Outies

by Pournelle, J. R.

  “I have a—concern.”

  Michael looked up. “Yes?”

  “Am I to understand that the SunFish—breaks up?”

  One of the engineers looked up. “Burns up, more like. It’ll be diving down the throat of—”

  “Yes, yes. I see. But my concern is: What happens to the pilot? Does he—or she—parachute out?”

  The engineer laughed. “Oh, there’ll be no parachuting. That’d burn up too.”

  “So, I repeat, what happens to the pilot?”

  Suddenly, the light came on. “Oh. Uh, well, he—”

  “Or she.”

  “Yeah. Uh. Either way. He. Or she. It’ll be, uh…”

  “A one-way trip?”

  “Well, yeah. A fast one. Pretty much as soon as they dive in. They’ll flash, break up, and burn. See, the capsule will protect whoever’s going on up, but…”

  “But we will be sending the pilot on a suicide mission.”

  “Pretty much.”

  The primate spoke up. “Is there anyone in this room aside from myself who finds this morally reprehensible?”

  He was looking directly at Sargon.

  “It is for the ar.”

  “We hold to rather higher standards regarding the sanctity of human life.”

  “The ar is all. We would never like to destroy a line, but the ar is all.”

  “I cannot condone it. To send someone on a mission of certain death? To gain a political end regarding political status?”

  There was a murmur of assent from among the council.

  Sargon understood this. The undercurrent was clear. Sargon did not yet understand humans very well, but there’d been chance enough in battle to understand this much: This man would not even know the pilot. The pilot would go willingly. So this was not really about the principle. This was about control. Sargon boomed. One Warrior stepped forward. The movement was fast, sure, over.

  “This Warrior will go. This Warrior has get and children. This Warrior’s lines are secure. You will teach this Warrior to fly the Phoenix. This Warrior will defend the ar.”

  The primate fell silent. The SunFish engineer was already texting his office, and mentally calculating the Warrior’s mass. The primate spoke again.

  “And in the capsule? Who will go in the capsule.?”

  The engineers waved the doctor and Doctor over. They joined the huddle, discussing time, g-forces, mass, and oxygen.

  18

  Opportunity Investment

  An academic reactor or reactor plant almost always has the following basic characteristics: (1) It is simple. (2) It is small. (3) It is cheap. (4) It is light. (5) It can be built very quickly. (6) It is very flexible in purpose. (7) Very little development will be required. It will use off-the-shelf components. (8) The reactor is in the study phase. It is not being built now.

  On the other hand a practical reactor can be distinguished by the following characteristics: (1) It is being built now. (2) It is behind schedule. (3) It requires an immense amount of development on apparently trivial items. (4) It is very expensive. (5) It takes a long time to build because of its engineering development problems. (6) It is large. (7) It is heavy. (8) It is complicated.

  The tools of the academic designer are a piece of paper and a pencil with an eraser. If a mistake is made, it can always be erased and changed. If the practical-reactor designer errs, he wears the mistake around his neck.

  —Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, Paper Reactors, Real Reactors, 1953

  Bonneville, New Utah

  DAZ-E line number six ran continuously. Retooled from machining solar reflector “flowers,” it now stamped and sealed silvery inverted mushrooms atop silvery inverted cones, sandwiching in tiny chips for brains, transmitters that looped twenty seconds of speech, and deployable hair-wire antennae.

  The bigger stuff was on line number three. There, SunRail engineers struggled to mount a magnetic bearing into a larger version of the mushroom, and use it to suspend an insulated tin can, around which the mushroom-cone sandwich could then spin, in vacuum, without friction, freely, like an inside-out centrifuge. They called in more experts from the wind turbine fields to help them stabilize vibration.

  Their first three attempts lost internal alignment and blew apart spectacularly. They retooled, retried, and got it working up to three thousand rpm. Then six. Then eight. Then ten.

  They had to work around the bearings they had. There was no time to customize them. They measured and re-measured essential payload. They calculated and recalculated air compression. They stripped out all safety margins. They called the physiologists again. How much could their phoenix chicks take?

