The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction 18

by Gardner Dozois

  “We’ve got nine and a half days, my lord. Then Chee will move into the path of that beam, and – ” Shon-dan clacked her peg teeth nervously. “Anyone without proper shielding will, ah, be very much in jeopardy.”

  “The atmosphere won’t be shield enough?”

  “Not for beams of this intensity.” Shon-dan tried to look hopeful. “We’ve worked out the orbital mechanics, by the way, and this should happen to Chee only once every forty-nine thousand years.”

  Which, Martinez thought, explained the relatively primitive life forms on the surface of the planet as compared with the superabundant life in the sea. Every forty-nine thousand years any complex species on land was wiped out.

  Those fern forests were a clue, if anyone had bothered to read it.

  “So,” he said, “we’ll have nearly fifty thousand good years if we manage to survive the next ten days.”

  The avian’s tone was apologetic. “Ah – there will be problems after the ten days, my lord. Electronics may be destroyed. Food crops may not survive. Metals may turn brittle. And – well, I don’t know what will happen to the station and the elevator. I’ll have to think of that.”

  “You do that. I need an estimate of how much shielding people are going to need to hide under.”

  “Ah – yes, my lord.”

  Martinez ended the transmission. The coleopter was making its final approach to its landing pad. Martinez thought of people rising from shelters to find the world above destroyed – crops burned in the fields, no communication, buildings with metal frames unsafe, transport liable to fall apart, those beautiful bridges on the railroad collapsed because the support cables could no longer carry them.

  And possibly Chee Station destroyed. There was plenty of radiation shielding on the station, but it was all on the outer rims of the habitation wheels and in other parts calculated to protect personnel against a solar flare. The x-ray beam would be coming in at an angle, from galactic north, and very little of the station would be protected.

  The wheel and other large structures were made of a tough resinous material, and thus wouldn’t be subject to metal fatigue, but even so enough critical components were made of metal that the structure might be in jeopardy. If it came apart under stress the elevator cable would drop into the atmosphere, where it would burn up, but if the cable dragged enough of the station with it, Chee could be subjected to a dangerous bombardment of large objects burning their way through the atmosphere to strike the surface.

  And crashing with the station would be Chee Company stock, to the ruination of his father and family.

  Helpless anger burned in his thoughts as the coleopter settled to a landing.

  Terza waited by the landing pad with a big Fleet car and a driver. She was wearing her brown Ministry uniform. Martinez walked across the pad and kissed her. Her lips were soft, her eyes hard.

  “You’ve heard?” he asked. He had to speak over the sound of the coleopter’s turbines.

  “Marcella told me.”

  He took her arm and walked with her to the car. “We’ll get you on the first ship out.”

  “I can stay,” Terza said. “I’m an administrator, remember, and I’m sure they’ll find an adequate shelter for us.”

  They paused by the car. Martinez put a large hand over Terza’s abdomen. “I don’t want x-rays getting anywhere near the next generation of Clan Chen.”

  Terza made a face. “I was so looking forward to seeing you in action,” she said. “But I suppose caution may be indicated, since the doctor confirmed just this morning there is a next generation on the way.”

  Despite the oppressive weight of his thoughts a flame of joy kindled in Martinez’s heart, and he kissed her. “What happens next?” he asked. “I’m not quite sure how this pregnancy business works, since I wasn’t around the first time.”

  Terza took him by the hand and drew him into the automobile. “It’s going to be very difficult and taxing, I’m afraid.” Her tone was businesslike. “I shall require first-class pampering from you for, oh, several years at least.”

  “Starting now?” he said hopefully.

  Terza gave a sigh. “I’m afraid not. You’ve got a meeting.”

  “We’ve got power in most of the ship,” Severin said. “Communication between engine control and main control have been restored. Enough of the computers have been brought on line so that we can do what we need to. The injured are being made as comfortable as possible for the deceleration, and we’re fighting dehydration with intravenous drips. Since we’re uncertain how the ship will respond to a resumption of gee force, we’ll start with a tenth of a gravity, then gradually increase power to one gravity.”

