Beltrunner

by O’Brien, Sean

  Collier took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. “Computer files! Can you get access again? Find out more about the coilgun?”

  Su was suddenly very small in his arms. “I think so. But — I’ll need a reason.”

  Collier smiled wolfishly. “Tell them you’ve got some data on my secret mining methods.”

  “Like what?”

  Collier hesitated for a moment, and Su looked down at his hands. “Collier, you’re hurting me.”

  He let her go with a mumbled apology, his mind racing. How much could he realistically tell her about what he had found? Would it even help for her to know about it? He was beginning to feel pangs of guilt that he was keeping the secret from her — she had had enough secrets in her life, and he did not want to harbor another one from her. Even though it would not help their current predicament, he felt she deserved the truth, now that she had opened herself to him.

  “I’m going to tell you my mining secret. I don’t think it will help here, but … well, I think you should know about it.”

  Su narrowed her eyes. “Hold a moment. You mean, there really is a secret?”

  “Oh, yes. It will be the biggest thing you have ever heard.”

  The next hour and a half had him explaining his discovery, pulling the magic wand out of its hiding place and operating it to produce gold, silver, platinum.

  Su listened to Collier’s tale of the wand’s discovery with fascination. She asked few questions, and the ones she did ask were not about the wand itself but about Collier’s reaction. Although she was quite interested in the wand and its workings, when Collier finished telling his story, she looked at him instead of the device and asked, “You feel a great responsibility now that you have this artifact, don’t you?”

  Collier blinked. “Responsibility? I don’t think so. More than anything, I wish I hadn’t found the damn thing now. It’s brought me nothing but trouble.”

  Su smiled slightly. “You know you don’t mean that. You enjoy the burden you’ve placed on yourself.”

  Collier scowled. “Really? That’s news to me.”

  Again, Su half-smiled. “My dear Captain, I have come to know you pretty well. And I’m awfully good at my job. But it doesn’t take a degree in psychology to see that you want all that has happened to you. Oh,” she said, forestalling his rising objection, “I don’t necessarily mean you like the inconvenience, and you may not have bargained for all you received on Ganymede, but your actions since your discovery are as clear and obvious as Jupiter.”

  Collier grunted, then murmured petulantly, “Is there any way I can get you to tell me about my own motivations?”

  Su ignored that and went on. “You could have sold the wand for enough money to fix you up for the rest of your life. That alone would not have stopped you from continuing to mine, if that would have been your wish. You could have purchased a new ship, or outfitted this one with state of the art materials. You could easily have continued your lifestyle free of the crushing pressure of making a strike to stay afloat. But you decided to hold onto the wand and accept the inevitable consequences — consequences you must have known would come.”

  She paused and watched him react. He looked back at her, fighting back a defensive rejoinder. Partially, he restrained himself because he did not have anything to be defensive about. He did not need to justify his actions to her or to anyone else. He had not acted illegally or even unethically. He had simply made a discovery and was looking to take advantage of it.

  Even as he thought that, he knew he had been fooling himself. He wasn’t simply trying to get the most out of the wand — if he had, Su was right: he would have sold it, either outright or on some kind of lease. No, he held onto the wand because he wanted to have something the corporations didn’t, and more than that, he had some vague, ill-formed dream that he could bring an end to the increasingly corporate-controlled ways of the system.

  But then why did he not simply turn the wand over to the Ganymedians? Surely, they would pay in their own way for the information and device. And their payment would not benefit the hated corporations. So why had he held out from them?

  He realized that he didn’t know what he wanted. He looked at Su and found himself asking, “What do I want, then?” His voice had the softness of sincerity.

  Su moved imperceptibly closer to him and raised her hand to stroke his cheek gently. “I can’t answer that exactly, my Captain. But from what I know about you,” she stepped back a bit and seemed to appraise him with her eyes. “I think you want to make your world a better place. You’re very socially conscious.”

  Collier laughed at that. “Oh, then I’m afraid you don’t know me at all. I live my life alone and have for decades.”

  “That’s not true. What about Isa?”

  Collier’s smile faded instantly. “I didn’t mean that. I meant I live alone away from large groups of people. I think your analysis is skewed from your Ganymedian culture. I’d guess, since you are analyzing me, that the folks on Ganymede are so collectivist in nature that you expect everyone else to be so too. Well, I’m not. I don’t need anyone else.”

  Su frowned. “I didn’t say you were dependent on others, I said you were socially conscious. By that I mean you have a sense of social justice and want that to be enforced.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Collier sneered. “Then why didn’t I join the Authority and become a lawman?”

  Su rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I don’t know. I don’t have some kind of mind reading device. I’m just telling you what I think. You kept the wand because you think somehow to give it up would be to abdicate responsibility for it, and you resist that. If you don’t like the term ‘socially conscious,’ then I’ll substitute ‘responsible.’ You feel responsible for the discovery.”

