The Hard SF Renaissance

by David G. Hartwell

  Tom looked from Nick to Jean and Margot saw something hard and strange behind his eyes. He faced Margot. “This thing with the comet, could we really do something like this?”

  Margot’s mouth opened and closed. A short-period comet, swinging around the sun. If they caught it on its way back in … if they could attach a line (hundreds of kilometers of unused cable coiled on its drum against the hull of the ship) … theoretically, theoretically, it could pull them into a tighter orbit. The stresses would be incredible. Several gs worth. Would they be too much? How to make the attachment? Couldn’t land on a comet, even if the explorers had the delta-vee. Comets were surrounded by dust and debris, they ejected gas jets, ice and rock. Asteroids were one thing. Asteroids were driftwood bobbing along through the void. Comets were alive and kicking.

  But maybe … maybe …

  “We’d need to find the thing,” she said finally. “We’d need course, distance, speed. We’d need to know if we can use the RCM to push us near enough to take a shot at it. We’d probably need the explorers to do the actual work of attaching the Forty-Niner to the comet …”

  “We could use the mag sail,” said Jean. She gnawed slowly on her thumbnail. “All that cable, we could use it as a tow rope. But we’d need a harpoon, or something …”

  “A harpoon?” said Tom incredulously.

  Jean just nodded. “To attach the tether to the comet. Maybe we could use some of the explosives …”

  Nick smiled, just a little. For the first time in days, Margot saw the muscles of his face relax. “Jean, let’s get down to engineering and see what we can work up. Tom, you and Margot find our comet.” His smile broadened. “And keep an ear out in case the neighbors have more to say.”

  “No problem,” said Margot. She raised her arm and whistled. “Taxi!”

  Jean, an old New Yorker, actually laughed at that, and Margot grinned at her. Nick and Jean pulled themselves down the connector. Margot planted her feet on the velcro patch next to Tom.

  “Let’s see if we can still get to the database,” she said, as she reached over his shoulder for the keys. “We should be able to narrow down …”

  Tom did not lift his gaze from the screen. “It’s a fake, Margot,” he whispered.

  Margot’s hand froze halfway to the keyboard. “What?”

  “Little green men my ass,” he spat toward the console. “It’s a fake. It’s Nick. He’s doing this to try to keep us going.”

  Margot felt the blood drain from her cheeks, and the hope from her heart. “How do you know?”

  “I know.” For the first time Tom looked at her. “He’d do anything right now to keep us in line, to keep giving orders, just so it doesn’t look like he’s out of options like the rest of us mere mortals.”

  Margot looked at his wide, angry blue eyes and saw the man she’d served with swallowed up by another stranger. “You got proof?”

  Tom shook his head, but the certainty on his face did not waver. “I checked the logs for gaps, suspicious entries, virus tracks, extra encryptions. Nothing. Nobody on this ship could have made an invisible insertion, except me, or Nick.”

  “Unless it’s not an insertion,” said Margot. “Unless it’s really a signal.”

  Tom snorted and contempt filled his soft words. “Now you’re talking like Jean. She hasn’t been with it since Ed went. Be real, Margot. If E.T.’s out there, why isn’t he knocking on the door? Why’s he sending cryptic messages about comets instead of offering us a lift?”

  “It’s aliens, I don’t know,” Margot spread her hands. “Maybe they’re methane breathers. Maybe they’re too far away. Space is big. Maybe they want to see if we can figure it out for our selves to see if we’re worthy for membership in the Galactic Federation.”

  Tom’s face twitched and Margot got the feeling he was suppressing a sneer. “OK, if it’s aliens, how come I was able to figure out what they were saying so fast? They have a NASA Machine Language for Dummies book with them?”

  Margot threw up her hands. “If Nick was faking this, why would he insist on a comm burst to mission control?”

  Tom’s jaw worked back and forth. “Because it’d look funny if he didn’t and he knew Jean’d object and give him an out. She might even be in on it with him.”

