Sidney's Comet

by Brian Herbert

  “Personal matters?” Ogg sat back, a sneer on his face. “How can you have personal matters with someone tens of thousands of kilometers away?”

  “L-look, Mr. President. I know you don’t like me. That’s why you made Nancy mayor of Saint Elba three months ago . . . to get her away from me.” Hudson read Ogg’s thoughts to confirm this statement.

  A faint smile touched the edges of Ogg’s mouth.

  “I love her, Mr. President. And . . . she loves me!” Hudson took a deep breath. He stared at the broken lamp on the floor.

  “Love? You’re right about one thing, Hudson. I don’t like you. You’re a weak, sniveling—”

  “I’m not good enough for your sister, right, Mr. President?” Hudson said, feeling his face flush hot with anger. He adjusted his glasses, focused upon the massive black man seated on the other side of the desk.

  “That’s exactly right, Hudson. If not for Munoz’s influence, you’d still be a lab technician.” Hudson had read this thought previously and was not surprised to hear it spoken.

  I’ll ruin you, Hudson thought. I’m going to show General Munoz an invention this afternoon that will knock you out of the oval office! “I do have certain . . . talents, shall we say?” Hudson said, beginning to taste the pleasure of prospective revenge.

  Noticing a twinkle in Hudson’s eyes, Ogg was thrown off balance momentarily. Ogg fumbled with the call log sheet, glanced down at it and said, “I notice you called her almost daily in the early part of the month . . . but in the past week and a half there have been no calls. Why is that?”

  “A minor disagreement, Mr. President.”

  “Over what?”

  Hudson felt the advantage swinging to Ogg again. “She wants me to s-stand up to you, sir.”

  Ogg laughed cruelty. “And tell me what you think of me, eh, Hudson? You don’t have the guts!”

  “M-maybe I do, sir.”

  “Eh? What’s that?”

  “May I speak candidly, sir?”

  “Yes.” Ogg set the call sheet down, clasped his hands on the desktop and glared ferociously at Hudson.

  “YOU’RE A BIGOT, MR. PRESIDENT!” Hudson said, blurting it out. Hudson’s eyeglasses slipped to the end of his nose. He pushed them back.

  “A bigot!” Ogg rose out of his chair, hulked forward over the desk. “A bigot, you say?”

  “That’s the real reason you don’t want me to be permies with Nancy, isn’t it? I’M WHITE AND SHE’S BLACK!” Hudson felt relief at getting the long-suppressed statement out, but was fearful of the consequences.

  “Look at my council of ministers, Hudson! An American Indian, an oriental, six whites, a Mexican, a black. Does that sound like the council of a bigot?”

  “You didn’t select them, sir. They were chosen by council votes when vacancies arose.”

  “I could have vetoed any one of them, including you.” Ogg sat back down, glared at a wall.

  “True enough, Mr. President. But even so, this represents your public self. I’m speaking of your real self.”

  A shocked President Ogg felt Hudson’s words slash into an area of consciousness he had not considered. Can this be so? Ogg thought. His gaze snapped toward Hudson as he asked, “Who put those words into your mouth?”

  “They are my own, sir. I have discussed the matter with Nancy, but the words are my own.”

  “She agrees?”

  “I believe she does.”

  “You surprise me, Hudson.” Ogg lit a tintette nervously, blew a wisp of lavender smoke across the desktop.

  Hudson saw near admiration in the President’s dark brown eyes, that and confusion. Deciding not to press his advantage, Hudson said, “I have to call Nancy right away, sir. An official call.”

  “Concerning what?”

  “Saint Elba is on the route of the comet intercept crew. It is the first recharging station . . . and the place where the two mass drivers will be constructed.”

  “Mass drivers?” Ogg tapped his tintette on an ashtray.

  “Remember we discussed that during the meeting, sir? They will connect fire probes to the comet’s nucleus, and guide it. . . . ”

  “Yes, of course. Do what you must, Hudson. Do what you must.”

  Hudson rose. “Unless you have something further, sir, I should leave now.”

  Ogg nodded, stared at his tintette despondently. I should control everything, he thought. I AM PRESIDENT! But even the tiniest matters elude me. . . . My own sister opposes me?

