Ark

by Stephen Baxter

  ′I guess.′

  ′Venus told me about her relationship with Harry.′

  Zane′s face went blank. ′And you want to hear the same from me?′

  ′I know it′s difficult. Just tell me how it started.′

  It had been the day of the 2036 accident that had almost killed Zane′s own father. ′That was the lowest point. That was the opportunity to exploit.′ He told her something about that first sexual encounter, which was similar to what Harry had done to Venus, her first time. It sounded like a practised technique. But Zane told this oddly, describing the incidents and actions with passive verbs, entirely impersonally.

  ′Did he tell you he loved you?′

  ′That remark was made.′

  ′Did he ask you if you loved him?′

  ′The question was asked.′

  ′Did you love him?′

  ′There was a problem to be solved.′

  Grace stared at him. She had met many bruised people in the course of her life; it was a bruising world. But Zane was exceptional. ′Do you think any of the others loved him?′

  ′Matt loved him, I think, Matt Weiss. Matt told me so, once. He was drunk.′

  ′Did you ask anybody for help? Did you tell anybody what was going on?′

  ′He asked the father,′ he said oddly. Then, a double-take: ′I asked my father.′

  ′And?′

  ′He said a Candidate for the Ark crew should sort out such issues himself. He said such a victim was dirty and unworthy.′

  She pressed him for more details, and he replied in the same abstracted, impersonalised way.

  For Zane there had been no sudden fracture of his relationship with Harry, no revealed lies, no blow-up, no rejection, as there had been for Venus. Zane had never taken control. The relationship had gone on and on, the sex. Yet there had been an ultimate crisis.

  ′Harry said he′d protect you. But in the end he failed, didn′t he? You were deselected.′

  ′There was a psych test. Zane Glemp is technically capable but emotionally unintelligent. That was what the doctors said.′

  ′So in the end Harry didn′t fulfil the bargain. All that sex, all the creeping around, your father′s anger - the shame you must have felt. Despite all that he didn′t deliver the one thing you wanted, a place on the crew.′

  ′Perhaps that was never possible. His influence was always more negative than positive, the ability to stop people with a bad report rather than confirm a place.′

  ′It was all a lie, then. You hated him for it,′ she said, pushing. ′You hated him for blackmailing you, for not delivering you a place on the Ark. You had means and motive to kill him.′

  ′There was no hate. There was nothing. Murder was not necessary.′

  And instinctively she believed him. Zane was a victim, not an perpetrator; he could never have taken control, as Venus had, and as the killer evidently had.

  ′Then if you didn′t kill him, who? It sounds as if it must have been Matt.′

  ′I don′t know.′

  ′But logic suggests—′

  ′Logic?′ For the first time he turned to look at her directly; his eyes were surprisingly soft, full of character. ′To see the logic, ask yourself what Matt wanted. And, indeed, what Harry wanted. We′re here. Gunnison.′

  The car was slowing. Grace peered out of the windows, curious. The sky had cleared to reveal a deep blue, and the old town was a pretty place of clapperboard buildings, surrounded by pine trees and with the Rockies floating on the horizon. But it was overwhelmed by Project Nimrod, crowded with fresh-looking prefabricated buildings and industrial facilities, gantries, rails, pipelines that bridged the road, immense storage tanks that were plastered with frost even in the August heat. She thought she recognised a rocket gantry, slim and upright, with propellant hoses dangling.

  The car pulled up at the foot of a massive building, like a factory, a rectangular block maybe thirty metres wide and three times as tall. A tangle of cylindrical tanks and immense coiled springs were contained within a framework of scaffolding.

  ′So where′s your spacecraft?′ She had been expecting something like the moth-shaped space shuttle orbiters in the photos Gary Boyle used to show her.

  He smiled and pointed at the large industrial building. ′That′s it.′

  34

  Where Venus Jenning and Zane Glemp had seemed indifferent to Harry Smith′s death, Matt Weiss was heartbroken.

  Grace spoke to him in a small conference room in the basement of one of the launch-centre buildings. It was a bare, bleak room, with unpainted plaster walls and a concrete floor. The room was hot, stuffy, stale, despite the noisy aircon. There was evidently no luxury in any of these new project installations.

