Emprise

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  The ideal opportunity came when Tai Chen grew frustrated at Zhu Xuefan’s foot-dragging. Wenyuan gathered much of the ‘evidence’ used to justify the purge, had a major hand in its planning, and took it upon himself to personally lead the soldiers who arrested the premier.

  Afterward, a grateful Tai Chen offered Wenyuan one of China’s two seats in the new Pangaean Assembly. But he saw quickly that for the foreseeable future, Rashuri meant for the Assembly’s role to be largely ornamental, a circus to televise to the people and keep them from wondering where the power really lay. He declined.

  She then offered to make him her personal representative in New Delhi. Considering Rashuri’s early successes, that offer had some possibilities. But since the position had no formal standing in either government, Wenyuan considered it beneath his proper and earned station.

  He did suggest Gu Qingfen, one of his lieutenants, be appointed instead, and did so in such a way that it seemed a minor favor, preserving the value of the promissary note he held.

  Holding that note in reserve, Wenyuan concerned himself with arranging an appropriate circumstance under which to present it for payment. It was he who planted the notion of an Earth Protectorate in Tai Chen’s mind. It was he who pointed out that the sabotage of Earth Rise’s premier flight would provide valuable leverage for Chinese interests.

  It was he who pressed for Gauntlet to be armed as heavily as possible, despite the scientists’ protests that many of the weapons would be useless against the Sender starship. Unbound by such notions, he saw other possibilities for the weapons. The Sender starship was a useful fiction, and he used their belief in it as a mask for his own intentions. Rashuri could not refuse Tai Chen, and Tai Chen could not deny him the directorship of the Earth Protectorate. Thus both handed him the weapons by which he would hold them hostage.

  His error had been to underestimate Rashuri. The Chairman had somehow seen behind the mask, as though perhaps even he did not believe the MuMans real. The embedded mines were a clever stroke, and therefore one he should have anticipated. Wenyuan cursed himself for his costly carelessness, and in his anger made a second error.

  For when Tai Chen showed weakness in the face of Rashuri’s challenge, it was Wenyuan who directed Qingfen to move against the Chairman. But that attack not only failed, it boomeranged. Rashuri was stronger now than before the attack, and Tai Chen was no weaker. But Wenyuan himself had been compromised. How badly, he would soon know.

  He had been shut out of contact with Tai Chen by a thoroughgoing administrative cold shoulder for the two months since the assassination attempt. She no longer sought him out for advice, and he was no longer welcome to invite himself into her presence. Seemingly, nothing he could say would be deemed important enough to concern her directly. The fact that he was still alive and nominally Earth Protectorate director offered no encouragement. It was her nature to move deliberately rather than precipitously. He had learned that early, but had not learned the wisdom of it until too late.

  Yesterday, the relief crew had reached Gauntlet A. This morning, Tai Chen had summoned him. He had responded promptly—and been kept waiting for more than three hours. It was a deliberate affront, but he contained his anger.

  When he was at last admitted into the Premier’s drawing room, he found her seated cross-legged on an enormous pillow, her folded arms hidden in the drooping sleeves of her silk jacket. He bowed deeply and formally.

  “Sit,” she said.

  He complied.

  “Unfortunate events have marred recent days,” she said.

  “Much has been lost,” Wenyuan agreed. “But—”

  “More perhaps than you know. Rashuri has dissolved the Protectorate. Gauntlet is now tinder the control of Pangaean Security.”

  “For my part in these events I am abjectly sorry,” said Wenyuan.

  “Your part has been large indeed,” she said coldly.

  “My failures shame me, and I ask only a chance to earn back your confidence through service.”

  “Then you will welcome the news that I have chosen you to represent the Far East Cooperative Sphere aboard Pride of Earth.”

  Wenyuan bowed deeply. “I am honored.” Inwardly he raged. She considers me a threat. She would send me into oblivion with a-shipload of knaves.