  Collier grudgingly admitted that she was probably right. But he was growing uncomfortable being so easily dissected by her. He changed the subject. “I also feel responsible for getting my ass off this moon. Do you think you can access the computer files and get data on the coilgun launcher? Without creating suspicion?”

  “I think so. I don’t believe your admission about the wand helped, though. I can’t let on any of that to Tacat. Whatever public morals he claims to have, I don’t trust them to hold him back if he becomes aware of such a discovery. But I’ll find a way to get the data you need.”

  Collier nodded. Su approached him again and looked up into his eyes, her body suddenly seeming very small to him. She whispered, “Thank you.”

  He smiled gently and kissed her. “You deserve that much.” The two looked at each other for a while, then the moment passed. He swatted her on the backside and said, “Scoot. Go get what you can. I’ll talk to Sancho and the two of us will speculate on possibilities.”

  Su left the ship, taking care to return her appearance to that of a precise professional before she entered the flextube. Collier looked at the empty space her body had occupied, then shook his head slightly and called on Sancho.

  “Here, Skipper.”

  “What do you know about coilguns?”

  “Well,” Sancho began conversationally, “never used one myself, but Mars and Luna use something similar. They both use railgun mass driver technology for cargo exporting. At least, that’s what I have in my files. Could be outdated information by now.”

  “Never mind that,” Collier said irritably. “Assuming Ganymede has a similar system, how could we use it to help us launch?”

  “Impossible to say, Skipper. There are too many variables to consider.”

  Collier nodded, but added, “I realize that, but we’ve got little else we can do besides speculate before Su comes back with the data.”

  “Assuming she does,” Sancho said calmly.

  Collier stared at the control panel. “Are you questioning my decision to trust her?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, Skippe
r,” Sancho said evenly. “I merely meant that there exists a very real chance she will be unable to complete her mission.”

  Collier coughed in chagrin. “Yeah, there is that. Sorry, Sancho.”

  Sancho’s sounded confused. “For what?”

  “Skip it. Let’s just think about the launcher. Su said it was used to send a batch of people back to Earth, so it has to be a passenger based system as opposed to a cargo system. That should mean it won’t be too high on gee force.”

  “Sounds reasonable, Skipper. But in order for a mass driver to cut down on gee force on acceleration, it would have to be pretty long.”

  “How long?”

  “Depends — how much g force, how much mass to be accelerated?”

  “Use the Dulcinea as an example. What’s our g tolerance for launch?”

  Sancho somehow gave the impression he was wincing. “Ouch. Not high. We’re not meant to take high acceleration or conduct atmospheric maneuvers. The specs on the ship say we can handle up to 2.43 g’s of acceleration in a vacuum.”

  “So how long would a railgun need to be to launch us at that acceleration?”

  “You’re asking for a very rough approx—”

  Collier broke in, “I know that. Just gimme a ballpark. I want to know if it’s so long as to be impossible or if these guys could have built something like what we can use.”

  “I’m going to estimate 22 kilometers, Skipper.”

  Collier thought about that. It was possible, though it would have meant a major expenditure of materials for the Ganymedians just to allow some of them to leave. If Su had been right about the acrimonious debate years ago, it was hard to believe the stay-on-Ganymede faction would be so willing to construct such a system for a single use.

  There was also the problem of power. The mass driver would need significant amounts of electrical power to launch the payload — a fusion reactor could generate the power, but again, there was the question of the Ganymedians’ willingness to do what was needed to launch a return ship.

  There was also the small problem of acquiring biological and fuel, as well as the fact that they would have to get to the launch system if it even existed at all.

  Sancho was right: speculating on the facts in advance was not going to be fruitful. He needed Su to return with hard data. And a way to get fuel, biological, and freedom from the drydock cage.

  “I hope she brings pizza, too,” Collier said to himself, “as long as I’m wishing.”

  *

  Su’s return eighteen hours later came after Collier had tried sleeping several times, with limited success. She stepped through the flextube lock, her manner and dress again sharply professional, but as soon as the inner door closed, she dropped her prim posture and walked into Collier’s waiting arms.

  Despite his anxiety about his problems, Collier held her for a long time. He smoothed her back and nuzzled her, listening to her soft sounds of delight.

  It was Su who finally broke the embrace, gently but firmly pushing away from him. “Well, I suppose you want to know what I found.”

  “It’s good to see you again,” Collier said huskily.

  “It’s good to be back,” Su said with a soft smile. “But let me lay out what I know. There is a launch mechanism, but it hasn’t been used for decades. I don’t quite fully understand all the science, but I bet your computer will.” Su produced a small data crystal from one of the pockets in her suit. “I downloaded as much data as I could.”

  Collier took the offered crystal and smiled. “Good work.” He connected the crystal to Sancho’s reader and asked him to begin analysis.

  “Will do, Skipper. Gimme a few minutes.”

  Collier turned back to Su. “Any problems in getting the data?”