  Severin paused for a reply, and when none came went on.

  “When I tried to turn the ship with the maneuvering thrusters, the thruster heads blew out – metal fatigue in the joints won’t let them hold pressure. That means we’re going to have to maneuver with the main engine, which is of course designed to resist hard radiation, so if you feel some unusual accelerations at first, that’s what they’ll be.”

  He paused again, then licked his dry lips. “May I have permission to begin deceleration, my lord?”

  There was a long pause before a single word came from the captain’s lips, so soft it was almost a sigh.

  “Proceed.”

  “Very good, my lord.” Severin checked the captain’s intravenous drip, then spun in the air with a flip of his hands and kicked off for the door.

  He didn’t know how much of his report the captain had understood, but Severin felt better for having delivered it. Lord Go was a good captain and deserved to know what was happening on his ship, and perhaps Lord Go himself felt better for knowing.

  The captain had been returned to his bed prior to the commencement of acceleration. Dehydration was a serious problem with radiation burns and Severin and the other six uninjured crewmen had spent the last few hours giving the surviving victims intravenous drips, an arduous process because they had to learn the technique first, practicing on each other by following the steps in a manual.

  Severin had debated with himself over whether the step should be taken at all. Prolonging the lives of the victims was only to extend their suffering without a chance of altering the outcome.

  But Severin wanted to be able to look at himself in a mirror. He wanted to be able to tell the families of the victims that he’d done everything he could for them. He didn’t want to have to say, “I let them die without trying to help them.”

  He made his way to the control room and worked his way into the command cage, then pulled the display down in front of him and locked it there. Bhagwati, Nkomo, and Chamcha were all strapped into their acceleration couches.

  “Engines,” he told Bhagwati, “sound the acceleration warning.”

  “Yes, my lord.” The warning clattered through the ship.

  “Engines,” Severin said, “prepare to maneuver with the main engine.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Bhagwati looked at her board. “Gimbal test successful, my lord. Engine on standby.”

  “Course one-five-seven by one-five-seven relative.”

  “Course laid into the computer, my lord.”

  “Begin maneuvering.”

  The thrust was gentle, and Severin heard the engine fire only as a distant rumble that seemed to come up his spine. His couch swung lightly in its cage, and a faint whisper of gravity reached Severin’s inner ear. The engine faded, then fired again. Severin’s cage rattled. His stomach gave a little lurch.

  “Come on,” Bhagwati urged. The main engine really wasn’t intended for this kind of maneuvering.

  The engine fired again, a more sustained burst. Severin found himself waiting for the sound of something falling.

  Nothing fell. The engine fired thrice more, each minor adjustments. There was triumph in Bhagwati’s voice when she announced, “One-five-seven by one-five-seven relative.”

  “Commence acceleration at point one gravities.”


  The engine lit, a sustained distant rumble, and Severin’s cage swung again. A gentle hand pressed him into his couch.

  “Systems check,” Severin ordered, just to make certain nothing had broken.

  Nothing had. Severin had no worries for the hull, which was tough resin stiffened with polycarbon beams, but there was still enough metal in the ship to cause him concern. There were metal shelves, metal hinges, metal fittings, and the sick crew lay on mattresses placed on metal racks. Pipes and conduits were secured by metal strips. Valves with metal parts pierced the hull to bring in water or electricity from stations, or to discharge waste.

  All Severin needed right now was a hull breach.

  Severin added gravity a tenth of a gee at a time until the ship was decelerating at one full gravity. Only once did he hear a crash, when a shelf gave way in the captain’s pantry.

  “Systems check,” Severin said.

  Nothing was destroyed, nothing breached. Severin began to feel proud of Surveyor. It was a tougher craft than he’d expected.

  He would get Surveyor to Laredo, where there would have to be a complete refit. Surveyor was twenty-eight days out from Laredo, so it would take twenty-eight days to reverse the momentum that had built, plus another twenty-eight days to return to port.