  “I wish you to become knowledgeable in all aspects of this mission and the vehicle,” Tai Chen continued. “Therefore you will go immediately to England where such expertise may be found, and you will arrange to be taken into orbit to learn the ship’s systems firsthand. There should be nothing known to anyone on board which is not known also to you.”

  Wenyuan wondered but a moment at her orders. There was only one purpose such exhaustive knowledge could serve. And if that were her purpose, then perhaps his selection was not as punitive as it had first seemed. “Yes, Premier. I will leave as soon as transportation can be arranged.”

  Albert Rankin was one of the last of the Star Rise team to enter the crowded Tsiolkovsky lecture hall. He looked for his wife, Rhonda, but could not find her; it was difficult enough to find an empty seat. He shook his head in amusement at that, remembering when the team would barely have filled the first three rows. Yet the press of humanity which surrounded him comprised but a third of Star Rise. Private-channel video would carry the proceedings to the rest.

  Driscoll was already on the dais, and Rankin studied the director with some curiosity. In eight years of work with the Science Service, including five on Star Rise, their paths had only crossed three times. Even so, it was clear to Rankin that Driscoll had lost much of his mobility to advancing arthritis. Rankin commiserated; even at fifty-one, his own body was prone to springing unpleasant surprises. He had difficulty imagining being eighty.

  Finally the aisle doors were closed, and Driscoll moved to the microphone.

  “It’s a difficult thing, keeping secrets. We did a good job when we had to, keeping the rest of the world from knowing what we were doing. We don’t do such a good job at keeping each other from knowing what we’re doing.”

  There was friendly laughter at that, and scattered applause.

  “So most of you know that the ten-person science team has been a casualty of the redesign of Pride of Earth. I wouldn’t have welcomed the job of selecting which ten of you would go. I welcome the job of selecting which one of you will go even less.

  “Nevertheless, the job needs doing. I’ve asked you here to tell you how it will be done.

  “I’ll remind you that though the mission has a nominal length of seven years, it has the potential to last anywhere from six years to sixty years objective time. On the shorter end, if the MuMans are unable or unwilling to decelerate and hold station with Pride of Earth for a bit of parlay, all we can do is escort them in for their scheduled arrival in 2027. On the longer end, if there’s a drive failure, or the MuMans react unpredictably—

  “Administratively, the easy thing to do would be to rule out anyone over twenty-five or who has a family. That would give us a nice short list to work with. But I know too many of you have worked too hard and too long on your experiments or Pride of Earth herself to accept such high-handedness.

  “So this is how it will be: if you want to go and consider yourself qualified or qualifiable, there’ll be a form by which you can place your name in consideration. We’ll accept those applications for one week. If we agree that you’re capable of operating the various experiment packages, which I note many of you are hurriedly trying to make idiot-proof—”

  Laughter interrupted him again, and he stood at the podium smiling until it died out.

  “As I say, if we agree, your name will go into a pool of candidates—or more precisely, into a hat. Because the final selection will be made by Lady Luck—or for those of you who don’t believe in luck, Lady Random Chance.

  “Those of you in the hall with me can pick up a form from those important-looking gentlemen with the stacks of paper standing at the back doors. The rest of you, see your department head
.”

  In not taking an application as he passed out of the auditorium, Rankin was in the minority. But it was a quickly and easily made decision. Back when there were to be ten openings, he and Rhonda had talked about the possibility—admittedly slim—of their both being selected, he for his skills in environmental and evolutionary biology, she for her considerable knowledge of astrophysics. It was for the most part playful talk, since the overwhelming probability was that neither of them would be tabbed.

  Still, he had thought her chances better than his own, and in a selfish moment asked what she would do if she were chosen and he were not. She gave the easy, generous, and comforting answer: she told him she would turn it down.

  Having exacted such a promise from her, he could not now put himself in the position of asking her to cheerfully be left behind. There would be no Rankins on the Pride of Earth. He would not let Star Rise divide them.

  So Rankin was perplexed when he was called in two weeks later by Driscoll and told that he was one of five finalists for the mission.

