That’s not the ship; that’s Cabinet speaking through it, said Wee Hunk, his own voice now loud and clear in her head. Do as it says. You’re still in danger.
Ellen felt something warm and sticky at her feet. Sheets of blue arrestant foam were quickly layering the podule from the floor up. Layering her into the podule. The shipsvoice again instructed her to put her head back. The ceiling panel above her swung away, and a safety helmet began to descend along the seatback rail. Ellen obediently pressed her head against the seatback. She didn’t like this at all. The arrestant foam, with its fizzy intimacy, was bad enough, but the helmet terrified her. “Is this really necessary now?”
Something struck her window and startled her. She looked out to see flaming bits of ship streak past. The verniers were firing continuously now, but Earth sank out of sight, and she could discern the reddish glow of their fuselage against the black backdrop of space. The air in the cabin grew thin and sere, and there was a roaring din from the forward compartment. The whole ship shuddered. We’re breaking up, she thought with wonder.
Now she couldn’t wait to pod up. “What’s with the foam?” she said, for the arrestant had layered to her knees and stopped. She glanced up and saw that the helmet had only dropped halfway. She could see up into it, see all the diodes flashing inside, but it came no closer. Her mother was in worse shape; her overhead panel hadn’t even opened, and her podule contained no foam whatsoever. As Ellen watched, her mother unlocked her harness and stood up, bracing herself against the turbulence and clawing at the panel over her head. “Hurry,” Ellen urged her. “Sit down.” But her mother began to climb over the seatback to the podule in front. The helmet there had successfully dropped. She watched her mother resolutely wriggle and squeeze through the podule struts, fighting the ship’s jerky acceleration.
“Wee Hunk, tell Eleanor to hurry and pod up!”
I have relayed that to Cabinet, Wee Hunk said. Cabinet is doing everything it can for her. I’m trying to help you.
There was a sudden, sharp jolt that sent the yacht slamming end over end through the air. Even within the snug harbor of her seat harness, Ellen was shaken almost to unconsciousness. She caught glimpses of her mother wedged in the narrow space between seat support and ceiling. “Jettison the ship!” Ellen screamed above the roar. “Why don’t you just jettison the fecking ship?”
We’re attempting to but are unable. It will have to burn off us.
“She can’t hold on that long!”
In Ellen’s own podule, the midlevel jets resumed extruding layers of arrestant. The congealing foam reached her waist and dampened the worst of the ship’s shuddering.
Listen to me, Wee Hunk said in the calmest of voices. Your helmet is stuck. You must reach up and dislodge it. You must pull it down.
Ellen pressed her head against the seatback to steady herself, but the shaking was just as bad. When she tried to raise her hands, she discovered that they were caught in the foam. “I can’t! I’m stuck!”
Free one arm at a time.
Ellen wrenched her right arm out of the foam, and used it to help leverage out her left one. But the ship shook so much that when she raised her arms, they flailed over her head, and she couldn’t catch hold of the helmet.
Slide your hands up the seatback rail.
She did as she was told and reached the jammed helmet.
Now pull.
She pulled. Her lower body was firmly anchored by harness and foam, and she pulled as hard as she could. Nothing happened.
Cabinet says that Eleanor says to visualize it coming loose.
Ellen laughed in spite of everything. Visualization was a pet theory of her mother’s from an earlier century. But the message meant that Eleanor was watching her and not devoting full attention to her own safety. So Ellen tried again, for her mother’s sake as much as her own. She forced everything else out of her awareness and focused the force of her will on the helmet. “Come here,” she demanded, pulling with all her might, “I want you.” There was a mechanical snap that reverberated through her bones. Grudgingly, the helmet yielded to her, one stripped cog at a time. Soon her forehead reached inside it, and its collar flange was level with her nose. But the ship vibrated so hard it slammed her face against the helmet collar. When she tried to protect her face, the helmet hammered the back of her head. She saw splashes of light behind her eyes, and she slumped in her seat.
