“Congratulations,” Dian said. Despite his annoyance at having his news stolen, Pat beamed a proud acknowledgment to the black woman.
Roy Paige had been collecting the holo-mode out of the projector. He leaned over Carissa’s chair and added his congratulations to Dian’s, then said, “I’ll just get this down to the safe, Jael.”
“Do come back.”
He shook his head. “Too tired. It . . . it always gets to me. I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night, all.”
As the older man left, Todd extended his hand to Pat. “I know how much you two have wanted this. I’m glad for you.” Even as he said that, some irrational part of him was jealous. He felt as if they had been in a race and Pat had beaten him. “We’ll have to call you both ‘Duryea Saunder,’ now that you’re going to be parents.”
Pat and ‘Rissa deserved it. Their three-year marriage had been rocky in many ways, strained by their differing concepts of fidelity. Somewhere along the line, Carissa had accepted the affairs, adapting to the life style with equanimity. She had wanted a baby, and so had Pat. At first there had been worries about sterility. No one was sure what all the aftereffects of the pandemics, toxins, and radiation doses would be. Carissa had been through numerous clinics. Pat had gone to some prominent medics, too. They had been pronounced sound, though doctors Warned that Carissa wasn’t strong and a pregnancy was bound to be difficult, even risky. Todd had thought they might have given up and was surprised to learn they hadn’t and had finally been successful.
“You’re going to be an uncle, kid. How about that?” Pat said.
Marietta’s congratulations were less than wholehearted. “Good work. When’s the baby due?”
“Late July or early August,” Carissa replied, sighing happily.
Dian frowned, aware of some of the family history. “You’re not going surrogate route at all, then? With your small frame, I’d think . . .”
The other woman looked apprehensively at Jael. “Oh, no. I’m going to carry it to term myself. Besides, it’s too late for surrogate implantation. I don’t really like that idea, anyway. It seems rather . . . unnatural.”
“It’s a proven technique for women who have trouble conceiving or carrying to term,” Mariette began.
“Carissa won’t have any trouble,” Jael said firmly. “That technique’s a fad, anyway. Kills more fetuses than it saves. There’s absolutely no reason why Carissa won’t have a full-term normal, healthy child. Lord! I went into labor at a board meeting while I was carrying you, Mariette. I barely had time to get to an infirmary. Thought I was going to drop you on the floor of the flier ambulance—like some peasant woman! I was back at the board meeting, finishing up, twenty-four hours later. There’s really too much fuss made about the whole thing . . .”
“But ‘Rissa isn’t you, Mother,” Mari objected in a heavy tone.
Pat was looking anxiously from his mother to his sister. Carissa rushed in with a cheery “Oh, I’m sure everything will be fine. Dr. Ganz says I’ll have to take it easy, lots of nutri-supplements and so forth.”
“Dr. Ganz is right. You’ll see. A perfect baby,” Jael predicted smugly. “Just as I said: Ward lives on through you children and his grandchildren . . .”
“You live through us, too,” Mari put in.
Jael shifted gears, looking startled. “Well, that’s true, of course. Genetically speaking, that is. You know, I never think of myself as Jael Hartman any more. I’m Jael Saunder. So it all amounts to the same thing. Ward and me, and all of you. You’ll have to pick a good name, Pat, one suitable for Ward’s grandchild. I have some in mind . . .”
“We’ll pick one out,” Pat said. Like Marietta’s comments, his had a bite.
“Are you going to live here at Saunderhome after the kid’s born?” Mari asked. Todd felt the trouble starting. He knew the reunion had been going too well. Carissa’s long-hoped-for pregnancy would provide the excuse Mari had been itching to find.
“We haven’t thought that far ahead yet. The campaign’s been taking up time,” Pat replied. He had been moving in subtly, edging Jael aside, taking her place nearest Carissa’s chair. Carissa leaned back against his arm, basking in his protectiveness. Todd had seen the three of them in poses like this every time he had come home. Tonight he saw something new. Pat and Jael, and ‘Rissa between them, and ‘Rissa quietly enjoying the situation.
“Well, you have a while to make up your minds,” Dian broke in, trying to lighten the mood. “You can live anywhere. And the baby can be anything he or she wants to be when he or she grows up, and can live anywhere . . .”
