to the fountains. She wondered where she’d be in another year. Sitting on the front porch, maybe, writing her memoirs.
She missed piloting. The universe had gotten smaller, had narrowed down to a strip of Virginia and the DC area. Her big thrill consisted of going with Tor and Maureen to the seashore.
Occasionally, she wondered whether marrying had been a mistake. She loved her husband, and she adored Maureen, liked nothing better than playing tag with her, than running upstairs with the girl giggling behind her. She looked forward to the arrival of her second child. Still, her life had acquired a blandness that she could have endured easily enough had she been assured that one day it would
end, and she could go back to the deep spaces between the stars.
She’d been more alive in those years. Or maybe alive in a different way. Her passions had been stronger, the sense of accomplishment greater. Soaring out across a world no one had ever seen before carried with it an exhilaration that life in a bureaucracy—or, if she dared admit it to herself, in a marriage—could never match.
She’d already bailed out of an administrative job once. A year or so after they’d discovered the chindi, she’d accepted a staff position, a promotion, partly because it was what you were supposed to do. They’d asked her if she wanted to spend the rest of her life in the fleet. The decision had been easy enough because she’d fallen in love with Tor, and no future with him seemed possible without a groundside job.
She’d lasted fourteen months, had tried to find something else that would interest her, had given up and—with his blessing—gone back to piloting for a year or so. Finally, she settled in as assistant to the director of operations. Not long after that she’d gotten the top job.
It paid well. It was challenging. Sometimes, like now, it was even exciting. But she would have given a great deal to have been out on the Salvator with Mac and the others. That was where she belonged.
“Hutch.” The AI’s voice. “Dr. Asquith is calling again.”
Twice in one night. She wondered if he was bored. “Everything okay?” she asked.
“Hutch, I want you to see something.” He told the AI to run a clip. “Rita sent this over. They just received it.” Rita was the duty officer at Union Control.
A man she’d never seen before blinked on. Standing by a viewport, through which she could see a star-strewn sky and a planetary rim. “Shanna,” he said. His voice was strained. “We’ve got a problem. There’s an asteroid coming this way. A big one.” He and the viewport blinked off and were replaced by the object itself. “It’s six hundred kilometers across.”
Asquith froze the image. “This is from the Galactic,” he said. The hotel that Orion was building at Capella. “My God, Hutch, it’s an attack.”
It wasn’t just another big rock. Think Boston to DC. It was a small planet this time. “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” she said. “When’s it going to get there?”
“Don’t know.”
“Okay, look. It’s not what you think.”
“Why not?” He didn’t sound as if he was in a mood to dispute details.
“The hotel’s being built in orbit at Capella V?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a sterile world. Nobody’s going to bother bombing it.”
He shook his head. “I wish I understood what’s going on.”
The man at the viewport was back. “Got more,” he said. He was heavyset, black skin and beard, about forty, with features that suggested he enjoyed a good time. At the moment he looked scared. “It’s going to take out the hotel.” He was having a hard time keeping his voice calm. “The goddam thing is coming right at us. Dead on. They’re telling me it will miss the planet. But nail us. The bastards are shooting at us.” He stopped a moment. Tried to calm down. “We have a ship on-station, but it’s not anywhere near big enough to get everyone off. Shanna, you need to get us out of here. Quick. Please advise.”
The Orion Tours logo replaced the image.
“My God,” said Hutch. “When’s it going to happen?”
Asquith shrugged. “You know as much as I do. Judging from the way he sounds—”
“How many people do they have out there? At the construction site?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Okay. I assume Dryden’s asked for help.”
“I haven’t heard from him yet.” He was on his feet, treading back and forth. “That asteroid that passed us a few weeks ago. I wonder if they were behind that, too?”
“It missed, Michael.”
He shrugged again. “So they screwed up that one.”
“Michael, we get Earth-crossers all the time. We just happened not to see it coming. But something with a six-hundred-klick diameter? If the moonriders could move something that massive, could aim it at a moving target as small as a hotel—” What were they up against?
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“If they have the capability to push around a rock the size of Arizona, why would they bother?”
“What do you mean?”
“If they have that kind of technology, and they wanted to get rid of the hotel, surely they’d have a more sophisticated way of doing it than tossing a small moon at it. Why not just pull up and bomb it? Or use a particle beam? Why on Earth would you throw rocks?”
“I don’t know,” he said. There was a touch of hysteria in his voice. “Maybe when we get closer to them, you can ask.”
