The Eleventh Gate

by Nancy Kress

  The captain eyed him. “All right, Gordon. If you fail, we’ll try something else.”

  He was expendable, now that he’d taken the ship to the gate location that Tara had given him. Maybe the captain even had orders to risk him first if any danger arose, thereby saving Sloan from paying David his future percentages. David didn’t care. He was a spacer and this was what he lived for—along with the percentages, of course.

  Ten minutes later, just as he finished checking and donning his suit, he entered the airlock, waiting for the ship to match trajectory with the orbital. When it did, the vacuum sled shot out, automatically following directions to rendezvous with the orbital. The Samuel Peregoy flew close beside. David saw its scout launch and fly back toward the gate. The captain was sending it back to file the Peregoy claim.

  The Landry vessel still had not come through the gate.

  David easily caught a projection on the side of the orbital. “A series of projections,” he commed to the ship, “along the side above the loading dock. Conveniently spaced for handholds—lucky. But they don’t seem to lead to any door…no, wait, there’s something there, are you getting it on cam? A round hatch, you have to look really hard to find it…I’m pulling myself toward it.”

  “We have you on visual,” Captain Peregoy said.

  “Good.”

  David reached the hatch. He grasped a slight projection in the middle and pulled. Nothing. He twisted it, and the hatch easily opened. “I’m in. The opening is very small. Maybe they are, too—I’m barely going to fit through this hatch. No airlock. This isn’t inhabited.”

  Odd. The orbital was big enough to enter, but no airlock.

  “Received. Proceed.”

  David wriggled inside and floated. He brightened his suit lights.

  “I’m in a completely bare area, a half-cylinder—the space is divided along its whole length. The interior sort of resembles an unfitted cargo shell. Absolutely nothing here…no, wait, there’s a hole in the divider, at the far end. Going toward it now.”

  Captain Peregoy said, “Nothing? No equipment or markings of any kind?”

  “Nada. Pulling myself through the hole headfirst…Christ, it’s a tight fit. I see something at the far end of this deck…oh my God!”

  His headlamp showed the machinery clearly, and David recognized it instantly. The timer light glowed red, enough light to see the small, distinctive, unmistakable manufacturing logo.

  The bitch.

  “Go!” he screamed into the commlink. “A Landry bomb! Get away! It’s going to—”

  The nuclear device exploded, vaporizing the orbital, David, and the Samuel Peregoy.

  The scout plunged into the gate.

  • • •

  Tara watched the Peregoy scout emerge from the gate and speed away. Had it witnessed the explosion? Of course it had. Otherwise it would be the Samuel Peregoy coming back through the gate. She sat frozen at the controls of her small ship, the Waterbird, unable to move, able only to think, and to wish that she couldn’t.

  It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

  A larger Landry ship, a day away from the gate, awaited orders. That was what it was supposed to do: wait. It had been waiting a week for Tara to arrive. The plan had been for Tara to reach the gate and issue orders. Those orders would have been for the Landry cruiser to match speed with the Peregoy vessel, so that both ships went through the gate at the same time, establishing a joint claim to the new planet. Then, once they’d spotted the orbital, both captains were supposed to do what any prudent captain would do: send down scout ships to investigate the orbital. Both scouts would be destroyed when they jointly breached the orbital. The two cruisers would witness that, as well as what Tara had seen when she’d gone through the gate the first time.

  Lights on the planet below.

  There was life down there. An alien civilization. Not capable of space flight; they had nothing in orbit and probably didn’t even know the gate was there. But they would be assumed to own the orbital that Tara herself had put there on her second trip. The aliens would be assumed to have blown up Landry and Peregoy scouts. Necessary casualties. The aliens would be assumed to be the enemy.