“Even in space.” Mari wouldn’t leave well enough alone. “When that baby’s grown, Goddard will still be recruiting.”
Worse, Pat couldn’t resist the bait. “Not again! Do you have to drag that fantasy in the sky into everything? When my kid’s grown up, that oversized cartwheel will just be a notation in the history tapes, and we’ll be settling up the real concerns of mankind!”
“You narrow-minded political hack! Who the hell . . .?”
“Drop it!” Todd thundered at them. “What’s wrong with you two? We were just agreeing what a wonderful event this is going to be, how great it is that the kid won’t go hungry or be cold or need to fight for a place to sleep, how proud Ward would have been to know he was going to have a grandkid—and you start clawing at each other! Back off! Both of you! Give each other a choice and a right to an opinion!”
“We’d be glad to, if the Earth First Party would leave Goddard alone.”
“What are you talking about?” Pat flared. Carissa began tugging at his arm, trying to calm him down, to no avail. “If you mean that funding vote . . .”
“I mean economic strangulation and missile attacks. Over a hundred Colonists injured, fifty-eight of them dead. The last time, Todd could have been one of the casualties, too!”
A profound, shocked silence followed. Pat cleared his throat several times. Yet when he spoke, his voice broke. “Wh . . . what? What are you . . . I don’t understand . . .”
“Don’t you?” Mariette gazed at her older brother suspiciously. “What don’t you understand? Dead? Injured? Todd almost being a casualty? A missile shadowed his ship in when he was heading for the Colony. They damned near took him out.”
“Hold it!” Pat closed his eyes in pain. Carissa was huddling in her chair. Jael’s mouth hung open. She seemed stunned, unable to grasp Mariette’s revelations.
Dian swayed back and forth, her arms crossed under her breasts, her manner angry. “You didn’t tell me it came that close to you,” she snapped at Todd.
“I didn’t want you to worry.” Dian’s fiery glare made Todd regret he had said anything at all. Pat was pulling himself together, looking at his brother pleadingly. With a weary sigh, Todd nodded. “It happened. I’ve seen the tapes, interviewed some of the victims while I was there. And I’ve seen the damage inflicted on the torus. Somebody took Earth First’s platform, about Goddard’s ability to fire down into our gravity well, seriously and hit back.”
Todd half expected Mariette to go into detail, bragging about Goddard’s so-far successful defense. But apparently her suspicions wouldn’t let her. She didn’t reveal the illegal weapons and Lunar Base fighters, said nothing about the plan to collect the missile debris in the mass driver nets and puzzle the pieces together as evidence.
“Who?” Pat asked suddenly. “You have somebody to accuse? Are you going to take it to P.O.E. court?”
“We’re pretty damned certain it isn’t the World Expansionists or Fairchild’s party. They’re Spacers,” Mari replied bitterly.
“You’re saying you don’t have any proof, no names to same,” Pat said, a debater making his point.
“Only killed, injured, and damaged property. Not much to you, of course. Try translating that to a direct missile hit on New Washington and see how it sits. Actually, I don’t imagine our enemies really care how many of us they kill. They’re more interested in crippling Goddard Power Sats. If
they do that, and kill me and a lot of other people in the bargain, my share of Ward’s inheritance will be wiped out, won’t it? Not that it matters. Not now that the famous Patrick Saunder is assured of his immortality through progeny!”
“Mari . . .” She heard the warning and the pain in Pat’s voice and quieted. “Whatever our philosophical differences about the Colony’s worth, I’ve never advocated war. Never!”
“No?” Maniette wouldn’t look at him. “We’ve heard you say, many times, that Goddard is, and I quote, ‘stealing the lifeblood of Earth, draining away her irreplaceable treasures, and it must be stopped.’ ”
“Campaign rhetoric, for God’s sake,” Pat exclaimed desperately. “That’s not a declaration of war. Missiles. My God!” He seemed aghast Mari could believe him capable of such an act.
“Apparently somebody didn’t dismiss your speeches so lightly. They were listening very carefully and took their cues from you. So much for rhetoric. You’re Earth First Party, Pat, all by yourself, the master of the ‘why don’t we take all those funds we’re wasting in space and . . .’ tactic. If you’re not responsible for my people dying, who is?”