  Margot clenched her fists. “It’s a chance, Tom. It’s even a decent chance, if we work the simulations right. It doesn’t matter where the idea came from …”

  “It does matter!” he whispered hoarsely. “It matters that we’re being used. It matters that he doesn’t trust us to hear him out so he’s got to invent alien overlords.”

  “So, report him when we get home,” said Margot, exasperation filling her breathy exclamation.

  “We’re not going to get home,” Tom slammed his fist against the console. “We’re going to die. This is all a stupid game to keep us from killing ourselves too soon. He’s determined we are not going to die until he’s good and ready.”

  Margot leaned in close, until she could see every pore in Tom’s bloodless white cheeks.

  “You listen to me,” she breathed. “You want to kill yourself? Hit the sick bay. I’m sure Paul left behind something you can O.D. on. Maybe you’re right, maybe how we go out is the only choice left. But I think we can use the delta-vee from the comet to tow us into a tighter orbit. I’m going to try, and I may die trying, but that’s my choice. What are you going to do? Which part of that stubborn idiot head are you going to listen too? Huh?” She grabbed his collar. “If it is Nick doing this, I agree, it’s a stupid ploy. But so what? It’s the first good idea we’ve had in over a month. Are you going to let your pride kill you?”

  Tom swatted her hand away. “I am not going to let him treat me like a fool or a child.”

  Tom lifted up first one foot then the other. He twisted in the air and swam toward the connector. Margot hung her head and let him go.

  Give him some time to stew and then go after him. She planted herself squarely in front of his station. “Reggie?”

  “Functioning,” replied the AI.

  “We need to do some speculation here,” she rubbed her forehead. “I need you to pull up any databases we’ve got on comets. Specifically I need any that are passing within a thousand kilometers of the Forty-Niner’s projected position anytime within the next several months.”

  A static burst sounded from the speaker as if Reggie were coughing. “Several is not specific.”

  “Six months then. Add in the possibility of a full or partial RCM burn for course correction to bring us within the cometary path. Can you do that?”

  Two more quick bursts. “I can try,” said Reggie.

  That’s all any of us can do right now.

  “Searching.”

  Margot sat back to wait. She listened to the hum of the ship and the sound of her own breathing. No other sounds. She couldn’t hear Nick and Jean down in engineering. She couldn’t hear Tom anywhere. Worry spiked in the back of her mind. What if he was taking the quick way out? What if he was angry enough to take Nick out instead?

  No, she shook her head. Tom’s just on edge. They’re friends.

  Were they? She remembered the stranger looking out of Tom’s eyes. Would that stranger recognize Nick? Would Nick recognize him? She glanced nervously over her shoulder. No one floated in the connector. She looked back at the screen. Reggie had a list up—names, orbital parameters, current locations, sizes, with an option to display orbital plots and position relative to the Forty-Niner. Highlighted at the top was Comet Kowalski-Rice.

  Sounds like a breakfast cereal. Margot glanced over her shoulder again. The connector was still empty. The ship was still silent.

  Kowalski-Rice was a periodic comet, with a nucleus estimated to be three kilometers long and between one and three kilometers wide. It had passed its aphelion and was headed back toward the Sun. Right now it was 2.9 million kilometers from the Forty-Niner, but it was getting closer. Margot brought up the orbital plot and did a quick calculation.


  We burn fifty … OK say sixty to be on the safe side, percent of the remaining propellant we can bring our orbit within seven hundred-fifty kilometers of the comet. Take about … She ran the equations in her head. She could double check them with Reggie or Nick, whoever turned out to be more reliable. Bring us there in about a hundred and fifty-nine hours, with the comet going approximately two kilometers per second relative to the ship. This could work. This could work.

  Silence, except for the steady hum of the ship and her own breathing.

  Margot swore. This is no good. “Reggie? Do you know where Tom is?”

  “Tom Merritt is in the sick bay.”

  “No!” Margot yanked both feet up and kicked off the console. “Nick! Jean!” she shouted. “Sick bay! Now!”

  She reached sick bay first. She wrenched the wheel around and threw the hatch open. A little red sphere drifted out toward her face. Margot swatted at it reflexively and it broke against her hand, scattering dark red motes in a dozen directions.