  Grace gulped more coffee. She had had one hell of a long day. She didn′t even know where she′d be sleeping that night. She tried to focus on the young man in front of her.

  Around the same age as the others - Zane was twenty-one, Holle and Venus twenty-two - Matt Weiss was stocky, strong-looking, with a broad face with a wide nose and heavy lips. He wore his hair severely crew-cut, military style. He wasn′t in the usual red-and-blue Candidate suit; he had been working on some heavy engineering project and he wore jeans and a vest. His bare arms, heavily muscled, were streaked with oil, though his face and hands were clean, and his boots left dirt marks on the floor. He looked down at his hands, which were folded on his lap. He seemed to be on the brink of crying.

  ′I knew the sex was wrong, sort of,′ he said. ′I was never like that. I had girlfriends, before I joined the Academy. I was a cadet with the Denver PD. Once I got in here, when I found out how competitive it was and how easy you could get washed out, I got scared.′ He had a broad Texan accent.

  ′Scared of being sent back.′

  He looked up. ′I don′t know what you′ve seen. My parents died in a food riot in Dallas when I was a kid. Then with the cops I was on the front line, even as a cadet. There′s never enough cops. I was still just a kid. Once, in Nebraska, these rafters tried to crash the barriers. We had riot shields and we linked arms, and we just shoved our way down that old roadway and threw them back into the water. There were mothers holding their babies up to us. Everybody was screaming.′

  ′I understand—′

  ′Every second from age twelve, I was afraid that I′d screw up somehow and end up on the other side. With the eye-dees. I mean, what′s the difference between me and them? We′re all just Americans, just people.′

  ′And Harry Smith said he′d save you from being sent back.′

  The pattern, as it had begun, was familiar to Grace by now. Harry homed in on his students at their most vulnerable, seduced them with promises of loyalty and safety, and then subjected them to the strange choreography of his first night-time visit. And then, just as before, he told Matt he loved him.

  ′And I loved him back,′ Matt said defiantly now, and he wiped a running nose on the back of one massive hand. ′Why shouldn′t I? He was protecting me, like a father, or a brother. You love the people who protect you. That′s what love is. So he made me suck his dick. Probably half the fucking Candidates are sucking dick to stay in the programme, who cares?′

  He talked a while longer about his relationship with Harry, how it had continued right up until the time he had been killed. And he talked about the accident. He spoke of the technical details of how the test bomb had been tampered with, the additional charge loaded in. After Zane initially discovered the tampering, Matt had helped the forensic team piece together what had happened. Yes, he could have been the one who did it. No, he hadn′t done it. ′Ask Zane,′ he said coldly. ′I loved him, Harry. I really did. Zane didn′t.′

  ′Setting the charge,′ she said. ′The bomb that killed Harry. How much planning would it take? I mean, could it be done on impulse, quickly, as soon as you had the idea? Or would it have taken some planning?′

  He hesitated. ′You could do it fast. If you knew what you were doing, and y
ou were in the right place with the access to the stuff you needed. Wouldn′t take no planning. Ask Zane.′

  When she was done, she had Matt escort her out into the open air. Gordo Alonzo had come down from Alma and was waiting for her. He nodded to her, eyes hidden behind huge black sunglasses.

  They walked the few hundred metres to the Orion spaceship, in its vast, gleaming, uncompleted frame. The stack was topped by a pyramid shape of black, gleaming tiles. She could hear a hiss coming from deep within the structure, and saw showers of sparks - welding torches, perhaps. It looked so massive it might sink into the Earth, rather than rise up from it. The ship was closely guarded, with armed troopers patrolling a wire-fence perimeter, and others walking along gantries in the guts of the thing itself.

  Standing at the building-ship′s huge base, Gordo Alonzo pulled a cigar from a slim metal case. As an afterthought he offered one to Grace.

  ′Thanks, no. I guess my generation never had a chance to get the habit. They must be precious.′

  ′Nah. Got a whole heap in cold storage in the bunker in Cheyenne. Cold War vintage, 1960.′ He stuck it in his mouth unlit. ′So,′ he said briskly. ′You got our killer?′

  ′Matt Weiss,′ she said.