  The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

  Landry and Peregoy united in a common cause, which they would win because how threatening could a civilization be if it didn’t even have space flight? Landrys and Peregoys might eventually discover that the aliens hadn’t planted the orbital bomb—but how? The evidence would be gone and the aliens wouldn’t speak human languages. Even if they did learn English and denied the bomb, who would believe them? Anyway, by that time Tara would have created the alliance. No one would ever know that, but Philip would be impressed with her nonetheless: the heroine who had created peace by rushing the news to the Eight Worlds. That was what was supposed to happen.

  But—the Waterbird had been crippled by a comet strike and repairs had taken so long that she arrived at the gate after, not before, the Samuel Peregoy.

  But—the idiot captain of the Samuel Peregoy had somehow gotten his cruiser, not just a scout, blown up.

  But—no Landrys had died, only Peregoys. Tara had created a war, but not against any unknown aliens.

  “Ms. Landry, this is Captain Albrecht! Repeat, this is Captain Albrecht! Please answer!”

  Slowly the voice penetrated Tara’s mind. How long had the captain of the Landry cruiser been hailing her? How long had she sat, frozen, in her stationary ship? Think. She had to think.

  “Ms. La—”

  “Yes,” she said. He would have tracked the Samuel Peregoy going through the gate. “We’ve lost the gate claim. Yes. Proceed to and through the gate to survey what planet is on the other side. We might as well get whatever information we can. I will wait to accompany you through.”

  “Received. Will comply.”

  Tara thought furiously. She had to salvage what she could from this debacle. Maybe there was still some way to turn Peregoy vengeance away from the Landrys and toward whatever lived on the planet. Maybe the Peregoy explorer on the orbital—maybe David Gordon—hadn’t had time to send a message to the scout before he was vaporized. If they hadn’t realized the orbital was Landry…

  “Ms. Landry,” said the captain, sounding surprised, “we just received a delayed message from the Peregoy scout. It says, in its entirety, ‘Landrys, you won’t get away with this! We have a recording!’ Your desired action?”

  Tara forced herself to say, “No action. Proceed toward gate.” The Peregoys had a recording. She was fucked.

  Philip. She must keep Philip from knowing what she’d done. A good thing David Gordon was dead. He wouldn’t have had time—she hoped—to name her specifically. The Peregoys would know this was a Landry act of war, but not which Landry.

  Philip must never know.

  She said, “Captain, change of orders. I’m going to proceed toward the gate. Wait for me to join you.”

  “I don’t advise that you—”

  A shimmer, a brief blip on the screens, and she was through.

  Nothing—no debris, no clue that a deadly cargo shell and a doomed cruiser had ever existed this side of the gate. There was only the planet, below. Its cloud cover was dissipating.

  The land along the coast of a continent gleamed with city lights.

  4

  * * *

  GALT

  Rachel Landry, CEO of Freedom Enterprises and head of the Landry Libertarian Alliance, strode through its glass and marble corridors. It had been too long since anyone had seen Tara.

  Despite her age, she walked vigorously, long legs moving from the hips, arms swinging. Two techs scurried out of her way. She stopped by a large window overlooking the Galt spaceport. A research ship funded by Caitlin’s division was just lifting off, bound for Rand’s moon. Scientists aboard had a series of physics experiments planned for both the moon and the Galt-Rand gate. Once, long ago, Rachel might have been with them. By now, however, the physics she knew was probably all
out of date.

  Or maybe not. Most of humanity’s hundred fifty years of space settlements had been devoted to building on the worlds gifted by the gates. Science had stagnated. Only recently had Freedom Enterprises been able to afford the luxury of pure research.

  And the Peregoy worlds? Was that old horror Sloan Peregoy appreciably advancing science in his tightly controlled “benevolent dictatorship”? Rachel didn’t know, although probably scientists on the three Landry worlds did. Peregoy, who tried to control everything and everybody, couldn’t control the exchange of scientific knowledge, and Rachel, of course, would never try. The only control on Landry worlds was in the all-volunteer army, and that was Jane’s responsibility.

  The research ship rose into the sky. Immediately afterward, the protestors flooded back into the area, shouting their chants and activating their holo signs. A huge one in letters simulating red flames said GIVE US JOBS!