  Tom had fastened himself to the examining table and sliced his throat. Clouds of burgundy bubbles rose from his neck, knocking against a pair of scissors and sending them spinning.

  “Tom!” Margot dove forward and pressed her fingers against his wound. Panting, she tried to think back to her emergency medical training. Dark red, not bright, oozing, not spurting, missed the carotid artery, cut a bunch of veins … Tom, you idiot, you’re so far gone you can’t even kill yourself right.

  Events blurred. It seemed like Nick, Jean and Reggie were all shouting at once. A pad got shoved into her hand to help staunch the blood. The table was tilted to elevate his head. Reggie droned on clear and concise directions for covering the long, thin wound with layered sealants. Nick’s and Jean’s hands shook as they worked. Blood and tears stung Margot’s eyes. When they were done, Tom was still strapped to the table, unconscious and dead white, but breathing. The medical ex-system was obviously still working. Reggie had no problem reading from the various pads and probes they had stuck to him. It was giving him good odds on survival, despite the blood loss.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Nick. “We can vacuum this up when we’ve had a chance to catch our breath.”

  Jean didn’t argue, she just headed for the hatch. Margot had the distinct feeling she wanted to crawl into a corner and be quietly sick.

  Margot followed Nick and Jean out and swung the hatch shut. She wanted to be able to talk without getting a mouthful of blood.

  “God,” Nick ran both hands through his hair. “I cannot believe it, I cannot believe he did this.” Unfamiliar indecision showed on his face. Margot turned her gaze away. Another stranger. Just one more. Like Tom, like the others.

  No! she wanted to scream. Not you. I know you! You recommended me for this mission. You have a great poker face and you sing country-western so loud in the shower the soundproofing can’t keep it in! You keep all the stats on your kids sports teams displayed as the default screen on your handheld! Your wife’s the only woman you’ve ever been with! I know Nicholas Alexander Deale!

  But she did not know the person torn with weariness, anger and doubt who looked out of Nick’s eyes. The one who might be a liar on a scale she’d never imagined. How long before that stranger took Nick completely over?

  Margot looked at Jean. Blood splotched her face, hands, hair and coveralls. Fear haunted her bruised-looking eyes. Fear brought the stranger. Jean would go next. The stranger would have them all. Tom was right. They were all dead. Only the strangers and Margot Rusch lived.

  “What is it, Margot?” asked Nick.

  What do I say? Which “it” do I pick? Who let the stranger into Tom? Me or you? She licked her lips. Well, it does not get me. It does not get me.

  “Nothing.” Margot grabbed a handhold and pulled herself toward the command center. “I’m going to find that comet.”

  After all, that was what the strangers wanted her to do. She had to do what they said. If she didn’t … look what they did to Tom. Who knew what they’d do to her?

  They do not get me.

  “Here it comes, Margot,” the voice that used to be Nick’s crackled through her helmet’s intercom.

  Margot turned in her straps, and there it came. Actually, Kowalski-Rice had been visible to the naked eye for the past two days. The comet was ungainly and beautiful at the same time. A dirty snowball tumbling through the darkness surrounded by a sparkling well fit for an angel’s bride. It was huge—a living, shining island, coal black and ice white. Margot’s hands tightened on the twin joy sticks that were the directional control for the explorer.

  They had planned the maneuver out so carefully and modeled it so thoroughly. She had to give the strangers who walked as Nick and Jean credit. They were very good at what they did.

  Jean’s stranger had cobbled together the “harpoon” from drill shafts, explosives and hope. The grappling shaft had a timed explosive mounted on it and a solid propellant shell around it. When Margot pulled the pin, the propellant would ignite and burn for one minute to drive the harpoon to the comet. At one minute ten seconds the explosive would blow, driving the barbed head deep into the comet’s hide. It had taken all of them to unwind and detach the mag sail cable from the drum and then rewind it, as if they were reeling in a gigantic fishing line. The very end of that cable had been welded to the harpoon using all the vacuum glue and tape Jean’s stranger could lay her hands on. Jean’s stranger had spent hours out on the hull, readjusting the tension on the cable drum so the pay out would be smooth.

