Second Star (Star Svensdotter #1)

by Dana Stabenow

  “The Habitat Act of 1993 specifically grants autonomy to each individual habitat, providing Ellfive makes full restitution of debt plus interest to the American Alliance,” I said sharply.

  “Acts can be repealed,” he pointed out, calmly enough, but with that trace of self-righteous assurance in his manner that always annoyed me.

  “He’s right, Star,” Simon said. “No, now, just hold on a minute. We could offer to up the interest. Make it too profitable for them to take us over.”

  “Why would the Alliance settle for a piece of the action if they think they can have it all? Besides, I won’t have Ellfive held hostage to Terran greed.”

  He grinned suddenly. “Well, we could always ask the Beetlejuicers for help,” he said, and Charlie giggled.

  I looked at Simon, unsmiling. “Since the first and only message we’ve ever received from our friends on Betelgeuse was over fifteen years ago, and since the linguists say the message itself wasn’t much more than an interception of a routine ship-to-ship transmission that indicated no awareness whatever of Terra’s existence, I don’t think we should hold our breath waiting for them to bail us out, do you?”

  “I suppose not,” Simon said solemnly. Charlie giggled again, sounding exactly like Elizabeth. Caleb looked puzzled, but no one was paying any attention to him, and to my surprise and relief he didn’t ask any questions.

  The meeting broke up and I called Simon to one side. “Simon, if anything happens to me, no, let me finish. If anything does happen to me, and if Lodge tries something on, I want you to call Jorge Velasquez at Copernicus Base and tell him I said to fill you in on Plan A.”

  He smiled slowly. “Plan A?”

  I didn’t. “Yes, Plan A.”

  He sobered and said, “Why don’t you tell me about it, right now?”

  “Because we might not need it, and if we don’t, it’s better that as few people as is practical know about it.” His eyebrows rose and I said, “I’m sorry. It sounds like something on The Galactic Overlord, doesn’t it? But don’t forget, okay? Plan A. It’s important.”

  He regarded me with an impassive expression. “I won’t forget.”

  Caleb and I got back to my office just in time to find that the Bugolubovo and Viskov dog-and-pony show had arrived. Roger and Jerry Pauling were dancing attendance on their new protégés and did everything but send up rockets to indicate how welcome another pair of hands was going to be in their respective work places. Viskov, dark and stocky and stolid, held hands with his wife, who was fair and stocky and stolid. Neither of them spoke English, but that was all right since Jerry was speaking to Viskov in silicon and Roger was speaking to Bugolubovo in botanic. Everyone seemed happy except for Emily Holbrook Castellano, who didn’t speak Russian or silicon or botanic or, I sometimes suspected, System English either.

  Notwithstanding the language barrier, it was evident that nothing less than a hacksaw was going to separate Emily from the sources of Time’s next cover story. Red baiting hasn’t changed much in the last fifty years, more’s the pity. She did graciously spare a minute of her valuable time to say to me, “Of course you will make yourself available for a tour and an interview later on in the week.”

  It was difficult to keep the dismay out of my voice, so I didn’t try. “You’re going to be here a whole week? We are rather busy right now, Emily. I’ve got to go to Luna for a couple of days and commissioning is less than two weeks away.”

  “If you commission,” she said.

  I looked at her. She had mousy brown hair slicked back in a severe bun, a style she fondly imagined made her look like Tatiana Romanova of the Bolshoi Ballet but that really made her look like a diamondback in molt, only not as cute. “Are you trying to tell me something, Emily?”

  I was taller than she was so it was more of a strain for her to maintain eye contact. She shoved her chin up as far as it would go and said pugnaciously, “The public has a right to know about the status of the Ellfive project. Of course, if you can’t spare the time—”

  “I am tempted to point out,” I drawled, “that the American Alliance public is not Ellfive’s public.” Caleb didn’t even twitch. Elizabeth, working out a problem in Boolean algebra at my desk, shot me an apprehensive glance, but then she’d known me longer.

