Ark

by Stephen Baxter

  ′Let′s get it over.′

  Holle threw a switch. The suit winches cut in and they rose up, smooth and silent, their legs dangling, climbing the cables effortlessly, with Holle just ahead of Masayo. ′The crossing will take a few minutes.′

  ′Kind of slow,′ he muttered.

  ′Well, that′s for safety. You in a hurry? I could always override the regulator—′

  ′Hell, no.′

  ′Oh, come on, enjoy it. Look around. Get your bearings. There′s the sun, over there.′ She pointed. The sun, five times more remote than from Earth, cast an oddly dim light and sharp, strange shadows. It was no longer bright enough to banish the stars that filled the sky all around them, sharper and more crowded than seen from any mountain top on Earth. ′Look, you can see the launch stage …′

  The Orion launch frame drifted alongside the tethered hulls, its thermal-resistant pyramidal cap still in place, the pusher plate still gleaming. Without the bulk of the hulls the interior looked gutted, and that mighty thermonuclear engine was stilled for good. The hulk was now serving its final purpose as a construction platform as spacewalking astronauts, all of them Candidates trained for the job, put together the warp assembly at the hull tether midpoint. Aside from that Holle could see the freeflying platforms that supported Venus′s planet-hunting telescopes, both of them sailing far from the vibration and bright lights of the hulls. There was no point looking for the antimatter miner; that was fifteen million kilometres away, plying its hazardous trade between Io and Jupiter. All these components were scattered in the blackness, but they twinkled with lights, with humanness, like a little town in the orbit of Jupiter.

  Masayo was looking around uneasily, his hands clamped to the restraint at his waist.

  ′And there,′ she said, ′is Jupiter.′ She pointed the other way from the sun.

  Jupiter was a disc, golden-brown, visibly flattened, the only object in the whole universe away from the Ark cluster itself large enough to show as anything other than a point.

  ′Kind of disappointing,′ Masayo said.

  It was a common reaction among the crew. ′Oh, you think so?′

  ′It looks no larger than the moon, from Earth.′ He held out a thumb, waggling it, occluding the planet from his sight. ′King of the worlds! Somebody told me it masses as much as all the other planets combined. Is that right?′

  ′Yeah. More than three hundred Earths.′

  ′But it′s just a ball of gas. I can see those big cloud bands, but so what? Even the Great Red Spot is just kind of mud-coloured.′

  ′You should talk to Joe Antionadi.′

  Joe had specialised in climatology, among other disciplines, and he spent long hours in the cupola studying Jupiter, a super-laboratory of climate. The Great Red Spot was actually a permanent storm system, centuries old, that prowled endlessly around Jupiter′s cloud bands. There were disturbing parallels between it and some of the huge new hypercanes roaming Earth′s equator.

  But they weren′t here for Jupiter itself, but for the products of its magnetosphere.

  ′You need perspective, Lieutenant. Why are we so far out? Why don′t we orbit close in, skimming a hundred kilometres over the clouds like they used to orbit Earth?′

  ′Radiation, right?′

  ′That′s it. Jupiter is a high-radiation environment. A human worker down there would pick up over three thousand rem a day - a lethal dose is around five hundred.′ She leaned back, trusting the tether, and waved her suited arms. ′And believe me, if you could see the planet′s magnetic field you wouldn′t think Jupiter is so small. It has ten times the strength of Earth′s, it stores twenty thousand times as much energy, and it stretches far out, even beyond our radius here, twice as far. And it traps charged particles from the sun.′

  ′That′s what makes the radiation environment so lethal.′

  ′Right. But it′s the interaction between Io and Jupiter′s magnetic field that′s important for us.′ Through Venus′s telescopes Holle had seen the mighty aurorae that played over Jupiter′s night side, and heard the crackle of radio waves emanating from the tortured gases. Io′s flux tube, a system of high-energy plasma, was a natural antimatter factory.

  ′Hell of a way to go about your business,′ Masayo said.

  They had reached the tether′s centre-point now, and Holle slowed them to a stop. Looking around from here she could see the great band of the warp generator, essentially a compact collider ring, wrapped around the tether. Spokes like a bicycle wheel′s attached the ring to a hub at the midpoint of the tether. On the ring she saw a welding spark, and two suited workers moved patiently around a freshly installed panel.