  “What do you mean, finalists?”

  “Yours was one of the five names drawn from the pool of qualified applicants.”

  “Do you have my application form?”

  Driscoll thought the question odd but produced the document after a few minutes of searching. The information on it was impeccably accurate, and the penmanship a reasonable facsimile of his scrawl.

  “How will the final selection be made?”

  “We won’t make it. You will. Why don’t you go and talk with Rhonda? That’s the most important thing right now. Then get back to me and tell me if you’re still interested.”

  He found Rhonda on a work break, sitting alone in the cafeteria and sipping a cup of tea, and slid into the seat across from her. “Do you know anything about me applying for Pride of Earth?”

  She held the cup as if warming her hands with it. “Didn’t you want to?”

  “Of course I wanted to. But I thought—”

  “You thought it would be selfish.”

  “So you did it for me.”

  “I turned in yours and mine at the same time. No one questioned it. How did you find out?”

  “You applied, too?”

  “Funny, isn’t it? You didn’t apply because you didn’t want to be selfish. I applied for both of us because I didn’t want to be selfish.” Unconsciously, she hid her face behind her hands and cup. “Are you angry?”

  “I’m one of the finalists.”

  “Well, of course—you’d qualify easily.”

  “You don’t understand. They picked five names. I’m one of them. One of us is going to go.”

  Nearly upsetting the cup in her haste to put it down, she leaned forward and threw her arms around his neck. “That’s so exciting,” she exclaimed, breaking the awkward hug and clasping his hands in hers. “Now you’ve really got a chance. How will they choose who goes?”

  “I guess we’ll settle it among ourselves, from what he said. I have to tell Dr. Driscoll if I’m still interested.”

  “You should have told him right then! Of course you are!”

  “But Rhonda—you know what it would mean—”

  “Listen to me, Albert Rankin, if you pass this up, I might just divorce you, because it’ll mean you’re not the man I thought I was married to. I’ve had you for twenty-two years. Don’t you think I know the difference between when you’re wishing and when you’re wanting? If I hadn’t been willing to give you up for a while, I would never have put your name in. And if you didn’t really want it, you would have told Dr. Driscoll that the application was a phony and thanks but no thanks.”

  “But—”

  “But, nothing. With something like this at hand, what’s another family more or less?” Her tone softened. “Albert—I love you. That’s why I can say, ‘go’ because I know what this means to you—what it would mean to any of us—and I want you to have it. I’ll be here waiting for you when you come back.” She smiled and squeezed his hands. “It’s time you got some new stories to tell at parties, anyway.”

  “You really mean this?”

  “Every word. Now—go tell Dr. Driscoll.” It took Rhonda another hour of quiet persuasion to rid her husband of his incipient guilt. When she had succeeded, she walked him to Dr. Driscoll’s office and waited outside while he delivered his message. He emerged with a childlike grin stretching his cheeks taut.

  “It’s me. I misunderstood. I’m the one, the first name drawn,” he said. “The others were alternates.” He hugged her fiercely. “Oh, Rhonda, it’s me. They picked me.”

  Though unbidden and unwelcome tears appeared in Rhonda Rankin’s eyes, she considered it a victory that this time her husband felt free to share his joy with her.

  First Scion Carl Cooke met with Scion Joanna Wesley for the last time in a small private room in the terminal building of Baltimore’s Friendship International Airport.

  “You represent nearly a billion faithful. You must not allow the others on Pride of Earth to defame us, by word or deed.”

  She cast her eyes downward submissively. “Yes, First Scion.”

  He pressed a leather binder filled with sheets of plastic microfiche into her hands. “This is the Book of Deeds. A million acts of faith or self-sacrifice by members of the Church are catalogued within. Study it. Be prepared to offer it as testimony to the Church’s spiritual strength.”

  Joanna raised her head. “I will take it into my heart.”

  He took her hands in his. “Scion Joanna—you will be the first to know the answers to the mysteries so many have struggled with. Use the voyage to attain a state of perfect faith, so that you may stand in the Light without shame.”