ASQUITH GOT DRYDEN on the circuit. Charlie just sat shaking his head. “I can’t believe it. Why would they do something like this? What’s wrong with these creatures?” His voice hardened, and he looked ready to kill.
The commissioner leaned forward. “When’s it going to get there?”
“We don’t know yet. Hartigan forgot to tell us when. We’re waiting to hear now.”
“How many people you have out there?” asked Hutch.
He consulted a display. “Thirty-three. We can put eleven of them on the Lin-Kao. But that’s all we have.” He looked away. “Wait a minute. We’re getting something now.”
Charlie relayed it for them. It was the man by the viewport again. Presumably Hartigan. “I’m going to start moving people over to the Surveyor,” he said. “The Lin-Kao will have time to make two flights. So I can get most of them off that way.”
The Surveyor was an historic ship, now maintained at Arcturus as a museum. It was, with luck, a day and a half away from the Galactic. “So we’ve got at least three days,” said Hutch.
Capella V struck her as an odd location for a vacation site. It would be about five days’ travel time from Earth, a bit far, she thought. She recalled that there’d originally been talk of constructing it at Romulus/Remus in the Vega system.
In any case the Salvator was in position to help. “Good thing,” Peter said when she contacted him. “Union doesn’t have anything ready to go.”
“That can’t be right,” said Hutch.
“It’s true. The place is empty. Usually we have seven or eight ships in port. I’ve called around. There are a couple coming in, but nothing close enough that they can help.”
“And nothing that can be diverted?”
“Negative.”
VALYA WAS FORTUITOUSLY on her way to the same Surveyor museum at Arcturus. She might even be there already. Hutch punched the ship’s name and location into her databank and transmitted to Asquith’s screen. He saw it, and nodded. “Charlie,” he said, “the Salvator is in range. You want us to send it over?”
“How many can they take on board?” asked Dryden.
Asquith looked toward Hutch. Silently, she said seven.
“Seven,” he said.
“Okay. Yes. Please do. I appreciate this, Michael.”
Asquith’s demeanor had changed. He’d begun to enjoy himself, playing the man of action. “Okay, Hutch,” he said. “Get in touch with Valya and get them started.”
An hour later, toward the end of the evening, she got still another call from the commissioner. “It’ll hit Thursday morning,” he said. “We’ve got almost five days.”
More like four and a half. “When Thursday morning?”
“Around ten, our time.”
The Salvator would have to make two flights. There’d be time, but not much to spare.
LIBRARY ARCHIVE
Do we have an obligation to protect a living world from arbitrary attacks? Probably not. What moral or legal code is applicable? Certainly none that I know of. Do we risk embroiling ourselves in a confrontation with a species whose capabilities may be far greater than our own? It would seem so. It forces us to the conclusion that the prudent action is to stand aside. Let the gremlins do what the
y want, while we collect as much information about them as we can.
But another question remains to be asked: If we allow these intruders to inflict heavy damage on a biosystem for no definable reason, to kill off whole species, will that not say a great deal about who we really are? And what matters to us? How would that match up with our image of ourselves? Would we be prepared to live with it?
—Charles Dryden, interview on the Black Cat Network, Saturday, April 25
NEWS DESK
MOTION TO MOVE HELLFIRE TRIAL QUASHED
Sikonis: Defendant Can Get Fair Trial in Derby
NEAR-MISS ASTEROID SPOTTED 80 YEARS AGO
Research Shows They Thought It Might Hit Earth
Warning Promulgated, Then Forgotten
“It Couldn’t Happen Today,” Says White House
chapter 27
The invention of the printing press probably marks the beginning of the decline of civilization. Once you have it, science follows close behind. Next thing you know the idiots have better weaponry. Then atom bombs. Meantime, social organization becomes increasingly dependent on technology, which becomes increasingly vulnerable to error or sabotage. If we can judge by our own experience, it looks as if you get the printing press, then about a thousand years. After that it’s back to the trees.
—Gregory MacAllister, “Fire in the Night”
Arcturus. Saturday, April 25.
Three brilliant stars illuminate Earth’s northern skies: Vega, Capella, and the brightest, Arcturus. It is the most distant of the three, thirty-seven light-years from Sol, an orange class-K giant. It became famous when its light was used to open the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. That light had left the star only a few years after the time of the previous Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. It is bright and it is big: 113 times as luminous as the sun. Twenty-six times as wide. It has exhausted its supply of hydrogen and is burning helium.
Odyssey Page 24