  By that time all the afflicted crew would be dead. Severin would be conducting funerals every day for many days to come, and in addition Surveyor would have a front-row seat for what promised to be a planetary catastrophe.

  Severin unlocked his display and pushed it up over his head, out of the way. He unwebbed and stepped out of the cage.

  “Bhagwati, you have the ship,” he said. “Nkomo, Chamcha, it’s time to make the rounds of the sick and make sure they’re coping under gravity.”

  Severin would report to Lord Go that Surveyor had done well under acceleration.

  He hoped the captain would be pleased.

  “Life is brief, but the Praxis is eternal,” Severin read from the burial service. “Let us all take comfort and security in the wisdom that all that is important is known.” He looked up at Engineer Mojtahed.

  “Proceed,” he said.

  Mojtahed pressed the override button that blew from the cargo airlock Captain Lord Go Shikimori, Lieutenant Lord Barry Montcrief, and four other crew. Since Surveyor’s engine was blazing a huge radioactive tail during the deceleration, and since the bodies, once out of the airlock, were no longer decelerating, the captain and his crew would be cremated within seconds.

  Severin and the four others – two remained on watch – remained at rigid attention until the airlock display stopped blinking. Mojtahed looked through the window on the inner airlock.

  “Airlock’s clear, my lord.”

  “Close the outer door and repressurize.” Severin said. He turned to the others. “Detail dismissed.” He began to walk away, then stopped “Mojtahed, Chamcha, please join me for dinner.”

  Though Severin was now the acting captain, he hadn’t moved into the captain’s quarters, and didn’t intend to. He brought Mojtahed and Chamcha to the wardroom, where he sat them at the table normally reserved for lieutenants.

  The pulsar had killed all of Surveyor’s cooks and the meals had become haphazard, mostly stews of things emptied into the pot from cans, and all cooked by microwave because the metal burners on the galley stove were so brittle they failed if anyone turned them on. Severin and his guests were served by today’s cook, an apprentice from Mojtahed’s engine room department, who fled before any of them had a chance to taste his handiwork. Severin opened a bottle of wine from the wardroom stores. Till now he had tasted the wine only occasionally, because he’d been unable to afford the sort of private stores the other lieutenants were used to, and he didn’t want Lord Barry and Lady Maxine to think he was a leech, drinking from the bottles that would have cost him half a month’s pay apiece.

  But now Lord Barry and Lady Maxine were radioactive dust floating in the general direction of Wormhole Two, and Severin had conducted his second mass funeral in two days and wanted a drink.

  He had two goblets of wine while the others sipped theirs and ate a few dutiful bites of stew. Then he spoke.

  “We’ve done a good job of saving the ship,” he said. “Now I’d like to try to save Chee.”

  There was silence at the wardroom table, and then Mojtahed wiped a bit of gravy off her chin and said, “Beg pardon, my lord?”

  “I want to save Chee,” Severin said. “And to do that we have to turn off the pulsar, and I think I know how that can be done.”

  There was another moment of silence. Mojtahed and Chamcha exchanged glances.

  Mojtahed, the senior surviving petty officer. Chamcha, who was a highly trained sensor operator trained to detect wormholes, and the closest thing Surveyor had to an actual scientist.

  “Very good, my lord,” Mojtahed said.

  “Bear with me,” Severin said. He called up the wardroom’s wall display, and put up a simulation of an x-ray pulsar he’d got from Anray’s Catalogue of Astronomical Objects.

  “The x-ray pulse is driven by matter infalling from the accretion disk,” Severin said. “So if we can turn that mechanism off, the x-rays will turn off as well. Unlike an electromagnetic pulsar, an x-ray pulsar can’t work in a vacuum.”

  “My lord,” Chamcha ventured, “we’re dealing with something the mass of a star. A pulsar is one of the most dense objects in the universe, and about the deadliest – how can you hope to stop it with our resources?”

  “The pulsar’s mass is colossal, yes,” Severin said. “But the accretion disk is nothing but hydrogen gas. So what we do is fire an antimatter missile into the accretion disk, and the antimatter wipes out the inner band of hydrogen.” He grinned at them. “The pulsar’s shut down for a few critical hours, Chee is saved, we all get medals. What do you think?”