  “The American Alliance is bankrolling Ellfive with tax dollars collected from the American Alliance public,” Castellano said, her lips curled in a sneer that made me think a forked tongue would dart out between them at any moment. She was hell on sneering, was Emily Holbrook Castellano, even if she did have trouble with simple declarative sentences. “It might interest them to know there have been airlock executions without benefit of trial taking place without discrimination since Ellfive pressured up.” She sneered some more. “The last one taking place two weeks ago and not a kilometer from your office.”

  There had been airlock executions going on without benefit of trial since before Copernicus Base had been completed, but I didn’t say so. I wondered how she had picked that up in the two hours she had been on board. “Spend some time at Orientale before you went to GEO Base, Emily?” I said, taking a guess. “Maybe have dinner with the commodore?”

  My guess was right on, I could see it in the quickly suppressed flash of surprise across Emily’s face, and suddenly I was angry, so angry I was trembling with it. I don’t know what my face looked like but Elizabeth dropped her pencil and started around the desk as if to stop whatever she thought I was going to do. Emily paled but to her credit stood her ground.

  I was proud of myself. I didn’t take her into the John and jam her down the head. I said, “Elizabeth? Come here.” Elizabeth came to stand beside me, looking from me to Emily with wide eyes. “Observe closely, Elizabeth,” I said, resting one hand on her shoulder. “This is a specimen that has not come your way before. Emily, although she will claim all the outward impartiality of any member of the press, is a Luddite sympathizer who would like nothing so much to happen as for Ellfive to wobble out of orbit and spiral into Sol or Terra, always providing there was time for man-on-the-street interviews on the way down. It is politically expedient for her to speak favorably of us at the moment, but I would advise you to watch your back as you grow up here.”

  Emily Holbrook Castellano flushed a dull purple right up to the roots of her bun. “One story,” she said softly, through her teeth, “one story, Star, and I could have your job and discredit the entire colony project.”

  “She also suffers from delusions of grandeur,” I said to Elizabeth. “Making threats before lunch, Emily? How very uncivilized of you.” I smiled, and Elizabeth winced. Caleb was examining his cuticles with intense interest. “Well, go ahead, give it a try. It would, after all, be something of an about-face from the progressive theme you usually preach. Five years ago it went something like this, and I quote:

  “If you can believe the eulogies of Star Svensdotter, Ellfive is the hybrid of a brave new world and the next life. Svensdotter is following in the footsteps of Magellan and Cook, Lewis and Clark, Armstrong and Aldrin. Like all pioneers she is driven by a messianic sense of mission and a love of adventure, as well as a clear and enthusiastic view of the future of mankind that is as contagious as it is optimistic.”

  “I believe you’ll recognize the hyperbole,” I told Emily. “I always thought your mother was frightened by a Victorian novelist when she was carrying you, but I admit that story was good for a few free meals. Did I ever thank you?”

  Her color slowly fading back to normal, Emily turned her back on me and gave Viskov and Bugolubovo an insincere smile. I couldn’t see it but I saw Bugolubovo smile back and I knew Emily. For the first edition, the banner headline could read “Ellfive Despot Repeals First Amendment.” For the final I rather liked “Truth, Justice, and the American Way Suborned.”

  I said, “Jerry, Roger, I’m placing Zoya and Vitaly in your care. Give them a day to settle in and then show them to their work areas. If the zeegee corridor isn’t open by then make sure Daedalus
checks them out in p-suits.” I smiled at the Russian couple. They stared stolidly back. Emily had probably promised them a special on Time Marches On, Sunday night at nine. Souls have been sold for less. Why should these two be any different? “Archy?”

  “Yes, boss?”

  “Stand by for voiceprints of Vitaly Viskov and Zoya Yelena Bugolubovo.”

  “Has the Red Menace arrived?”

  “Stop being such a smartass,” I said sharply. Archy did not reply. I didn’t know if he was squelched or sulking. Whichever it was, Simon was going to do some extensive recoding of Archy’s personality cards before any of us were very much older. Roger and Jerry bowed their charges out, with Emily in tow. I relaxed, or tried to.