  He flinched, his eyebrows raising. He took off his cap, and wiped a sweating scalp. ′You surprise me. I had Zane Glemp pegged. That little weasel got kicked off the crew, after all.′

  ′Zane′s a victim, not a killer. He couldn′t have done it. And Venus didn′t need to. She′d beaten Harry already, in her way. That leaves Matt.′

  ′OK. But of the three of them Matt Weiss obviously did care for Harry, in his screwed-up way. And Matt got to stay on the crew, so Harry kept his promise. So where′s the motive to kill him?′

  ′Jealousy. Matt thought he loved Harry, and so he must have been jealous of the others, Zane, Venus, maybe others - I don′t know if Harry had any more victims.′

  Gordo shook his head. ′If he did, nobody′s talking.′

  ′Look at it from the point of view of a jealous lover. Harry was sending Matt off into space. But he kept Zane on the ground, close to him.′

  ′Shit. So Matt read his own crew selection as a kind of rejection by Harry?′

  ′I think so. He kept it bottled up. These kids of yours seem to have learned to hide their emotions. But when Harry happened to come out to see this bomb test—′

  ′Matt saw a chance to take revenge.′

  ′Yeah. He said himself it was easy to have set up the lethal charge, if you knew what you were doing.′

  ′Well, I′ll be.′ Gordo took his cigar from his mouth, cut it and lit it. ′Of course you don′t have a shred of proof for this.′

  ′No. But I think Matt will confess if you push him. I didn′t want to do that—′

  ′We′ll handle it.′

  ′What about Matt′s place in the crew?′

  ′Well, he′s scrubbed.′ Gordo grinned. ′Ironically he opens the door again for Zane. The best replacement. Matt Weiss has screwed himself every which way. Miss Gray, you′ve had a hell of a day. But I guess you passed the test I set you.′ He eyed her. ′We′ll have to let out one of those fancy jumpsuits.′

  ′I don′t know if I want to become one of your Candidates.′

  ′OK. I understand that. And there′s no guarantee you′ll make it even if you want to; I guess you can see how tough the selection process is.′ He waved his cigar at the Orion. ′And there′s no guarantee this ramshackle thing is even going to fly. But look, Miss Gray. I was assigned to this damn project against my will too. I thought I had better things to do with my remaining years than this bullshit, a pack of kids and a dumbass plan. But look where we are now. The flood has washed away every hope of recovery, every other thing we planned. Suddenly Project Nimrod is the only positive hope we have left, the only chance we have to send the memory of what we were into the future.

  ′That′s why I′ve bust my balls trying make it work. Banging the eggheads′ big skulls together to make them come up with a feasible design, a ship that we can build and we can test, and will fly. And working my damnedest to turn this bunch of kids into a crew. But that′s all they are - kids. They don′t even know what it is they′re being saved from. I think they need you, and people like you. I remember when I first saw you in that okie city of yours, and you were sixteen years old, and you′d stitched up some old guy′s stomach wound with thread.′

  ′That was Michael Thurley. And it was fishing line.′

  He smiled at her over his cigar, and she saw herself reflected in the twin lenses of his sunglasses, her hands on her belly, her lank hair, her drawn, tired face. ′So what do you say? Will you ride to the stars with us?′

  35

  NOVEMBER 2041

  Holle woke in an empty bed. She could feel it, feel the cold of a pushed-back duvet, even before she began to move.

  Seven days. That was her first thought. Just seven days to launch, after a lifetime of training, of friendship and rivalry, triumphs and breakdowns, wonder and tragedy. But first she had to get through today.

  She opened her eyes slowly. The room was filled with grey light, the light of another murky November morning; the weather had been lousy, depressing for weeks. She rolled on her back, feeling the aches in her stiff muscles, her body′s memory of the hours she′d spent on the centrifuge yesterday. She′d been too exhausted even to make love with Mel. When they′d rolled into the room they shared here in the crew hostel at Gunnison they′d spent an hour on massage, working out the knots of pain in each other′s body, before succumbing to sleep.

