Manhattan Transfer

by John E. Stith

  "Oh, God, no," said Bobby Joe. "It's feeding time again."

  Matt saw the first Archie leave its chair and head for the meal cart that had appeared in a small doorway. As soon as the first Archie had retrieved its small bowl of what Matt labeled porridge, the next one up in the pecking order fetched a meal until finally the Archie captain went to get a bowl.

  By that time, all the other Archies on the bridge were making that awful sucking noise as they drew the porridge into their mouths. The substance must have had enough water content on its own, because Matt saw none of the Archies drinking. Bobby Joe grimaced at the sounds. At periodic intervals, the Archies disappeared one by one to take care of elimination, but as far as Abby had been able to tell, the Archies did not sleep. They had occasional naps or rest periods during which they were very relaxed though fully aware. She hadn't yet been able to communicate the notion of sleep.

  Matt wished humans had the same trait. He had taken a short nap when he reached the point that he just couldn't stand it any longer, and even now he felt extremely fatigued, his eyes gritty. A light–headed feeling persisted with the constant hypertension symptoms of rapid heartbeat and shortened attention span.

  On the display above, the line that had recently been pointing from the planet shaper just past Venus changed. It turned into a circle that surrounded Venus. Matt knew even before Abby confirmed the fact that the planet shaper had entered orbit around Venus. The Archie ship was still several hours away from catching up. The idea that, since they were past the midpoint of their catchup journey, they were now deliberately slowing down even as they tried to catch up with the planet shaper as fast as possible was enormously frustrating.

  At least, thanks to the inertial shield system the Archies ship must have according to Bobby Joe, they didn't feel like they were slowing down. When Bobby Joe had talked about the acceleration, but said that for the ship to move from a stop near one location and arrive at a stop very far away in a matter of hours, the ship had to be accelerating at enough gees to squash everyone inside if it weren't for some kind of protective field. He supposed that however the ship isolated the interior from the acceleration, that process had to burn almost as much energy as the acceleration itself.

  A wall screen began to display a close–up view of Venus, showing just enough space around it that the planet shaper was visible as it began to curve around to the far side of the planet. At ten–second intervals, what looked like tracer bullets fired downward from the planet shaper into the cloud cover surrounding Venus.

  In the ship's wake was a series of brilliant but diffuse flashes underneath the top layer of clouds, as if a lightning storm was speeding across the planet's surface at an enormous rate. The flashes turned the clouds slightly greenish and made them bubble, disrupting their patterns. The images weren't all that different from a series of depth charges exploding after being dropped from a mine–sweeping helicopter, except that the depth charges affected an area less than a kilometer wide, while each of these explosions had to be covering hundreds of kilometers.

  After every eight or ten tracer bullets came a brighter flash, as though the series of shots included a mixture of devices. Within minutes the natural swirling patterns of clouds in the atmosphere were visibly disrupted.

  "God almighty," Bobby Joe said softly.

  Abby came back from a conversation with the captain. "She says the planet shaper has started on the first phase of its conversion. This phase is designed to destroy all surface, atmospheric, and aquatic life. If I'm understanding correctly, the planet shaper deposits some material that absorbs massive amounts of oxygen and maybe carbon dioxide, traps it for a long time, and then starts to slowly release it back into the atmosphere."

  "Venus doesn't have much free oxygen," said Bobby Joe, "but if I remember right, it's got a lot of carbon dioxide. If they get rid of a fair amount of Venus's atmosphere, the planet could start cooling down to a comfortable temperature. There'd still be a lot to do to make it habitable, depending on the life form it's meant for."

  Abby shook her head. "I haven't been able to find that out yet. I'm not sure if it's a vocabulary problem or what. But I don't think the planet shaper only tampers with planets where success is guaranteed. Apparently if it's anywhere close to the profile, the planet shaper does its work, but the builders may or may not wind up using the planet."

  Rudy glanced at Matt and shook his head sadly. "Maybe whoever built that ship isn't all that different from us."