  They revisited SunFish cargo bay plans. They put together a mock-up, correct in size and weight. They started miniature launch tests. They moved real equipment in place.

  Swenson’s Mountain (Beacon Hll), New Utah

  It looked like a deranged, open-air bottling plant. In fact, some of it was from a bottling plant, disassembled in Bonneville and shipped to OLaM Station by express SunFreight. It was a testament to brute labor. Flingers dropped canisters filled with parts onto landing pads down near the lake. Hundreds of Porters hiked them up over the rim for assembly. The Eye itself crawled with Miners, polishing imperfections away in a process they could barely explain, but that was reviewed and approved by DAZ-E mirror manufacturers. The islands set up bunk tents and mess lines. Enheduanna’s Side kept the manna flowing.

  The bottles were replaced by the silvery inverted mushrooms atop their pointy inverted cones, held vertical by tiny brackets that allowed them to initiate rotation. During launch windows, Miners cleared the Eye, and the tiny satellites whipped off the edge of a ski-jump gantry as lines of spinning tops. They flashed as they hit the Eye’s photon stream, invisible in the broad light of day, sputtered to life as each base superheated, and twinkled up, up, up out of view like a squadron of heaven-bound fairies. Each of their little chips of brains ticked off its list of imperatives: Count off the seconds. Use yourself as a flywheel. Pop open your solar collector-sail. Spin away into the cold, black vacuum. Poke out your little antenna. Beep.

  They didn’t all make it. Some burned through. Stabilization was tricky. Some wheeled out of control, falling back as chunky, silver hail. Some lost attitude, tumbling along in decaying orbits only to wink back to earth, burning up as miniscule shooting stars somewhere over a New Utah sea. Some shot too far, escaping orbit altogether to sail into endless, black infinity. The engineers did not sleep. They tinkered with the coatings. They tinkered with the gyroscoping flywheels. They tinkered with the delivery line. They tinkered with the gantry. They tinkered with the initial rotation, and with the timing of release. They got better, daily.

  No-one knew how long they’d last, beyond “long enough.” There was nothing sophisticated about the payload. Each one was pre-programmed to do one thing: send a simple beacon, with a simple message, on a narrow band of frequencies. Each batch used a different set of these. No-one knew exactly where or when the Alderson Point would open, nor the delegation’s approach trajectory, nor on what channel they’d be listening. But no matter when or where or what that was, they were sure to get the message:

  On behalf of the Government of New Utah, welcome to New Utah space. Please proceed to geosynchronous orbit at the following coordinates. Please contact New Utah Spaceport on the following frequency to coordinate escort and reception.

  It was stop-and-go, but by the end of the week, there were hundreds in orbit, girdling the globe in a spreading band of cacophony. They called them winter flies.

  The day finally came. Geery sent the magic words:

  “We’re ready.”

  Over OLaM Airfield, renamed New Utah Spaceport

  The Warrior hissed in shear exaltation. There was nothing to flying, really. There was everything to flying. Ridge and wave and thermal lift sent the gossamer craft whipping ever-faster, ever-higher, spiraling up toward the top of the troposphere. Up, up, up, and then the tip, the ru
sh, the weightlessness of plummeting earthward toward the target, in perfect verticality.

  It did the practice simulation of tail separation in zero-g, then pulled up, hissing and trilling and tasting pure manna. It liked the name: Phoenix. Its solo exam was complete.

  The SunFish pilot trainer called in. “We’re ready.”

  New Utah Spaceport Hangar Six

  Some things you could train for, others you could only test for. They picked carefully. They tested two dozen, and eliminated all but six. They started training, and eventually whittled down to three.

  It became a set drill. “Ventilate!” They stepped up pumping their bellows of chests. “Pack!” They exhaled to extreme; inhaled to extreme; gulped down air to extreme. “Hold!” They switched off, into a trance of waiting. “Run!” They moved out. Meters rolled by. They held it still. Blood vessels constricted. Blood moved to brains; extremities grew weak, screaming with a pain they no longer felt.

  They improved quickly. Five minutes. Nearly ten minutes. Breathing pure oxygen, almost fifteen. Then the same without it.

