Gibraltar Earth

by Michael McCollum

  There were literally thousands of such questions for which she had no answer. Not for the first time, Nadine wished that she had never decided to leave the comforting confines of the classroom. She was put in mind of what the chief of the Lucayan Indians must have thought when he awoke one morning to find an Italian navigator and a crew of gold-hungry Spaniards on his beach. “Should I welcome these pale strangers with the giant ships, or should I kill them immediately?” he must have asked himself. History recorded that that nameless Indian chief had made the wrong choice that autumn morning in 1492. Would the same be said in future centuries of Nadine Halstrom, assuming, of course, that there was anyone alive to record it?

  Frankly, she thought, the responsibility was far too heavy a burden to be placed on the shoulders of one overworked bureaucrat. Unfortunately, that thought did not help resolve her dilemma either.

  #

  “Something is wrong,” Mark Rykand said into his drink, a Manhattan, the olive of which was now making a wet puddle on the bar. He hated olives.

  “Is Moira getting on your nerves again?” Gunter Perlman asked.

  “Not Moira. This Vasloff character you put me onto.”

  “Vasloff? What about him?”

  “I made a donation to his organization, but he isn’t coming through with any information.”

  “Doesn’t sound like him,” Gunter replied. “True, he’s an absolute nut when it comes to starships, but he is basically honest. If he told you he would find out something and has not, then maybe it isn’t to be found.”

  “Don’t be a toady, Gunter. The man is holding out on me!”

  His friend regarded him with careful eyes, gauging the degree of his intoxication. Finally, Perlman said, “You know, he is not the only nut around here.”

  “How do you mean that?”

  “Just the way it sounds, pal. You have known about Jani’s death almost six weeks now. It is time for you to put away your little fantasy and get on with your life.”

  “Screw you, Gunter!”

  “Listen to yourself. The survey is against you, Vasloff is against you, and now I am against you. Frankly, Mark, paranoia ill becomes you. Hell, I heard how you bit Johnny Fargo’s head off the night before last because of some comment he made about your dead sister. Everyone has heard about it. If you don’t watch it, you are not going to have any friends left!”

  Mark frowned and took another sip. Gunter was right. He had been ashamed of himself after he had yelled at Fargo. True, Johnny was a boring, self-important snob, but he meant well. He just happened to be the unlucky soul who had told Mark that time heals all wounds one time too often.

  “Do you want to prove you are on my side?” Mark asked belligerently.

  “Not if it means humoring this delusion you have developed.”

  “I don’t want you to humor me. I want you to help.”

  “How?”

  “Let me use your yacht.”

  “Sure, I’ll loan you Gossamer Gnat after I have sunk a quarter-million credits in her.”

  “I don’t want you to loan her to me. I want you to take me somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “PoleStar.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that is where Magellan is.”

  “And I suppose they are going to allow us to light-surf right up to their midships airlock and let you out?”

  “They might,” Mark agreed. “However, if they do, it means that you are right and I am imagining things. Now, if I am right, they will warn us off and not let us near the ship.”

  “So what good will it do you?”

  “It will give me confirmation that they are hiding something. Don’t worry, I will not ask you to violate any restricted space, but if you can get me close enough, I will be able to get there on my own.”

  “How?”

  “Long range vacuum suit.”

  “You’re drunk, Mark! Only a fool would try to navigate a suit across a hundred kilometers of empty space, and he would need to be a skilled fool to have any chance of making it.”

  Mark shrugged. “If I get into trouble, I will switch on my emergency beacon and they will send the station taxi to pick me up. Either way, I’ll get where I want to go.”

  “And I will end up in jail for violating restricted cubic.”

  “No you won’t. You will keep well clear. You can claim that I am a stowaway, that you did not even know I was aboard.”

  “Pretty difficult claim to make on a solar yacht, my friend.”

  “Whether they believe you or not isn’t important. I will back up your story. That way they will only throw me in jail.”

  “You are forgetting one thing. How are we going to get the Gnat into polar orbit?”

  “Tug. I will pay the change-of-plane charges both ways.”

  Perlman considered for a moment, and then shook his head. “I won’t do it. If you want to kill yourself, do it without my help.”

  “Please, Gunter, I am begging you.”

  There was a long pause while Perlman thought it over. Finally, he turned to Mark and said, “All right, I’ll do it. I was going to take the Gnat out and exercise her anyway. I still think it’s a damned foolhardy thing to try.”

  “I have to try, Gunter. I hope you see that.”

  “All I see is someone who has lost his family and seems determined to join them. Talk to Sam Wheeling about a vacuum suit. He knows about such things and will get you a good one. Do not scrimp on the price. You may be out there a long time before they can rescue you.”

  #

  Lisa Arden watched Sar-Say as he moved effortlessly in the microgravity of PoleStar and wondered how long it had been since his people had invented space travel. The pseudo-simian (as the scientists had taken to calling him) seemed too well adapted to microgravity for it to be an accident. She felt clumsy by comparison. Next to the Taff’s fluid movements, she seemed all elbows and knees.

  “Wait up, Sar-Say! Nothing’s going to happen for at least fifteen minutes.”