Ellen, Ellen. Wee Hunk’s voice drifted to her as from a distant place. She didn’t reply. She was curiously numb. She was growing tired of this whole dreary affair. Why couldn’t things just straighten themselves out?
Settling into the cottony comfort of cerebral hematoma, Ellen wondered about nothing in particular as the ship continued to break up around her. After what seemed like a very long time, something flew down the aisle and bounced off her shoulder. She looked for her mother, but Eleanor’s seat podule was empty.
Ellen, listen to me, Wee Hunk was saying. You must stretch yourself up into the helmet.
“It’s stuck!”
You’re right, it’s stuck. So you must stretch yourself up to it!
It took Ellen a long moment to see what her mentar was driving at. She found it fascinating how a few blows to the head could so immobilize one. That was a fact she must remember to use in a future novella. She looked around again. “Where’s Eleanor?”
Eleanor insists you concentrate on your own survival.
“Where is she? Is she all right?”
Cabinet is assisting her. It’s your job to stretch up into the helmet.
Ellen raised her head just below the collar flange and thought, The helmet is a bell, and I am its clapper. She grabbed the helmet and pulled. It was no good; she only managed to raise herself enough for the helmet to smack her in the teeth.
Your seat harness restrains you, said Wee Hunk. Release your harness.
“I don’t want to go flying off.”
You won’t; the arrestant will anchor you in place.
Ellen wiggled a loose tooth with her tongue.
Ellen! Unbuckle your harness!
“Don’t presume to tell me what to do!” she shouted, spitting blood.
Ellen H. Starke, you will do as I say!
Ellen wiped sweat from her eyes with a clean patch of sleeve. Something was different; something had changed. The violent shaking had stopped. The ride was smoother. For a wild moment she imagined they were safely on the ground, but no, there were clouds streaking by her window. And her stomach told her that they were in free fall.
“We jettisoned!” she said.
We didn’t jettison; the ship has burned off us. Now do as I say and stretch up into the helmet.
“But we’re safe now, aren’t we? We’re a glider now. We’ll glide down.”
Cabinet and I disagree. Too many fail-safes aboard this ship have already failed. We don’t trust the glider core. Already our descent is too steep and too fast.
Just by the free-fall sensation she knew he was right, and when they fell below the clouds, and she saw how quickly the land below was rising up, it finally dawned on her that someone was trying to kill them.
Ellen, use your helmet. We have only moments left.
Ellen craned her neck to look up at the helmet. Years ago, to earn her spaceflight passenger certificate, she’d had to endure an hour-long course in safety protocols aboard LEO spacecraft. She easily met all the requirements but one. There was simply no way that she was going to stick her head into one of these so-called safety helmets. She had tried to talk her way out of it. Donning a helmet took no skill, she argued. All one must do was insert one’s head. And if the need ever arose, unlikely as that was, she was sure she could do just that—insert her head.
The certifying program had been a particularly inflexible subem with a checklist to complete. It didn’t seem to care who she was and simply told her to don the safety helmet or fail the certification.
“Wee Hunk,” she pleaded, “if everything else is sabotaged,
what makes you think the helmet isn’t too?”
The Cryostat Safety Helmet is an autonomous, completely self-contained unit. Whatever has taken over the ship cannot compromise it—except by keeping it out of reach.
Well, that made sense. Count on a mentar to make sense. “Wee Hunk, promise me that you won’t—you know—deploy the helmet unless you absolutely have to.”
Ellie, we have less than 180 seconds to impact.
Ellen unbuckled her harness and put her head into the collar. It was easy now with the smooth ride. She reached up and grasped the helmet, which felt hot to the touch. The cabin was a dry sauna, and her upper body was slick with sweat. As she pulled herself up, the arrestant hugging her waist didn’t let go of her, but it stretched, centimeter by centimeter, until she had pulled herself just clear of the collar, and she heard a sharp click. The cincture inflated explosively around her throat, and the collar dogs locked. She was in.