  Masayo asked uneasily, ′Is there some reason why we stopped?′

  ′Point to the sun. Just do it.′

  ′It′s over there.′ He pointed again, his finger fat in the heavy glove. ′Oh. No, it ain′t.′ The sun had shifted visibly around their sky, as had Jupiter, the stars. ′We′re turning.′ He grabbed onto the tether.

  ′Take it easy. That′s Seba down below, where we came from.′ She pointed. ′That way is down. The other way′s up. OK?′

  He forced himself to relax, muttering. ′Up, down, up, down.′

  ′Good. We′ll make an astronaut of you yet. It′s just a slow rotation for now. Takes an hour to complete. Not enough so you′d notice the centripetal force inside the hulls, but it′s enough to keep the tether under tension. Later we′ll spin up faster.′

  When the warp assembly was completed vernier rockets would be used to spin the whole assembly, the twin hulls rotating around the tether midpoint like two handholding skaters whirling around on the ice. The rotation, completed once every thirty seconds, would induce an apparent gravity of about forty-four per cent of a G in the nose airlocks - and because the centripetal forces increased the further you got from the centre, the gravity would rise too, to around sixty-six per cent of a G at the base of each hull.

  Then a warp bubble would be thrown up around the whole unlikely jury-rigged assembly, snipping it out of the universe and sending it flying across the Galaxy at multiples of the speed of light.

  Masayo said tightly, ′So are we going on now?′

  ′In a minute.′ This was her chance. She dug a lead out of her pocket; she plugged one jack into her own chest console, the other into Masayo′s.

  He looked down. ′What′s this?′

  ′Direct suit-to-suit comms. Overrides the radio signal.′

  ′Oh. Nobody can hear us, right?′

  ′That′s the idea.′

  ′So what do you want to talk about?′

  She thought it over. ′It just seems a good idea for us to communicate. I mean, we′ve been on this Ark over five hundred days now.′

  ′Five hundred and forty-eight. Paul Shaughnessy crosses it off on the wall by his couch, like he′s in prison. In fact he was once in prison.′

  ′There you go, I never knew that.′

  ′And does it do you good to know that the guy responsible for beating up Thomas Windrup has a brother who′s an ex-con?′

  ′Look, I′m not probing. You′re very defensive.′

  ′Do you blame me? You know we′re all up on a variety of charges, us illegals, from insubordination to trespassing on federal property to mutiny. The parents of some of the stranded Candidates are suing us in the civil courts. Just as well we can′t turn this Ark around and go home; I′d be in gaol myself.′

  She said carefully, ′I always heard that you never wanted to be here in the first place. That you just got sort of swept up.′

  He hesitated. ′Well, it was true. I was the lieutenant, remember. The guys pulled a gun on me and frog-marched me up that damn ramp. I thought I′d have time to talk them round, or disarm them, and get us off the Ark again. And then, once we launched, I figured I should stick with them. At least I had a chance of keeping them in order. Not that I did a good job with Jack, I admit. But you got to see their point of view, Holle. Look, on Earth we were on the
front line. We were armed responders. Here, we′re scrubbing gunk off the walls.′

  ′I get the same complaints from the gatecrashers, if you want to know,′ she admitted. ′Maybe it′s our fault, the Candidates. I know we can be dismissive.′

  ′Well, hallelujah. A self-aware Candidate. It would also have helped if you hadn′t taken away our weapons.′ When the men discovered their weapons had gone there was a near-mutiny, a riot. ′My guys all came from tough backgrounds, mostly eye-dee camps or bandit communities. Their weapons are their identity. When Kelly did that it was like an emasculation.′

  ′Kelly thought it was necessary. That the risk of having weapons on the ship was greater than the risk of any psychological harm of that kind.′

  ′And you agreed with her?′

  Holle thought it over. Kelly was still only twenty-five, only a year older than Holle herself. She had been very young to have to make such decisions. Yet she had made them. ′Yes, I agree, looking back. It wouldn′t have occurred to me at the time. I guess I′m not as far-sighted as Kelly, or as decisive. But I agree, yeah. And, given what happened between Shaughnessy and Windrup, maybe it′s as well neither of them had access to a gun.′

  They rested for a moment, as sun, Jupiter, Ark wheeled grandly around them.