  Caleb said, “Little rough on her, weren’t you, Star?”

  “Tact is something I leave for diplomats,” I said shortly.

  “I noticed,” he said. “You should pick your fights with more care. She can still do damage, no matter how far along the project is.”

  I shot him a fulminating look and Elizabeth said hastily. If that lady is a Luddite, Auntie Star, why did she write such nice things about you?

  “Honey, because Emily writes nice things about me doesn’t mean she has to believe them. She doesn’t like me, she never has, not since Luna and Grays—” I barely caught myself, and carefully avoided looking at Caleb.

  Elizabeth’s brow furrowed. How can she say one thing, do another, and think something completely different?

  “Maybe she’s ambidextrous.” My niece gave me a reproving look and I said, “Elizabeth, Emily is a journalist. Remember when we were reading Thomas Wolfe? Remember ‘the pious hypocrisy of the press with its swift-forgotten prayers for our improvement, the editorial moaning while the front page gloats’?”

  Elizabeth digested this in silence. Does that mean she is going to write bad things about you now?

  I gave a short laugh. “Emily Holbrook Castellano is a vicious, unprincipled bitch with no feel for the future, but she’s not stupid. She knows Terra’s present mood better than anyone, and the majority of Terrans believe and want to read that space is the last, best hope of mankind. Emily is not about to bite the hand that feeds her.” I ruffled Elizabeth’s hair. “Even if she does harbor the private belief that I’m the illegitimate daughter of Ming the Merciless, instead of the heir apparent to Flash Gordon and Dale Arden she once claimed. Now, I’ve got an appointment, and no, you can’t come with me.” Caleb started to make a noise and I said firmly, “Either of you.” I stalked out of the office.

  Charlie’s clinic was a short hop by aircar, a one-story, cream-colored building halfway between Owens Arena and McAuliffe School, surrounded by oak and maple saplings and a green lawn between flagged paths. Her office was just inside the front door. She eyed me warily as I came in. I was still stalking.

  “I need an implant,” I barked.

  “What kind of an implant?”

  “Contraceptive.”

  Her mouth dropped open and she regarded me fixedly for a few moments. Blackwell beeped impatiently and she turned to write data to a chartdisk. She pulled the disk and filed it, and turned back to me. “How was that again?”

  “You heard me,” I said, trying not to sound defensive. “I need a contraceptive implant. Get on with it.”

  “Fine, fine,” she said soothingly, “anything for a quiet life.” She left the room and returned with a syringe and a smirk. I scowled at her and she straightened out her face. “Timed release, one-year duration,” she said, all business. “Same as you had on Luna. That do?”

  “Fine.” I got up, dropped my jumpsuit, and grabbed the arms of the chair. Charlie smacked the implant home with unnecessary relish and I hauled my uniform back on and ran the zip up to where the tab almost choked me. Charlie pulled my disk and, wrote the prescription to my file, humming Mozart to herself. When she was done, she picked up a red-and-white capsule and tossed it in my direction. By a miracle I caught it. “What’s this?”

  “A morning-after pill, I’m sure you need it,” she said, and laughed when I threw a file at her.

  — 6 —

  The Calm Before

  There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon…

  —1 Corinthians 15:41

  WHEN I WOKE UP the next morning Caleb was still there. “Oh, good,” I said. “You weren’t a dream.”

  “No,” he said, reaching for me. “You don’t do this a lot, do you?” he said later.

  I wondered if I should feel insulted, and decided it wasn’t worth the effort. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  I stretched out against his warm length. “There was someone on Luna. It didn’t work out.”

  “You left Luna eleven years ago. What about here?”

  “I’ve been busy.” I could feel his skepticism and said, “It’s true. I wanted to do the job, and it took everything I had to do it well. Something had to suffer.” I turned my face into his shoulder. “But mostly it’s because if the boss sleeps with one of the help, others who have not been so honored get bitchy and resentful and after a while it begins to interfere with their work.”

  I felt him smile against my hair. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard a manager count sex as a factor in productivity.”

  “Only the very best managers do. Especially when they’ve got Whitney Burkette measuring them for a black silk negligee.”