“Why . . . why hasn’t any of this been released? How long . . .”
“A couple of months,” Todd supplied. He took pity on Pat’s horror and bewilderment. “They’re a closed society, Pat. They clamped a total news blackout on themselves. Those who were supposed to rotate planetside postponed their yearly leaves. They choose to stay, no matter what happens. Lunar Base knows, but they agreed to hold it, even from their superiors.”
“Should have seen . . . can’t we see it?”
His brother was a highly intelligent man, literate, well informed about a vast number of things. But in matters of space, he had never gone past the most rudimentary knowledge. “No, Pat. You couldn’t see it, even with the orbiting telescopes. There’s too much distance involved. Mari’s hammering it because she’s mad. But she’s also right. Goddard didn’t tell me and didn’t tell its planetside allies, either.”
“We have now,” Mariette announced. “We gave it to Fairchild this afternoon. Dabrowski, too.”
Pat was stricken at the betrayal. “Do you know what they’ll do with that information? I can hear their speeches now!”
“Is that all you can think about? Your campaign?”
Todd found himself watching Jael. Why wouldn’t she say anything? She had promised they would work together to keep Pat and Mari from each other’s throats. Dian wasn’t a family member, and Todd didn’t blame her a bit for not charging in on this. Carissa was useless when things got noisy. But Jael had knocked all their heads together often enough, physically and with words. Instead of backing him up, she was holding Carissa’s hand, patting it, reassuring the expectant mother that everything was going to be all right. Possessing Carissa’s attention and trust the way she intended to possess that grandchild. One more little Saunder mind and personality to mold the way she thought they ought to go. Was she thinking that the next time she would get everything perfect?
Todd felt as if he were looking into Jael’s brain, disliking the sensation. The logic fit, though. She could step in if she wanted to. She didn’t want to. Let poor Todd flounder around and play referee. Divide and conquer. It served Jael’s interest, perhaps, her interest in her grandchild.
“Do you know how you look and sound?” Todd asked, ripping across the on-going harangue on either side of him. Pat and Mari stopped, staring at him. Dian nodded, ready. Modulating his tone only slightly, Todd went on. “Listen to yourselves. Look at yourselves. Yes, you, too, Mother, Carissa. How would all this infantile bickering—with Mother and Carissa playing audience—look to an impartial observer?”
There were four utterly blank expressions. Dian had picked up the case from Todd’s chair. She quietly made her way to the holo-mode projector Roy Paige had left empty.
Jael was the first to find her voice. “Todd, what on Earth are you talking about?”
He couldn’t repress a derisive laugh. “Earth? That’s too limited. Far too limited. When I say impartial observer, that’s exactly what I mean. Completely impartial. Looking at us from a distance, sizing us up. What would such an observer make of what’s been going on here tonight? The almighty Saunder family, a quasi-nation, autonomous, wealthier than most existing countries on this planet, powerful . . . and we’re pulling out one another’s hair and backbiting like squabbling apes, or an even lower species on the evolutionary scale.”
Dian was adjusting the dimensional balance and color and lining up the messenger data units. Jael glanced at the black woman, scowling, beginning to smell a rat. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re driving at.”
“You will, Mother. All of you will. I thought the memories of Dad would have a healing effect. But obviously that doesn’t last. Maybe what Dian and I are going to show you will wake you up for now and the foreseeable future. Wake up you and the world—before it’s too late.”
CHAPTER NINE
ooooooooo
Rejected Truths
“SYSTEMS green,” Dian said. She leaned lightly on the holo-console, taking long, deep breaths.
Jael’s expression hardened. “You seem to have forgotten where you are, Todd,” she said with heavy authority. “This is a ceremonial occasion devoted to your father’s memory.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” Todd spoke gently, but he didn’t retreat. “This concerns one of Dad’s dreams, one that was very important to him. He was never able to pursue it to its conclusion. When he deeded ComLink to me, he gave me his dream as well. You might say it was a legacy. Does that put it into proper perspective?”
