by Allen Steele
“Copy that, gatehouse. We confirm acquisition.” As he spoke, Vargas reached up to the communications console above his seat. He flipped a couple of toggles, studied the screen: there it was, the steady and repetitious spike of something being received on the Ku band. “We’re receiving the transponder signal, too.”
“Trafco reports that Bolivar is the closest available vessel. We request that you undertake the rescue effort before returning to Highgate and bring in the lifeboat and any persons who may be aboard to the colony. Are you able to do so?”
“Affirmative.” As if they had any choice in the matter. The Bolivar was the nearest ship, and international space treaties mandated that it render assistance; the thirty-four would-be immigrants in the passenger module would just have to wait a little while longer. “We’re on our way.”
“We copy, Bolivar. Keep us informed. Gatehouse over.”
“Wilco. Bolivar over and out.” Vargas switched off the mike, then let out his breath. “Damn,” he muttered. “Damn, damn, damn…”
“I can’t believe it.” Treece was staring straight ahead; he was still stunned by what they’d just heard. “First the Lee, then the starbridge…what the hell happened over there? They said there was an explosion, but…I mean, what…?”
“Never mind that now.” Vargas shook his head, then reached over to the nav console. Switching off the autopilot, he fed the lifeboat’s present coordinates into the flight comp; once the Bolivar was close enough, they’d home in on the transponder signal. “Get Romas on the com, let him know what’s going on, then tell him to get into the pod.”
“Okay.” The freighter was equipped with a small cargo pod. Normally used to load payload canisters into the cargo bay, it would serve as a salvage vehicle. As Bolivar’s cargo master, it was Caesar Romas’s job to fly the thing. Treece started to tap his mike, then hesitated. “What about the passengers? Shouldn’t we tell them…?”
“Just give me a minute, all right?” Vargas tried to keep the irritation from his voice, but Treece winced all the same. “Sorry,” he added. “I’m just…trying to get over this myself.”
“I understand, Captain.” The copilot was quiet for a moment. “Did you know anyone aboard the Lee?”
“No. Did you?” Treece shook his head, nor was Vargas surprised. Like most South American spacers, they were both Union Astronautica officers—or at least had been, until the Union collapsed; neither of them still wore UA insignia on his uniform—and thus had little interaction with their colleagues in the ESA, which was where most of the Coyote Federation’s spacers originally came from. Not that it mattered, really. Regardless of which flag was painted on the hull of one’s ship, everyone who worked in space belonged to a brotherhood. They all shared the same risks; whenever the dark claimed a life, everyone shared a bit of the pain.
And there would be no shortage of pain today.
“It’s a black day,” Vargas murmured as he finished entering the coordinates into the comp. “I’m afraid we’ll remember it for years to come.”
The lifeboat was a small, conical spacecraft, resembling an antique child’s top that had somehow spun out into space. Slowly tumbling end over end by the time the Bolivar arrived, it took all of Romas’s skill as a pod jockey for him to rendezvous with the tiny craft and use the pod’s thrusters to stop its spin. Once this was achieved, though, it was relatively easy for the cargo master to maneuver the lifeboat into the freighter’s cargo bay.
Treece took over from there. Leaving the cockpit to assist Romas, he stood at the rear-facing porthole of Bolivar’s lower deck and carefully used the freighter’s remote manipulators to grasp the rungs on either side of the lifeboat’s docking collar and guide it the rest of the way into the bay. Once the lifeboat was in place, grapples within the bay secured it to the other end of the passenger module. There was no way to reach the lifeboat from the Bolivar’s lower deck, but since the passenger module had an emergency airlock located at its rear, Treece was able to link the lifeboat directly to the module. Once this was done, it meant that they would be able to enter the small craft.
By then, Vargas had gone on the intercom to inform the passengers of the disaster. He’d kept his remarks brief and to the point, avoiding any speculation of what might have caused the loss of either Starbridge Coyote or the Lee. Nonetheless, as soon as he opened the module’s forward hatch and pushed himself inside, he found himself surrounded by frightened, confused, and angry people, all of whom had questions he couldn’t answer. The captain did his best to calm everyone as he used the ceiling handrail to pull himself through the module, yet he couldn’t help but be relieved by the fact that they were all strapped down in their seats. It was easy to avoid the hands that reached up to grasp at his arms and legs, and by the time he reached the rear hatch, he’d stopped talking to anyone.
