Xeelee: Vengeance

by Stephen Baxter

  He tied one end of the rope to a kind of podium, or lectern – he wondered if this level of the bunker had once been used as a chapel – and the other around his waist. Flashlight fixed to his shoulder, he inspected his route down into this hole in the ground one more time.

  Then he turned, wary of his overpowered reflexes in the low gravity, squatted down, and dropped his legs into the breach in the bunker roof. Descending, he clung to the sloping wall, pulling the rope to ensure it didn’t snag. His skinsuit boots were sturdy but the soles were fine enough for him to be able to feel for holds and ledges.

  One last drop and he was on the floor.

  He turned, put his flashlight on the floor so it didn’t glare in anybody’s eyes, fixed a smile on his face, and made straight for Robert. Cradled by his sister, Robert had a leg splinted by bits of plastic tied up with ripped-up cloth, and was evidently determined not to cry.

  Poole fished an ampoule of anaesthetic out of his med pack and pressed it to Robert’s flesh. ‘There you go, it won’t feel so sore now . . . Better?’

  The kid managed a smile.

  ‘Brave boy,’ Muriel said. ‘And, look, children, this is Michael Poole. The Michael Poole. He’s my son, and he’s an authentic hero, and he’s come to save you.’

  Alice stared. ‘The Michael Poole?’

  He smiled. ‘More to the point, I trained for situations like this during my federal service. I’ll get you out of here.’

  The younger boy stared too, but soon started crying again.

  ‘You did well to find them, Mother.’

  ‘Well, I can’t administer medicine. I can’t give frightened little children a hug. I never could, could I? . . . But I can go places others can’t, or daren’t, and I can find people and problems, and I can raise the alarm. And when I found these three – well, I had to call you. I knew he’d come, boys. He’s like the Mariner from Mars, isn’t he? He always came when you needed him.’

  ‘You came,’ Timothy said to her. ‘Floating like an angel.’

  Poole smiled at his mother. ‘You said it, kid.’

  ‘Now, Michael . . .’

  ‘I found a spaceman.’ Robert looked a little woozy from the anaesthetic. Wincing, he fished a lump of red stone out of a jacket pocket.

  Poole took it. It was rust-red Mars bedrock, roughly carved into a tubby figure, with a faceplate, one arm raised in a vague salute, and what looked like a flag etched into his chest: stars and stripes. He handed it back. ‘You keep that. It could be fifteen hundred years old.’

  ‘It was on the floor, just there.’ He tucked the figure away.

  ‘So,’ Poole said, thinking aloud, ‘I’ll get help, come back for you all. But I think I ought to take Robert straight out of here, to the doctor.’

  Muriel said gravely, ‘I’ll stay with Timothy and Alice.’

  Poole glanced at Timothy. ‘Is that a good plan?’

  The older boy thought it over, and nodded. ‘Yes. Robbie first. We can wait. But how will you get him up that wall? It looks a difficult climb.’

  Poole looked up. He wanted to get this over with quickly. ‘I think I have a way. Timothy, Alice, help me lift Robert. Up on my back. This shouldn’t hurt, kid, but you never know . . .’

  Robert murmured only softly as Poole knelt in the dirt, and his brother and sister helped him wrap his arms around Poole’s neck. Brave kids. Poole used a bit of his line, tied carefully around Robert’s wrists, to ensure the boy couldn’t fall.

  Then he stood up. ‘Now remember, all Earth people have super-strength on Mars. I learned that from Jack Grantt and his gaming buddies. Hold on now . . .’

  On Earth, Poole could jump maybe half a metre from a standing start. Here, he could manage nearly three times as much, he reckoned. So, taking care to soften the spring so he didn’t jar his fragile cargo, he bent his knees, jumped, and sailed up the wall face. He timed it almost right; he scrambled a little to get his feet firmly on the first ledge, then grabbed a support and steadied himself.

  Timothy, down in the pit, actually applauded him.

  ‘Now that,’ said Poole’s mother, ‘is just showing off.’

  Poole turned his head. ‘You OK back there, little guy?’

  ‘I found a spaceman.’

  ‘I know you did.’

  Another cautious spring, a jump, hands working at crevices on the wall, feet settling easily on the second step.

