Second Star (Star Svensdotter #1)

by Dana Stabenow

“It’s Mike, right? Mike Cowper? Exogeologist?” I waved my hand toward the general direction of the Belt. “How many prospectors out there do you think have struck out repeatedly in the last five years, Mike, and are by now looking for a free ride downstairs? We train them, set them up in stores and showtapes, and send them on their way.”

  “What’s to stop them from goofing off the whole trip?”

  “Simple greed. We signal ahead to Ellfive, giving them the composition of the rock and the expected delivery percentages. The supercargo is reimbursed on arrival by a prearranged fee per metric ton of refined ore. And,” I added, “if that doesn’t work, they either space the sumbitch or let him work off his passage in one of the sewage treatment plants, and we make sure the story gets around.”

  He grunted. There was silence for a moment, until Sam Holbrook, who always looked as if he were trying to remember if he’d left the telescope on when he left Mitchell, said dreamily, “You know, if you mix methane with ammonia and pass electricity through it you can form organic matter?”

  I said cautiously, “So?”

  “So Jupiter’s just lousy with methane and ammonia.”

  “Oh.” There was another silence.

  “But,” Sam admitted sorrowfully, “Jupiter also produces twice as much heat as it receives from Sol. I’ve heard estimates of an interior temperature of ten thousand degrees absolute plus. That’d kill anything organic.”

  “How unfortunate,” I said solemnly, and he nodded in sad agreement. We paused for a moment in silent memoriam to Jupiter’s—for now—forfeited resources. Sam dreamed a good dream when he put his mind to it.

  “We’re still going to have to supply the expedition, no matter how self-supporting we make it,” Simon observed. “We can use the return trip for some refined ores, like silicon, and any others we need most.”

  “Good idea,” Crip said, “it frosts me to think of eating either end of the transportation cost.”

  I smiled at him. “So maybe we should think of something to take up space, in case we have any left over.”

  He examined my smile with suspicion. “Like what?”

  “Well.” I paused. “On the trip out, like tourists, for example.”

  There was a stunned silence, broken at last by Crip. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “What is this, Star, public relations or reality?” Simon chimed in. “Space is for professionals, not passengers.”

  “Unless they’re paying passengers,” I retorted. “Simon, if we’re going to sell this idea to Colony Control and the Habitat Commission, not to mention the American Alliance, we’ve got to explore every possibility to make both the trip out and the trip back pay. Tourism is an obvious option. Just think about it, all right? I’m not asking you to guide tours, for God’s sake. If it comes to that, it will only be a very few, very well-heeled passengers. The captain can wine them and dine them—”

  “Thanks a whole bunch, Star,” Crip said crisply.

  I sighed. “Which reminds me. Have you found us a manager for flight operations yet?”

  He nodded. “Perry Austin.”

  I whistled. “I don’t know whether to curtsy or just genuflect and get it over with. I thought she was pretty well settled with Space Services.”

  “She told me she’d been feeling crowded lately. Said she wanted some elbow room.”

  “We can promise her plenty of that.”

  “Maybe not for long,” Charlie said. “I saw on the trivee last night that a private outfit named Mayflower, Inc. is taking applications for homesteaders for a future flight to the Belt on one of the new fusion ships. If they ever work the bugs out of the drive.”

  “The Oklahoma Land Rush,” I said. “Well, we’d better do our best to beat them to it and stake out the best claims. Now. Personnel. Listen up, take notes, this is important. I want you to make sure everyone who applies to go on the Belt Expedition understands that this trip is in the proposal stages only, no guarantees that it’s actually going to happen. However”—I transfixed the table with what Charlie called my Medusa stare—“I want you to make equally certain that each and every prospective employee understands that we are dead serious about the quality of personnel we want for this hypothetical trip. And when I say quality, I mean everybody we hire is capable of wearing at least two hats.”

  “Specifically?”

  “Specifically, when we hire on a geotech I want him or her trained in hydroponics or spacemed or solar power maintenance as well. I’ll expect department heads to review the personnel roster daily, on the lookout for anyone who shows an aptitude for their department’s line of work. It goes without saying that any applicant’s chances improve a hundred percent if they have a background in vacuum construction.”