  #

  Shirley Tandler–Gomez dialed nine–one–one and waited. "If the lasers on the shuttlecraft aren't powerful enough to damage the big ship, maybe they would be stronger if every single one of them went on at the same time, all pointing at the same spot on the ship."

  #

  "There it is," said Bobby Joe.

  Matt looked back at the screen and saw the planet shaper just coming out from behind Venus. Following it, in the atmosphere below, was the chain of fireballs, more visible now than they had been earlier. In addition a smaller series of explosions burst in vacuum above the altitude of the planet shaper.

  In the wake of the high–altitude explosions was a dark cloud forming about five times higher than atmospheric envelope. Within a couple of minutes, Abby had learned from the captain that the cloud was likely to be a solid–smoke material to be left in orbit as a sun–screen to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the planet. When and if the planet was colonized, a huge array of orbiting shades and mirrors would give the planet an artificially shorter day.

  As they watched, a magnified image of the planet shaper appeared on an adjacent screen. The image swelled farther and farther until it nearly filled the screen. Roughly two–thirds of the glossy surface of the ship reflected stars; the other third reflected the lemon–yellow clouds of Venus.

  The image continued to grow until Matt suddenly thought he saw a dark patch on the side of one of the clover–leaf masses. Whoever was controlling the display apparently saw the same thing, because the image shifted until the dark spot was centered in the screen, and the magnification continued.

  "What's that?" Rudy said.

  "I don't know yet," Matt said. "But it could be good news."

  The image kept growing as all the humans watched. Soon it filled half the screen and still kept growing.

  "All right!" Bobby Joe yelled. Several of the Archies chattered, either in response to the loud noise, or because they were encouraged also.

  As the dark patch grew, Matt realized he was grinning. The ship had a hole in its hull where the city had struck it. The dark patch they were seeing was part of the interior of the planet shaper. The ship was still functioning, but it wasn't invincible.

  Chapter 18

  Demolition Expert to the Stars

  "We may have a chance after all," Matt said under his breath. Part of being a good soldier is trying to find any possible route to success. Another part is knowing when to cut your losses and quit. Privately he had been desperately worried that the planet shaper had no weakness they could capitalize on.

  The dark patch on the side of the planet shaper said the ship was vulnerable. Goliath was bleeding.

  "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Rudy asked.

  "Maybe."

  "If that's an opening in the hull, the ship might be especially vulnerable to a second attack at the same point."

  "And the lasers would be worth trying now?"

  "Exactly."

  Matt turned to Abby. "We've got to get the captain to risk at least a couple of the shuttlecraft. She can see the damage as well as we can. Surely now that we've got a chance to stop this thing here and now she'll be willing to send them out. We've told her we're willing to destroy this ship unless she cooperates, and she may believe that or she may not. Try working on her guilt, if they feel any. They essentially killed the race in the city we threw at the planet shaper. This has got to be put to a stop."

  Abby nodded. "I'll do my best."

  As Abby mov
ed closer to the Archie captain, Richard appeared at Matt's side. Richard's forehead glistened with sweat.

  Matt said, "You look like you've got something to say."

  Richard nodded. "If the Archies send out a few shuttlecraft, they may be able to do enough damage with the lasers. Or they might not. So far the lasers by themselves don't seem too effective against mirrors." Richard swallowed.

  "And?"

  "And I think one of the shuttlecraft would have a much better chance going in there if it had an additional weapon: high explosives. And obviously that would require an expert to use them."

  Matt looked at Richard long enough for the man to back down if he wanted to before Matt finally said, "Am I to understand you're volunteering for the mission?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Matt nodded. "You're a good man, Richard. I'll have Abby find out if it's possible."

  Richard blinked a couple of times and swallowed. Matt was glad to see the man looked as nervous as Matt felt. That was a good sign of sanity. Anyone not nervous about that prospect was either an idiot or unqualified, or both.