  Rachel snorted. No one “gave” jobs. If you couldn’t find one, then start some sort of enterprise yourself. There were whole sections of Galt and Rand still unclaimed, where an ambitious person could start a farm, a business, an entire town. This youngest generation…

  No, that wasn’t fair. There were plenty of self-reliant individuals in her granddaughters’ and great-grand-children’s generations. Just not out there among the protestors. Still, decades, like eras, have moods, and the mood of this one was militant. It had been otherwise when Rachel was born, almost ninety years ago. Everyone had been caught up with working out the principles of this new, brave, Libertarian society on Galt and Rand and, later, New Hell. Free trade, free living, free people. Back then, they hadn’t even had an army. But with the explosive growth of unfettered business had come not only prosperity but smaller, faster ships than the ones that had ferried the fortunate from the dying Earth. That had led to competition for more gates, to acts of piracy, to the necessity of a military fleet. Now, however, a slowdown of business had produced a recession. This was all cyclical, of course, an inevitable blip of free-market capitalism, but right now it was producing a lot of discontent.

  Rachel craned her neck to see the last of the research ship, but it had already disappeared, and here was Annelise walking toward her with a tablet in her hand. “Rachel—I was just coming to see you. We have a problem.”

  When didn’t they? Annelise, the eldest of Rachel’s five granddaughters, was heir to the leadership of Freedom Enterprises. As Rachel gradually shifted responsibility to her, Annelise’s load of problems increased. Before Annelise could start in on whatever the new issue was, Rachel said, “Have you heard anything from Tara in the last month or so?”

  Annelise’s mouth turned down at the corners. “When do I ever hear from Tara? What’s she done now?”

  “Nothing that I know of. But she’s been gone much longer than usual.”

  “She’ll be back when she gets bored. Nowhere but Galt has enough amusements to distract Tara.”

  Not true—Polyglot did. Or might. Rachel had never been there. Well, maybe after she retired.

  Annelise’s face softened. “Don’t worry. She always comes home. Although not, of course, to do any useful work. You should never have settled that trust fund on her.”

  Rachel didn’t feel up to this old, old argument, nor to pointing out that after Paul, her only child, died, Rachel had felt mortality heavy on her heart and so had settled money on all five of his daughters. She hadn’t realized then that four of them would grow up to squabble continuously, while Tara, the youngest by fifteen years, would refuse to become involved with her sisters, with Freedom Enterprises, with the minimal government on Landry worlds. Or, as far as Rachel could tell, with anything else. Did Tara care about anything? She was a mystery to her grandmother.

  Rachel said to Annelise, “What’s the problem?”

  “The refugee camp.”

  Of course. Rand was having one of the periodic plagues that affected humans on any world they had not evolved to inhabit. Microbes, evolving so much faster than humans, jumped species and adapted themselves to colonize these new hosts, which then developed immunity against them. Or not.

  Rand, however, by the luck of the genetic lottery, had more pathogens that could colonize human bodies than did any other of the Eight Worlds. This particular epidemic, like the one that had killed Paul and his wife, was not responding to medication. Many had survived the disease. However, many more had used whatever resources they had to flee from Rand to Galt, where there were neither enough jobs for them nor, on a Libertarian world, any mechanisms to provide free food, shelter, health care, education. Private charities assisted because they chose to, and Rachel, moved by pity, had contributed to these. At the same time, she admitted to a scorn for able-bodied men and women who could not, or would not, think of ways to provide for themselves. Although the heart-rending holos of ragged and hungry children…

  Annelise didn’t appear to possess much pity. “The refugees are holding two charity workers hostage until Freedom Enterprises provides them with, basically, a free living. Jane wants to send in the army.”

  This was bad. There had never been terrorists on Galt, where everyone was raised to assume responsibility for themselves and their children. The same was true on Rand, of course—or was it?

