The Stalk

by Janet Morris

  It must be terrible to Remson. He stood opposite them in the lift and stared at them as though they were some travesty of nature. He clearly did not want to risk touching her again.

  Good. Rick was all comfort and joy, willing to be together and not worry. Rick was not one for worry. But Rick had not confronted this obdurate person as she had.

  The lift door opened onto a place she'd never been, where real marble and real wood supported and surrounded real paintings and real oriental rugs of great antiquity. The rugs were woven full with noble stories of man's ascent, of fables and history and promises between humanity and its gods.

  When she hesitated over them, reading them as her own heritage had taught her to do, Remson whispered irritably at her to hurry.

  This place was a museum, or should be.

  In its depths, down three corridors, Remson stopped before a closed door and rapped with big knuckles upon the wood.

  When the door opened, the Secretary General stood there, a white towel around his neck and white foam striping his jaw and upper lip.

  "Sorry to bother you, sir, but this is urgent."

  Croft looked at her with tortured resignation and said, "Come in. Let me just close this door...."

  Beyond, a barber stood, wiping a razor on his apron. Croft called softly to him, "I'll be a few moments," and a door slid shut between the rooms. Croft turned, wiping the foam from his face. "So? Let's hear it. Vince."

  "They hand-carried a message in here, from the Council of the Unity. Don't ask me why they didn't give it to you before."

  "Perhaps the time wasn't right," said Croft gently, and smiled a distant, wistful smile.

  Remson gave Croft the disk. The Secretary General pocketed it. "So, Mr. Cummings, Mrs. Forat-Cummings. will you explain this for me. or must I go read it for myself?"

  "Read it," Rick advised. "That's why we brought it."

  "Do you know what's in it, Mr. Cummings?" Croft asked.

  "Some. Not all," Rick admitted.

  "And you, Ms. Forat-Cummings, what do you know about this message?"

  Keen eyes met hers and slid aside. Croft remained with his back to the door, as if cornered, as if there was no room for him anywhere else in the large chamber full of beautiful antiques.

  "We were asked to deliver it. You should respond to a Council of the Unity Delegation which will be available at the Ball for the next few hours."

  "I should, should I?" Croft's eyes narrowed. "And how-should I respond, Ms. Forat-Cummings?"

  "I . . . Rick?" She turned to her husband. She didn't want to say the wrong thing. Time. Tense. Past to future. They didn't know what was in the message, perhaps. Or they did, because Remson had read it and communicated the information to Croft, and Croft was seeking additional data. Or Remson alone knew. . ..

  Rick said, "The Council of the Unity requests an official response. We're not official emissaries." Rick shrugged. "We are here to show good faith, and to settle this matter with our parents, with your help. Not to negotiate or make conditions."

  Croft sighed heavily. "Just stopped by to keep a promise, be special guests at a coming-out party hosted by your father, and then you're on your way, is that it? Back to Unity space. Is that what this is?" Croft slapped his pocket, where the message disk was.

  "Those are the conditions under which we came here," Dini reminded the Secretary General, because she was afraid that Rick would not. Rick wanted more from this trip than she. Rick wanted peace with his father. Dini would have been content to stay out of harm's way, stay at home, and never see Threshold, or Medina, again. Despite the beauty of such rugs as she trod now. Despite the songs of history woven into them, which she had not realized she missed so deeply. She was here solely because the Unity had asked her and Rick to come....

  "We remember," Croft told her, and his large, mobile lips seemed unhappy with the form of the words. "We remember all our promises. You must remember yours."

  He turned to Remson. "Vince, if its just a diplomatic message, and they were simply acting as couriers, why did you bring them with you?"

  "Cummings Two made a visit to the modeler bay, complete with threats and a distinct degree of agitation. So I didn't want to leave them. And ..."

  "And?"

  "Cummings The Second saw the Forat girl's scan."

  "So?" Croft's limpid eyes flicked to her again but didn't come to rest.