  They climbed into the centrifuge, and started all over again. Three gee. Five gee. Ten gee. Fifteen.

  “Now do it with the set tasks.”

  Leaden and tired and out of air, bodies squashed flat by a ton of gravity, eyes covered with blackened hoods, they repeated the drill. Confirm chronometry. Confirm altimetry. Engage flywheel to slow external rotation and store energy. Lock exhaust port for attitude control. Slide out of propulsion stream, roll, and brake. Vent any remaining compressed air to cabin. Wait. Blow hatch. Exit. Greet.

  Finally came the pure misery.

  Never mind doing it blindfolded, backwards, under pressure. They practiced until they could do it with arms of lead, deaf and dark, without breathing, stuffed three-deep inside an old packing barrel.

  The chief of physiology called in.

  “I think they’re as ready as can be.”

  Sinbad, above New Utah

  They fell out of jump, systems shut down, computers running recovery test sequences. Ali Baba was a flailing misery; a little starfish hauled from a hostile sea. The ITA rep threw up. Except for the young fit crewmen, for all his age, Kevin recovered most quickly, but it mattered little, until Sinbad itself was out of its misery.

  There were odd little sparkles in the Langston Field.

  Oh criminey, thought Kevin. What he actually thought was unprintable on most planets, but there was good reason for his ecumenical blasphemy: the jump point had shifted from their calculated trajectory, and they had actually emerged inside New Utah’s meteor belt. Not that it had many, but they were heating up, ever so slightly, from collisions with space trash.

  Then he remembered that there shouldn’t be any.

  Then he rallied enough to have the sailing master take a look.

  Then Sinbad rallied enough to make that possible.

  “Sir?” said the sailing master.

  “Umph.”

  “We’re receiving a lot of very-low-power RF energy.”

  “That’s a contradiction in terms.”

  “I mean, like, a hundred itty-bitty transmissions, on, like, a hundred frequencies.”

  He tuned one in. He grinned at Renner, and punched it on. “This,” he said, “you ain’t gunna believe.”

  Two hours later, HG arrived, Barthes in tow, ranting about the indignities involved in using the FairServ shuttle, and Sinbad moved to the designated coordinates.

  19

  Formal Accession

  An anthill increases by accumulation. Medicine is consumed by distribution. That which is feared lessens by association. This is the thing to understand.

  —Ovid

  New Utah Spaceport

  Of course, it should have all gone wrong. What was meant to take days should have required weeks, not the other way around. The Eye should have closed early. The Alderson point should have opened early. The mountain should have fogged in, scattering the beam.

  But none of these things came to be. Instead, something happened when human engineering got mixed up with…Swenson’s Apes. Things just…kept moving. Once they worked right, they stayed that way. If Miners and Miner’s Helpers moved onto the line, every single time it happened exactly the same way. If something didn’t work—it didn’t work. It moved on to the next test, without frustration or waste.

  They were exceptional at innovation, but in an incredibly methodical way. Things marched along. Even the weather cooperated. Bright and clear, except for one sharp lens of cloud indicating a mountain wave. And over the Eye: nothing at all. Not a single cloud, the air dead calm, not a particle of haze. And then came The Day.

  What were the chances? That on such a day, the message would come, All Due Haste?

  “The tramline is open. They’re here.”

  Enheduanna was in direct communication. Had to be, for orders relay. The Phoenix would soar to the edge of flight possibility, but its dive must be timed with the Eye’s pulsing phase. They’d call it directly from the ground. The Seers would know how to wait.

  The crew sealed in with a thimble of air; the rapid climb; the stunning view; the pulse; the tip to orient the gleaming silver egg. The weightless drop into garnet depths, like the big red target out there on the airway. The flash, the flames as earthly feathers burned away.

  It shouldn’t have worked on the hundredth try. Nevertheless, against all the odds, the diamond egg streaked away.

  Sinbad, above New Utah

  The capsule was small. Too small. Barely big enough for one grown man, pretzeled into a fetal position. The crew milled about it, confused. One tentatively reached forward, rapped on its blunter end, and jumped back at an answering thump from within. He jumped just in time, because the thump was followed by a reverberating ba-ba-ba-BAM as explosive bolts blew the hatch a few feet across the bay.