  “I will try to be worthy.”

  Outside, on Runway 28E, the Shuttle orbiter Orion rested piggyback atop its planelike winged booster, while PANCON technicians crawled over and in both ships, readying them for flight.

  Though takeoff was still more than an hour away, the technicians had an enormous audience for their rituals: the terminal, the parking lot, the open land outside the boundary fences, and the crumbling multilane highways which lay just outside the airport had become temporary home for more than a million who had come to see Joanna Wesley off on her journey.

  Millions more were gathering along the ground path the Orion would follow—to the northeast over Philadelphia, New York, and Boston—hoping for a glimpse of the twinned ships as they climbed toward space.

  On a runway at London’s Heathrow Airport, the Shuttle orbiter Southern Cross sat gleaming in the midday sun, while in a pilot’s lounge, Driscoll and Dr. Rankin sat down for a final briefing.

  “I will not be at Unity for the departure of Pride of Earth, Albert. I have decided that I do not quite trust this old body to survive what you will soon gracefully endure,” said Driscoll.

  “So much for not asking anyone to do anything you wouldn’t,” Rankin said jocularly.

  “Even if this mission is a failure in other respects, it is within your power to make it a splendid success. What’s more, the data which you transmit to us could be crucial to our knowing how to respond when the MuMans arrive here.”

  “I understand.”

  “I know that every department has told you their experiments are absolutely crucial. Remember that biology comes first. Obtaining a full biometric scan or a tissue sample should take top priority in your negotiations.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  “You will be the only one on board who has both a purpose and a reasonable means of achieving it. Compromise if events require it but don’t sell us short.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  At Xijiao Jichang Airport to the northeast of Beijing, the Shuttle orbiter Aquila waited in the waning late afternoon light for its passenger Zhang Wenyuan. A quarter-mile away, Wenyuan knelt before Tai Chen and received his final charge.

  “You must not let them deceive us,” said Tai Chen. “Trust no one. You will have no allies aboard Pride of Earth,
least of all Tilak Charan.”

  “He is nothing more than his father’s robot. I will handle him.”

  “Take no action until you reach the rendezvous point. Wait until the mission’s failure is evident to all and the foolish extravagance of the Rashuri directorship is exposed. Then take the ship. The elimination of failure will justify many actions. Protect our interests, and see to their advancement, and you will return a much-honored man.”

  “I will labor for the glory of the Party and our people.”

  A soaking drizzle continued to fall in Delhi, where well over two million people waited at Palam and in the streets to see the Shuttle orbiter Pegasus carry Captain Tilak Charan to his new command. Moraji walked with Charan toward the transfer car and offered some last-minute advice.

  “Be wary of Wenyuan. He has made himself capable of handling the ship alone, and though he insists his only purpose is redundancy in crucial skills, I am not convinced.”

  “What of his toys?” Taken care of. But he would not need them to carry out a mutiny.”

  “I won’t forget.” They had reached the car, and Charan looked at his watch. “Nearly time.”

  Moraji clasped Charan by the shoulders. “The greatest burden lies with you, Tilak Charan. The others are slaves to their orders and their ideologies. But you must stand for more than that. Whatever else you may think of him, your father’s vision for Earth is a selfless and noble one. All of us now entrust that vision to you. You will not just represent us. lb the Senders, you will be us.”

  “I am not eager for the burden.”

  “I know. But your father has chosen well. Had you not been the man you are, he would have chosen another. Be confident in yourself.”

  “I will remember your words.” He looked at his watch again. “It’s time.”

  In a planet-wide ballet choreographed for the eyes of PANCOMNET, each envoy in turn walked across airport pavement and climbed the open stairs of a boarding ramp to a Shuttle access hatch: first Major Wenyuan, who did not pause at the top to wave, then Commander Charan and Dr. Rankin, who did, and Scion Joanna, who stopped to kneel in brief prayer.