  "So, Cummings saw the modeler displaying a complete physioscan of a Unity being, not a human girl."

  Croft closed his eyes and leaned heavily against the door. "I see," he said at last. "Well, couldn't be helped. Of course, this modeler data was the result of some error which we are rectifying?"

  "Of course. Technical difficulties." Remson's white teeth flashed.

  Dini Forat felt suddenly so heavy she thought she might drip down into a puddle, a casualty of unremitting gravity. Or fall through the floor entirely, and through every succeeding floor, until she had fallen all the way through the antenna-like expanse of the Stalk and out into free space. Free space...

  Then she realized that it was Croft's heaviness she felt.

  Remson was telling the Secretary General what the message said: "... the short of it is that the Unity wants the UNE to tow Threshold out to a new orbit beyond Pluto, if real contact, or commerce, between our civilizations is going to commence. The rest is technical detail. Except the time frame. They want an answer, sent back with the kids or personally delivered by you, by the end of the day."

  A misery overswept Dini Forat that was so intense she leaned against her husband. She found herself fascinated by the face of the Secretary General.

  "Can we do that, Vince? Give them an answer— technically, I mean. Have we the capability of doing it?"

  "I think so. I'll get a team on it right away."

  "Good," said the Secretary General of the United Nations of Earth.

  "And you two, would you like to help Mr. Remson? I have rather a lot to do, some of which will surely include further negotiations with your parents. And we don't want you to be the subject of intimidation, whether verbal or more concrete. Do we?"

  "That's right," said Rick flatly. "We don't. We'll be glad to assist Mr. Remson, if it'll help."

  "And you'll be available to take a response to the Ball if and when we have one and decide that's the best course?"

  "Delighted," said Dini's husband, and she was so glad she had married him. Rick understood people like Croft so much better than she ever would. Why was Secretary General Croft so agitated at the thought of going out to the Ball himself to meet with the Unity delegation?

  There was nothing to be afraid of. Not out at the Ball there wasn't.

  She straightened up proudly, taking strength from her husband. Soon they would be back where they belonged. Her father was not going to destroy her life. The United Nations of Earth would not try to keep them here against their will.

  And there was a chance that the Unity would have its wish.

  Although she still missed the feel of soft fur next to her face and small black hands tugging at her hair, the perfumed air and the kiss of sunset on the hilltops of her adopted home, she was no longer unhappy that she had come.

  For all the Unity had given her and Rick, this one brief hardship was a small price to pay. After all, it was humanity's future that hung in the balance, not her own.

  Mankind had a choice to make, and the hard decisions that would shape its future were just beginning.

  She was glad she'd been here to see Mickey Croft's stooped shoulders straighten and his jaw firm with resolve.

  It might be the right time for humanity. He might be the right man. For one crucial instant, all things might be in harmony and mankind might make the right choice.

  Ahead lay salvation—or the loss of it, and a long slow slide toward the dark.

  Between now and the moment of choice there was little enough that she and her husband could do. But there was something, and they would do it. They were a part of
this moment, and all the decisions to come.

  She could see her own reflection in the Secretary General's weary eyes.

  CHAPTER 4

  Feasibility Study

  Reice met Remson at Spacedock Seven, double-quick as ordered, for a classified briefing to be followed by a technical evaluation of the task at hand.

  Whatever that was. When Reice pulled the BLUE TICK into its parking slot among the strutwork of Spaccdock Seven, he knew little more about the "task at hand" than he'd known when he'd left Threshold. He shut down his onboard systems, enabled his pressure locks to debarkation mode, and left the TICK carrying only a briefing bag with a notepad computer inside.

  The lock station sighed, cycled to green, and opened onto a concourse with drink machine-, escalators, and manned security stations across from a bank of pay comlinks. Reice didn't see anybody he recognized waiting beyond the security barrier or lined up to go through the security arch or at the octagonal desk that let you avoid standing in line to have your person and carry-throughs irradiated.