With one exception. Along the way, Vargas had checked the passenger manifest and discovered that there was a physician aboard: Dr. Kim Jewel, late of Massachusetts. The fact that Dr. Jewel was a veterinarian more accustomed to treating dogs was a minor detail; she had more medical experience than anyone else on the Bolivar, including the crew, who’d only had Union Astronautica first-aid training. Sergio found her seated about three-quarters of the way back from the front of the cabin; Dr. Jewel immediately agreed to give Captain Vargas any assistance she could, then unbuckled her harness and followed him to the emergency airlock.
Twisting the hatch’s lockwheel counterclockwise, Sergio pushed it open, revealing a closet-sized compartment with another hatch on the opposite side. Pulling himself into the airlock, he took a moment to check the pressure gauge; satisfied that there was an airtight seal on the other side, he undogged it as well. A faint hiss of escaping overpressure, then the hatch popped open.
Beyond the open hatch was the narrow crawl space of the docking collar. Vargas pulled a penlight from his jumpsuit pocket and shined it down the tunnel; the lifeboat’s dorsal hatch was only a couple of meters away. The crawl space was frigid, the tiger-striped hatch crusted with ice, but there didn’t appear to be any damage to the lifeboat’s hull or its lockwheel.
Whatever fate had befallen the Lee, the lifeboat had somehow managed to escape unscratched. All the same, Vargas took no chances. Pulling a camera from his pocket, he snapped a couple of pictures of the lifeboat hatch before venturing any farther into the tunnel.
“What are you doing?” Floating in the airlock behind him, Jewel impatiently waited for Sergio to enter the lifeboat. “There may be wounded passengers over there.”
“Covering the bases, that’s all.” There would eventually be an official inquiry into the disaster, and the review board would want all the physical evidence they could get. Not only that, but Vargas didn’t want himself or his crew to be held culpable in any way for their role in the rescue effort; photos would prove the condition of the lifeboat when they found it. Putting the camera back in his pocket, the captain pulled himself into the crawl space. “Wait until I get this thing open before following me,” he added. “I want to make sure…”
He winced and swore under his breath as his bare hands touched the ice-cold lockwheel. Nothing he could do about that, though, except rub his palms together to warm them, then try again. The lockwheel rasped as he yanked at it, and tiny bits of frost broke away, but the hatch yielded to his pressure and swung inward.
The lifeboat was dark, save for the faint glow of the red and blue diodes on its instrument panels. Pushing himself into the small craft, Vargas cast the beam around the interior. He’d expected to find it crowded with passengers, perhaps even a crewman or two; instead, he was stunned to find it nearly empty. All but one of its hammock seats were folded against the concave bulkheads; even the control console was still locked down. The lifeboat had been jettisoned with almost no one aboard.
Except for one person.
Grabbing hold of a bulkhead rung, Vargas pulled himself over to the lifeboat’s sole occupant. Within the beam of his flashlight, he saw a youn
g man, strapped into the seat, arms and legs dangling in midair. His eyes were shut, and for a moment Sergio thought he might be dead, until his flashlight caught the faint vapor of exhaled breath rising from his open mouth.
“Better get in here,” he said aloud, and was startled when, in the next instant, Jewel’s hand grasped his shoulder. The vet hadn’t waited for the captain to give her permission to enter the lifeboat but had followed him through the docking collar.
“Let me see him.” Grabbing hold of the back of the seat frame, Jewel turned herself around until she could look straight down at the unconscious passenger. “Do you think we could have a little more light in here?”
Turning around, Vargas unfolded the control console and used it to switch on the lifeboat’s interior lights. As they flickered to life, he was able to see the young man more clearly. In his late twenties, he wore what appeared to be a hooded brown robe much like a monk’s. His head was shaved save for a long, braided scalp lock dangling from the back of his skull; on his forehead, just above his nose and between his eyes, was a tattoo that resembled the Greek letter pi turned upside down.
