Iron mw-1

by Poul Anderson

  Markham stood silent while the ship drove onward. At length: “I should, I shall report directly to the captain. But to avoid rumors, I tell you first. Listen well and do not distort what I say if you are able not to. I beamed a radio signal on a standard band at Secunda. It is against the possibility—the very remote possibility, Mme. Brozik assured us that sentient beings are present. Natives, Outsiders, who knows? In the interest of peaceful contact, we must provide evidence that we did not try to sneak in on them. Not that it is likely they exist, but—this is the sort of contingency I am here for. Saxtorph and I can dispute it later if he wishes. I have presented him with a fait accompli. Now let me by.” Ryan stood aside. Markham passed downward. Ryan stared after him till he was gone from sight, then went back to his galley.

  Quarta fell astern as Rover moved on sunward. In the boat called Fido, Juan Yoshii swung around the giant planet and accelerated to overtake his ship. Vectors programmed, he could relax, look out the ports, seek to sort the jumbled marvels in his mind. Most had gone directly from instruments to the astronomers; he was carrying back certain observations taken farside. A couple of times there had been opportunity for Laurinda Brozik to tell him briefly about the latest interpretation, but he had been too busy on his flit to think much beyond the piloting.

  Stars thronged, the Milky Way torrented, a sky little different from the skies he remembered. Less than 30 light-years’ travel—a mite’s leap in the galaxy. Clearly alien was the sun ahead. Tiny but perceptible, its ember of a disc was slow to dazzle his eyes, yet already cast sufficient light for him to see things by.

  An outer moon drifted across vision. This was his last close passage, and instruments worked greedily. Clicks and whirrs awoke beneath the susurrus of air through the hull. Yoshii pointed his personal camera; photography was an enthusiasm of his. The globe glimmered wan red under its sun. It was mainly ice, and smooth; any cracks and craters had slumped in the course of gigayears. The surface was lighter than it might have been and mottled with yellow spots. Ore deposits? The same material that tinted most airless bodies here? Tregennis was puzzled. You got dark spots in Solar-type systems. They were due to photolysis of frozen methane. Of course, this sun was so feeble…

  It nonetheless illuminated the planet aft. Quarta’s hue was pale rose, overlaid with silvery streaks that were ice clouds: crystals of carbon dioxide, ammonia, in the upper levels methane. No twists, no vortices, no sign of any jovian storminess marred the serenity. Though the disc was visibly flattened, it rotated slowly, taking more than 40 hours. Tidal forces through eons had worn down even the spin of this huge mass. They had likewise dispersed whatever rings it once had, and surely drawn away moons. The core possessed a magnetic field, slight, noticeable only because it extended so far into space that it snatched radio waves out of incoming cosmic radiation-remnant magnetism, locked into iron as that core froze. For gravitational energy release had long since reached its end point; and long, long before then, K-40 and whatever other few radionuclei were once on hand had guttered away beyond measurement. The ice sheath went upward in tranquil allotropic layers to a virtually featureless surface and an enormous, quietly circulating atmosphere of starlike composition. Quarta had reached Nirvana.

  It fell ever farther behind. Fido closed in on Rover.

  The ship swelled until she might have been a planet herself. Instructions swept back and forth, electronic, occasionally verbal. A boat bay opened its canopy. Yoshii maneuvered through and docked. The canopy closed, shutting off heaven. Air hissed back in from the recovery tanks. A bulb flashed green. Yoshii unharnessed, operated the lock, crawled forth, and walked under the steady weight granted him by the ship’s polarizer, into her starboard reception room.

  Laurinda waited.

  Yoshii stopped. She was alone. White hair tumbled past delicate features to brush the dress, new to him, that hugged her slenderness. She reached out. Her eyes glowed. “W-welcome back, Juan,” she whispered.

  “Why, uh, thanks, thank you. You’re the… committee?”

  She smiled, dropped her glance, became briefly the color of the world he had rounded. “Kam met Carita. As for you, Dorcas—Mate Saxtorph suggested—”

  He took her hands. They felt reed-thin and silksoft. “How nice of her. And the rest. I’ve data discs for you.”