  Margot would launch the harpoon into the comet. The cable would pay out. Once the harpoon struck, the friction of the cable unwinding against the barrel would accelerate the Forty-Niner, and Margot in the explorer, which was tethered to the Forty-Niner by the cables that used to be the shroud lines for the mag sail. The more the cable unwound, the faster the ships would accelerate. Finally, the cable would run out. The comet would shoot forward with its leash trailing behind it, and the Forty-Niner and the strangers would fly free toward an areobraking rendezvous with Mars, and a rescue by NASA.

  At least, that’s what they said would happen. They might be lying. There was no way to tell. But if Margot refused to go along, they’d probably just kill her. She had to play. She had to act like she believed they were who they said they were. It was her only chance.

  She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter. She tried to believe what she’d told Tom, who they still, miraculously, let live, that it didn’t matter who’d come up with the idea—aliens, the strangers, it didn’t matter. If Nick and Jean, and Tracy and Ed, and Paul and even Tom finally were overcome by the strangers, it didn’t really matter. What mattered was getting home. If she could get home, she could warn everyone.

  But first she had to get home. She, Margot Rusch, had to get home.

  “Better get ready, Margot,” said Nick’s stranger. “It’s all on you.”

  So it is. And you hate that, don’t you? I could mess up all your plans and you know it, but you can’t get me. Not out here you can’t.

  Margot squeezed the stick, goosing the engine. Silently, her little frame ship angled to starboard, sliding gingerly closer to the wandering mountain of coal black ice and stone. Behind her, the three shining silver tethers that attached the explorer to the Forty-Niner paid out into the darkness.

  She gave the comet’s path a wide berth, but not so wide that she couldn’t see how it lumbered, turning and shuddering as sparkling jets shot off its pocked hide.

  I can do this. How many asteroids did we skirt? They were all falling too.

  But not like this. She imagined the comet hissing and rumbling as it dashed forward. They’re making me do this. They don’t care if I die.

  Black specks dusted her visor. She wiped at them. She glanced behind to see that the tethers were moving smoothly. The comet was almost in front of her. Black ice, black stone and the sparkling white coma surmounted the darkness.

  Suddenly, the rover shuddered and Mar
got jerked in her straps. A stone careened off the frame ship and shot past her head.

  That was a warning shot. That was them … No, no, they can’t get me out here, but the comet can. Keep your mind on the comet, Margot. Don’t think about them.

  The Forty-Niner was below and behind her now. The comet was receding. The coma filled the vacuum, shining like a snow blowing in the sunlight. Margot pitched the rover up and around, until the comet was flying away from her, but she was not in the thick of its tail.

  For a moment, she was nothing but a pilot and she smiled.

  Perfect deflection shot. Fire this baby right up its tailpipe.

  The strangers had mounted the harpoon on the explorer’s fore starboard landing strut and attached the launch pin to the console. Margot fumbled for the thick, metal pin and its trailing wire.

  Well, just call me Ishmael, she thought, suppressing a giggle. There she is, Captain Ahab! There be the great white whale!

  “Margot …” began Nick’s stranger.

  “Don’t push,” she snapped. Don’t push. I might decide not to do this.

  I could. I could not do this. I could leave the strangers out here. Never have to bring them home. Never have to hurt my friends’ families by showing them what’s happened.

  But I want to go home. Forgive me, Carol. Margot Rusch has to get home.

  Margot grit her teeth. Ice crystals drifted past her. The comet retreated on its lumbering path, inanimate, or at least oblivious of their presence and their need.

  Margot pulled the pin on the harpoon.

  The recoil vibrated through the frame. The harpoon shot forward, hard, fast and straight. The tether vanished into the thick of the coma, lost in the shining veil of ice.

  A jet of ice crystals exploded into the night. The comet rolled away as if wounded. The tethers on their reel played out into the void. Margot bit her lip. The tether was the key. If it released too fast, got tangled, or broke, it was over, all of it.

  “Margot! Report!” demanded Nick’s stranger.

  “Tether holding steady,” replied Margot reflexively. “Pay out looks good.”