  She said at length, ′I feel like we just lanced a few boils rather than talked. We need to do this again.′

  ′Yeah. But not out here, OK?′

  ′Sure.′ She unplugged the lead between them and stowed it away. She reached for the tether attachment at his waist. ′You ready?′

  ′For what?′

  ′This.′ She touched a control, and his attachment swivelled him around the fixed point on his waist, so that his ′down′ was now towards Halivah, his destination, rather than Seba.

  ′Oh, shit.′

  ′The suit! Mind the suit!′

  51

  By the time they got through the Halivah airlock, Gordo Alonzo′s broadcast from Alma had already begun. Kelly, Venus, Wilson and others sat on T-stools before a big wall screen, along with a handful of other crew, Candidates, gatecrashers and illegals, gathered at all angles around the central group.

  Jack Shaughnessy was handcuffed to his brother Paul. Jack had a busted nose and a thickening bruise around his right eye. Rumour had it that he had got those, not from Thomas Windrup, but from Elle Strekalov, Windrup′s partner and the girl on whom Jack had made the move that sparked the whole thing off. Thomas himself was still in Mike Wetherbee′s minuscule infirmary, recovering from a punctured lung.

  Alonzo, insulated from interruption by the forty-five-minute each-way time delay, was pontificating on one of his favourite subjects: crew morale. ′You guys need to cook up more celebrations. Your Polyakov Day back in February was a good idea.′ On the four hundred and thirty-eighth day of the mission, the crew of the Ark had simultaneously beaten the space endurance record, previously held since 1995 by a Russian called Valeri Polyakov. ′Trouble is I can′t think of anything much significant in the near future until day eight oh four, when you′ll beat old Sergei Krikalev for most time spent in space total by any human …′

  Holle peered at the screen. Gordo himself, seated at a desk, was brightly lit, but other figures were in the shadows behind him. She was fairly sure she saw Thandie Jones there, and Edward Kenzie. If her father was there, she couldn′t make him out. She gazed at the screen, drinking in every pixel, frustrated.

  Something landed softly on her neck. She reached back and found a screw, come loose from somewhere. She looked up, and saw a rain of dust gently drifting down over the people, the handcuffed brothers. The slow spin was making all the garbage they had accumulated since engine shutdown drift out of the air. And through the layers of the mesh deck she saw the activity of the hull going on, as always. People were playing zero-gravity frisbee in the big open space, and an infant gurgled as her mother set her spinning in the air. Good pictures for the live feed, Holle thought. All the Ark′s babies were a year or so old now. How strange that there were already human beings who knew nothing of the universe except the inside of this hull - but for that child′s generation, that wouldn′t seem strange at all. The baby laughed in the air, rotating slowly, its chubby limbs waving.

  ′For sure, improved morale is the way to stop you turning on each other, as in this Windrup-Shaughnessy case …′

  Gordo, in his heavy-handed way, was getting to the substance of the address, and Holle focused her attention.

  Gordo put on reading glasses, and looked down at a page of notes. ′Now, we′ve carefully considered the evidence you sent down. We being the senior project management. Also we consulted General Joe Morell, who commanded the army group of which Jack Shaughnessy was a part before he absconded. So I hope he and all of you will accept our verdict as being properly considered and having full military authority.′

  He took off his glasses and peered out of the screen. ′Listen now. I′m not a lawyer, and I won′t talk like one. This is a sorry case, very sorry indeed. Locked up as you are, all young people together in those tin cans, you′re going to get jealousies, tensions. Human nature. But you have got to learn restraint - to respect each other. Shaughnessy, that young woman owed you nothing for your uninvited advances but a polite ′′no′′. Which is what you got, but you had to take it further, you had to take it out on Windrup. Think of the harm you did to the mission as a whole, as well as to Thomas Windrup - incapacitating a member of a crew that′s already under the numbers.