  Funny, nut not disturbing. Lots of people passed through Spacedock Seven every day Lots of traffic into the facility beyond and out of it meant lots of minor grid-locks and traffic snarls and missed connections.

  Reice stepped into the much shorter line before the octagonal desk, where you went if you were carrying sensitive materials you couldn't put through the scanner, side arms, or explosives, or had the clout to do so.

  Distracted, he cut the line entirely holding up his Con-Sec ID and walking unconcernedly between the human and automated system.

  The ConSec guard closest at the desk nodded an OK at him, and that way Reice didn't have to check his A-POT gun or leave it on the BLUE TICK. Since he had it, he wasn't about to put such sensitive technology in any danger of being pilfered or misplaced.

  On the other side of the guards, he passed through a wide space and looked both ways before he headed up a slope on foot. The Spacedock Seven facility was comprised of more than seventeen miles of corridors, labeled A-Z Ring, and you had to know where you were going to avoid either a long walk or hitching a ride on a cleaning robot.

  Reice headed for the closest stairs and on through a door marked in red authorized personnel only, which he keyed with the card he'd shown the guard. All this fuss over ... what?

  First, the kids are God's own priority; now, something unspecified knocks them out of the ballpark and they're somebody else's worry.

  Nobody'd bothered to tell Reice even so much as what had happened to the young couple or who was watching them. Maybe they were under house arrest somewhere nice and comfy. Reice knew only one thing for certain: right now, they were somebody else's problem.

  Almost nobody used the enclosed stairwell: you needed special access to get out of it on most of the Rings between B and Y. This was an old facility, once the biggest single construct in manned space. Now Threshold, growing daily, far outstripped it, and even the Stalk was bigger, with its multiple habitats, but Spacedock Seven was a ConSec facility, and Reice liked the feeling of being on his own turf.

  If he knew why he was out here, he'd have liked the feeling even better. Except for the fact that the distribution list for the meeting included everybody who'd worked on the construction of the science station out at the Ball site, he'd learned nothing pertinent since he left Threshold.

  But you knew something from the fact that the briefing was being held at Spacedock Seven in the first place. At least it had gotten him away from babysitting those spooky rich brats the Secretariat was sheltering.

  Reice climbed onto a dirty white landing scarred by tens of thousands of highly polished black shoes pounding over it and ran his card through the lock before he pushed open a door with a large warning: restricted area, alarm will sound notice on it.

  No alarm sounded. Reice was cleared for every area in this building and glad to be on Y Ring, with its wide corridors faced with displays of ConSec triumphs in man's conquest of the stars.

  He passed portraits of great ConSec officers, flags and doors of increasingly imposing size and decoration.

  At the Joint Staff corridor he halted. He still hadn't seen a soul he knew, but down the hallway were two live ConSec honor guards, who indicated the door he wanted.

  He strode across carpet, now, and past marble-clad lights. The officers at either side of the door stared straight ahead, unspeaking. Good men.

  He keyed the lock and entered an anteroom, where he was greeted by a pretty woman and ushered—"Right this way, sir"—through three more doors.

  When she opened a final portal for him, he realized why he hadn't seen anybody due for this meeting. People were standing around the long briefing table in knots, asking questions and looking at charts displayed on the wall grids.

  Now you could find out what was going on in a heartbeat.

  Reice put his briefing bag down at an empty place and headed for a group gathered around the mission-statement monitor.

  My, my. Vince Remson, holding forth, right in their midst.

  The blond Assistant Secretary stopped gesticulating and broke into a smile. "Mr. Reice, good to see you again so soon. Let's get this show rolling." The group parted for the Assistant Secretary as Remson headed purposefully toward Reice.

  A warm glow of belonging came over Reice. even thought he'd had no prebrief whatsoever and had no idea what Remson might want him to do. But they shared a secret or two, and that was comradeship in these circles.

