Harvest the Fire - [Harvest of Stars 03]

by By Poul Anderson

  “Later they will likewise record my death and ashing in space,” Falaire added, “for I am not returning.”

  “But as for you, Pilot Nicol,” Lirion went on, “when your share of the mission is completed, this ship will double back to Juno and leave you there, before journeying home to Proserpina.”

  Nicol knew about that asteroid. It was among the few where some Lunarians lived, remnants of colonies formerly spread throughout the Belt, though today it was mainly a robotic control station and supply depot for what rare spacecraft still plied those lanes. “And then?”

  “The Rayenn will dispatch a deep-space vessel”—of the two in its fleet—”to carry you back to Luna. There you shall receive your fortune, one million ucus, free and clear.”

  Astonished in spite of everything, Nicol exclaimed, “That much credit? How can I ever explain it?”

  “Readily, if you are as wise as we deem you. A large gambling win, maychance. The police will not ask. If there is no reason to suspect crime, a change in someone’s personal account does not alert the system.”

  “I . . . suppose not.” This wasn’t the distant past he had read about, when government not only did not provide citizen’s credit, for people to choose what part of automated production they wanted, but actually levied on earnings, among many other outrageous invasions.

  Was the cybercosmic world so bad? Should he do this deed, this violation, against it?

  “Thereafter,” Lirion said, “you can live what life you wish.”

  “You can call up endless songs,” Falaire murmured.

  Bitterness rose into Nicol’s gullet. “Maybe. If I can find anything to sing about.” Or if Lirion didn’t just kill him and toss the corpse into space. Simpler, safer, cheaper.

  Her eyes sought his. “Might you rather come to Proserpina with me?”

  However preposterous, the idea made his suspicions retreat. She seemed honest, if ever a Lunarian wholly was toward a Terran. And ... these two were idealists, in their fashion—weren’t they?

  “Come,” proposed Lirion, “let’s go to the saloon, eat, take our ease, and rejoice together.”

  Falaire put her hand in Nicol’s. He went along, sorrow already dwindling, excitement mounting. For better or worse, he was committed, wasn’t he?

  * * * *

  CHAPTER

  8

  After a gourmet luncheon and a siesta, Lirion showed Nicol through the ship.

  Her hull resembled a squat, round-nosed cone, about three hundred meters long and as broad at base, studded with airlocks and housings, the thrust director of her drive projecting skeletal “beneath.” Had you watched from outside when she was under boost, you would have seen just a faint bluish glow in the plasma hurled forth—unless you were directly aft, unprotected, within less than a thousand kilometers; then you would have been blinded, and very soon dead.

  Inwardly, the forward half was divided by a succession of decks transverse to the acceleration vector. The first was barred to humans; that section held vital robotic apparatus, including the magnetohydrodynamic generator whose force screen warded off particle radiation. For added safety, the section behind it—below it, when boosting—contained storage lockers, auxiliary robots, and miscellaneous equipment. Next came the command center, where the captain received communications and data, and told the ship what to do; but usually no one need be present. A level of private cabins followed, then the deck for recreation room and saloon, which was also where humans generally entered and exited. Beyond/below lay the gymnasium, cuisinator, and assorted service modules. Past this in turn was the three-level cargo hold. You went between sections either by companion-way or ascensor.

  The after half was entirely off-limits to organic creatures. There were the gyroscopes for maneuver, together with much else essential, and beyond them the reaction-mass tanks, which doubled as shields against radiation from the motor. It was farthest back, antimatter trap, laser-electromagnetic pumps, fire chamber, plasma control, the powers of a mythic hell tamed and put to work.

  Once vessels of this general design had been a familiar sight. But that was when humans flitted around the Solar System in great numbers. “On Proserpina they keep the wish to do their own spacefaring,” Falaire had said. “But without ample energy to drive the ships, they must end huddled on their own worldlet, belike finally destroying themselves in wars brewed by life’s emptiness, like the olden dwellers on Rapa Nui.” Nicol had been surprised that she knew that obscure bit of Earth history. Of course, to her it cut near the bone.

  Lirion stopped in the gymnasium, below the massive counterweight to the centrifuge’s exercise platform, and said: “Before we go on, let us talk a while, to make sure you understand what you will see. Tell me about the ship we seek.”

  Taken aback, Nicol floundered, “M-m, well, I’d never given it any special thought till now. Why should I have?”

  “Say forth, that I may correct you at need. Less peril lies in what you know not than in what you know that is not true.”

  “Agreed,” Nicol acknowledged wryly. “Well—um—” He decided to begin more or less with the rudiments, to show that he too could be patronizing. “Antimatter is— was, this being the last consignment scheduled—it was produced on Mercury, captured according to Bose-Einstein quantum mechanics, and stored underground till a transport arrived. Then it’d be brought up and pumped into the ship by the same basic system which kept it confined—laser, electromagnetic—and refrozen as it emerged into stowage. Small ships delivered small loads to wherever they were wanted, Earth or Mars orbit, Luna, asteroids, outer-planet moons. The big ship, the one you must be after, took large loads out for storage in deep space. From time to time that reserve would be called upon, but in the past several decades it’s mostly just been accumulating, till the government decided that no further production will be necessary or desirable for the next few centuries, if ever.”