  Chamcha blinked. Mojtahed’s response was more practical. “We don’t have any antimatter missiles.”

  “We’ll use one of the lifeboats. Pack the crew spaces full of antihydrogen if we have to, and sent it out on automatic pilot.”

  Chamcha hesitantly raised a hand, as if he was in a classroom.

  “Yes?” Severin said.

  “I see two problems,” Chamcha said. “First, I don’t think we have nearly enough antimatter . . .”

  “So we’ll jump in the lifeboats and then shoot Surveyor at the pulsar,” Severin said.

  “And the other problem,” Chamcha said indomitably, “is that when the antihydrogen hits the accretion disk, it doesn’t just wipe it from existence, it turns into radiation. The radiation directed at the pulsar won’t shut it off, it’ll heat the pulsar up, and the x-ray emissions will radically increase in power. And the radiation directed outward, into the accretion disk, will heat up the accretion disk, so when that falls onto the pulsar, you’ll get another super-powerful burst of x-rays.” Chamcha made a kind of exploding gesture with his hands. “And then Chee gets really fried.”

  Severin felt himself mentally rock back on his heels. When the idea had first occurred to him, shaving in his bath that morning, it had seemed like a brilliant strike of lightning, and subsequent consideration had only made it seem better. He rubbed his chin for a moment as he considered.

  Mojtahed, who apparently considered the discussion at an end, took a long, relieved drink of wine.

  Severin decided he wasn’t done yet. “But between the two big bursts,” he said, “there’s nothing, right? The pulsar will actually turn off.”

  A stubborn expression came onto Chamcha’s moon face. “For a short time, yes,” Chamcha said. “But I doubt that it would last more than a few seconds, not even if we threw all of Surveyor at it. And if we got the timing wrong, Chee gets cooked.”

  “And we don’t get medals,” Mojtahed pronounced.

  “A few seconds is all Chee needs,” Severin said. He turned back to the display on the wall, and called up rows of figures and the Structured Mathematics Display. “Before breakfast
I sent a message to Astronomer Shon-dan at the Chee Observatory,” he said, “requesting all available information on the pulsar – its mass, its accretion disk, the power of its x-ray beam. The reply just arrived, so let’s do the math.”

  The math, when it was done, was discouraging. Even if Surveyor were packed with antihydrogen fuel, it would barely produce a blip in the pulsar’s x-ray yield.

  “Sorry, my lord,” Chamcha said. “It was an ingenious idea, but it just didn’t work out.”

  Mojtahed finished her stew and rattled the spoon in her bowl. “Yes, my lord. Sorry.” She had clearly dismissed the idea from her mind.

  “Titan,” Severin said.

  The others looked at him.

  “Titan is a very large ship and it’s packed with antimatter and it’s just entered the system,” Severin said. “And Titan’s on lease to the Exploration Service, and Warrant Officer Junot is in command, and I outrank him. So – ” He smiled. “Maybe we’d better do the math again.”

  There were six hundred people on Chee Station, and eight hundred forty thousand on the planet below. Two cargo ships were docked at the station, and if they discharged all their cargo they could take perhaps four thousand people, assuming the people were packed closely enough and a sufficient number of new toilets were installed.

  Which left in excess of eight hundred thirty-six thousand people in danger on the planet’s surface, and that meant Martinez attended a lot of meetings.

  Antiradiation shielding was scavenged from the station, and several of the manufacturing plants on the surface thought they could convert in time and produce some more, but most of the people on the planet were going to have to hide from the pulsar the old-fashioned way, in a deep hole, with a lot of dirt piled on the roof.

  There was heavy equipment and construction material to provide enough shelter space for everyone, but the population wasn’t unanimous in their cooperation.

  “The railroad workers want to take their families up the line and into the tunnels,” Allodorm told Martinez. “They think they’ll be safer with a mountain on top of them.”