  Matt reached Abby's side as she talked to the Archie captain. At the first opportunity he had her ask if a human would fit into an Archie shuttlecraft along with the Archie crew. She raised her eyebrows but asked the question.

  "Yes," Abby said when she got the response. Softly, her face paler than normal, she said to Matt, "Are we talking about you?"

  "No. Richard."

  Abby took a deep breath and blinked.

  "Now tell the captain we want that human to carry explosives like the ones that damaged this ship. The supplies we brought with us are the closest ones."

  As Abby spoke with the captain and her own voice occasionally came from the computer translator, Matt thought he could see what was going on in the captain's mind. The captain wouldn't like the idea of sending a human out there in a shuttlecraft, and she wouldn't like the idea of taking offensive actions that could possibly tell the planet shaper that it should consider the Archie ship a threat, and then act on that threat. What the captain would probably like was the idea of getting the explosives off the ship itself.

  After several exchanges, the captain finally agreed. Abby said, "I'm surprised. When I started trying to use guilt, it seemed to me the response was even better than when we threatened them."

  Matt heard the words, but his thoughts were on Richard. He felt the chill associated with sending a man out to die, almost as if he were pulling the trigger himself. He didn't spend any time trying to rationalize the situation by telling himself Richard had volunteered or that it was a necessary thing to do. Instead he said silently, "God grant you luck, Richard."

  To Abby, Matt said, "Can you equip Richard with a small vocabulary? Hand signs or whatever works. Just so he can say things like 'forward,' 'backward,' 'stop,' and whatever else he can fit into a half–dozen gestures the Archies can understand."

  Abby nodded. "What are his chances out there?"

  "I don't know. Not very good. Just don't let that thought contaminate your actions."

  Abby hesitated. Matt knew she was aware of the stakes, but sending someone into battle to die was never easy. He said, "When I used to play handball, I found that if I got a big lead on my opponent, I'd let up. Sometimes I'd win by a big margin anyway. Sometimes I'd win by a small margin. And sometimes I'd lose to an inferior player. There's no room for that kind of luxury in war."

  "Yes, sir," she said finally.

  "I think I know exactly how you feel." He walked away from her then, partly because the conversation was over, partly because he wanted to wipe a speck of dirt from his eye in private.

  #

  A hoarse voice spoke to one of the nine–one–one operators. "If the spiders could use that bubble stuff and some silvery stuff to make some gigantic mirrors, we could focus the sunlight and toast that ship to a cinder."

  #

  Richard tightened his grip on the monorail strut as the car sped past a part of the ship he hadn't seen before. He hadn't traveled this fast since before Manhattan had been lifted. The wind assaulted his eyes, which already stung due to lack of sleep, and made him squint.

  Squinting into the wind made him feel heroic somehow, like an admiral in the prime sea–faring years squinting into the salt spray, hoping for his first glimpse of land in more than a month.

  The Archie sitting next to him spoiled the illusion and brought back the tremble Richard could conceal most of the time. At least the Archie wouldn't know that meant Richard was scared. What did Archies do when they were scared? Did they even get scared?

  Matt must have understood back there, understood that Richard wasn't the unshakable rock that he wished he could be. At least Bobby Joe hadn't seen the break in his facade. Richard didn't need any more smart remarks from Bobby Joe.

  What he wanted was acceptance, friendship, respect. The cool, aloof professional attitude seemed to get Richard respect, but it stood in the way of friendship. Richard could see that, but he didn't know what to do differently.

  The monorail car flashed past a series of large coils that stretched from the floor to the ceiling high overhead. Richard was sure the monorail was going much faster than he'd seen the cars move before. He tapped his foot against the knapsack full of the tools of his trade to make sure it was still with him.

  "What are you looking at?" he said suddenly to the Archie sitting next to him. The Archie's eye–stalk had swung toward Richard instead of the path ahead. This Archie wore clothing with narrow stripes of blue and red that made Richard's vision vibrate.