  As Hudson left the oval office, he realized he had seen a heretofore unexposed side of the President . . . unrevealed even to one able to read the thoughts of others. Maybe Ogg was not so bad after all. Still, forces had already been set in motion, and within days Hudson was confident that a new government would take power.

  Mayor Nancy Ogg held a red towel in one hand as she turned sideways to admire herself in a poolside mirror. Her skin was sleek, wet and light brown, the swimsuited figure trim arid regal. Three red clasps secured the wet, black hair in a Mohanna Dancer’s tail. A triangular Bu-Med crest graced the waist of her suit, and superimposed over that was the tiny silver cross denoting her mayoral rank.

  In an adjoining area of her suite on the L1 therapy orbiter of Saint Elba, the pool constituted a private place for her, and was, as she often liked to mention sarcastically, “one of the perks of power.” Overhead, a reflected midday sun flooded the room with light, and as she looked up she saw one edge of the orbiter’s night shield.

  Five more hours, she thought dejectedly, and that shield will block the sun again, My Rosenbloom, but I hate this place!

  She dropped the towel and stepped quickly onto the diving board. Springing twice at the tip of the board, she leaped into the air, bent gracefully and touched her toes before cutting neatly through the water. The pool was pleasantly warm.

  When Mayor Nancy Ogg came to the surface, Security Sergeant Rountree stood at the pool edge, looking down at her. Trim, tall and muscular, he cut a dashing figure in his gleaming black and gold Security Brigade uniform. She was attracted to him, but had done nothing to fulfill her desires. A person of her status could not mingle with inferiors. A telephone cord at Rountree’s side had a cordless tele-cube which danced in the air above the phone cradle.

  “Telephone call, Honorable Mayor,” the sergeant said, delivering the crisp rotating wrist salute of the Brigade.

  “I am not to be disturbed in here!” Mayor Nancy Ogg snapped, treading water at the center of the pool. Her eyes stung, and she blinked, thinking, Too much chlorine in the pool again—Doesn’t anyone ever listen to me?

  “But it’s a radio call . . . by microwave from Earth.”

  The Mayor scowled, then muttered something and swam smoothly to where the sergeant stood. As she grasped the plasticized pool edge, the tele-cube dropped to meet her, hovering in midair before her mouth.

  “This is Mayor Nancy Ogg.”

  “Nancy?” Hudson’s voice crackled over the distance and immediately there came a scramble-code beep.

  She motioned the sergeant away. Her eyes followed Rountree’s buttocks, then moved up his muscular back to the broad shoulders and wide neck.

  Rountree flicked a glance at her as he pushed through a double exit door. She saw him smile.

  “Yes, darling,” Mayor Nancy Ogg said to Hudson.

  “I’ve just come from a meeting with the President,” Hudson said, breathlessly. He sat on the edge of his desk, spoke into an intercom.

  “And how is my dear brother?”

  “He is well.”

  “Do you love me, Richard sweets?”

  “You know I do.”

  Mayor Nancy Ogg detected irritation in the tone, then asked: “And that is why you called? To tell me you love me?”

  Hudson scowled. “No, There are problems here on Earth.”

  “You haven’t called me for almost two weeks. Why not?”

  “I’ve been busy, Nancy. You know of the comet?”

  “Rumors,” she said,
kicking the water playfully. “Tell me you love me.”

  “Nancy, I don’t have—”

  “Say it.”

  The line beeped.

  “All right. I love you. Now will you listen to me?” In his New City office, he could hear water splashing at Nancy’s end and realized she was in her pool. Hudson shook his head slowly in exasperation while staring out the window at an autocopter as it landed in a cloud of dust on a nearby rooftop. Sunlight flashed off the windows of the autocopter.

  Mayor Nancy Ogg swam on her back to the center of the pool. The tele-cube followed her, remaining in midair several centimeters above her mouth. “I’m listening,” she said.

  “The comet is not a rumor, Nancy.”

  “Oh come now, Dick. Our therapy cells are overflowing with doomies. But you’re not going to tell me that—”

  “I don’t have time to explain, but the danger is very real.”

  Mayor Nancy Ogg swam to the opposite side of the pool. The tele-cube followed her, and she spoke as she climbed out of the water. “Can it be stopped?’

  “Saint Elba is the closest orbiter to the flightpath of a ship we’re sending . . . and you have the manufacturing facility we need . . .”