  Su grinned. “A few. I didn’t tell anyone about the wand, but I did let Tacat know you had promised to reveal your mining secret if he paid you. That seemed to work, at least for now. If this is going to take much longer, we’re going to need to fake some data.”

  Collier shook his head. “That’s no good. I can’t imagine scamming the geniuses on Ganymede. We’re going to have to hope the launch system will work for us.”

  Su’s grin faded. “For you, you mean.”

  Collier stared at her for a moment, then looked away. “I’ve never had a female companion for long. Seems like I find a way to mess it all up somehow. I can’t promise that we can work, but I…”

  “No. You’re right, Col. It won’t work. What you and I have shared could only have happened the way it did. If either of us tried to extend the moment beyond its natural life, we would both come to regret it.” She sighed. “Besides, Ganymede is my home, for all its faults. Who knows — maybe my meeting with you will give me the strength to try to make changes here.”

  Collier didn’t know what to say. Su was probably right, but that didn’t seem to matter now. He hadn’t known how alone he had been until he met her. But the memory of Isa and how they had started together only to tear violently apart was fresh in his mind. Perhaps it was better to leave Su as a pleasant memory rather than force her to become a bitter reality.

  “Okay, Skipper, I have something for you,” Sancho said brightly. He did not wait for a reply before continuing. “The launch system is an old system, but even so, it’s more advanced than what is being used on Mars or Luna. The system is essentially a maglev train accelerated by a linear synchronous motor.”

  “Does it still function?”

  “It hasn’t been used in decades, as Su said. There is no current data on its status now. The station is located on the sunward side of the moon, a few hundred kilometers away. A transpod tube was scheduled to be built to it, but this construction never happened. The station is therefore isolated. Even the computer system and powerhouse are not integrated into the community’s network. The station is its own structure.”

  Collier frowned. “So it has been inoperative and without power for eighty years?”

  “I think so. The station was powered by a fusion reactor and overseen by a dedicated computer, but from what I can glean in the records, the station was shut down shortly after the disaster with the Earth return mission.”

  Collier looked at Su. “You’re sure no one knows you accessed this data?”

  Su shrugged. “Not completely sure, no. There may be some kind of watchdog or something on the files that I didn’t see. There’s not supposed to be — in theory, we all have access to our shared Ganymedian history, but in practice, there are limits.”

  Collier sighed. “We’ll have to risk it. Sancho, do we have enough fuel to make it to the station?”

  Sancho was slow to respond. “It’s not really a question of fuel, Skipper. If you remember, we are still attached to both the flextube and the drydock cradle, and even if we weren’t, we have neither the thrust nor the attitude to take off.”

  Collier thought for a moment, then said, “Show me a holo of the ship from the outside. Include the drydock cradle.”

  “Okay,” Sancho said skeptically. A three dimensional rendering of Dulcinea and the ribs of her prison appeared in mid-air.

  “Rotate the image so I can see the ventral side.”

  The hologram pivoted, and Collier studied the underside of his ship. He spent a good minute examining the cradle, Su watching him silently. Presently, he leaned back and grinned.

  “It should work. Sancho, give me a fuel status report.”

  “We are at about two and a half percent fuel. Gives us roughly twenty-four minutes of full thrust.”

  “Let’s hope that’s enough. Plot a course to the maglev launch station, please.”

  Sancho’s voice was quiet and gentle, as if he was worried he would upset his master with the harsh reality of the situation. “Skipper, I think you may have missed a few things. We are not oriented for a liftoff, and even if we could somehow become so, we
don’t have the thrust or the fuel for—”

  “We’re not going to lift off. Plot an overland course to the station.”

  Su gasped from behind him. “Overland? Collier, how—”

  Collier pointed to the still-glowing holo in front of him. “Look at these drydock ribs. They envelop the ship on all sides, including the ventral … the bottom of Dulcinea. That’s the only place where the ship touches the ground. Do they suggest anything to you?”

  Su stared at the display, not comprehending. “No, they don’t.”

  Sancho chimed in, “They don’t mean anything to me, either, Skipper. What do you mean?”

  “Skates. Ice skates. We can slide along the ice to the station on the drydock ribs. We should have enough thrust to break free from the flextube.”

  “But the drydock ribs are bolted to the surface, Skipper. Look.” Sancho zoomed in to a close-up using one of the external cameras.

  “I got a pretty good look already. I’m betting the bolts are set in a way to prevent a vertical liftoff, just in case we tried to use the ventral attitude jets to leave. If we fire the main engine, we will shear the bolts away by moving across their strong axis. They weren’t meant to prevent us from moving across the surface horizontally.”

  Su and Sancho were silent for a moment, then, in unison, they both said, “It might work.” Su looked at the screen and laughed. “Sorry, Sancho. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  Sancho laughed. “Well, Skipper, you seem to have the agreement of the crew. Setting an overland course for the station. Be advised that if we spend too much thrust breaking free of the flextube and the drydock bolts, we may not make it to the station.”