  “They’ll keep. We have more work than we can handle. Observations of Quinta were, have been incredibly fruitful.” Ardor pulsed in her voice. The outermost planet was a safe subject. “We think we can guess its nature, but of course there’s no end of details we don’t understand, and we could be entirely wrong—”

  “Good for you,” he said, delighted by her delight. “I missed out on that, of course.” Transmissions to him, including hers, had dealt with the Quartan system exclusively; any bit of information about it might perhaps save his life. “Tell me.”

  “Oh, it’s violent, multi-colored, with spots like Jupiter’s—one bigger than the Red—and the surface is liquid water. It’s Arctic-like; we imagine continent-sized ice floes clashing together.”

  “But warmer than Quarta! Why?”

  “We suppose a large satellite crashed, a fraction of a million years ago. Debris formed the rings. The main mass released enough heat to melt the upper part of the planetary shell, and, and we’ll need years, science will, to learn what else has happened.”

  He stood for an instant in awe, less of the event than of the time-scale. That moon must have been close to start with, but still it had taken the casual orbital erosion of… almost a universe’s lifespan so far—how many passages through nebulae, galaxies, the near-ultimate vacuum of intergalactic space?—to bring it down. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? What is man, that he should waste the little span which is his?

  “That’s wonderful,” he said, “but we—” Impulsively, he embraced her. Astoundingly, she responded.

  Between laughter and tears she said in his ear, “Come, let’s go, Kam’s spread a feast for the two of us in my cabin.”

  Set beside that, the cosmos was trivial.

  Saxtorph’s voice crackled from the intercom: “Now hear this. Now hear this. We’ve just received a message from what claims to be a kzin warship. They’re demanding we make rendezvous with them. Keep calm but think hard. We’ll meet in the gym in an hour, 1530, and consider this together.”

  Standing with back to bulkhead, the captain let silence stretch, beneath the pulsebeat and whispers of the ship, while he scanned the faces of those seated before him. Dorcas, her Athene countenance frozen into expressionlessness; Kam Ryan’s full lips quirked a bit upward, defiantly cheery; Carita Fenger a-scowl; Juan Yoshii and Laurinda Brozik unable to keep from glancing at each other, hand gripping hand; Arthur Tregennis, who seemed almost as concerned about the girl; Ulf Markham, well apart from the rest, masked in haughtiness—Ulf Reichstein Markham, if you please… The air renewal cycle was at its daily point of ozone injection. That tang smelled like fear.

  Which must not be let out of its cage. Saxtorph cleared his throat. “Okay, let’s get straight to business,” he said. “You must’ve noticed a quiver in the interior g-field and change in engine sound. You’re right, we altered acceleration. Rover will meet the foreign vessel, with velocities matched, in about 35 hours. It could be sooner, but Dorcas told them we weren’t sure our hull could take that much stress. What we wanted, naturally, was as much time beforehand as possible.”

  “Why don’t we cut and run?” Carita asked.

  Saxtorph shrugged. “Whether or not we can outrun them, we for sure can’t escape the stuff they can throw, now that they’ve locked onto us. If they really are kzinti navy, they’ll never let us get out where we can go hyperspatial. They may be lying, but Dorcas and I don’t propose to take the chance.”

  “I presume evasion tactics are unfeasible,” said Tregennis in his most academic voice.

  “Correct. We could stop the engine, switch off the generator, and orbit free, with batteries supplying the life support syste
ms, but they’d have no trouble computing our path. As soon as they came halfway close, they’d catch us with a radar sweep.

  “From what data we have on them, I believe they were searching for some time before they acquired us, probably with amplified optics. That’s assuming they were in orbit around Secunda when they first learned of our arrival. The assumption is consistent with what would be a reasonable search curve for them and with the fact that there are modulated radio bursts out of that planet-transmissions to and from their base.”

  Nobody before had seen Yoshii snarl. “And how did they learn about us?” he demanded.