  ‘It might have been made by one of the first people who came here. Somebody from Earth. Just like you.’

  ‘Not like me. I’m a Martian,’ mumbled Robert.

  ‘Lethe, that’s true,’ Poole muttered. ‘You always will be. And wherever you go, whatever you do, don’t you ever forget it.’

  ‘We won’t,’ Alice called up, her young voice containing an odd, emphatic finality that Poole found strangely disturbing.

  He looked back at Muriel. ‘By the way, I asked Harry to come see me. Stuff we have to discuss.’

  She eyed him shrewdly. ‘You have a plan, don’t you?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said with little confidence.

  ‘A plan to save everybody. I know you. Make it happen.’

  ‘I’ll try. I’ll see you, Mother.’

  ‘You will.’

  Holding the little boy’s hands in his own, Poole prepared for his final leap out of the pit, and to safety.

  52

  When he had the time, while he waited for the Carnot to arrive, Poole followed the global picture.

  By the sixth day it was estimated that the Xeelee, astonishingly, had injected enough energy into the Martian world system for all the planet’s inventory of water ice to have melted. At the north pole, after a skim of dry-ice snow had quickly sublimated away, the kilometres-thick water-ice cap had all but vanished – taking with it, Jack Grantt pointed out, a record of Martian climate variations hundreds of millennia deep that could now never be retrieved.

  And the Cage’s heat energy was injected ever deeper into the crust, and spread along seams and fissures.

  At last the waters of even the deepest aquifers were melted, and, heated to high-pressure steam, broke through the fragile lids of rock that contained them. All over the planet there were tremendous eruptions: fantastic, if briefly flowering geysers. It was a new hazard on the ground, a sudden, thick, superheated fog. Survival equipment meant to keep humans alive in a cold near-vacuum was stressed by heat and pressure; domes collapsed and blistered, and still more damage was done to the towers and arcologies as the sudden temperature changes caused cracking and collapse.

  A hundred thousand people died that day alone.

  But, briefly, liquid water flowed across the flat plains of the northern hemisphere. This whole tremendous basin had been created in the deep past by a single impact; once a world-spanning ocean had brimmed here. Now much of the released water refroze, or sublimated quickly, or simply sank back down into the aeons-dry, crusty dust. But across whole stretches of the ancient sea bed, for a while, ponds, lakes, even minor oceans glimmered. It was a moment of serenity, Poole thought, of spectacle, amid a new epoch of violence.

  But soon the evaporation began. For much of the seventh day, most or all of Mars’s water was suspended above ground, in fast-evaporating lakes, steam banks, clouds. The total mass of water Mars held was about the same as the mass of Earth’s atmosphere. And so, for a few hours, Mars had an atmosphere as thick as Earth’s, an air composed almost entirely of water vapour. From space Mars was a pearl of white cloud, as Venus had once been.

  This phase too was brief. By the tenth day the superheated water was itself decomposing, its hydrogen leaking away to space, lost for ever, and the world clouds turned swiftly to rags. The temperature and air pressure plummeted back to something approaching Mars-normal. Humans emerged from their shelters to gaze at fast-sublimating banks of snow.

  That was the
day the space elevator came down. Now the migration off the planet was reduced to a trickle.

  At noon of that day, Poole heard from Jack Grantt that his father was here. And that his experimental GUTship, the Carnot, was coming in to land.

  53

  Harry Poole, with Jack Grantt, stood waiting for his son near a rest station in the ruins of Cydonia. As Poole walked up he felt the ground shudder. The tremors were almost continuous now. It felt as if massive trains were crashing through tunnels dug deep in the Martian ground, day and night.

  Harry was obviously a Virtual projection; Poole could tell by the lighting, just as with Muriel. But whereas Muriel had made the effort to clothe her projection in a coverall more or less suitable for engaging in a planet-wide catastrophe, Harry still wore what looked like capital-city elegance: jet black trousers, jacket inlaid with silver thread, polished boots. His blond hair, carefully coiffed, seemed to shine. He looked more like an angel than Muriel had, Poole thought.

  Harry took a step forward. ‘Michael. I saw the feed of you saving the little kids in the cellar—’

  ‘What feed?’

