To Save the Sun

by Ben Bova

  Seeing that he was now held securely by the sticky field, Reid stopped his banter and slipped the controller into his shirt pocket, then crossed to where his father lay on the ground, checking his condition. Javas appeared to be all right for the moment, but from Eric's vantage point he seemed to lapse in and out of consciousness. Standing again, Reid strode casually up to where he was being held tight in the field's grip and stood mockingly at his side.

  He tried to speak, in vain, and managed only to frown up at his tormentor. Show your contempt.

  "It was stupid of you to fight me, Eric," Reid said, leaning so close that he could feel his brother's breath on his face. "Look at you: You take more after your scientist mother than the Emperor. I'm stronger, more suited for rule than you could ever be." He started to say something else, but a sudden rustle from the underbrush caught his attention and he turned away for a moment. The rustling stopped, and was replaced by Brendan's groaning as the man fell back into the scrub once more. "Pathetic. The Master is trying to help you, still trying to prove to you that he's no traitor. Since you've managed to kill Johnson, I'll take care of this last chore myself."

  He went to the fallen oak where the guns had been piled, and picked up both of the weapons Johnson had confiscated from them. "I recognize Mobo's gun," he said, leaning it against the oak, then picked up the revolver. "This one must belong to the Master. I believe I'll use it to kill him."

  Wait, wait.

  "No, don't do it…" His father had managed to raise himself up on one elbow, but was helpless to intervene as Reid approached the trail. Eric waited until his brother was almost in front of him, then with every bit of strength he possessed pushed the gun forward and watched as the dust delineating the edge of the field stretched, then snapped back closer to his body. The moment the chamber cleared the edge of the field, he squeezed the trigger.

  Reid was barely a meter in front of him when he fired, and the full blast of the shotgun threw his brother forcefully against the oak. Eric felt the sticky field dissolve around him almost instantly, and he hit the ground and rolled to the side in the event Reid tried to respond with the revolver. He needn't have bothered. Reid, his chest blown nearly away, was dead before he hit the tree. His head lolling to one side, his brother's body leaned in an almost natural position against the oak. Eric swallowed hard as he stared at the gaping hole in Reid's chest, and saw that bits and pieces of the controller electronics were scattered amid the blood.

  Eric turned away. "Father, are you all right?" he asked, supporting his shoulders.

  "I'll be fine. Help me up." He weaved unsteadily as Eric helped him to his feet, but kept his balance.

  Together the two of them went to Brendan. They removed his backpack in an attempt to make him as comfortable as possible. Eric rummaged through the backpack until he found the medical kit and dressed the Master's wounds as best he could, but it was clear to both of them that the injuries were even more severe than he had thought; he'd lost too much blood.

  "The shield controller was destroyed," Eric said, trying to keep Brendan alert. He removed his jacket and made a pillow for him; his father's jacket was already draped over him. "If he was telling the truth about it being an integrated control, then the shield on the House should be down, too. Lie still; we'll have help soon."

  Brendan ignored the hopeful remark and addressed his father. "Sire… Your integrator… ?" He coughed again, spitting blood. He seemed to grow weaker, his skin more pallid by the minute.

  The Emperor shook his head. "No, it's still out. But they'll be searching the woods any time now with body heat scans. Hang on, Brendan." He looked around, hoping to spot some sign of impending rescue, but Brendan's hand on his arm drew his attention.

  "Sire… Your father…"

  "Shhhh. Don't talk."

  "No." Eric felt Brendan shivering beneath his touch, saw his lips quivering as he spoke. Brendan's eyes grew glassy, but stared desperately into his father's face as he tried to sit. "I didn't kill him."

  His father stiffened. "I think I know that now."