  Looks went to Markham. He gave them back. “Yes, undoubtedly through me,” he said. Strength rang in the words. “You all know I took it upon myself to beam a signal at Secunda—in my capacity as this expedition’s officer of the government. The result has surprised me, too, but I acknowledge no need to apologize. If we, approaching a kzin base unbeknownst, had suddenly become manifest to their detectors, they would most likely have blown us out of existence.”

  Ryan nodded. “Without stopping to ask questions,” he supplied. “Yeah, that’d be kzin style. If they are. How’re you so sure?”

  “I think we can take it for granted,” Dorcas said. “Who else would have reason to call themselves kzinti?”

  “Who else would want to?” Carita growled.

  “Save the cuss words for later,” Saxtorph counseled. “We’re in too much of a pickle for luxuries. I might add that although the vocal transmission was through a translator, the phrasing, the responses to us, everything was pure kzin. They are here—on the far side of human space from their own. You realize what this means, don’t you, folks? The kzinti have gotten the hyperdrive.”

  That conclusion had indeed become clear to everyone, but Laurinda asked, “How could they?” as if in pain.

  Yoshii grimaced. “Once you know something can be done, you’re halfway to doing it yourself,” he told her.

  “I know,” she answered. “But I had the, the impression they aren’t quite as clever at engineering as humans, even if they did invent the gravity polarizer. And, and wouldn’t we have known?”

  “Collecting intelligence in kzin space isn’t exactly easy,” Saxtorph explained. “Anyhow, they may have done the R and D on some planet we aren’t aware of. I’ll grant you, I’m surprised myself that they’ve been this quick.

  “Well, they were.” His grin was lopsided. “Once I heard about an epitaph on an old New England tombstone. ’I expected this, but not so soon.’”

  “Why have they established themselves here?” Tregennis wondered. “As you observed, it is a long journey for them, especially if they went around human space in order to avoid any chance that their possession of the hyperdrive would be discovered. True, this system is uniquely interesting, but I didn’t think kzin civilization gave scientific research as high a value as ours does.”

  “That’s a good question,” Saxtorph said.

  His gallows humor drew a chuckle from none but Ryan. Dorcas uttered the thought in every mind: “They won’t let us go home to tell about them if they can help it.”

  “Which is why we are being nice and meeting them as they request,” Saxtorph added. “It gives them an alternative to putting a nuke on our track.”

  Markham folded his arms and stated, “I hope you people have the wit to be glad, at last, that I came along. They will understand that I am authorized to negotiate with them. They will likewise understand that my disappearance would in due course cause a second expedition to come, with armed escort, as the loss of an entirely private group might not.”

  “Could be,” Saxtorph said. “However, I can think of several ways to fake a natural disaster for us.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, for instance, giving us a lethal dose of radiation, then sending the corpses back with the ship gimmicked to seem this was an accident. The kzin pilot could return on an accompanying vessel after ours left hyperspace.”

  “What would the log show?”

  “What the ’last survivor’ was tortured into entering.”

  “Nonsense. You have been watching too many spy dramas.”

  “I disagree. Besides, that was just one of the notions that occurred to Dorcas and me. The kzinti might be more inventive yet.”

  “We have decided not to rely exclusively on their sweet nature,” the mate declared. “Listen carefully.

  “We can launch the boats without them detecting it, if we act soon. They’ll float free while Rover proceeds to rendezvous. When she’s a suitable distance off, nobody looking for any action in this volume of space, they’ll scramble.”

  Carita smacked fist in palm. “Hey, terrific!” she cried.

  Markham sounded appalled: “Have you gone crazy? How will you survive, let alone return, in two little interplanetary flitters?”

  “They’re more than that,” Saxtorph reminded. “They’re rugged and maneuverable and full to the scuppers with delta v. In either of them I’d undertake to outrace or dodge a tracking missile, and make it tough or impossible to hold a laser beam on her long enough to do much damage. Air and water recycler are in full working order and rations for one man year are stowed aboard.”

  “I ate some,” Yoshii stammered. “Carita must have, too.”

  “I’ve already replaced it,” Ryan informed them.

  “Good thinking!” Saxtorph exclaimed. “Did you expect this tactic?”

  “Oh, general principles. Take care of your belly and your belly will take care of you.”