  The supple neck twisted to reveal two yellow eyes and comical ears pointed in her direction. “Hurry, Lisa. We don’ wish to be late.”

  “Don’t, with a ‘t’ ending,” she corrected automatically. “It is one of those pesky contractions.”

  The alien blinked, a sign that he was filing another fact away in his prodigious memory, and said, “We don’t wish to be late.”

  “Better,” she replied approvingly as she finally caught up with him. Sar-Say’s speech was improving daily with practice. Just that morning, they had engaged in a conversation that would have been impossible only a week before. The subject of what name applied to the Broan Empire had arisen.

  “The Broa do not rule empire. There is no single Broa in charge, no emperor.”

  “Then what would you call it?”

  “I do not know,” Sar-Say had replied seriously. “I have not yet learned a Standard word that fits.”

  “What do you call it in your own language?”

  The alien had uttered a long series of syllables that consisted mostly of sibilants.

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means ‘Civilization.’ It means that the Broa rule all.”

  “The Broan Tyranny, perhaps?”

  “No. The word is too negative.”

  “You have described them as pretty negative people.”

  “They are not malicious,” Sar-Say had replied seriously. “So long as things are done as they wish, they allow most to live with a minimum of ... of interference.”

  “Big of them,” Lisa had said sarcastically. “What is the mechanism of their power over other species? How do they maintain control?”

  “They have no need to control the worlds directly. They control the stargates. The Broa are not a … prolific … yes, a prolific people. They breed slowly. There are not enough of them to colonize every world in their … whatever you humans call it.”

  “Then there are some worlds that are free of Broa?” />
  “Yes. Many worlds have only a few Broa on them, and others are visited infrequently by the masters.”

  “These worlds are sovereign?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that they have control over their own affairs and answer to no one else for what they do.”

  “No, the Broa are ... sovereign. Those who rule do so in the masters’ name.”

  “The Broa are the kings?”

  “No, that word too denotes a single individual who rules. The Broa practice rule by kinship, not kingship.”

  Lisa had looked sharply at her star pupil. “Was that an attempt at humor, Sar-Say?”

  “It was.”

  “Not bad for a beginner. But you were saying—”

  “A single clan or gathering will generally control a few stars, or even an entire sector. They are sovereign over all the worlds that are linked by the network of stargates they control. Generally, the clan lives on a single world and periodically visits their possessions. There are worlds that go without a visit from the masters for decades – so long as there is no trouble, of course. When there is trouble, then the Broan warships visit them quickly.”

  “The Broan domain is organized around the stargates?”

  “How could it be otherwise?”

  “Perhaps we should call it the Broan Sovereignty?”

  “Perhaps,” Sar-Say had agreed. “I will have to think upon it.”

  “Let us hurry, Lisa,” Sar-Say said, gesturing for her to follow him as he again began his effortless movement down the long corridor.

  “Very well. The view compartment is just ahead there. You go on and I will catch up.”

  Sar-Say swarmed toward the open hatchway toward which she had gestured. She watched him go. The ship bringing the stardrive and fusion generator that were to be transported to the New Eden system was due today. Sar-Say enjoyed watching the supply shuttle come and go, but today their cabin viewport was facing the wrong direction. She had asked to take him on an excursion outside the research area and had gotten Dr. Bendagar’s permission. It was like taking a young child to the zoo.

  She caught up with Sar-Say to find him hovering in front of the meter-wide viewport. Beyond they could see the Earth with the Moon low behind it. To judge by the position of the Earth and Luna terminators, the sun was somewhere over their left shoulders. The Earth was as small as it ever got, indicating that the orbiting mirror and habitat were near apogee – the highest point in their orbit. Below them, the arctic region of Earth was laid out in a dazzling mosaic of white. It was still summer in the northern climes, with little need of PoleStar’s service. Indeed, if the weather directorate could ever figure out how to deliver darkness to those climes at this time of year, they could probably sell that service too.

  “There it is!” Sar-Say said, pointing. She followed his long, nimble arm with her eyes. Not only was the alien’s memory better than hers was, apparently, so was his vision.

  Chapter Ten

  “Watch what you are doing, you fumble fingered oafs!”

  Lieutenant Harlan Frees turned his attention to the smallish figure in the day-glow orange vacuum suit gesturing violently at the gang of sweating, cursing spacers who were manhandling the large burnished cylinder toward Magellan’s hull. Lucky for Frees’ future career in the survey, his faceplate was polarized to golden-mirror sheen. Otherwise, Laura Dresser might have seen the look he gave her. He switched to the alternate comm circuit and said, “Please keep quiet, Ms. Dresser. The command channel must be kept clear for my orders to the crew.”

  “Damn it, Lieutenant, they almost bounced it off the hull that time. They need to be more careful. That stardrive generator is a delicate piece of machinery.”

  “We are doing our best. Now, either observe in silence or else I’ll halt the job and have someone escort you back to the airlock.”

  Frees took the ensuing silence for assent and turned back to the six men who had their boots in restraints and who were spaced evenly around the large cylinder that hung a meter and a half above Magellan’s north pole. Despite the mass of the generator, its lack of weight and the total lack of friction in space made it a skittish load. The slightest touch was sufficient to start it wobbling and only careful, coordinated work by the six spacers could damp out the oscillations.