  ‘Come on. Surely you know. You’re being watched, wherever you go – your various exploits. I don’t have to tell you that there’s a whole world in trouble here. Ten million people. But there’s too Lethe-spawned much disaster. People like a story, Michael. Somebody they can follow: a single victim, saved by the hero. And the images of you giving it the full John Carter, leaping out of that pit in the ground with a sick little kid on your back? You got half a billion viewers. Half the population of Earth. And it’s being rerun—’

  ‘Harry.’ Poole waved his fingers at Harry’s face; Harry flinched. ‘No time delay to speak of. So, if you’re not some drone projection—’

  ‘I’m the real thing, Michael. In spirit, at least. A real-time projection.’

  ‘You’re not on Mars itself, though, I’m guessing.’

  Harry looked pained. ‘How could I be? I’m offplanet, but close. Look, I can’t put myself in personal danger. You know the situation. There are whole layers of our new cobbled-together interplanetary government that would rise in revolt, or collapse in incompetence, if I compromised my own safety. But you asked me to come, so I’m here. You’re still my son, Michael. Besides, it’s good for me to be seen. To show the people of Mars that in this dire hour Earth is right behind them.’

  Jack Grantt faced him now. ‘Really, Harry? I heard rumours otherwise. That the people of Earth are less than enamoured of the idea of ten million ragged Martians dropping out of the sky on them. Resistant to the point where they are putting pressure on the government, on you, to slow down the rescue effort—’

  Harry snapped his fingers.

  Instantly the sound around Poole was deadened: the murmur of the exhausted relief workers nearby, even the groaning of the structure of the big dome, the towers and the roof.

  Harry said, suddenly authoritative, ‘If you’re going to throw around accusations like that, you do it in private.’

  Grantt said, ‘Very well. But what’s the truth? On Earth there used to be billions. Room for a few million more, surely.’

  ‘Yes,’ Harry said tightly. ‘Yes, that’s the rational point of view. But the first thing I learned in politics, and quickly, is that what drives people isn’t rationality. It’s primal emotions: it’s fear, it’s kinship. Priorities placed on one’s family and oneself. See? Right now on Earth we Stewards are having to negotiate our way through a cognitive minefield, because frankly, we’re dealing with a population that is terrified. People fear that the Xeelee will come for Earth next, and laying down defences for the home planet has to be the priority, not harbouring migrants. We have to tread carefully. We have to appeal for empathy for the Martians, while not provoking resistance to helping them.’

  Grantt glowered. ‘And the result of all that is that you’ve set up this – this funnel of an escape route off the planet. Now that we’ve lost the elevator, the only way out is to line up for a ride to orbit on a flitter, then a limp across the Solar System on some GUTdrive scow, and then we are dumped in pens on the Moon. Pens. And don’t give me any crap about high-gravity adjustments and quarantine stays. From a standing start to holding pens for migrants in ten days: pretty impressive, Harry.’

  Harry replied, spreading his hands, ‘I do understand, Jack. Seriously. But what more can we do? You speak of a “funnel”. You know as well as I do that our interplanetary transport systems are simply not designed to transport millions of people between worlds in mere weeks or months—’

  Harry was basically an engineer himself. So Poole knew his father was being honest enough. But—

  ‘But,’ Poole said, ‘there are other ways to do it. We’re Pooles, Harry. We find other ways. That’s why I asked you here. One reason anyhow.’

  Harry frowned, wary. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Remember our Cauchy-class GUTships? Those concept discussions, before we got sidetracked by wormholes and aliens from another dimension? The test articles we completed?’

  For years Poole had been tinkering with variants of his basic Hermit Crab design of GUTships, all adhering to the basic principles, of a spine with a lifedome at one end and a GUTengine with reaction mass at the other, but resized for more ambitious missions. The Cauchy class was a vessel that had been meant for pioneering interstellar journeys, with small crews, missions lasting many years – all built around a lifedome four hundred metres across, four times the width of the dome of the old Crab.