  Remson handed Reice a sheaf of hard copy and said, "Follow my lead."

  Hard copy. Stamped and red-bordered and classified out of all normal access channels. Reice skimmed the executive summary as he followed Remson toward the head of the table, sweeping up his briefing bag on the way, conscious in a pleasant way of the number of high-powered eyes tracking his progress.

  Somebody good had written up this brief.

  The executive summary said: "Determine Feasibility of Moving Threshold to Orbit Around Pluto in Response to Council of Unity Request."

  That was why some of the people here had on striped suits and looked like they belonged in the Secretariat: they were from the Secretariat. Joint Staff meetings usually meant Consolidated Space Command (ConSpaceCom), Consolidated Security (ConSec) and whoever else was necessary for the mission in question, usually Space Marines, Army or Navy brass, Customs honchos, intel types, or Corps of Engineers.

  There were lots of engineers here, with bells on. And Laboratory Command people, and technical intel types. Forty people in all.

  Remson stood at the head of the table and Reice took a seat beside him. Remson held a remote for the briefing monitors in his hand and switched the lights off with it.

  "Thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen. Today we have a critical decision of technical feasibility to be made, and made fast."

  Remson touched a monitor button, and to his left blossomed the insignia of the SecGen's office, with a string of security designators below in case anyone had missed the point and thought they could eat out on the results of this briefing.

  Remson changed frames and the executive summary that Reice had just read was displayed in large type. "That's the problem. I need some solutions that will tell us whether this undertaking is technically possible. We'll let the security considerations rest until we find out whether we think we can do this job without imperiling either the structural integrity of Threshold or the safety of any of its inhabitants."

  A three-star from the Corps of Engineers said, "You want to eat this elephant one bite at a time, boys, and be sure you got the right silverware with you. The physical stresses aren't so important to me as the level of commitment. We can deal with the stresses, if we've got the budget for scalar drivers and a whole lot of fuel to burn."

  "You'll get it," Remson said, "but I need a cost estimate from you, and an equipment list, and a time frame: how long to do the job?"

  Somebody else said, before the engineer could answer, "Manpower's going to affect the timet
able, here, both in feasibility studies and in operational phases. How many men do you want us to assign to this from the lab side?"

  The engineer, smelling a funding channel, spoke right over the eager, fat honcho from Consolidated Laboratory Command: "When do you need that data, Mr. Secretary?"

  Remson said, "I'm going to turn this meeting over to Mr. Reice, who's serving as my alternate. Mr. Reice is Logistics Coordinator for this program, gentlemen." Remson gave a horrified Reice the remote that controlled the briefing monitors, and as Reice stood up, whispered in his ear, "Try to keep the cost down. Don't let them turn this into a series of overstuffed, overmanned, overly expensive junkets. I haven't got time to wonder if they're playing me straight or jockeying for position. Get me an estimate by the end of the afternoon. I'll be in my office on Z Ring when you're done."

  "By the end of the afternoon?" Reice was nearly dumbstruck. The words came out in a croak, his mouth was so dry.

  "I'm afraid so. Remember, cost won't stop this initiative. But it takes time to spend money, and we don't have time. Keep this thing small, if you can. And don't let the labs use this project as an excuse to test prototypes. We want everything nice and dependable. Got it?"

  "Got it." Reice wanted to say that he wasn't qualified for this, but nobody here was better qualified, that was for sure. Reice watched Remson head off into the darkened room and put both hands flat on the table, leaning forward toward the assembled group, now as hungry and attentive as sharks who'd had their first scent of blood in the water.

  He waited in silence until Remson had left the room and the door had closed. Then he said, "I'm going to go around the table, left to right. Each of you is going to give me an estimate of what his service or agency can provide to this effort, at what cost, with what manpower, and in how short a time. Make the assumption that we are going to move Threshold to Pluto and we need to do it fast and safely."