“That’s true. I think it’s debatable, but I’m not a biologist, so my work didn’t deal with it.”
“Deal with it? But I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
“The story’s basically over. The biotech company packed up everything on board the Santa Maria, went into Earth orbit, and broke all the laws against genetic modification while in orbit, outside of any country’s boundaries. They developed new, better humans. But of course, they couldn’t keep their research secret forever.
“Earth’s governments first sent inspectors, and when they weren’t allowed on board, they sent police. The company defended itself with its own security force. One of its subsidiaries had developed very advanced weapons for the time. But the company’s founders must’ve realized that they couldn’t hold off the entire world forever. So, the Santa Maria disappeared from Earth’s orbit.
“Nobody knew where it had gone. There were theories, of course, and Titan was a prime suspect, but all traces had been wiped away, and then the Great War broke out and brought the world to the brink of total annihilation. The Santa Maria was forgotten until civilization had regained its feet again after many long years. And now here you are, in the very ship I just told you about.”
Except for the noise from the life support system, it was quiet in the command center. The Earthling had been right. The truth was brutal. The founders of Titan hadn’t been noble do-gooders. They were scientists with no ethical boundaries. They were the children’s children of criminals. Shouldn’t he demand evidence from Sara? It wouldn’t do any good. Nobody could’ve concocted a story like that. She would simply produce some evidence, and it wouldn’t change anything.
“Do you believe me now—that I’m being honest with you?”
“Yes,” Geralt said. “You just stripped away everything our life was based on. It doesn’t matter anymore. Go talk to your friends, but be quick.”
Boris felt jittery. He’d won, but it’d been a victory no one would be celebrating.
4802.15
“Look here, those are the names of the Santa Maria’s owners,” Sara said, pointing to the screen. “And this is a business report. It’s all here. You can read through it. Everything. Wait... Here are the research reports, too. You’ll see that the company had started genetic experiments on humans long before they left for Titan.”
Boris looked over the woman’s shoulder at the screen. The documents were written in Old English. He didn’t understand any of it, but Geralt kept nodding. He was holding a pocket translator and kept entering words now and then.
“It’s all accessible and unencrypted in the ship’s database,” Sara said. “They didn’t try to hide any of it.”
“Nevertheless, I doubt we would have ever come across it,” Geralt said. “To find anything in this giant collection of old-language documents, you already have to know what you’re looking for.”
“Could I give you some advice? I know it’s not my place. You don’t know me at all. But maybe it would help.”
“What’s your advice?” Anna asked.
“I saw how shocked you were. I’d suggest not sharing this knowledge with all of your people immediately. I don’t think that’d be good. Take some time to come to terms with the past. It’s not that important. The future’s what counts. The inhabitants of Titan aren’t to blame. Your founders were Earthlings.”
“That’s true, Sara,” Geralt said. “I admit I was close to despair yesterday. Our society, which the founders built on Titan, isn’t bad just because it was made by flawed humans, is it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we should let everyone decide that, not just the four of us,” Boris suggested.
“You don’t need to decide anything right now,” Sara said. “If Titan and the Earth are destroyed, the past won’t matter. Can I contact my friends now?”
“Of course,” Anna said. “We promised you. Thank you for showing us proof. I’m sure there will be doubters on Titan. What do you need to have to make contact?”
“Well, normally I’d use... No, that doesn’t matter, I wouldn’t expect that on a two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old ship.”
“We contact Titan using radio,” Anna said.
“Yes, radio, that’s perfect. I assume our ships will still be listening on all the older standard frequencies. At least I hope so. The Santa Maria wouldn’t be allowed to operate on the channels used on Earth. Is there any information you don’t want me to tell them right now?”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t tell them our location yet.”
“Okay, Boris, but if you’re going to give me to my friends, which I hope you are, you’ll have to, how do you say, reveal your position?”
“I don’t think we’re quite that far yet,” Boris said.
“Sara Renberg here. Does anybody copy? Please identify yourself! I have an emergency. Sara Renberg here. Does anybody copy? Please identify yourself! I have an emergency.”
“That’s enough,” Geralt said. “I’ll replay your message every thirty seconds. Is the translation okay?”
Sara read the three sentences that Geralt had translated.
“Very good,” she said, “Your English has greatly improved.”
Boris read what the ship was now going to send out into space. It sounded like an innocent message. Hopefully it didn’t contain some hidden code that would immediately send all the ships in the surrounding area to hunt down the Santa Maria. But he shouldn’t be so suspicious. After all, he had already started using the former name of the founder’s ship.
A reply took a surprisingly long time. After three-and-a-half hours, an alarm went off throughout the ship. Boris was on his way to the storage room and turned around immediately.
“No need to panic,” Geralt announced by radio, trying to defuse the situation, “I programmed the transmitter so there’d be no way we’d miss any response.”
When Boris entered the command center, the others were already floating in front of, next to, and above the commander’s screen. Sara was sitting in the seat that Jenna had previously occupied.
“What does this word mean?” Geralt asked.
“That’s a colorful word to express extreme excitement,” Sara explained. “It’s modern slang. Blane shouldn’t have used it. It’s not appropriate.”