  “Don’t tell me that pompous old fart tried it on?”

  “That pompous old fart thinks he’s Casanova and Don Juan and Jack Kennedy all rolled into one. It’s amazing how many women he has convinced he is.”

  “But not you.”

  “No. Not me.”

  He kissed me. “Thanks for preserving at least one of the few illusions I have left.”

  “Caleb,” I said, raising up on one elbow, “I don’t like crowds, or lines. The rest I figure we can make up as we go along.”

  “Actually, I was thinking marriage and children, in that order.”

  “So it isn’t going to be that easy.”

  “Doesn’t look like it,” he said, tracing my lips with one finger.

  “You don’t seem too worried about it.”

  “No,” he agreed. He sniffed the air. “Someone’s cooking sausage. Who is in your kitchen?”

  “We could ask Archy.”

  “We could get dressed and find out for ourselves.”

  “We could do that.”

  Hunger eventually drove us to it.

  · · ·

  You look tired, Elizabeth said to Caleb as he tilted back from the breakfast table with Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer in his lap.

  “Your aunt is a tiring woman,” Caleb replied lazily, tickling one kitten behind its ears.

  “Don’t you want to see your birthday present, Elizabeth?” I said, glowering at Caleb.

  She pounced on the package and ripped it open. You finished it!

  “Yes. I visited Paddy’s aunt in Brooklyn while I was downstairs and she gave me some more báinín. Like it?”

  She pulled the Aran sweater on over her head and rolled up the cuffs. It’s beautiful. Thank you, Auntie Star. I’ll wear it forever.

  I stroked her hair. “Don’t grow too fast and you’ll be able to wear it for at least a year. I’m going to Luna today, want to come along?”

  Why do you think I’m here? Are we staying the night? Can we have dinner at Jorge’s?

  “I guessed that was why, yes, and I feel certain Jorge will insist on it.”

  “Me, too?” Caleb said in a plaintive voice that didn’t fool either of us for a minute.

  I raised my eyebrows. “What do you think, Elizabeth?”

  She thought it over with a concentrated frown. If he tells us why he’s really here, here on Ellfive I mean, he can come, she said.

  The front legs of Caleb’s chair came down with what was meant to be a thud but bounced gently in the half gee of my home. I warded him off with an upraised hand. “Not me, I didn’t say a word t
o her. Elizabeth picks up on these things all by herself.”

  He looked at Elizabeth, half in exasperation and half in amusement. “Why does everyone I meet on Ellfive think I have some ulterior motive in coming here?”

  Because you do, Elizabeth said firmly.

  “Okay. All right. I give up. Star, Helen and Frank hired me to be your bodyguard.”

  Before I thought I said, “So I was right! You were hovering!”

  Caleb was watching me with wary eyes and I realized he expected me to be angry. I wondered if I was. I had been prepared to find out that he was the Space Patrol’s advance guard, or that he was a spy for Senator Nierbog, or the Luddites, or both, or maybe even a fugitive on the losing side of a power struggle in New South Africa. But a bodyguard?

  “When did they decide this was necessary?” I said in a mild tone. “I’ve been guarding this body pretty successfully all by myself for forty-one years.”

  “When your p-suit was sabotaged last October.”

  “I see.”

  “What I told you about the family firm was true, as far as I went. I’ve always been more interested in spacing than in building another Terran empire.” He sent me a private smile. “I wanted a Roc’s egg, too.”

  “Why did it take you so long to get here? Why didn’t you apply sooner?” I thought of the three security supervisors prior to Caleb—one dead of REM exposure, the second through sheer carelessness, and the third vanished without a trace—and said with a sigh, “We could have used you. I could have used you.”

  “Until lately I couldn’t be spared from what I was doing,” he said with a bald recognition of his own worth that reminded me of Simon at his most arrogant. “Then when I could, the American Alliance’s local hire laws got in the way—Helen had to call in some pretty high markers to get my application processed through the Habitat Commission as fast as it was. When the last security supervisor disappeared she stopped saying please.”