  The Archie chattered briefly in reply, saying something Richard had no hope of translating. Suddenly he felt his interactions with humans were just as filled with confusion as this recent exchange, just as alien as the Archie next to him, its body resting on a seat designed to support the two segments, its legs folded up around it. When Richard said nothing more, the Archie's eye–stalk swung ahead, making Richard wonder briefly if the Archie's ears were also on its eye–stalk, making it a weird biological analog of the multifunction sticks in cars that controlled turn signals and headlights.

  He kept thinking about the situation, deliberately not thinking about what would happen when the monorail car pulled to a stop. He was a typical human being. Why then couldn't he just figure out how to feel comfortable with other humans? Surely they all must be basically like him, have the same desires, the same reactions to similar situations. Why couldn't he, whenever necessary, say how would I react in this situation? and then know what someone else would be thinking?

  But he knew things did not work that simply. If it had, he'd still be married. He tried very hard to put himself in the other person's shoes, but all too often other people's responses, even Shirley's, were 180 degrees away from what he guessed they might be, even when he felt he was in possession of all the relevant information.

  So here he was, doing what he feared most, trying to pretend he wasn't scared. But that was still better than having people think he was a coward.

  The monorail car started to slow down. Ahead a door slid open at the base of a huge cylinder that reached all the way to the high ceiling. Within seconds it was obvious that the monorail wouldn't be able to stop before it reached the cylinder, and, sure enough, it went right through the doorway and came to a stop inside, resting under a ceiling no more than five meters high. The Archie stayed seated, so Richard did, too.

  The door closed behind the monorail car and the car suddenly began rising. A half–minute later, the gravity faded then resumed as the car pulled to a stop at a new level. A doorway ahead of the car opened, and the Archie touched a control near the base of the pedestal that supported the chair he sat on.

  The monorail car moved silently forward and through the doorway, which closed behind it, and came to a stop on what was apparently a flight deck. Eight black shuttlecraft formed a semicircle most of the way around the stopped monorail car, each of the shuttlecraft sunk maybe halfway into depressions in the
deck surface. Overhead was another ceiling screen showing an expanse of stars even brighter than the nights when Richard had been on the farm. Four Archies were busily working on one of the shuttlecraft, using devices on the ends of hoses and cables that stretched from openings in the far wall. A large poster or display screen on another wall showed a panorama of an alien planet, one with a thick layer of clouds. It took Richard a moment of orientation to realize the clouds were in use as a projection screen, but he couldn't tell if the strange characters and small scenes displayed there were advertising or entertainment or road maps or almost anything else.

  Richard surveyed a nearby shuttle. Doors were cut into the sides of the craft so that the bottom lip of the hatches were even with the deck floor. The outlines of numerous doorways showed on the walls of the round room, as though spare parts and equipment lay just beyond. The stench of something uncomfortably like burning machine oil hung in the air.

  The Archie got out of the monorail car and moved toward one of the shuttlecraft, fortunately not the one being worked on. The Archie extended one rear leg toward Richard and made a curiously human–like come here gesture with one small digit, no doubt having learned that during Abby's short training session. Richard put on his backpack, then gave the Archie a thumb's up gesture that it should now recognize as okay.

  Though most Archies seemed graceful, this one Archie waddled as it walked, and Richard suppressed a nervous grin. God knows he himself was no picture of grace. He wanted to be, to always be cool and restrained and smooth, but his body always betrayed him, making him have to repeat a word in an otherwise perfectly phrased sentence, or making him stumble when he had been proud of how expertly he'd just done his job. When he was defusing a bomb, or wiring a detonator, or any of a variety of near–death experiences required by the job, with the sweat rolling off his forehead, somehow his brain sent the message to the rest of his body: don't screw up right now. And his body obeyed. When his life depended on his performance, he was good. He was very good. But when it only seemed that his life depended on his performance, he felt like Charlie Chaplin doing one of those deliberately clumsy routines.