  "He was already dying. We… we even had to keep him in cryosleep for… most of the journey here." Brendan released his grip on Javas' arm and fell back against Eric's rolled jacket, catching his breath before going on. "He hid it from me… hid it from all of us with his integrator. Johnson's… people would have murdered him, but he beat them to it… knowing that the public spectacle of his death would result in an intensive… effort to find his killers…"

  "And gain immediate support for the project," Javas finished for him. "He gave you the bracelet, didn't he, using you as the bait Glenney needed to hunt down Johnson's people."

  Brendan nodded almost imperceptibly at the burden that had just been lifted from him. As he died, the hint of a smile appeared at the corners of his mouth.

  There was a humming vibration above their heads and Eric looked upward at the hovercraft skimming the treetops, recognizing it by its markings as one of the short-range hoppers kept at the House. The craft slowed as it passed over their location, then circled around and reoriented over the clearing as it prepared to land.

  His father hadn't moved, and remained staring at Brendan's body, his eyes moist.

  "You've done something few can do, my friend," he said softly, his words nearly lost in the increasing whine of the descending hovercraft. "You've given your life twice for your Emperor."

  The day had begun with a beautiful summer sunrise over the green Kentucky hills to the east. It was still early, and Eric and his father strolled the grounds on what was to be their last morning together before the Emperor returned to the Moon. In the two days that had passed since returning to Woodsgate, his father's wounds had been quick-healed, and only a slight shininess of plastiskin remained on his cheek where the bone structure of his face had been rebuilt. In a few days more even that would be gone, and with it, all physical traces of their ordeal.

  "I'll tell you something else," his father was saying. He'd stopped to make a point, and Eric let his eyes roam the garden as he spoke. He felt a strong, humid breeze from the south and already felt warm in his formal Imperial jacket. Today would be hot, he knew. "In many ways, I don't really miss it. Without my integrator, I've been more at peace with myself than I have in years." He chuckled to himself, and added, "Of course, once they've reactivated the circuitry I'm sure I'll wonder how I ever got along without it."

  "What about House Valtane?"

  Eric's blunt question took his father by surprise, and he resumed walking before answering. "I don't know. I'm forced to admit that she's covered her tracks well. We've been able to find little, if any, ties to the Sarpan other than the most innocuous of trade agreements. She apparently has no interest whatever in the project, other than how it might affect her personal gain, and merely used the zealousness of Johnson and his people to get to us. Without their leader to guide them, it's becoming ridiculously easy to round up what's left of them."

  "There will still be resistance, I suppose."

  His father sighed. "Yes, I suppose mere will. But nothing as fanatical—or as fatalistic—as Johnson's group. They were the only serious threat." Javas looked away again and cleared his throat. He was clearly uneasy about something. He took a deep breath, then said, "Eric… has Master McLaren told you of the test of courage that is given to each heir to the Empire upon his reaching manhood?"

  Eric felt his heart race suddenly, but hid his true feelings as best he could. "He's not yet spoken of it to me, not directly anyway; but yes, I know of it."

  His father nodded in understanding. "Do you know that my oldest brother failed?"

  A whisper: "Yes."

  Javas sighed again. "I can't guess how much you know about what happened, but accept that the test is the final determination of a man's fitness to rule. To fail the test proves cowardice, which is punishable by death—instantly and without question—at the hands of a member of the House of Arman. Only he can set the conditions of the test; only he can be the j
udge in this. It is tradition, and cannot, will not, be broken."

  Javas pushed, and stared off into the distance where a flock of game birds were clearing a rise at the edge of the estate grounds. "Eric, officially speaking, your test would still be many years away. However, I can conceive of no test that would prove your courage more than the ordeal you've just gone through. There will be no need to test you further." He smiled then and held out his hand. "You've made me proud, in more ways than you can imagine."

  Eric was about to reply, but was interrupted by a sudden, steady whine behind them as the shuttle prepared for takeoff, and the two men turned back to the front of the House. McLaren stood waiting at the edge of the shuttle pad, hands clasped behind his back and a dour expression on his face. Things truly are back to normal, Eric mused as they neared.