  Now Mel stood before the window, naked save for a pair of boxer shorts. His body was silhouetted against the sky, and she could see the hard outline of his waist, his muscled arms. After these final intensive months of training, they were all super-fit.

  ′Mel? Come back to bed.′

  He didn′t stir.

  She clambered out of bed, wrapped a blanket over her shoulders, and shuffled to the window. They were on the tenth storey of this residential facility, a concrete block hastily thrown up to house the Candidates, and the engineers, managers, trainers and other ground-support staff who outnumbered the potential crew many times over. Glancing down she made out the triple fence, ditches, gun towers and patrolling dogs that walled her off in this particular haven from the rest of a crumbling world.

  And looking out, as the eastern sky brightened over to her right, she had a grand view of the Gunnison valley, cradled by the bulk of the Rockies. Her eye was drawn to the Orion launch stack itself, a complex block bathed in spotlights. She was ten kilometres away from the ship, and she made out the cluster of support facilities around it, ugly, functional concrete buildings with the gleam of gravel roads snaking between them. That was the Zone, as they had come to call it, the two-kilometre-wide launch centre with the monstrous spacecraft at its heart. The old town of Gunnison itself was to the east, off to the right of the launch facility. All this was contained by a wider secured perimeter within which lay what the military planners called the Hinterland, a concentration of industrial facilities sixteen kilometres across. Traffic crawled everywhere, the lights of the convoys like strings of jewels, and if she pressed her ear to the glass she could hear the rumble of vast machines. The work went on twenty-four seven, and it had been that way for months.

  Mel only had eyes for the Ark itself. ′Look at that bird.′

  Holle wrapped her arms around his waist. ′And it′s all ours.′

  ′Or will be, in a week.′

  It wasn′t like Mel to be up like this. He generally slept like a log; he′d been in the military long enough to learn the trick of grabbing sleep whenever he could. She asked, ′You OK this morning?′

  ′I guess so. Just the tension closing in, I guess.′

  ′Those damn clocks ticking down everywhere.′

  ′And something else. Don′t you feel it?′

  ′What?′

  ′Euphoria,′ he said. ′I guess that′s t
he word. It feels like we′re the centre of the whole world. We′re young, fit, ready to go and do what we′ve trained all our lives for. I can′t imagine ever feeling better than this. Gordo Alonzo talks about how it was for a shuttle crew before a spaceflight. Some things don′t change, I guess.′

  He was right. Everything was heightened, as if it was all more real - even now, the warmth of Mel′s flesh against her cheek, the prickle of the rough carpet under her feet, the twinkling lights of the sleepless industrial landscape before her. ′Yeah. We′re running on adrenaline. I′ll probably sleep for a week once we′re on the damn ship.′

  He turned and took her in his arms, his face shadowed as he looked down at her. ′Do you have any regrets?′

  ′Like what?′

  ′You aren′t sorry we didn′t try for a pregnancy?′

  Many of the female Candidates had done so, getting themselves knocked up in the final weeks. Some had succeeded, including Susan Frasier, who was bearing the child of her long-term boyfriend Pablo Mason, an eye-dee who had turned out to be a maths whiz and, through Susan′s persuasion of Gordo, got himself a place on the project ground crew. But there were others who had ended up getting too sick to complete the training programme, and had washed themselves out.

  ′It might have boosted your chances.′

  ′No,′ Holle said firmly. ′We′ve been through this.′ If she had got pregnant with Mel′s kid, his genes would have become redundant. ′I wasn′t about to leave you behind. We can have kids on Earth II.′

  ′Not for eight years.′

  She shrugged. ′I can wait.′

  A wall panel flashed, bleeping softly.

  They broke their hug. Holle called, ′On.′

  The screen lit up with Alonzo′s craggy, deeply tanned face. ′—is a loop recording. The final crew selection commences at 0800.′ An hour from now. ′If you believe yourself to be eligible for selection, get yourself to the crew centre on time. If you ain′t there, even if your name is Neil Armstrong, you wash out. I hope that′s clear. Bring only what you need.′ He glanced down at a note. ′That′s all.′ There was a flicker, as the recording restarted. ′This is a loop recording. The final crew selection process commences at 0800 …′