  Lirion registered no offense. “Good, good. Where is that storage facility?”

  “Who knows, except the cybercosm? In Solar orbit somewhere beyond Saturn”—hidden by sheer vastness—”that’s all that’s ever been made public. Only machines go there.” Startled by a thought, Nicol peered at the lean face. “Have you learned where?”

  “Yes,” Lirion replied coolly.

  “I don’t. . . quite like that. Can any human be trusted with . .. access to the means of burning life off all Earth?”

  “It matters not. The hoard is heavily guarded, by every sort of robotic weapon and a sophotectic intellect in watchful charge. No raider, no craft the least suspect, could come anywhere nigh without wrath consuming it.” Lirion smiled. “I lack that ambition.”

  “Yes, I—I should have understood,” Nicol apologized.

  “It is the ship bound thither that shall be our prize. Tell me of it.”

  A flash of resentment overwhelmed prudence. “Our prize?”

  “Say on,” Lirion ordered.

  Half helpless, Nicol yielded. “Well, uh, the ship’s entirely robotic, though I suppose there’s some kind of sophotect in it, probably inert but activated in any doubtful situation.”

  Lirion smiled again. “Shrewdly guessed. That is the case.”

  Soothed more than he believed he ought to be, Nicol proceeded: “It’s public knowledge, has always been, the ship goes on a minimum-energy Hohmann orbit from Mercury to the depot, and back again for reloading. No hurry, no reason to waste fuel on boost along the way.”

  Lirion nodded. “Slightly less than eleven years, in either direction.”

  “You’ve gotten the exact figure?”

  “Necessarily, since the orbit of the hoard is the prime secret. It circles the sun at approximately fifteen astronomical units of distance.”

  Nicol whistled, awed. Yet the cybercosm had more time and patience than mortals—cosmic time, machine patience.

  After a moment, he ventured, “I’d assume the ship is armed too.”

  “Yes, against meteoroids. A serious impact is u
nlikely but not impossible, the sole hazard foreseeable”—Lirion chuckled, a low, purring sound—”hitherto. We cannot simply match velocities and lay alongside.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Anything whatsoever that comes too close, or appears that it might, is to be destroyed, stone or ship.”

  Nicol nodded. “Y-yes, that does come back to me,” among the things he heard as a child, a part of his education, but an incidental part, casually mentioned and presently forgotten. “Nobody has ever happened by like that, have they?”

  “Nay. Secrecy and immensity have been sufficient shields, until now when we come with the knowledge to nullify them.”

  “You must have gotten highly detailed information.”

  “We did, through Hench. It includes the limitations of detectors and defenses. They are powerful”—the voice rang—”but not unconquerable, by those who have the skill and bravery.”

  Nicol waited.

  “We can pass by at a distance of several thousand kilometers, on a trajectory that will bring us no closer, without exciting alarm,” Lirion continued after a few seconds. “Such has been allowed for, as being bound to happen once or twice by chance in the course of centuries. But we—we will fire an energy beam to take out the ship’s communications antenna. Suddenly it will be mute. It cannot tell its plight to the cybercosm.”

  And therefore no high-acceleration, sophotectic war-craft would set forth to retrieve and avenge, Nicol thought.

  “The defenses will remain,” Lirion said. “But they are intended for use against meteoroids, which have computable collision orbits. Yes, they can be turned on a spaceship that approaches too nigh. However, a small object moving at high and unpredictable varying accelerations, it should evade them.”

  The hair stood up over Nicol’s body. “Ah-h-h,” he whispered, “this is why you need me.”

  “Correct. You, with the adaptability of a conscious mind and the gravity tolerance of a Terran, can endure those stresses and arrive fit for action.”

  Despite all common sense and conscience, a thrill shot through Nicol. Challenge, risk, assertion of manhood against the machines!

  “Once on the hull, you will take over the command turret.” Lirion spoke almost dispassionately. “Thereafter the ship is ours. I will bring in Verdea and use her to start it toward Proserpina.”

  Logic nudged Nicol. “Wait,” he protested. “Doesn’t it make regular calls to Earth, verifying its position and that all’s well? That’s what I’d program.”

  “Indeed it does. We have a dummy ready to put in the Hohmann orbit, little more than a transmitter, which will give the proper signals at the proper intervals. Meanwhile the ship itself will come to Proserpina, years before it is due at the treasury.”

  Coldness waxed in Nicol. “What about the reaction when they realize? When the Teramind does?”

  The answer was stark. “We will be prepared. But I do not expect the Federation to send a punitive expedition or missile barrage. Across yon reaches of space, it would be futile.”