  More thumping ensued. Renner barked: “Help them!”

  Two Boatswain’s mates sprang to action, just as a limp, brown arm flopped from the opening. They half-wrestled, half-dragged a dead weight from the port. The Miner’s body emerged; slid along the capsule skin; thumped to the floor with the mates scrambling down after it.

  The crew froze in collective shock. They counted limbs. They counted again. Saw the brown fur. Saw the rictus of a smile, plastered across the alien face, even in death. Did the math. Were stupefied on their first contact with what they saw as a dead Motie Engineer.

  But of course, for one of them, this was not a first contact. Ignoring the body, Renner himself went to the capsule; grasped the edge; peered through the hatch. Two shivering shapes, twisted to conform to the narrow confines and entwined nearly as one, their chests heaving, gasped for air. Without thought; without hesitation, on reflex, he reached in and placed a hand gently on the nearest head.

  “It’s OK,” he said, without knowing whether they could even understand him. “You made it. You’re here.”

  The creatures did not move, save to tremble harder. Their breathing was ragged. Renner tugged, gently, at one arm, but nothing happened. He stood up, and thought a bit. Thought back on everything he knew of Moties, far and near. Thought of Moties on Mote Prime; on Mote Beta; on Mote Gamma. Thought of Base Six and the Treasure Comet and the Trojans. Thought of Ivan and Jock; of the Khanate and Crimeans and even Vermin City. Thought of everywhere he’d been, thanks to Bury and Sinbad. And then had a moment of clarity.

  He looked across to the Delegation, and spoke softly. “Ali Baba. Your Excellency. Would you please join me?”

  The little Mediator, with the bearing of a prince, grasped its gripping hand with both arms, and did so.

  “Your Excellency, please do something for me.” Ali Baba went stiff with diffidence. Renner paused. “I mean, not for me. I want you to do something for—” Renner leaned, and whispered, so that only Ali Baba could hear—“your Grampa Horace.”

  Ali Baba made that odd little bow that Moties did instead of a tilt of the head, because they had three jointed bones i
nstead of spines. Renner cupped his hand, and whispered again.

  Everyone on deck started as two words boomed across the cargo bay in the authoritative voice of a Horace Bury restored to life and vigorous youth; the compelling Voice of a Great Master who could not be denied: “RUNNERS! REPORT!” Then, they cringed at what they could not hear, but felt, as he repeated the same in the Master’s speech of a Mesolimeran.

  As one, the huddled shapes sucked in a lungful of air, rallied in the low ship’s gravity, pulled themselves upright, and climbed out, supported only by Renner’s free hand.

  They unfolded to full height, and gripping hands united, grasping hands outstretched, spoke clearly, in unison, in Anglic, in the Protector’s Voice, colors rippling down their arms in the Royal Greeting:

  “I am Leica, 10 John, Royal Emissary of Sargon the Hand, Procurator of the Mesolimeris Northern Protectorate, and by Acclaim of the first Constitutional Gathering appointed Protector of Ar and Seer of New Utah. You are hereby notified that you have entered New Utah space, and by extension, the New Utah Protectorate. Any who may hear this message are respectfully requested to hold in current orbit and await the Protector’s Representative, the Excellency Amari Selkirk Alidade Clark Hathaway Quinn.

  “Any duly appointed representatives of the True Church of Maxroy’s Purchase who may hear this message are hereby notified that the Excellency is a direct descendent of Quinn of the Six, by right of decent and accomplishment appointed Elder of the Reformed Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on New Utah, and by acclaim appointed Defender of the Mormon Faith on New Utah. By order of the Defender, the True Church security zone has been demilitarized, the Maxroy’s Purchase paramilitary wing of the True Church Militant in New Utah has been disbanded and disarmed, the urban centers of Saint George and Bonneville are now patrolled and administered by the Protector’s Accountancy, and her Excellency Laurel Courter is co-appointed as Defender and Seer of the Church of Him on New Utah, with spiritual oversight of the non-human populations of the Six Cities.