  I hesitated, and said carefully, “And although I don’t wish to limit anyone in making his or her personnel selections, do keep in mind that brute force doesn’t mean diddly in zerogee, that women consume less food and less oxygen than men, and that women are more radiation resistant than men. Generally speaking women also mass less and are cheaper to transport.” I patted the air with my hands. “Okay, okay, I’m not overlooking the need for a sexually balanced crew that far from home. Just keep it in mind, okay?”

  Whitney Burkette made a neat note on a pad lined up precisely at the edge of the table in front of him. He was an Englishman with a walrus mustache, bulging, walrus-like eyes, and a walrus-like capacity for the female sex. If I’d said I wanted the Belt crew all women except for him he would have sacrificed a chicken to the gods in my name. He was a genius at zerogee construction or I wouldn’t have put up with him and his clammy hands for a minute. “Any other caveats, Star?”

  “Only one. Please, please, please, let’s keep the sociologists out of the planning loop this trip. If I have to debate the long-term ramifications of space exploration and colonization on the human race one more time, I will vomit. Same for the psychiatrists and the anthropologists. Space travel should be routine enough by now that we can get by without their dubious help.”

  “No intellectuals need apply,” Charlie murmured.

  “That’s not what I said, Charlie.”

  “No, but that’s what you meant, Star.”

  “If you mean I don’t want to waste time butting heads with someone who has never been able to understand the industrial revolution,” I retorted, “much less accept it, you are correct.”

  “Depends on where you saw it from, whether you thought it was a good idea,” Simon said. He caught my eye and added, “The industrial revolution. Whether you saw it from London or Bangkok.”

  “Ethiopia or Ellfive,” Charlie said, enjoying herself, and I saw Caleb choke back a laugh behind one square hand.

  “Well, on Ellfive,” I said, staring my sister down, “you’ll be giving classes in tooth extraction and emergency appendectomies and zerogee CPR. We’ve already signed on seventy people for this expedition and I want to keep them busy. Enid, as soon as you can start instruction in food management, waste management—”

  “And packing,” Enid said. “Packing things into a spaceship is an art in itself.”

  “How true,” Crip murmured.

  “What else?” I said. “Ah—look for backgrounds in exogeology, seismology, photography, assaying and opticom systems, and oh, everyone, whether they hold a valid certification or not, shines up on their EVA procedures.”

  “Don’t let your enthusiasm turn our students into drones,” Crip drawled.

  “Okay,” I said agreeably. “You’re a graduate of that monster astronaut training program with DOS, you can follow behind me and monitor the course schedule. If you find a class you feel is redundant, cut it. If the lab time is too tight, change it.” I smiled at Crip. “From this moment, you are the student representative to the board of regents.”

  “Thanks a whole bunch,” he said again, with even less enthusiasm. “Man can’t even make a passing comment around here.”

  “I can start a course in basic hydroponics te
chniques right away, Star,” Enid said.

  “And I’ll work out a teaching plan in fiber optics for intraship communications and supersonics for extraship,” Bolly Blanca said. “And we’d better have some elementary instruction in how to read and maintain an Express’s inertial-measurement unit.”

  “A what?”

  “An IMU, a space compass,” he explained.

  “I’ve stolen a couple of pressure-suit techs away from Daedalus Flight Service,” I said, “and scheduled them for classes in hundred-hour p-suit maintenance checkups. I’ve got some powertechs standing by to instruct us in the manufacture of electricity and water from oxygen and hydrogen through the use of fuel cells. And some waste management technicians to give lessons in how to flush the toilets and how to change the canisters of lithium hydroxide that purify cabin atmosphere and how to vacuum filter screens on the air-conditioning system.”

  “Whew,” Simon said, wiping imaginary sweat away from his brow. “You’ve been busy. All I’ve done is line up some drive engineers to teach a comprehensive course in ship propulsion, from construction and maintenance to detonation. They assure me that when they’re done, there won’t be one of us who can’t dropkick an Express.” He grinned. “Theoretically, anyway.”