  And the Teramind was above anything so human as anger, Nicol thought. Its long-range countermove—Who among mortals had the brain to imagine what that might be?

  And yet . . . when the Proserpinans had gained this power, had crossed the energy threshold beyond which they would be free to grow without bounds: they would themselves be the unforeseeable factor, the randomness and chaos, that could perhaps thwart every profound calculation.

  Maybe, maybe. Most likely no human alive had enough life span left to witness the outcome.

  “In the daycycles ahead, we have much to do, making ready,” Lirion said. “The instruments and weapons we carry must be taken out and emplaced, likewise the docking module whereby our prize is to be diverted. These tasks will require your strength and ability, Pilot Nicol. Moreover, you must learn your role, rehearse it, against every contingency, over and over. Eyach, you will be a-busied, you will earn your pay!”

  Nicol tried to muster the resolution for he knew not what.

  “Come,” said Lirion in a milder tone, “let me give you a preliminary look at the gear.”

  They proceeded to the first hold. Its entry hatch lay inside a steel cylinder. Lirion took a three-centimeter disc from his beltpouch and applied it to the door. Nicol recognized it as an electronic key. Doubtless the lock responded to nothing else. The door slid open.

  Lirion saw him observing and remarked, “This controls the locks to every compartment aboard. A precaution against possible . . . visitors . . . while Verdea was in Lunar orbit. Naturally, now most can be left unguarded.” He grinned. “Should you wish privacy in any cabin, a simple closing off will serve.”

  The uppermost level held ordinary supplies and equipment. On the next deck down, the tour became very thorough, so much so that when they passed by a storage cabinet, Nicol asked, “What’s in there?”

  Lirion’s response was unexpectedly sharp. “Naught of concern.”

  A quick, mutinous impulse made Nicol say, “Really? I thought I was to learn everything.”

  “Not altogether. It is of no concern to you, I say. Come along.” Lirion lengthened his stride.

  Nicol obeyed. His guide kept him too busy to dwell on the matter. Nevertheless wonderment lingered. What did the cabinet hide?

  Hand weapons, he suspected, for just-in-case use—for instance, if he should become troublesome.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER

  9

  Time and the ship passed onward through space. Nicol’s waking hours went almost entirely to preparing himself. Sometimes, though, nature demanded he take a few of them off.

  He lay with Falaire in her cabin. Like the others, it held little more than bed, washstand, closet, and computer terminal. However, she had activated the bulkheads. The moving, three-dimensional illusion of a forest that never was enclosed her and him. Trees rose out of night into a dappling, silvering radiance of clustered stars and a huge moon ringed with faceted diamonds. Feather fronds soughed to a breeze whose warmth bore odors like spice. The hueless light frosted her hair and limned her breasts above sliding shadows.

  They had propped themselves up on pillows and been a while silent. Nicol stared into the dark. “Again you are troubled,” Falaire said at last. “You should not be,” so soon after making love. Her tone and look were neither affronted nor scornful, as he might have expected of a Lunarian. They seemed half compassionate.

  “I’m sorry,” he answered. “I started thinking.”

  “You are ever thinking, nay?”

  He shrugged. “Bad habit.”

  “Where went your thoughts this now?”

  “Oh, never mind.”

  “But I care, Jesse.” She laid her arm beneath his. “Tell me.”

  He doubted that she was quite sincere. How could she be? They were of two different species, and the fact that they could never bring a child into being meant less than the unlikeness of their psyches. At best, he believed, she was mildly fond of him. Of course, that meant he could hope to get his pay in money, not a bullet or a knife thrust.

  Bitterness broke through: “The usual. What else?”

  “That you slew Seyant? It plagues you yet?”

  Speech became difficult. He found he was trying to say what he had been unable to, and had no chance to, before. “I. . . can’t honestly be sorry he’s dead—”

  Falaire laughed low and stroked his cheek.

  “But to know I’m a murderer, that’s like a—a—” Groping, he seized on an archaic symbol. “—a cancer in me.

  “I’ve told you over and over, you were overwrought and then he overstressed you.”

  “Who else will in the future?”

  “Belike no one. You’re intelligent, you learn your lessons. Besides, wealth should prove an excellent buffer against irritations.”

  “Will it? Are you sure? What can I do with it?”

  “Whatever you choose that your Terran law allows, and I admit it is tolerant.”

&
nbsp; He could not help himself, he must turn his face to hers and demand, “Then why are you fleeing from it? What drives your Scaine Croi?”

  He felt her stiffen. “Well you know,” she replied curtly. “I said ‘Terran law.’ It is not for my race.”

  Nicol wondered why he so often wondered what her Lunarians wanted, and what it might in the course of centuries mean to his kind. Well, why not put the question? “All right, you’re rebelling against the equilibrium society. But what would you make in its place for yourselves? What’s calling you to Proserpina, Falaire?”—to be forever lost to him.