  “Stop that schoolboy chatter,” Markham snapped. “What in the cosmos can you hope to do but antagonize the kzinti?”

  “How do you tell an antagonized kzin from an un-antagonized one?” Saxtorph retorted. “I am dead serious. Nobody has to follow me who doesn’t want to.”

  “I certainly do not. Someone has to stay and… try to repair the harm your lunacy will have done.”

  “I figured you would. But I supposed you, of all people, would have a better hold on kzin psychology than you’re showing. You ought to know they don’t resent an opponent giving them a proper fight. Fighting’s their nature. Whoever surrenders becomes no more than a captured animal in their eyes. Dorcas and I aim to put some high cards in your hand before you sit down at their poker table. A spacecraft on the loose is a weapon. The drive, or the sheer kinetic energy, can wreck things quite as thoroughly as the average nuke. Come worst to worst, we might smash a boat into their base at several thousand kph. The other boat might take out their ship and leave them stranded; I’ve a hunch they’ve kept just a single hyperdrive vessel, as scarce as those must still be among them. Yah, going out like that would be a sight better than going into the stewpot. Kzinti like long pig.”

  Yoshii brightened. He and Laurinda exchanged a wonder-smitten look. Carita whooped. Tregennis smiled faintly. Ryan went oddly, abruptly thoughtful.

  Markham gnawed his lip a moment, then straightened in his chair and rapped, “Very well. I do not approve, and I ask the crew to refrain from this foolishness of yours, but I cannot stop you. Therefore I must factor your action into my calculations. What terms shall I try to get for us?”

  “Freedom to leave, of course,” Dorcas responded. “Let Rover retreat to hyperspacing distance and wait, while the kzinti withdraw too far to intercept our boats. We can verify that on instruments before we come near. We’ll convey any message they want, or even a delegate.”

  “There could be a delegation on board, waiting,” Ryan warned.

  Tregennis stirred. “I will remain behind,” he said.

  Tears sprang into Laurinda’s eyes. “Oh, no!” she pleaded.

  He smiled again, at her. “I am too old to go blatting around space like that. I would merely be a burden, and quite likely die on your hands. Not only will I be more comfortable here, I will be an extra witness to the bona fides of the kzinti. Landholder Markham alone could not keep track of everything they might stealthily do.”

  “It
will show them there are two reasonable human beings in this outfit,” the Wunderlander said.

  “That might be marginally helpful to me. Anyone else?”

  “Speaking,” Ryan answered.

  “Huh?” broke from Saxtorph. “Hey, Kam, no. Whatever for?”

  “For this,” the quartermaster said calmly. “Haven’t you thought of it yourself? The boats will be on the move, or holed up someplace unknown to the kzinti. They can only be reached by broadcast. Planar broadcast, maybe, but still the signal’s bound to be down in the milliwatts or microwatts when it reaches your receivers—with the sun’s radio background to buck. Nothing but voice transmission will carry worth diddly. Given a little time to record how the humans talk who were left behind, the kzinti can write a computer program to fake it. ’Sure, come on back, fellows, all is forgiven and they’ve left a case of champagne for us to celebrate with.’ How’re you going to know that’s for real?”

  Dorcas frowned. “We did consider it,” she told him. “We’ll use a secret password.”

  “Which a telepath of theirs can fish right out of a human skull, maybe given a spot of torture to unsettle the brain first. Nope, I know a trick worth two of that. How well do you remember your Hawaiian, Bob? You picked up a fair amount while we were in the village.” Ryan laughed. “That worked on the girls like butter on a toboggan slope.”

  Saxtorph was a long while silent before he answered: “I think, if I practiced for a few days, I think… enough of it… would come back to me.”

  Ryan nodded. “The kzinti have programs for the important human languages in their translators, but I doubt Hawaiian is included. Or Danish.”

  Yoshii swallowed. “You’d certify everything is kosher?” he mumbled. “But what if—well—”

  “If the kzinti aren’t stupid, they won’t try threatening or torturing me into feeding you a lie,” Ryan responded. “How’d they savvy what I was saying? I assure you, it wouldn’t be complimentary to them.”

  “A telepath would know.”