It was strangely quiet inside the helmet; the roaring din of the cabin was replaced by an insect whine of tiny pumps and motors as the machine that had swallowed her head charged its systems. A fine, cool mist of peppermint-flavored talc covered her face, and a very pleasant voice said, “Your safety helmet is functioning normally. You may abort it by saying the word ‘release’ out loud twice, like this, ‘Release release.’ No other abort order will be recognized.”
The helmet repeated its message several times and would go on repeating it until she acknowledged it, but she couldn’t. Her sweaty hands were slipping, and the arrestant was pulling her down against the cincture which, in turn, was strangling her. She was being stretched like a rubber band, and when her grip slipped completely, she felt her vertebrae wrench all up and down her spine. Not that her spine mattered much at this point.
Help I’m choking! she tried to say. Release release! she tried to say, but her throat was squeezed shut against the collar.
Ellen, your vital signs are degrading. What’s happening in there? Speak to me.
Desperately, she wiped her hands on the front of her jumpsuit and grabbed the helmet again. She pulled until she could breathe, but her hands were already slipping.
That’s better, Ellen. Hold on.
Her larynx was bruised; her voice cracked, “How long?”
Another sixty seconds from the surface.
An eternity, she thought. “Foam?”
Top level jets won’t deploy.
That was bad news. She needed either the harness or a podule completely filled with arrestant to hope to survive a crash landing over land. “Fix it.”
Attempting.
“Don’t attempt—do!” Her words stopped her. It was another one of her mother’s pet phrases.
Incoming, said Wee Hunk.
Incoming? Ellen thought, just as a large, soft object hit her chest and rolled away, nearly dislodging her hold on the helmet. “Eleanor?”
Yes, said Wee Hunk, it was Eleanor.
“Mother!” she cried and let go of the helmet to reach out with both hands, but Eleanor was gone.
Cabinet says that Eleanor sends you her fondest greetings.
At that moment, the erstwhile yacht hit Earth’s surface with such force that Ellen’s body was ripped from her head. So sudden and so stunning was this sensation that she heard neither the discharge of the helmet’s cryonics coils nor the crunch of bone as its collar flange irised shut, neatly nipping off her ragged stump of throat.
2.4
Fifteen minutes later, a dead-man switch inside a meter-long section of rain channel below the rooftop ledge of a gigatower in Indianapolis timed out and closed a circuit. This high up, there were no windows overlooking the ledge, or fixed cameras, or bees or slugs on patrol. The ceramic rain channel began to evaporate like a slab of dry ice. Before long, a miniature launch node lay exposed in the newly formed gap in the ledge. Twenty-seven miniature insectlike mechs were parked on it in a triple row. They perched, checking systems, while their multiple sets of foil wings were buffeted by updrafts of warm air.
One mech, a dazzling bee with a blue gemstone body, revved its wings and lifted off. It was followed by two sleek blue wasps sporting twin laser stingers fore and aft. With the bee in the lead, the team of three spiraled high above the gigatower in a furious whine of wings.
One by one, the other bees rose—a red one, a yellow one, an orange, and a white one. A pair of wasps joined each bee, and the little teams fanned out in separate directions.
Finally, four beetles with bulging carapaces lifted off from the ledge. They labored into the air and wallowed in the currents, waiting for their wasp escorts. When all of the mechs were successfully launched, the node itself began to melt and drip down the side of the building.
2.5
“DNA analysis,” Acting Chair Trina Warbeloo reported to the reconvened Garden Earth board, “confirms Eleanor’s remains at the scene, including, I am reluctant to add, incinerated remains of brain matter. Her daughter’s DNA has also been positively identified, but no brain matter. A deployed safety helmet, believed to contain the daughter’s head, has been retrieved and is being rushed to one of Byron’s clinics.” She nodded to board member Byron Fagan, who acknowledged the statement with a physician’s fey smile. “Let us wish her our best.
“Now,” Warbeloo continued, “I suggest we elect an interim chair until our next regular election. Do I hear a motion?”
“What? Just like that?” Merrill Meewee said. He was the only one still in the boardroom in realbody. The other members attended by holopresence from their various offices and homes. Zoranna was en route to San Francisco and attended from her private Slipstream car deep in the continental grid.