  “I get the feeling I’m not going to like what you have to say next,” she said, throwing a towel over her shoulders.

  “Pay close attention to this. You must construct two E-Cell powered mass drivers, type J-sixteen with twin R-eleven fire probes on each. Scale everything up twenty-eight times.”

  “Twenty-eight times? Are you kidding?”

  “Our calculations show it will scale up with no problem.”

  “No problem? We’ll have to hand-make a lot of this, with no molds, no standard parts that big. That will take time!”

  “Put everyone to work on it. This is a Priority One.”

  “We don’t have an assembly area that large.”

  Hudson hesitated as he heard a scramble code beep, said, “Knock out the partition walls in Hub Sections A and B.”

  “But we have work in progress in those areas, government contracts to fill . . . deadlines to meet.”

  “Stop everything else, and I do mean EVERYTHING. Move it all out. Catapult it. Whatever, but get it to hell out of there.”

  Mayor Nancy Ogg dried her legs angrily with the towel, said, “And even if we get the damned things built, how are we going to get them out? The space doors are too small! I know, I know . . . put a crew to work on that too—”

  “Finish the mass-drivers by Friday of next week. At noon.”

  “A week from tomorrow? All I can say is we’ll try—”

  “Not good enough. No excuses on this one, Nancy.”

  “I’m an administrator, not a technician!”

  “Delegate it!”

  “Will that be all, Dr. Hudson?” she asked, coolly.

  “Nancy, please believe me when I say that I WILL get you off that orbiter.” I can’t tell her how we’re going to beat her brother in Tuesday’s election, he thought. The ties of blood. . . .

  “Why did my brother have to send me here?” she wailed. “I’ve been on this Godforsaken orbiter for three months!”

  “Be patient. We can’t let personal problems interfere with a world crisis.”

  “Such a convenient excuse. If not for that one, you’d have another.”

  “One more thing, Nancy.”

  “Personal or official? I’m ready to hang up on you!”

  “Official. Have a charging bay available for the ship when it gets there. Use Number One Argonium Gas. Check the charger now for malfunctions. There won’t be time for that later. . . . ”

  Hudson heard a click.

  “Nancy?” he said. “Are you there?”

  The line beeped, went dead.

  * * *

  At a study carrel in the Pleasant Reef Library, a youngsayerman read the first question of his homework assignment:

  1. State two reasons why Uncle Rosy led the AmFed people to believe he had died and then went secretly to the Black Box of Democracy.

  In ornate script, the youngsayerman penned the answer on a separate sheet of ruled paper, “a.) Our Master felt strongly that the AmFed system eventually had to survive on its own. He chose to monitor electronically all aspects of AmFed life in secrecy, adopting a policy whereby his control would be withdrawn gradually. In essence, it was a weening, b.) . . .”

  The youngsayerman scratched his shaven head, trying to come up with the second part of his answer. Glancing at the adjacent carrel, he read another student’s answer and then copied it onto his own paper: “b.) Uncle Rosy discovered the secret of long life, which he dispensed only to himself and to his sayermen. He did not feel an economic system could survive if such knowledge was released to the entire populace. . . . ”

  Chapter Two

  BACKGROUND MATERIAL, FOR FURTHER READING AND DISCUSSION

  Javik, Thomas Patrick—D.O.B. 10/20/68—Atlantic City, N.J.

  Skill Quotient: 1000 (perfect)

  Attitude Quotient: 135 (poor)

  2585: Graduate of PS. 502, New City, Md. . . . aptitude in math and physics . . . disciplinary problems.

  2588:Graduate of Space Academy . . . Mass Driver Mechanics . . . 3.93 G.P.A. . . . 5-day suspension for fighting.

  2588-2593: 2nd Lt., Space Patrol, light cruiser duty in the Ross Asteroids . . . Promoted to 1st Lt. . . .

  2593-2602: Resource Protection Patrol, Dune Region, Moon . . . one A.W.O.L. reprimand . . . promoted to Captain and given command of a Baltimore class cruiser at the outbreak of the Atheist hostilities.

  2603: Distinguished service in the LaGrange Four region . . . saved 2 AmFed base ships and destroyed an entire enemy fighter squadron . . . dishonorably discharged for striking a superior officer . . . no court-martial due to exemplary war record—

  2603-present: Garbage shuttle pilot, New City, Md.