Blane? What kind of name was that?
“Okay, I’ve got a translation ready,” Geralt said. “I’ll let you play it back.”
“Sara? What a fucking good surprise!” the computer’s automated voice sounded without changing its intonation at all. Maybe it would have been better if Geralt had read the text. “I’ve looked for you everywhere. I didn’t believe any of those reports that you were dead. Where are you? I’ll come and get you, even if I have to go to the ends of the Earth.”
The translation sounded a little stilted, but Boris didn’t say anything. His friend looked very proud of his work, and he didn’t want to take away from his efforts.
They formulated a response.
“I am on board the Santa Maria, a Titanian ship. Its crew found me on Santa. We are still in the vicinity of the asteroid. The crew would like to talk to us about how to stop Santa and Koronis. Sara out.”
This time the answer appeared after 180 seconds, and Geralt translated it immediately. If this Blane had been waiting for the message, he must be about 90 light-seconds away. That wasn’t a short hop, skip, and a jump from them. More like 17 million miles.
“Strange. I just found someone on Santa, too. A woman named Jenna Tamarastir. She hasn’t told me where she’s from. Extremely stubborn. Her spacesuit is ancient. I thought she must’ve come from some illegal colony on a different asteroid.”
Jenna! Boris whispered her name, and the others looked at him strangely. This Blane had her in his clutches. They needed to arrange a swap as soon as possible.
“He needs to give us Jenna immediately!” he said. “And damn, if he’s hurt her—”
“Blane? No need to worry about him. Sure, he’s a hotheaded Scot, bu
t he’d never hurt anyone. Well, unless the other person shot first—figuratively speaking.”
Sara’s face had changed when she’d spoken about Blane. Was that just the joy and relief of contacting her people again?
“I suggest the following reply,” Sara said. “We request immediate rendezvous. Please send your position. At a face-to-face meeting, we can also discuss our options for fending off the two asteroids.”
They sent the message, but with a few minor changes. The reply took another three minutes to appear. It appeared Blane wasn’t someone who hemmed and hawed over what to write, at least.
“Sorry, Sara, but you’ll have to wait at least two weeks. I’m on a mission to Mars. There’s a huge asshole there waiting for me to teach him a lesson or two. After that, I’m at your disposal.”
“Two weeks?” Geralt asked.
“Unacceptable,” Boris said, “Koronis isn’t going to stop moving toward Titan. We can’t just wait around and do nothing. Also, I want to hear Jenna’s voice. We’ve got to be sure that she’s doing okay.”
“I second that,” Anna said.
The Earthling sighed. “I’ll explain the problem to him. But I know Blane very well. Whenever he gets something in his mind, there’s no talking him out of it. But I’m sure he’ll agree to let you hear Jenna’s voice.”
“Hello, Boris, Anna, Geralt!” Jenna’s voice resounded through the command center. She’d said his name first!
“I’m doing okay here,” she continued. “Blane is all right. He explained the mission to Mars to me, and I can understand why it’s so urgent. The man there seems to be at least partially responsible for what happened on Santa. I’ll see you all in two weeks. I’m going to be the first Titanian to set foot on Mars!”
“You heard her yourself,” Blane added. “This little one is very excited. Don’t worry, I’ll keep her out of the line of fire. Sara, you know I’m reliable. So, your new friends will still reach their asteroid in time. I’ll even steal a brand spanking new shuttle with a converter drive for you. As you might’ve heard, there’s a small fleet parked at my destination, so there’s bound to be something for me to take. And if nothing else, you can have this shuttle I’m using right now. Promise.”
The little one! Hopefully Jenna wasn’t reading this, too.
“A shuttle with Earth technology,” Geralt said, “that’s one argument for this plan, at least. I bet our engineers would be happy if we could bring that home with us.”
Boris estimated the distances. If this Blane could go all the way to Mars and back in two weeks with his ship, then it shouldn’t be any problem for them to also catch up with (158) Koronis. Earth technology must’ve made some serious progress, even with the Great War. He’d have to overlook the fact that Blane wouldn’t swap for Sara right now.
“I think it’s a good offer,” he said. “The only risk is that Blane might be killed on this, what did he call it, ‘mission to Mars?’ It sounds to me like he’ll be dealing with more than one adversary.”
“I’ve got an idea of who he’s planning on visiting,” Sara said. “An influential businessman, if I’m right. To put it bluntly, there’s no way to stop him from sticking to his plans. But Blane is not just anyone. There were reasons why he was assigned to my crew. He might be a bit of a daredevil, but he’s always had a love for life, too. So, I’m pretty sure he’ll act very deliberately and be cautious if necessary.”
“Then we should accept his offer,” Anna said. “Sorry, little brother, looks like you’ll have to be without Jenna for a little while longer.”
4803.5
It had become boring in the astrodome. Mars and Jupiter were too far away to marvel at them with the naked eye. The asteroid belt in which they were still orbiting wasn’t visible. Boris had long ago seen his fill of stars. Nevertheless, this tight, cramped spot was still his favorite place to go. It certainly didn’t hurt that it was also colder here than in the command center. And somehow he felt closer to Jenna here.
