by Ben Bova
Exiled from Earth
( Exiles - 1 )
Ben Bova
Computer engineer Lou Christopher’s life falls apart when the World Government decrees that the project he is working on is too dangerous to continue. Thus, he and thousands of other scientists and their families are sentenced to permanent exile from Earth on a space station. But Lou and several others decide to escape—by converting the space station into a starship setting off for the interstellar journey.
Exiled from Earth
by Ben Bova
In alphabetical order:
To Gordon R. Dickson and Harlan Ellison with thanks and caritas.
1
The General Chairman paced across the soft carpeting of his office, hands clasped behind his slightly stooped back. He stopped at the wide sweep of windows that overlooked the city.
There was little of Old Messina to be seen. The original city of ancient churches and chalk-white houses bleaching in the fierce Sicilian sunlight had been all but swallowed up by the metal and glass towers of the world government—offices, assembly halls, hotels and residence buildings, shops and entertainment centers for the five million men and women who governed the world’s twenty-some billions.
In his air-conditioned, soundproofed office atop the tallest of all the towers, the General Chairman could not hear the shrill voices of the crowded streets below, nor the constant growl of cars and turbotrucks on the busy throughways.
At least we saved some of the old city, he thought. It had been one of his first successes in world politics. A small thing. But he had helped to stop the growth of the New Messina before it completely choked and killed the old city. The new city had remained the same size for nearly thirty years now.
Beyond the fishing boats at the city’s waterfront, the Straits sparkled invitingly under the sun. And beyond that, the tip of Italy’s boot, Calabria, where the peasants still prided themselves on their hard-headed stubbornness. And beyond the misty blue hills of Calabria, shimmering in the heat haze, the sterner blue of the sky was almost too bright to look at.
The old man knew it was impossible, but he thought he saw the glint of one of the big orbital stations hovering in that brilliant sky. He worked a forefinger and thumb against the bridge of his nose. It was one of those days when he felt his years.
He thought about his native Sao Paulo, how it spread like a festering sore all the way from the river to the sea, flattening hills, carving away the forest, bursting with so many people that not even the Population Control Center’s computers could keep track of them. No sane man would willingly enter the heart of Sao Paulo, or any large city on Earth. No human being could live in the teeming guts of a city and keep his sanity.
How hard they had worked to save the cities! How hard they had worked to make the world safe and stable.
And now this.
The desk top intercom chimed.
“Yes?” The Chairman automatically switched from the Portuguese of his thoughts to the English of the world government.
His secretary sensed his mood. Her face was somber instead of showing its usual cheerfulness. “They’re here, sir.”
Nodding, “Very well. Send them in.”
Six men and two women filed into the spacious office and took seats at the conference table. The women sat together up at the end closest to the windows, next to the head chair. They carried no papers, no briefcases. Each place at the table had a tiny intercom and viewscreen that linked with the central computer.
They are young and vital, thought the Chairman. They know what must be done and they have the strength to do it. As soon as all this is settled, I shall retire.
Reluctantly he took his place at the head of the glistening mahogany table. The others remained silent, waiting for him to speak. The only sound was the faintest whir of the computer’s recording spool.
He cleared his throat. “Good morning. Last Monday we discussed this situation and you made your recommendation. I asked you to consider possible alternatives. From the looks on your faces, it seems that no suitable alternative has been found.”
They all turned to the stocky, round-faced Minister of Security, Vassily Kobryn. He had the look of an athlete to him: tanned skin, short, wiry brown hair, big in the shoulders and arms.
Shifting in his chair self-consciously, Kobryn said, “I see I have-been elected the hatchet man.” His voice was deep and strong, with barely a trace of a Slavic accent. “All right… it was my idea, originally. We looked at all the possibilities and ran each case on the computers. The only safe way is to put them in exile. Permanently.”
“Siberia,” one of the women muttered.
“No, not Siberia.” Kobryn took her literally. “It’s too heavily populated. Too many cities and dome farms for an effective exile. No, the only place is the new space station. It’s large enough and it can be kept completely isolated.”
Rolf Bernard, the Minister of Finance, shook his head. “I still disagree. Two thousand of the world’s leading scientists…”
“Plus their wives and families,” the Chairman added.
“What would you prefer?” Kobryn snapped. “A bullet in each of their heads? Or would you leave them alone and let them smash everything that we have worked for?”
“Perhaps if we talked with them…”
“That won’t work,” said Eric Mottern, the taciturn Minister of Technology. “Even if they tried to cooperate with us, you can’t stop ideas from leaking out. And once this genetic engineering idea gets loose…”
“The world is turned upside down,” the Chairman said. He spoke softly, but everyone heard him. With a sigh, he confessed, “I have also been thinking about the problem. I have also tried to find alternatives. There are none. Exile is the only permissible answer.”
“Then it is agreed. Good!” said Kobryn.
“No, not good,” the General Chairman said. “Very far from good. When we do this thing, we admit failure. We admit fear—yes, terror. We are terrified of a new idea, a new scientific discovery. The government of the world, the protectors of peace and stability, must stoop to exiling some of the world’s finest minds. This is a horrible state of affairs. Truly horrible.”