  The head of House security sprinted up to them, bowing his head nervously. "Sire, your shuttle is ready to depart."

  The Emperor nodded to dismiss him, and when he was out of earshot, said, "I've got a feeling it will be a long time, if ever, before Imperial security is the same again."

  "Good." Eric turned to his father, and extended his hand in farewell.

  "Good-bye, Eric," the Emperor said, shaking his hand firmly before turning for the shuttle.

  "Father?" Eric said suddenly, stopping him. "I'm proud to be your son."

  His father raised his hand to the waiting security personnel at the shuttle to signal that he was coming and turned back to Eric. "I fought your grandfather for so many years," he said, shaking his head sadly. "I never told him how proud I was of him until he was an old man, almost too late. Thank you for not making me wait as long." The Emperor smiled warmly, then headed for the waiting shuttle.

  Eric watched as the craft lifted off and passed through the shielding. It circled the grounds once, then disappeared through the clouds.

  … there are a few physical differences, as well. Due to the gravity of 1.2 g, most native Pallatins are shorter in stature than human standard. Further, after three centuries their eyes are larger to better utilize the dimmer light emitted by their K-2 sun. The eyes have been described as very expressive and are, to the keen observer, a key indicator of their emotions at any given moment…

  Eric found it difficult to sleep that night, and sat idly fingering the keys of the terminal at his study desk. He was only half reading the screen and tapped at the keys to bring up a different file. The readout on the flatscreen display showed a green planet, slightly larger than Earth, turning slowly as a description of the world scrolled by beneath it.

  Pallatin, it read. Star type: K-2. Distance: 16.5 light-years. Colony established: 2321. Economy: Ship construction, heavy and light industrial, bioengineering, literature …

  Sixteen and a half light-years. He did a quick mental calculation—at top speed, Dr. Adela de Montgarde was probably arriving at Pallatin just about now. Or perhaps she had even concluded her business there and was now on her way home. In any event, she certainly would know by now that she had a son, waiting on Earth.

  Eric had never felt a closeness to his absent mother, had never felt a need to contact her. Besides, he'd reasoned, the distances made the relevancy of any message he might send pointless. The events of the past week, however, had made him rethink his reasoning.

  It would still take several years for the message to reach her; in fact, it would probably be intercepted on the return trip. It didn't really matter, though, as she would most likely be in cryosleep when the message was received. It would greet her upon her awakening when she reentered Sol system, as would each of the periodic recordings that would follow this one.

  He tapped the keyboard lightly and the display disappeared, then quickly keyboarded the sequence to set up a holographic recording. Soft lighting came up around the flatscreen as the system prepared to record, and a low chiming told him when it was ready.

  "Record." The glow changed subtly as the recording process started.

  "Hello, Mother," he began. "Let me tell you about myself."

  PART FOUR

  TO REAP THE WHIRLWIND

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Old Man is talking to his son, Amasee Niles thought as he watched the huge moon rise. It glowed a brilliant orange, matching the dying glow of Pallatin's K-2 star. With the sky not yet dark, it looked as though there were two suns in the sky: a brighter, sinking one in the west; another, seemingly only slightly dimmer, climbing the eastern sky. He smiled, remembering the children's tale his mother used to tell him on those occasions when the moon's orbit was just right and both objects were in the sky at the same time.

  "The sun doesn't go down until the moon rises," she had told him, just as countless other mothers had told countless other children. And like those others, he had listened wide-eyed and believing. "He waits there, seeming to hang forever on the horizon until his son appears. For a while, when they're in the sky at the same time, he tells his son of his day: what happened on the world below him and what the little people were doing. He tells him to look after the little people, and sometimes…" She had paused then, he remembered, and lowered her voice as if imparting a secret meant only for him. "Sometimes, he picks out one little boy or girl and tells the moon to be especially watchful over that one, and to bring good luck. And do you know how to tell if you're the one? Well, you keep watching the moon and think good thoughts, and if your thoughts are good enough and you look very closely, you'll see him wink at you. Just at you and nobody else."