Jewel gently pried open the young man’s left eye, peered at the pupil. “Mild concussion. Probably caused when the lifeboat was jettisoned.” She located foot restraints on the deck beside the couch and inserted her feet within the elastic stirrups; properly braced, she continued her examination, carefully flexing the passenger’s limbs and prodding his chest. “Nothing broken. No ribs cracked. No signs of internal injuries. I think he’s…”
The young man groaned, a soft sigh coming from his slack mouth, as his eyelids fluttered slightly. “Looks like he’s coming out of it,” Vargas murmured. “Think you can wake him up?”
“Give him a minute, all right?” Sensing the captain’s impatience, though, Jewel gently massaged the passenger’s wrist. “Hello,” she whispered. “Are you with me?”
“Humm…huhh?” The young man’s eyes slowly opened. Dazed, he gazed up at the two people hovering above him. “Whuh…who…”
“Captain? What’s going on down there? Have you found anyone?”
Startled by Treece’s voice in his headset, Vargas bit back a curse, then tapped his mike. “Affirmative,” he replied. “We’ve found someone aboard…only one, but at least he’s still alive. Stand by.”
He clicked off again, then bent closer to the passenger. He was only semiconscious, but Vargas needed to talk to him as soon as possible. Dom was breathing down his neck for answers, and Vargas was all too aware that it wouldn’t be long before everyone else would be as well.
“Can you hear me?” he demanded, raising his voice a little. “Do you know where you are?”
“Captain, please…” Jewel placed a hand on his shoulder, tried to push him back. “Give him a sec. He’s been through a lot.”
“Life…lifeboat.” Apparently confused, the young man turned his head slightly, looking around himself. “In the lifeboat…I’m…where…?”
“Yes, you’re in a lifeboat.” Vargas was trying not to lose patience. “The lifeboat was ejected from the Lee. You’re the only one aboard. No one else made it. What happened to the ship? Why did it…?”
“Captain, please!” Jewel insistently pushed him aside. “You’re not helping.” She turned to the passenger again. “Relax, you’re okay. You made it through…”
“Ship…bomb on the ship…explosion…”
“There was an explosion, yes.” Sergio bent closer to him again. “You say there was a bomb on the Lee?” The young man slowly nodded. “Who brought a bomb aboard?”
“Captain, please…” Once more, Jewel pushed him away. Then she turned to the young man again. “Can you tell me who you are?” she asked, as gently as she could.
The sole survivor of the Robert E. Lee was quiet for a moment, and Sergio was surprised to see tears glistening at the corners of his eyes, breaking off to form tiny spheres that floated away. Then he looked straight at both him and the doctor, and a soft smile touched the corners of his mouth.
“I’m God,” he said. “And so are you.”
Book 3
The vast resources of the New World so liberated human potential that the imaginative mind felt a new relation with the universe—a new sense of control over destiny. But the consequent rise of the self-reflexive individual, severed from institutional contexts of identity, brought the loss of innocence that has made the reconquest of Eden the organizing image of the last half-millennium. If the Copernican expulsion from the literal center symbolizes this loss of larger meaning, then the leitmotif of the longing to return…has been the dream of spaceflight.
—WYN WACHHORST,
The Dream of Spaceflight
Part 1
THE CORPS OF EXPLORATION
The southern coast of Algonquin was a white and desolate expanse, its subarctic tundra hidden beneath the snows of winter. Beneath skies the color of dirty chalk lay a monotonous plain, with only the dark brown bluffs of the nearby mountains lending the slightest hint of color. Even the North Sea matched the landscape, its frigid blue waters concealed beneath a dense layer of ice. At first glance, it seemed as if this part of the world was utterly lifeless, save for the lonesome wind that picked up patches of snow and spun them away as miniature, short-lived twisters.
And yet, there was movement.