  Had they been at High Station, they would have used one of the big manipulator arms to position their cargo. Unfortunately, at PoleStar they were forced to do it by hand. As the first astronauts who had tried to build a space station had discovered, manhandling heavy objects in microgravity has its own special problems.

  “All right, let’s try to get it right this time. Murphy, you lead off. Do not let it rotate, and for God’s sake, keep your boots clear when it bottoms out on the hull. On three, let us see you plant it square on the thrust frame butt-plate with no more than a centimeter-per-second of velocity. Ready? One ... two ... three!”

  This time the operation went more smoothly. The cylinder drifted across a decreasing sliver of space, moving dead slow toward a collision with the starship. It took a sharp eye to note that the drive generator was in motion. Even so, Frees wondered if they had given it too much velocity. When the gap between ship and generator dropped to 20 centimeters, he gave orders to begin retarding the heavy generator casing.

  Frees noted the resulting thump through the soles of his boots when the generator touched down. He wondered just how loud the noise had been inside the ship.

  “Right. Haskens, Baker, Donner, Kurtzkov. You four stabilize it while Murphy and Goldstein get it anchored properly.”

  Two of the figures around the generator immediately moved to where a series of monofilament straps had been strung from the generator in preparation for this moment. They quickly and expertly threaded the straps through the circle of padeyes that surrounded the generator to form a spider web of restraints.

  “All secure, Lieutenant,” Murphy’s voice said over the command circuit.

  “Very well. Ms. Dresser, would you care to check the restraints?”

  “I would, Lieutenant.”

  Frees felt a moment of irritation. He had made the offer out of courtesy, not expecting her to take him up on it. Hadn’t she watched them while they worked? He stood with his boots against the starship’s hull and a crescent Earth overhead as Laura Dresser checked the tension meters built into each strap. Finally, she turned to him and said, “Good job, Lieutenant. Now let’s go back and get the power reactor before we patch the generator into the ship’s star drive.”

  “Very well, Ms. Dresser. You heard her, men! Back to the freighter. We’ve a power reactor to offload.”

  #

  Ensign Niles Pendergast sat at the sensor station in the bowels of Magellan and watched an impossibly large ship make the slow climb from Earth. According to the glowing green digits on his screen, the vessel was more than one hundred kilometers in diameter. In fact, the ship was nowhere near that large. Or rather, it was, but it was not.

  The vessel climbing toward them was a solar-sail-powered racing yacht out of Earth parking orbit. They had watched it climb laboriously away from the planet for the past three days. The sail was every bit as large as the computer claimed, but so thin that a thousand sheets of the mirrored polymer made a stack thinner than tissue paper. As for the yacht itself, that was a pod barely large enough to carry its crew of three and minimal life support equipment. Conditions aboard were so primitive that the yacht’s crew lived in their suits. Pendergast had heard that at the finish of each year’s Solar Regatta, there were so many showers taken aboard the host station that water had to be rationed.

  “What’s that you are looking at Mr. Pendergast?” Chief Newman asked from his station beside the ensign’s. The chief was monitoring the team sweating the new stardrive generator in place on Magellan’s hull. There was considerable profanity on Channel 3, not coincidentally; the one the Lady VIP’s suit was not equipped to receive.

  “That solar yacht is b
ack, Chief, bigger than ever.”

  “Wonder what a yacht is doing in polar orbit, sir?” the chief asked aloud. His tone was respectful enough, but the words conveyed the message that Pendergast should be wondering too.

  “He is close enough, maybe we should find out,” the ensign agreed. He punched a control and caused a high gain antenna to slew to point where the control pod ought to be. “Space yacht, this is Magellan. You are approaching a restricted area. Advise your intentions, over!”

  There was no reply for more than a minute as Pendergast sent the same warning three times. Finally, a voice responded.

  “Hello, Magellan, this is Gossamer Gnat. What restricted area?”

  “Orbital Control has declared a 100 kilometer buffer zone around PoleStar Station to be off-limits to all traffic. What are your intentions?”

  “Well, damn it, why doesn’t anyone ever tell me these things?” the exasperated voice exclaimed.

  “If you kept up with your Notices to Spacers you would know that this station has been restricted for almost two months now.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “I am sure I don’t know, Gossamer Gnat. I just work here.”

  “Be advised, Magellan, that I am having control problems. One of my anchor units is loose and in danger of separating. I could lose some of my rigging if it goes. I had planned to reef my sail and call at PoleStar for repairs.”

  “Sorry, Gossamer Gnat, that will not be possible. I suggest you shift your sail and start spiraling down again. You can have a tug meet you for a return to equatorial orbit.”

  “I need to make repairs,” the peevish voice replied.

  “Are you declaring an emergency?” Pendergast asked. Since the days of airplanes, those words have held magic when spoken by a pilot-in-command. In this case, they would automatically clear the yacht for its approach to PoleStar Habitat. Coincidentally, the declaration would also leave the pilot liable for criminal and civil penalties if the emergency turned out not to be real.