“Sorry, Merrill,” Warbeloo said. “Would you care to offer a few words of remembrance?”
“That’s not what I meant. I think it’s only fitting that we adjourn now and meet after the funeral.”
“Is that a motion?” Warbeloo said.
“Yes,” Meewee replied. “I move we adjourn till after the funeral.”
“Is there a second?”
No one seconded him, and the motion failed. Meewee said, “In that case, I will say a few words.”
He stood up, but Saul Jaspersen said, “Think you can keep it down to three minutes, your holiness?”
Meewee bowed his head and chose to ignore the jibe. “Friends,” he intoned and felt the falseness of the word, “today we have lost a great leader. Twelve years ago, when I was an archbishop for Birthplace International—”
“Amen,” Jaspersen said, cutting him off. “I move we hold an election for interim chair.”
“I second,” said Jerry Chapwoman.
“I was speaking!” Meewee said, but no one paid him any attention, and he sat back down.
There was only one nomination—Saul Jaspersen.
“Any other nominations?” Warbeloo said. “If not—”
Zoranna, nominate me, Meewee pleaded. Zoranna sat across the table from him, strapped into her plush Slipstream seat, hurtling under the Rockies at one thousand kph. She frowned and said, “I nominate Merrill.”
The board voted, and Meewee lost; not even Zoranna voted for him.
Jaspersen’s holo flickered out and reappeared a moment later at the head of the table. “And now to new business,” he said. A scape opened above the large board table in which a dozen Oships were docked together like a roll of candy. Their huge hab drums, emblazoned with Chinese characters, rotated alternately clockwise and counter.
Meewee sputtered. “But, but this isn’t new business! This is the Chinas offer. We rejected it last year!”
“Not exactly accurate,” Jaspersen said. “We favored it, but Eleanor vetoed it, as was her prerogative as senior member. But that was then, and this is now.” He grinned at his own cleverness. “And what was old business is new again.”
“But I’m still here, and I represent Starke Enterprises’ interests,” Meewee said.
“Puh-leez,” Jaspersen said. “You were never more than an h
onorary member of this board.”
“I have a vote!”
“And we’ll hear your vote. Is there a motion?”
“Yes,” said Chapwoman, “I move we send the five China republics an RFP concerning the sale of GEP Oships.”
“I second,” said Fagan.
Jaspersen said, “Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor—”
“Wait!” said Meewee. “I have discussion. I have plenty of discussion.”
Jaspersen grit his teeth. “All right, your grace. Say your piece, but keep it brief.”
Meewee looked around the table at the arrogant faces. The problem was that he wasn’t like these people at all, and he didn’t know what they thought or how to persuade them. That had always been Eleanor’s great talent. She had recruited him for his ability to talk to poor people, not to the affs. His credibility lay with Earth’s down-trodden and exploited—in other words, with the project’s prospective colonists and passengers—not with its owners.
“The Chinas only want to park our ships in Near Earth Orbit,” he said at last, “for moving their surplus population off-planet.”
“That’s right”—Chapwoman chuckled—“six million of ’em at a pop.”
“But what good does it do Earth to populate the inner solar system?” Meewee went on reasonably. “Their numbers on Earth would be replenished in two or three generations, and meanwhile, we’d only be helping to establish aggressive new competitors for solar system resources. It goes contrary to our mission.”
“Aggressive consumers, you mean,” Trina Warbeloo said. “It seems to me that the flaw in the Garden Earth mission, as you call it, lay in the fact that if we send all these ‘colonists’ off to Ursus Major, how can we trade with them? There’s no market, and where’s the profit in that?”
“The profit in that”—Meewee all but shouted—profit-making was offensive to him—“the profit in that is the land we acquire in exchange for their passage. At this very moment, we have a quarter million colonists cryogenically suspended in our cold storage facilities in the Ukraine prepped for transport up to the Garden Kiev. The moment that that Oship launches, title to a quarter million acres of Eurasia passes to us. That’s our profit.”
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