  “I’ve set up a ferry schedule between Ellfive and Mitchell Observatory,” Sam Holbrook said, “and I’m prepared to begin tutoring everyone—by appointment only, please!—in star sighting and astrogation.” He gave me a sideways look. “I’ve already test-driven the program on Star, here, and I’m pleased to say she’s doing well.”

  “Sure,” I said, “I did fine once I stopped mistaking Hercules for Orion.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Sam said immediately. “You got a little cocky there for a while.”

  “Which you cured by logging a simulated IMU failure and letting my imaginary Express run out of fuel trying to find the Pleiades.” Everyone laughed, but it had not been a fun sim. I hate being lost almost as much as I fear solar flares. “So has everyone got enough to go on with?”

  “More than enough I would think, Star,” Whitney Burkette pronounced after judicious thought.

  “Yeah, could we slow to sublight now?” Bolly pleaded. “Tell us how your trip downstairs went.”

  “If I never again smell the inside of a high school gymnasium, I will die a happy woman,” I said. I stood up and stretched, and wandered over to the window. Behind me I heard people pushing their chairs back, pouring and passing cups full of coffee, and propping their feet up on the table. The sun poured in through the windows and glinted off a receding aircar. There was a horde of tiny figures swarming over Owens Arena about a klick down Valley One, making all ready for orientation of the first load of colonists in two weeks. God, it looked good out there, and how I wished I were out in it.

  I turned back. “I’m sorry to say the news from downstairs ain’t good. Standard Oil and Solar is making noises around the Alliance Congress about how the Ellfive Corporation will soon be a major exporter of goods and services, and how that makes Ellfive security a concern of the American Alliance, and why its administration should be removed from the hands of mere civilians.”

  There was a short silence. “Lodge is moving in for the kill,” Simon said at last.

  “It looks that way,” I agreed. “He’s been disrupting or trying to disrupt hangarlock service. And either by turning a blind eye or by outright advocation of violence, he has encouraged Patrol liberty parties to cause as much trouble as they can here, which he knows can only lower morale and slow construction.”

  “You think he was behind that rape?” Bolly asked me directly.

  Caleb uttered an inarticulate protest, and I said, “Behind the rape itself, no. He executed the rapists, had you all heard?” There were approving nods around the table, and I said, “I think he meant them to make trouble, and I think they knew that, and I think it got out of hand.”

  “How is—?”

  “No name,” I said sharply. “She can go public if she wants to, but until she does we maintain at least an illusion of privacy for the kid.”

  Charlie said to Enid, “Physically she is recuperating. Mentally—” Charlie paused. “Mentally, she’s a wreck. Nightmares, guilt, shame, rage, depression, you name it, she’s feeling it.” She turned to me. “You really think Lodge is ready to make a move?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know how he could convince himself that five thousand Fivers are just going to roll over as he rolls in.” I rubbed my forehead. “It is a fact, however, that Space Patrol Commodore Grayson Cabot Lodge the Fourth is the cousin of Senator Dewayne Nierbog, Jr., as well as the nephew of Charleton Cabot Winthrop, chairman of the board of SOS. I also hear tell how Commodore Lodge is bored with monitoring SDI satellites at GEO Base, and even more bored with watching Commissar Korolov at Tsiolkovsky Base watch him. And I myself am pretty well acquainted with the size of Commodore Lodge’s personal ambition, which may be slightly smaller than his ego, although I wouldn’t bet any serious money on it.”

  There was a murmur of comment. “I was just wondering,” Charlie said at last in a soft voice pitched for my ears alone.

  “What?” I said.

  “How much of the animosity he shows toward Ellfive is personal,” she said, and our eyes met.

  “Why should it be, after all this time? I don’t have any toward him,” I said, and could feel my face redden when she raised an eyebrow.

  “Of course you don’t,” my sister said, still in that deceptively soft voice in which she makes all her best points. “You left him, not the other way around. Understanding and forgiveness for you is easy, even obligatory. But Grayson’s kind don’t know how to lose. At anything.”