2
Lou Christopher leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk: his favorite position for thinking. In his lap he held a small tablet and a pen. Although he was both worried and puzzled, his face showed neither of these emotions. He was frowning and looked more angry than anything else.
Through the plastiglass partition that made up one wall of his small office, Lou could see Ramo, the Institute’s main computer, flashing its console lights as it worked.
“Come on, Ramo,” he muttered to himself, “get it right this time.”
Lou tapped the pen on the tablet and watched the little viewscreen on his desk. It was blank. Then…
“I’m sorry,” Ramo said in a warm baritone voice from the overhead speaker, “but the possible permutations are still three orders of magnitude beyond my programming instructions.”
“Three orders!”
“I can proceed with the existing matrix, or await further programming.” Ramo’s voice sounded neither worried nor puzzled. Not happy nor angry. He was simply stating facts.
Lou tossed the pen back onto the desk and slammed his feet to the floor. The tablet fell off his lap.
“Still three orders of magnitude to go. Lou shook his head, then glanced at his wristwatch. It was already nine A.M.
“I’m waiting for instructions,” Ramo said calmly. You and your instructions can both… Lou caught himself, realizing that the computer wasn’t at fault. There were millions upon millions of branching pathways in the human genetic code. It was simply going to take more tim
e to get them all programmed properly.
Shrugging, he said, “Okay, Ramo, looks like we’ve got a full day ahead of us.”
Ramo said nothing, but somehow Lou felt that the computer nodded in agreement.
Lou got up and walked out of the office, past the computer’s humming, light-blinking main console, out into the hall. He got a cup of water from the cooler, gulped it down as he looked out the hallway window at the New Mexico morning outside. It had been barely dawn when Lou drove to the Institute. Now it was full daylight, bright and cloudless.
Half the gliders have already taken off, Lou thought glumly. I just won’t make this race. Better call Bonnie.
Tossing the plastic cup into the recycling slot in the wall, Lou went back to his office, plopped tiredly into his cushioned chair, and punched the phone button on the desk top.
“Bonnie Sterne,” he said. “She’s not at home, you’ll have to use her pocket phone.”
It took a few seconds, then Bonnie’s face appeared on the viewscreen. Behind her, Lou could see people bustling around in a crowded room. She must be in the Control Center, Lou thought. Sure enough, he heard the muted thunder of one of the big gliders’ takeoff rockets.
“Lou! When are you getting out here? I’ve asked the judges to postpone your takeoff time, but…”
He put up his hands. “Better tell them to scratch me. Can’t make it today. Probably not tomorrow, either.”
“Oh no.” Bonnie looked genuinely heartbroken. She was blonde and had light gray eyes, but the finely-etched bone structure of her face always reminded Lou faintly of an Indian’s. Maybe it was the high cheekbones, or the cast of her eyes. Maybe she had some Apache blood in her. Lou had always meant to ask but somehow never did.
“Isn’t there any way you can get out of it?” she asked. “Can’t some of the other programmers do it?”
Lou shook his head. “You know they can’t. I’m just as sorry as you are. I’ve been working toward this race all year. But Kaufman needs this stuff by Monday. The whole Institute’s depending on it.”
“I know,” Bonnie admitted, biting her lower lip. Lou knew that she was trying to figure some way—
“Listen!” she said, suddenly bright again. “Why don’t I come down and work with you? Maybe we can finish the programming in time for taking off tomorrow—”
“Thanks, but there’s not much you can do. It looks like I’ll have to work all night, at least. So I won’t be in much shape for flying tomorrow.”
Her expression dimmed once more. “It’s just not fair. You have to work all weekend… and this is the biggest race of the year.”
“I know. But genetics comes before racing,” Lou said. “You have a good weekend. See you Monday.”
“All right. But it’s really unfair.”
“Yeah. So long.”
“So… oh, wait! There was a man out here looking for you. Said he was a Federal marshal.”
Lou blinked at her. “A what?”
“A Federal marshal. He wanted to see you.”
“What for?”
Bonnie shook her head. “I thought marshals were only something in Western stories.”
With a grin, Lou said, “Well, we’re out in the West, you know.”
“But he said he was from New York.”
Shrugging, “Well, if he’s looking for me, I’ll be right here all day.”
“If he comes around again, I’ll tell him.”
“All right.” Suddenly curious, Lou asked, “Did he say what he wanted? Why does he want to see me?”
“I don’t know,” Bonnie replied.
After Bonnie signed off, Lou plunged back into work, doing intricate mathematics problems with Ramo’s help and then programming the results into the computer’s memory banks. When he looked at his watch again, it was well past noon. He walked down to the cafeteria and took a sandwich and a steaming cup of coffee from the automatic dispensers. The cafeteria was practically empty: only a few of the weekend clean-up crew at the tables.
The scientific staffs out enjoying the weekend,—Lou grumbled to himself. Well, guess they can’t do much until I finish programming Ramo.
He took the plastic-sealed sandwich and coffee back to his office. As he got there, he saw Greg Belsen standing by the computer’s main console, watching the big display viewscreen there as it flashed a series of colored drawings and graphs at eyeblink speed.