  ‘The best-functioning test article in that class is called the Nicolas Carnot. Now, as soon as Mars was attacked and the consequences became clear, I called our colleagues at the Io shipyard to have them fit out the Carnot and bring her here. And make some modifications on the way . . .’ He tapped his ear. ‘Carnot, you hearing this?’

  The time delay was short. ‘Loud and clear, Mr Poole. In high orbit – very high, what with that Cage and all. Been waiting for your call.’

  ‘Modifications?’ Harry asked uneasily.

  ‘Simple but effective, I hope. Jack, can I use your softscreen?’

  It took a few seconds for Poole to set up the display he wanted. He set it floating in the air before them: the Carnot foregrounded, a dazzling toy, the wounded planet behind her. That big lifedome was a glowing bowl of light, full of complexity.

  ‘This is a recording. Here’s the configuration she used to travel in from Io,’ Poole said. ‘And here’s the manoeuvre she completed earlier.’

  With a kind of flash at the top of the spine, the lifedome detached. Then the dome turned, evidently under its own propulsion system, and began to descend towards the planet.

  ‘The dome emergency-detachment mode is what saved me when I rammed the Earth Probe with the Hermit Crab, of course. Carnot is a craft designed for deep space, not intended for landing on a planetary surface. But as you know we already designed our lifedomes to take the stress of extended periods of high thrust: years under multiple gravities, if necessary. So, putting those two design features together . . . The lifedome isn’t going to enter the atmosphere violently; it will come down under its own propulsion—’

  ‘Wait. Enter the atmosphere,’ Grantt repeated. ‘Am I getting this right? You’re going to land a whole lifedome? What did you say it was – four hundred metres wide?’

  ‘That’s the idea. And in this case it will come down right next to Cydonia. Jack, we may need a little help with the logistics. But I figure, with a floor area of a hundred and twenty thousand square metres, we might be able to cram in – what, fifty thousand people? – per ship. Along with the air and food and other supplies they’ll need.’

  Grantt grinned. ‘And then off into space. It’s only a few days to Earth in a GUTship. We’re Martians. We can cope with a little crowding.’

  ‘I’ve gone over the numbers with Miriam Berg, at Gallia Three. Once
this trial flight is out of the way – look, we have four more test articles of this class of ship to adapt. But if we had to lift the whole population of Mars off this way, you’re talking two hundred flights, each of maybe five days there and back – the operation will take us, say, eight, nine months. Surely we can find ways to speed it up, but—’

  ‘But that’s within our deadline projection of a year to complete the evacuation. Lethe, it’s flaky. But for sure this is better than anything we came up with before.’ Grantt faced Poole. ‘Thank you, Michael. Maybe you are some kind of hero after all.’

  ‘I just try to find solutions.’

  But Poole saw anything but hero worship on his father’s face. ‘Ten million immigrants to Earth,’ Harry snapped. ‘A million a month. And where we put them all is my problem, is it?’

  Poole stayed calm. ‘What, are you going to turn them away?’

  Harry glared at him, and at Grantt. Then he said, ‘Sorry, Jack.’ He snapped his fingers.

  Grantt looked bewildered. Then, when Grantt spoke again, Poole realised he couldn’t hear him. Even his mouth shapes were blurred, as if pixelated. Grantt looked Harry up and down with a kind of disgust, and walked away, back to the rescue workers.

  Poole turned on his father. ‘Why did you need to do that?’

  ‘You should have told me about this Carnot scheme before you blabbed it to the public. And believe me, Jack Grantt is the public. Look, Michael, we’re barely managing to hold everything together as it is, and now you go throwing a bomb into the middle of all our plans. What if the Carnot dome can’t land after all? What if we can’t ramp up your evacuation scenario fast enough? What then? What should we tell people? Did you think of that? If you’re going to mix up public policy, company confidentiality and private matters like this, son—’

  ‘I know what you did, Harry. Now it’s just the two if us, I can say it. I know.’

  Harry’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you know?’

  ‘It took me a while. I don’t think the way you do. I don’t think as fast as you. But I figured it out. It makes sense, in retrospect. You saw a chance, when that Xeelee came swimming out of the Sun. Surely its target was to be Earth or Mars. So you did all you could to lure it to Mars. That was the goal. You encouraged the Virtual-gamer camouflage. Fine.