  ′Now, if you were back on Earth you′d be serving time for what you did. But there′s no gaol on a spaceship. Commander Kenzie can′t afford to lose your labour - and she certainly can′t afford the effort and resources it would take to keep you locked up in some damn cupboard doing nothing but jerk off all day. So we tried to come up with a suitable alternative, and this is what we instruct.

  ′Shaughnessy, you just doubled your workload. From now until Doctor Wetherbee signs off Thomas Windrup as fit to work again, you are going to do his job for him. You′ll cover for Windrup to the best of your technical abilities, and where that breaks down I expect an officer delegated by the commander to find you some suitable alternative. This is in addition to your own chores. And if that leaves you no time to take a shit, I ain′t weeping for you. Is that clear? Finally you′ll wear a tag so the whole damn crew knows who you are and what you′ve done.′ He glared into the screen. ′That′s how it′s going to be. There′s going to be a rigorous rule of law applied aboard that damn ship, just as on Earth. The only difference is the punishment has to fit the crime and the environment you′re stuck in. I′ll give you a minute to think about that, and see if you got any questions.′ He turned away, picking up a tumbler of water.

  There was silence in the group. Kelly floated up into the air and turned around, facing them all, before her, above, below. ′Well, that′s the verdict. Do you all accept it? You, Elle?′ She glared at Masayo and the Shaughnessys. ′And you? Will you serve your term? And keep your fists to yourself in the future?′

  Jack Shaughnessy looked beaten.

  His brother was more defiant. ′He ain′t wearing no tag.′

  ′Yes, he is,′ Masayo said firmly. ′You heard the man, Paul. Let him serve out his punishment.′

  Paul shook his head, but subsided.

  It seemed to Holle that the tension was seeping away. She drifted down to join Kelly, before the screen where Gordo was talking to somebody out of shot. ′Maybe that′s worked. They seem to accept it.′

  ′Yeah,′ Kelly muttered. ′But what are we going to do when something like this comes up when we′re in warp, and we don′t have a panel of old men and generals to tell us how to handle it?′

  From the screen Gordo Alonzo coughed theatrically.

  ′One more thing. About the comet you observed as you were testing your planet-finder gear. Dinosaur Killer Mark II, or not as it turned out. I have some more information about that. As it turns out, it′s no coincidence that thing ca
me wandering in from the dark just as we′re reeling from the flood.′ He peered at the camera. ′I wonder if Zane Glemp is there. If not, show him this recording later. This relates to testimony from one of your tutors, Magnus Howe - something he remembered Jerzy Glemp said to him before he died …′

  In the early years of the flood, Glemp had worked for the Russian government. Russia was hit hard and fast by the flood, losing swathes of territory. As massive refugee populations headed south and east, and war seemed inevitable with China and India over the high land of central Asia, the civilian government struggled to hold the line against hard-line generals.

  ′Some of the military urged using their surviving nuclear stockpile in an all-out attack against China and the west, while they had the chance. The desperate theory was that Russians might survive in an empty if radioactive world.′ Gordo grunted, looking at his notes. ′I have a feeling that what they actually did with all those nukes in the end was cooked up by some smart guy in an effort to prevent the generals from making a bad situation even worse.

  ′In 2024 - this was the year Moscow flooded - a significant element of the Russian intercontinental nuclear capability, mostly inherited from the old Soviet regime, was launched, aimed not at any point on the ground but sent off into space. President Peery kindly allowed me to confirm Glemp′s reports about this from old CIA surveillance records. It caused a lot of alarm, you can imagine, but it was immediately clear the birds were not targeted on US territory, possessions or allies. Of course not all of their inventory could be retargeted in this way.

  ′Then we come to 2036, over a decade later. And we have an anomalous sighting by a telescope in Chile, which by then was dedicated to deep-space planet-finding. This big eye spots a flash, out in deep space. Some time later our surviving interplanetary probes report a trace of anomalous radiation.′ He looked into the camera. ′You see where I′m coming from. This was the Russian nukes, or those that made it out there, all going off at once. A hell of a bang.

  ′And we move on to 2043 - this year. And you characters detect a comet rushing in towards the sun, all but damn it on a collision course with Earth.