The polar cow and her family were almost invisible, their thick white fur allowing them to blend in with the snowpack. The cow had migrated down from the mountains, where, sometime last autumn, it had mated with one of the bulls that roamed its lower steppes. Now she was at the midpoint of an annual winter migration that would eventually take her across the frozen sea to the northern coast of Vulcan, a slightly warmer climate where she and her calves would find enough food to sustain them for the long, cold months ahead. She’d made this journey many times before, and even though her species was not terribly intelligent, she was doubtless aware that the most dangerous part of their trek still lay ahead.
Her children, of course, didn’t know this. Seven in all—there had once been eight, but they’d lost one of their kin during a storm only a few days ago—most of them marched in tandem behind their mother, the footprints of their stumplike legs forming a deep trail that went almost all the way down to the frozen dirt beneath the snow. The cow carried the two smallest and weakest of her offspring upon her back, where they gently rocked back and forth with every step she took; they weighed at least a hundred pounds each, but their mother didn’t seem to mind. Nine feet tall, weighing nearly a ton, her size was rivaled only by her close cousins, the shags that inhabited the equatorial continents of Midland and Great Dakota.
“Wonderful,” Inez murmured. “Absolutely wonderful.”
She lay prone upon the crest of a small hill, elbows propped against the snow-covered ground. In her gloved hands was a pair of binoculars through which she studied the herd from a distance of two hundred yards. Although she wore Corps winter gear, her maroon parka and snow pants were camouflaged by a solar-heated white cape that gave her additional warmth. Inez had pushed back her goggles in order to use the binoculars, but her voice was muffled slightly by the hood pulled up around her head.
“Aren’t they?” Kneeling beside her, Jorge watched the polar cows with the naked eye—or rather, without the aid of binoculars; he was careful to keep his goggles in place, lest the ice-reflected sunlight damage his eyes. Which reminded him of something that might interest her. “Look closely,” he added. “Do you see something peculiar about the way they walk?”
Inez was quiet for a few moments, during which Jorge stole a glance at her. Even though she wore thick clothes and was swaddled within the arsashi cape, he couldn’t help but admire the arch of her back, the curve of her rump. It was a liberty he felt a twinge of guilt for taking, but Corps regulations only prohibited unwanted sexual overtures; there was nothing said about looking.
“I don’t know what you mean.” When Inez spoke again, there was an undercurrent of irritat
ion to her voice. “What are you getting at…sir?”
Had she caught him looking at her? Once again, a tacit reminder that they were separated by rank, not to mention age. At six and a third by the LeMarean calendar, Corporal Inez Torres was a couple of years younger than Lieutenant Jorge Montero II. Nonetheless, he lay down in the snow beside her, close enough to feel the warmth of her cape. “Notice the way the mother moves. She keeps her head low, with her snout touching the ground, moving it back and forth. Almost like she’s searching for something…”
“Food?” Inez looked away from the binoculars, her gaze briefly meeting his. Her eyes were beautiful; pale blue, solemn yet perpetually curious, as if always seeing the world for the first time. Jorge never got tired of looking at them.
“No. Not food. Not much of that around here. Besides, they’re living on body fat. They probably haven’t eaten in weeks. That’s why they’re migrating in the first place.” He grinned, then pointed to the children. “Give you a hint. Look at her kids…the way they’re following Mama, and what they’re doing with each other, too.”
Inez raised the binoculars again, peered through them. “All right, they’re all walking one right behind the other, with their snouts touching against each other’s backside. It’s almost like…” Her eyes widened as the realization hit her. “They’re blind!”
She spoke louder than she should have. The procession suddenly came to a halt as the mother’s shaggy head swung in the direction of Inez’s voice. Her large, tufted ears rose slightly, and her broad, lipless mouth opened to emit the bovine mo-o-o-oah that gave her species its name.
“Shh!” Jorge hastily reached forward to push Inez’s binoculars into the snow so that the sun wouldn’t reflect off their lenses. “Almost blind, but not entirely…and they’ve got very good hearing.”
“Sorry, sir.” Inez winced in embarrassment. But then she noticed Jorge’s gloved hand still resting atop her own, and she hastily pulled her hand away. He was about to move closer to her again, but she rolled the other way, artfully putting a few more inches of distance between them.