  He remembered lying awake that night as long as he could, staring at the moon, hoping the big face he imagined there would wink just for him. And again the next time the orbit brought it to the same position two months later, and the next. But he always fell asleep.

  How many years ago was that? he wondered, surprised at how well he remembered it all. He gazed steadily at the moon, nearly half the size of Pallatin itself. Rugged craters covered its surface and many of them could be easily identified without a telescope, but for just the briefest of moments he tried to imagine the face he remembered from childhood. He squinted and stared, and for a second his mind let go of the reality that what he saw was merely a pattern of craters and mountains, and he thought he saw the face. But then the rational part of his mind intruded once more, and the pattern became just ordinary empty craters again.

  Amasee Niles stood at the lower edge of his farm, leaning forward on his elbows on the low strand-metal fence that circled his property, and gazed quietly at the rugged landscape spreading out below his homestead. He'd located the house halfway up a gently sloping ridge, and from where he stood he could see the entire countryside to the east for dozens of kilometers. The bare, exposed sheets of gray rock that had been thrust violently upward in the Big Quake stood out sharply against the soft green of the surrounding grassland. Here and there the hardy bioengineered grasses had managed to establish a foothold on the bare rock, and even at this distance Amasee could pick out several spots of green among the now-silent gray slabs.

  He looked closely, trying hard to pick out the site of the original Westland colony, but the surface features had changed so much, so drastically, that the location of the once-familiar landmark—a scattering of small houses, civic buildings and meeting hall surrounding a circular town green—was impossible to spot. Even the cracked and broken concrete of the obsolete landing strip, the largest structure there, was nowhere to be found. He gave up with a troubled shake of his head. The main city of Dannen, reestablished several kilometers to the west more than two hundred years ago, had experienced severe damage; thousands had been left homeless and many had been hurt, but there was, miraculously, no loss of life caused by the earthquake almost twenty years earlier. But at first light following the tremors the residents were stunned to find that Pallatin's original settlement of Dannen's Down, maintained and preserved as an historical village, had disappeared, swallowed whole by the turbulent ground. The loss of life was minor in number—only the live-in caretakers and historical role
players signed on for the season were in residence when it hit—but devastating in its completeness. His sister Katie, her twin sons, Zack and Toma, and twenty others; all friends, all gone, killed in minutes as Pallatin's restless geology reached up and took them inside.

  Twenty-three people, he thought, reminding himself for the hundredth time that Dannen had been lucky. Although few were killed in the eastern portion of Pallatin's only major continent, nearly three thousand people had died throughout Westland; Chesterton, less than twenty kilometers to the north, had suffered more than two hundred deaths—almost a fourth of its population—and other settlements, ranging in size from small towns to major trading and industrial centers, had all experienced losses far greater in proportion to their population than had Dannen. So why do these twenty-three haunt me?

  He heard a rustling in the tall grass behind him and recognized Marabell by her gait. Without turning around, he said, "I know, I know; I'm going to be late if I don't leave before sunset."

  There was a soft, high-pitched chuckle behind him and he felt delicate hands slip around his waist. She leaned her head softly against his back, and as an early evening breeze came up behind them it brought the scent of lilacs to him. Without looking, he knew that Marabell had picked a handful of the fragrant flowers from the bushes behind the house.

  "You probably thought I was sneaking up on you again, didn't you?" Her voice was light, although behind her teasing lay an understanding that her husband was troubled.

  "And weren't you?" he asked, laughing. He turned around in her embrace, leaning backward against the fence, and pulled her to him. He held her silently for a moment, staring over her shoulder at the house. The kitchen lights glowed warmly. Clint was nowhere to be seen, but their youngest son, Thad, occupied himself happily on a play set beneath the iron oaks to one side of the house. "Where's Clint?" he asked. "I was hoping to see him before I left."