Jael groped toward her chair, sinking into it, wide-eyed and worried. She covered her mouth nervously for a moment, a rare gesture Todd remembered from his childhood. She was extremely upset when she did that. “What dream?”
“Project Search.”
“That . . . that fantasy? It was never going to amount to anything, any more than the space station will.” Mari rolled her eyes, seething, and Todd gestured urgently to keep her from butting in. “It was never a new field. Your father had lots of predecessors. All those other people who’d hoped to contact alien intelligence . . . something called Ozma, and another one was, I think, SETI. The scientists were to be commended for all that hard work—”
“And money,” Todd added before Jael could.
She didn’t like having her words put in his mouth, “Yes, money! A great deal of money, and for no results. I always thought it was a waste for Ward to putter around with the same idea that had been tried and found wanting. Telescopes and scanners, simply duplicating those failures . . .”
“Who were looking along the wrong frequencies.” Dian didn’t speak loudly, but they all heard her. “The prior searches were mostly along one or two gigahertz. And they scanned areas like M-Thirteen in Hercules. Pretty shrewd guessing, but, as it happens, wrong. We have much more sophisticated gear than they had, or than Ward Saunder had. Faster and wider scans and much sharper ears, if you care to put it that way.”
Jael glared daggers at the black woman. No doubt she knew as much as Todd and Dian did about Ward’s original project. But her data were old. Todd had kept things very low key when he revived the search three years ago. Jael had been undercut, shut out, and she was demonstrating it. She drew herself up. “I’m not the greedy harpy some people think I am. It wasn’t the money . . .”
“Of course not,” Carissa defended her.
“What’s the point, Todd?” Pat asked. “I sort of remember the project. It wasn’t my pet, but I did drop in on you and Dad now and then. Interesting stuff, but not very relevant to what was going on right then. The whole damned world was coming unglued—problems that make today’s almost petty by comparison. Humanity needed Dad’s brains working on something important, not playing around listening to star static. We needed him. We still do. Some of his inventions were the difference between life and death for millions. The viral inhib
itor filter, the syntha-food accelerator process, the mass driver adaptation that finally made surface transport work, the cryo medicine—all the spinoffs. Without his brainstorms, Earth would be a wasteland.”
“And you think it isn’t?” Mari had remained quiet as long as she could.
“No!” Pat wouldn’t let her talk, overriding her with his orator’s carrying voice. “Jael’s right. It was a hobby Dad enjoyed, but we couldn’t afford that dream, then or now.”
“Are you through making speeches?” Pat blinked at Todd, who pushed on. “If you are, we can get on with it. Project Search never was frivolous. It was just a trifle ahead of time. It has finally paid off. Right now, mankind’s standing at a crossroads, the most important one since we learned to talk and use tools. And we’d damned well better be equal to making the right choice about which way to go.”
Whatever Pat saw in Todd’s face made him change his tone. “What have you got, kid?” Mari pointed at him, but Pat took her hand, holding it fast. “Mari, hey! Whatever this is, I think maybe we ought to hear Todd out.” Mari debated with herself, suspecting collusion. But she finally acquiesced somewhat grudgingly.
Todd moved around briskly, not wasting the chance. “If you would, I’d like you all to sit down again, just where you were for Ward’s memorial. Mari, would you please sit next to Pat? Dian and I will be standing back here by the projector.”
Grumbling and sour, Mari obeyed. At the other side of the room, Jael sat sullenly, barely tolerant of her second son’s whims. Carissa reached across the space between their chairs and held Pat’s hand. Todd stood between Mari and Pat, pressing their shoulders, trying to communicate his excitement with the touch. Dian cued the halo-mode systems, and the room lights dimmed once more. But she left the bubble dome exposed. Scattered starlight seemed to leap closer when the interior lights were down.
She waited. Todd prepared himself emotionally, looking up. Starlight overhead. That was fitting. “Okay, Dian, let’s start. What you’re going to see is a preview, a special showing just for the family. This package and some extensive corroborating material will be presented at the Global Science Council conference in a few days. I wanted you to know about it first, though, the same way Dad always showed his new inventions to us before he called in the press. This is preliminary, but it’s solid. This demo works.”
Tomorrow’s Heritage Page 18