  Rachel said, “Are the refugees mistreating the charity workers or threatening to kill them?”

  “No, of course not!” Annelise actually sounded shocked; a free people did not terrorize each other.

  “Then tell Jane no. The charity workers assumed the responsibility for going to the refugee camp, which means they assumed the consequences. But I want you to do two things, Annelise. Offer to loan refugees the cost of passage back to Rand now that the plague is over, provided that each one who accepts will sign a contract to repay over ten years at six percent interest. Second, hire a group to go to Rand in order to survey schools. I want a report on the state of teaching of, and adherence to, Libertarian principles. At every age level.”

  “Got it,” Annelise said. “Did you ask Caitlin about Tara?”

  This was a concession. Paul’s five daughters mostly did not get along well with each other—and why was that? It was a mystery to Rachel, since each one alone was competent and even—periodically, at least—lovable, but none argued as much as Annelise and Caitlin. Caitlin, president of John Galt University, constantly wanted more money to run it than Annelise would put in the corporate budget. “A university is no different from any other institution,” Annelise always said. “It should be self-sufficient.”

  “Only someone completely ignorant of higher education would think that,” Caitlin retorted.

  “I wouldn’t know, since I never attended your university, did I? I was too busy taking over the business and raising three children.”

  “Your choice, right?”

  Sometimes Rachel just wanted her granddaughters to shut up.

  However, Caitlin was the only sister that Tara would even speak to. Tara seemed to respect Caitlin, who was less dogmatic than Annelise or Celia, less harshly judgmental than Jane. Caitlin reported that Tara had asked her all kinds of questions about the field of biology.

  Rachel took a corporate flier the short distance to the university. Caitlin was teaching the one class she’d kept in addition to her administrative duties. It soothed Rachel to slip into the back and listen to the serious questions posed by these advanced students, even though Rachel knew next to nothing about virology.

  “Hello, Gran,” Caitlin said after everyone had left. She was pretty enough but not as stunningly beautiful as her four sisters. Her features, except for her unusually sweet smile, were unmemorable, and the bright green eyes of the others were faded to hazel with green flecks. Intelligent and imaginative, she’d been trained as a virologist and had chosen the academic life over business, and she ran Galt University to very high standards. But it was Caitlin’s sense of balance that Rachel valued most. Balance sometimes seemed in short supply among the Landrys.

 
; She was also perceptive. “Gran—is anything wrong?”

  A lot was wrong, but Rachel confined herself to the immediate problem. “Have you seen Tara? Or heard from her? She’s been gone for months.”

  “No. Did you send a tracer to Polyglot?”

  “No. Should I?” Getting a message to Polyglot meant sending a ship or a drone with the physical embodiment of the data through the Galt-Polyglot gate, then beaming it down to the Landry embassy on Polyglot, which would then trace Tara. To contact New Hell, two gates away, was even more cumbersome and time-consuming. Somebody needed to invent the ansible.

  Rachel said, “Why do you think Tara might be on Polyglot?”

  Caitlin hesitated. Rachel put a hand on her granddaughter’s arm.

  “Caity, if you know something, tell me. I’m getting really worried about her.”

  “Well…all right. Yes. You remember I told you that Tara showed this sudden interest in biology, asking me all these questions, which I thought was pretty uncharacteristic. It turns out she’s in love with some biologist on Polyglot.”

  “In love? And she wanted it kept secret? Is he a Peregoy?”

  “No, of course not. He’s a Polyglot citizen. But apparently he’s not in love with her and she’s doing everything she can to interest him.”

  Rachel didn’t like the sound of that—with Tara, “everything she can” could be extreme. “What’s his name?”

  “I have only a first name: Philip. From the kind of questions Tara asked, he might be involved in some sort of environmental applications of biology, rather than pure research.”

  It wasn’t much. But it was more than Rachel had had before. Only…

  An embassy tracer might not be enough. She would have to send someone to Polyglot to find Tara, or at least this “Philip.”