  Excerpts from one of 300 military dossier files known to have been in the possession of General Munoz

  Thursday, August 24, 2605

  On the afternoon of Garbage day minus eight, Tom Javik found himself looking forward to the class reunion. He thought of Sidney as he switched off the autopilot and pushed the control stick forward with an effort that made the muscles on his arm standout.

  Good old Sid, he thought. Hard to believe it’s been twenty years—

  The heavy lift garbage shuttle Icarus rumbled and shook like a great awakening beast, then banked right slowly and made its way around New City’s field of solar power microwave dishes. Now Javik could see Robespierre Magne-Launch Base beneath the sun to the west, with its grey E-Cell silos, compactor buildings and mass driver tracks.

  “Robie clears us for landing,” a gravelly voice to his left said. “Pad four.”

  Javik glanced at his wiry-thin co-pilot, Brent Stafford, nodded. Stafford’s face was creased beyond its years and made him look more like forty-eight than thirty-eight. The hair was blue-black, tousled. He sat hunched over a computer screen, perspiring in the mid-afternoon heat. This summer had been a scorcher.

  Javik verified the clearance on his own screen, cracked: “Tell ’em to evacuate the area. This heap handles like a flying sack of potatoes. No power, controls shot to hell—”He wiped his brow, scowled. “And no air conditioning. Jeez that load stinks today!”

  “Cattle carcasses,” Stafford said, nodding in the direction of the underdeck cargo hold. “They didn’t seal up those drums worth a damn. Saw ’em load on a bunch of cobalt and zirconium waste too. The packages were dripping radioactive . . .”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Javik said. “You knew what you were getting into when you signed on for garbage duty.”

  “Aw, what the hell. Guess it beats pushing paper at some desk.” Stafford smashed a fly against the side of his keyboard with one fist, wiped the insect off on his pantleg.

  “Not like the old days, is it?” Javik said, glancing down at his stained grey and blue garbage workers uniform. “Remember those
Space Patrol outfits? White and gold with ribbons across our chests?”

  “Yeah. The ladies sure went for ’em.”

  Javik grinned, wiped a hand through his shock of amber hair. “Uh huh! Hey, remember that Polynesian girl I met in the astro port?”

  Stafford smiled, glanced out his starboard window as he heard the sonic thump of a catapulted load. “Port Saint Clemente,” Stafford said. “Greatest little spot in the asteroid belt. You met her at the hot springs . . . love at first sight.”

  “Thought I was gonna go A.W.O.L. and become permies with that lady,” Javik said. “But the war . . .” His voice trailed off. “Well, you know. . . . ”

  The Icarus hovered over its landing pad now, and Javik watched grey-uniformed men below scurry to get clear.

  “Never saw you any closer, pal,” Stafford said. He studied his friend, noted that Javik’s long legs had to be turned to one side to fit under the instrument panel. Lines were beginning to appear around deeply set blue eyes. The aquiline nose had a scar at the bridge from one of many barroom scuffles. A little pouch of fat had begun to adhere beneath Javik’s chin, evidence that he no longer sustained a rigid conditioning program. In the old days, Stafford could hardly keep up with this man. Of late, it had been the other way around.

  Javik hit the retro rockets button, flipped a switch to activate the para-flaps. “C’mon, c’mon,” he husked impatiently. He was cursing when the rockets finally ignited, but Stafford could not hear the words in the roar. The Icarus settled onto a concrete landing pad. “Okay!” Javik yelled, hitting switches and pushing buttons. “Shut her down!”

  Javik was first to the door. He waited as one of the base crewmen drove an escalator unit into position. Javik mento-locked his moto-boots and was bounding down the steps before the mechanism had clicked into place against the Icarus. Stafford followed.

  “Hey you guys!” a pig-faced base sergeant called out. “Remember the Conservation of Motion Doctrine! No exercise outside a Bu-Health gym!”

  “Stuff that full-employment hype, Peterson!” Javik barked. “We’re doin’ our bit hauling garbage to the catapults!” Javik reached the ground, short-stepped to the sergeant and pushed him in the chest. “You wanna ride in that ship full of stink, buddy?”