  I fiddled with the viewer controls. “What do you suggest I do about it?”

  She made a face. “Nothing you can do, except wait for him to move. You can’t take action until he does.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “Charlie,” I said, raising my voice, “if life were a Greek tragedy, you’d be the chorus, every time.”

  Simon laughed a little, and Charlie glared first at him and then at me. “And maybe,” she snapped, “just maybe, you shouldn’t have been so adamant in keeping weapons off Ellfive. Knowing Grays is on the prowl, I’d feel a lot safer if we had a few laser pistols of our own in reserve.”

  The room became very still. I folded my hands on top of the table and regarded them intently. “Charlie,” I said softly to my hands, “are you quite happy in your job?” I lifted my eyes and regarded her with my eyebrows raised. I heard Simon take a deep breath, and hold it.

  Charlie’s face flushed a deep, dark red. “Yes, Star,” she said steadily.

  “Then you feel that you can continue to live and work under the established rules and conditions currently governing our lives here at Ellfive?”

  “Yes, Star,” she said again, her voice still steady and her face still red.

  “I am happy to hear it,” I said, and I smiled at her. “I’d have a hard time replacing such a competent medical supervisor, and one so thoroughly integrated into the project.”

  A big sigh went around the room, and I leaned back in my chair. We didn’t broadcast the fact that Charlie and I were sisters, something made easier when Charlie took Mother’s maiden name, and at times like this I was glad of it. “However, Charlie, you’re quite right in thinking we’ve caught the Alliance on the jump. Wc put this project together in two-thirds the time the Habitat Commission projected, those who expected it to be completed at all. The first colonists are arriving in less than two weeks and Ellfive is about to pay off in a big way. The Frisbee is already supporting itself.” I laughed shortly. “The prize is tempting, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried over Grays’s intentions. He can always point to Ellfour as a security risk.”

  “Ellfour doesn’t even have spin yet.”

  I shook my head. “You haven’t been downstairs in years, Sam. It doesn’t just smell down there anymore, it stinks. Hell, why not,
after Seabrook and with the greenhouse effect the air’s almost toxic. There’s never been enough to eat, they can’t or won’t come up with a global, mandatory birth-control plan so there’s barely enough room to sleep, and if there are only five governments running Terra now instead of a hundred and fifty, that still doesn’t mean they can agree on a common problem, forget a solution. The way the American Alliance looks at it, the United Eurasian Republic may have a base on Luna and a colony on Mars but they’re way behind in habitat development. In the not-too-distant future these habitats are going to be, if not supporting Terra, then at the very least a vital factor in her survival. What better way to catch up than simply to move in on Ellfive? The fact that the UER would be appropriating someone else’s property has never stopped them before, as the honorable senator from Wisconsin has pointed out on numerous occasions.”

  Simon grunted. “Red baiter.”

  “Smile when you say that, pardner. I only know what I see on the trivee.”

  Nobody said anything for a while, and then I said, “If Lodge makes a move, it will be before the colonists arrive. There are only a thousand Patrolmen at Orientale, less than two hundred at GEO Base, and about fifty on LEO.”

  “Gideon only needed three hundred,” Caleb said.

  “Grays isn’t Gideon, and he sure as hell isn’t carrying the sword of the Lord. With our five-thousand-man crew, even without weapons, I think we can hold off the Space Patrol. You can only shoot so many in a crowd before the crowd runs over you.”

  “Is this crowd going to stand up to be shot at?” Caleb said, and I looked at him in some surprise.

  “Of course.”

  “You’re very sure.”

  “Of course,” I said again.

  Caleb looked at Simon, who looked at Charlie, who examined me with a slight smile on her face. “Tell me, Star, are you sticking around to nurse this Utopian child once you get her born?”

  I laughed, sort of, and said, “Let’s just get her born, okay? There’ll be time and more to worry about my future afterward.”

  “You know, Star,” Whitney Burkette said, frowning down at his precisely placed notebook, “if they have the Alliance Congress behind them, a Space Patrol takeover might be legal.”