He searched for Mars’s current position and imagined a line extending out to it. Then he sent out his thoughts to her—good thoughts. Maybe they could protect Jenna from whatever was waiting for her on Mars, whether she needed protection or not.
He didn’t like the man she was traveling with. Of course, he had to be grateful to him for finding her. But that man had also taken away his chance at being the hero and finding her himself. Above all, however, he was jealous of Blane for being a human. He was much more similar to Jenna, a Wnutri female, than he himself, a Snarushi. That had to cross Jenna’s mind. Didn’t she realize that it’d be impossible to form any sort of intimate connection with a monster like him? And she didn’t yet know the real history of the founders. How would that information affect her?
He needed to finally admit it—he had no chance. But it wasn’t that simple. He couldn’t just tell his brain to stop thinking about her.
“Boris? You should come down here. I think you’ll find this interesting,” Anna called.
She had guessed he was up here. She was, after all, his sister, and knew him better than anyone. He was very grateful for her, and he hoped never to lose this closeness with her. Carefully he pulled himself down through the tight corridor, the air growing warmer and warmer as he grew closer to the command center.
“So, what did you want to show me?” he asked after floating down to the floor.
“A message from Blane. Geralt’s translating it right now,” Anna said.
“Where’s Sara?”
“She’s sleeping. Geralt didn’t think we needed to wait for her. He thinks we can take care of this ourselves.”
“All the better.”
“Okay, I think it’s ready,” Geralt said.
“You think?”
“Well, the text makes sense now, so I think the translation’s right, Boris.”
“Then read away.”
“Okay. Just a second.” Geralt cleared his throat. “The problem is cleared,” he began reading.
“Solved.”
“Yes, solved, now stop interrupting me. The problem is solved. Jenna and I, we are alive and well. We propose a rendezvous point in eight days at these coordinates. Bringing fast shuttle with us, as promised.”
“That’s great!” Anna said. “You translated perfectly.”
Jenna was coming back. In eight days, he would see her again. Suddenly Boris felt afraid. What if she gave him the cold shoulder? He felt like a little boy who’d been wishing for something that had always been out of his reach, and then suddenly his wish was surprisingly fulfilled.
“Yes, this is great,” he said. “What are the coordinates?”
“Attached to the message. We’ll need to accelerate at zero point three g to be able to reach them on time.”
“That’s a very comfortable and unhurried pace,” Anna said.
Much too comfortable, Boris thought. He would have preferred something like 8 g, so that the inertia would squeeze his brain and he wouldn’t be able to think properly.
Eight days. How was he supposed to endure waiting that long?
4803.13
The strange shuttle showed itself only when it turned on its engines. It must have an excellent anti-radar coating, Boris thought. He had started to worry that Blane might’ve forgotten the meeting. Sara was pacing excitedly through the command center. For her, it must be the end of a long story. After all, she’d been separated from her friends for many orbital periods.
Of course, the story wasn’t over yet. (1288) Santa was still on a trajectory toward Earth. They still didn’t know who or what was behind the asteroids’ movements, but the completion of the Mars mission, whatever that was, hadn’t changed the impending danger.
The founders’ spaceship was orbiting with its engines off. The shuttle kept activating its adjustment drives again and again as it slowly approached their ship. Boris watched the maneuver on one of the screens. There was no coupling attachment on their ship, so Sara and Jenna would have to switch ships
by spacewalk.
A face appeared on the screen. Blane had a haggard look. The beginnings of a receding hairline and red spots on his scraggly cheeks made him look stressed. “Not so easy with this ancient system,” he conveyed via Sara, who did the translating.
“Works well enough for us,” Boris replied.
“I didn’t mean to criticize. Sorry if it came across that way.”
A hand moved into the picture from one side and waved. That has to be Jenna’s, Boris thought.
“That was Jenna,” Blane confirmed. “You can see she’s doing fine. I’d like to get this all over with quickly. This little detour cost me a few days, and we still have a pretty big chunk of rock hurtling toward Earth.”
“We’re in the same boat,” Anna said. “What’s going on with the second shuttle?”
“It’s coming in about an hour. I sent it on a more energy-efficient route, so you’d have as much fuel in the tank as possible. I figured you probably didn’t have any hydrogen on board for refueling.”
“We can make some,” Geralt said. “At least I think we can.”
“Well, whatever. With the amount of fuel it should have, you should be able to catch up with Koronis no matter how fast it’s going. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that too high an acceleration for too long is not great for your health.”
“I’m not worried about that. We’re rather robust,” Boris said, floating upside down in front of the screen.
“Ah, you must be Boris. I’ve heard a lot about you. You can even survive in a vacuum, if I’ve understood Jenna correctly. Cool stuff!”
“Thanks, but it’s nothing special. Half of all Titanians can do it, too.”
“I hope we can talk in more detail later. I find Titan fascinating,” Blane said.
The man knows how to flatter, Boris thought. But he sounds sincere. It doesn’t sound rehearsed.
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