“What are you doing in here today?” Lou asked.
Greg turned and grinned at him. “Thought you might be lonesome, old buddy, How’s it going?”
Lou jabbed a finger toward the viewscreen. “See for yourself. We’re still three orders of magnitude off.”
Greg gave a low whistle. “That close?”
“Close? It sounds pretty blinking far to me.”
Greg laughed. He had an infectious giggle, like a ten-year-old boy’s, that was known throughout the Institute. “You’re just sore because there’s still more work to do. But if you stop to think of where we were six months ago, when you started this modeling program…”
“Yeah, maybe,” Lou admitted. “But there’s still a long way to go.”
They walked back into Lou’s office together. Greg Belsen was one of the Institute’s bright, aggressive young biochemists. He was just short of six feet tall, slightly bigger than Lou. He was lean and flat-gutted from playing tennis and handball, two of the favorite, socially useful sports. Like Lou, Greg had straight dark hair. But his face was roundish and his eyes brown. Lou had more angular features and blue eyes.
“Is there anything I can do to help out?” Greg asked, taking the extra straight-backed chair in Lou’s office. “I know you wanted to get to those glider races today—”
Lou sank into the desk chair. “No, there’s nobody around here who can program this stuff into Ramo as fast as I can. And Kaufman wants it for Monday morning.”
Nodding, Greg said, “I know.”
“Is it really that important?”
Greg smiled at him. “I’m not a geneticist, like Kaufman. But I know this—what you’re doing now, this zygote modeling, is a crucial step. Until we have it down cold, there’s no hope of genetic engineering in any practical sense. But once you’ve taught Ramo all the ins and outs of the human genetic code, the way is clear. We can be turning out supermen within a year.”
Lou leaned back in his chair. “Yeah… that’s what Kaufman said.”
“You’re the crucial man,” Greg said. “Everything depends on you… and your electronic partner.”
Not bad for a kid from a hick college, Lou thought to himself.
“Well,” Greg said, getting up, “if there’s nothing I can do to help, I can at least get out of your way. Guess I’ll go see how Big George’s doing.”
Lou nodded and started to sort through the papers on his desk.
With a grin, Greg added, “Maybe I’ll take Bonnie out to dinner… seeing’s how you’ve stood her up.”
“Hey! Hands off!”
He laughed. “Relax pal. Relax. I don’t go poaching. Got a few girls of my own, hidden under rocks here and there.”
“Hmph,” said Lou.
“But if you can tear yourself away from Ramo for an hour or so, might be a good idea for you to take Bonnie out for dinner. The kid’s worked just as hard as you have to get your glider ready for this race, you know. Be a shame to leave her alone all weekend.”
“Yeah,” Lou agreed. “Maybe I will.”
But as soon as Greg left, Lou went back to work. He didn’t think about Bonnie or flying or anything else except matching the myriad possible permutations of the human genetic code and storing the knowledge in Ramo’s magnetic core memory. It was late afternoon when he was startled out of his concentration by a hard rap on his office door.
Looking up from his paper-strewn desk, Lou saw the door open and a hard-looking, thick-bodied older man stepped in heavily.
“Louis Christopher, I have a Federal warrant for your arrest.”
3
With mounting anger, Lou asked a thousand questions as the marshal took him from the Institute in a black, unmarked turbocar. The marshal answered none of them, replying only:
“My orders are to bring you in. You’ll find out what it’s all about soon enough.”
They drove to a small private airfield as the fat red sun dipped toward the desert horizon. A sleek, twin-engined jet was waiting.
“Now wait a minute!” Lou shouted as the car pulled up beside the plane. “I know my rights. You can’t…”
But the marshal wasn’t listening to any arguments. He slid out from behind the steering wheel of the car and gestured impatiently toward the jet. Lou got out of the car and looked around. In the lengthening shadows of late afternoon, the airfield seemed deserted. There must be somebody in the control tower. But Lou could see no one around the plane, or the hangars, or the smaller planes lined UD neatly on the edge of the taxi apron.
“This is crazy,” he said.
The marshal hitched a thumb toward the jet again. Shrugging, Lou walked to the open hatch and climbed in. No one else was aboard the plane. The four plush seats in the passenger compartment were empty. The flight deck was closed off from view. As soon as the marshal locked the main hatch and they were both strapped into their seats, the jet engines whined to life and the plane took off.
They flew so high that the sun climbed well back into the afternoon sky. Lou watched the jet’s wings slide back for supersonic flight, and then they arrowed eastward with the red sun casting long shadows on the ground, far below. The marshal seemed to be sleeping, so Lou had nothing to do but watch the country slide beneath the plane. They crossed the Rockies, so far below them that they looked more like wrinkles than real mountains. The Mississippi was a tortured gray snake weaving from horizon to horizon. Still the plane streaked on, fast enough to race the sunset.
The sun was still slightly above the horizon when the plane touched down at JFK jetport. Lou had been there once before and recognized it from the air. But their jet taxied to a far corner of the sprawling field, and stopped in front of a waiting helicopter.