We could hear nothing through the vacuum and the total and complete silence in the middle of so much activity was eerie. I felt as if I were deaf. The sensation was uncomfortably like the blackout two days before, and I was glad when we reached the airlock of the launch tower. Inside, we popped our helmets and followed Jorge into the elevator, moving clumsily in our p-suits.
The launch controls took up all of the top floor of the launch tower, with three people sitting inside the curve of the U-shaped console, surrounded by a bewildering array of switches and lights flashing red and yellow and green. The launch controllers spoke in low, calm voices into headsets, looking up briefly when we came into the room and returning immediately and without fuss to the task at hand. Half the ceiling and all of the wall facing the controllers was made of transparent graphplex panels strengthened with threads of graphite so slender they were invisible to the naked eye. It was like looking out from the inside of a gigantic fishbowl. We could see Ellfive twinkling low on Luna’s horizon as rays from Sol reflected off its rotating sides. Spread out before us on the surface of Copernicus were the long thin tracks of both mass drivers and the framed-in beginnings of a third. I could see a tractor loading a capsule, marked green for oxygen, into the Driver 2 ejector chute, and a trailer loaded with blue hydrogen capsules.
“How does it look, Abraham?” Jorge said. “Are they here?”
The man in the center seat of the console replied without looking around. “Yes. Just off the screen.”
“Bueno. This time we’ve got the Ellfive director as witness. How soon to launch?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Step over here, please, Star,” Jorge said, moving toward a large telescope. He waved his hand like a magician conjuring a rabbit out of a hat. “Please look through this eyepiece.”
I stumped over to the telescope and bent down stiffly to stare through the guidescope. The mass catcher in warehouse orbit around Ellfive sprang into clear focus. I didn’t see anything else. I straightened up. “So?” Caleb and Elizabeth remained at the back of the room, curious and alert.
“Keep watching,” Jorge said, unperturbed.
I grumbled and bent over the guidescope again. After a while I said, “Hey.”
Jorge’s voice was full of gentle irony. “Yes? You see something, perhaps?”
I adjusted the eyepiece down to bring the nearer object into focus. It was white and stubby with long, dark scars where delta wings had once sprouted. It drifted dangerously close to the crosshairs of the scope that were lined up on the center of the mass catcher. “It looks like—it is, it’s a ship. It looks like one of the old STS shuttles the Patrol adapted for high earth orbit.”
“This particular orbit is a little removed from high earth, would you agree, Star? Turn up the military band,” Jorge said to Abraham. “Listen to this,” he said to me.
There was a faint crackle and then we heard a confident young voice. “Copernicus Base, this is Space Patrol Shuttle Atlantis, Captain Cooper commanding. We are conducting an infrared survey of lunar topography at the altitude of your mass driver lanes. Hold launch process, I repeat, hold launch process, until our vehicle has cleared the area.”
My jaw dropped and Jorge gave a sober nod. “During the last week it has been happening perhaps once or twice per twenty-four-hour period, always the Atlantis. It never happens often enough to be predictable, just often enough to blow the launch schedule purely to hell. I’m so glad they were obliging enough to stage one flyby in time for you to see it during your visit,” he added.
“That goddam Lodge!”
“We not only haven’t met our monthly quota for Ellfive, we haven’t met them for the SPS stations or LEO Base, or GEO Base, either. Es divertido, no? But not so much so for Commodore Lodge. LEO Base in particular must be on short rations by now.”
“He probably regards it as a necessary sacrifice,” Caleb said. “The less H2O Copernicus is able to ship, the longer it takes Ellfive to commission, the slower the Ellfive population grows, and the more time Lodge has to convince the Alliance Congress how much better the habitat would be run under the auspices of the Space Patrol.”
I glared at him. “You sound almost respectful.”
Caleb tried to shrug but his p-suit wouldn’t let him. “His strategy is sound.”
“Continue launch procedure,” I said. Jorge exchanged a startled glance with Marisol. Abraham swiveled around to stare at me. “I said, continue launch.”
Abraham looked to Jorge for guidance, who hesitated before saying reluctantly, “Continue launch, Abraham. I hope you know what you’re doing, Star.”
“Put me on the speaker,” I said coldly to Abraham. He hesitated, flicking another glance at Jorge before hitting a switch. I raised my voice to be heard on the mike. “Ahoy, Atlantis, this is Star Svensdotter speaking for Copernicus Base. Launch will proceed as scheduled in—”
“Four minutes,” Abraham said without expression.
“—in four minutes. If you don’t want your ass splattered all over the nose cone of a mass capsule I suggest you move out of the area. I don’t really care one way or another but your mother might. Copernicus out.” I bent back over the guide-scope.
Two more minutes passed in agonizing succession, second by meandering second. When the young voice spoke again I was pleased to note that it had lost some of its previous cockiness. “Copernicus Base, this is the Atlantis. We are unable to move from the area in time for your launch. Please halt launch procedure, I say again, please halt launch procedure until we clear the area.”
“Do not respond,” I told Abraham. “Continue launch procedure.”
Beads of perspiration dotted Jorge’s scalp. I was sweating, too, inside the bulk of my pressure suit. I could feel Caleb’s eyes boring into me. Elizabeth stood close beside him, holding tightly to his hand.
I bent back over the guidescope. The Patrol ship hung motionless in space, as if painted over the blurred image of the netlike mass catcher.
“Ten seconds,” Abraham said. “And nine, and eight—” and as if his voice were a trigger I saw the Patrol ship’s thrusters ignite in a brief burst of light. The shuttle scooted out of the crosshairs and then out of the scope’s range entirely. As I straightened up I caught the faintest glimpse of the mass capsule hurtling away from Luna’s surface. “Steady as she goes,” I said, raising a shaky hand to wipe the sweat out of my eyes. “How long did you say this has been going on?”
“Less than a month. Since just after you went downstairs.”
“They’re dragging their feet at the Ellfive hangarlock, and now they’re tying up one entire vehicle just to interfere with Copernicus transport? What kind of logistical sense does that make? The last time I looked all the Patrol had at GEO Base were the Atlantis, the Magellan, and a couple of freighters, besides the usual scooters and liberty shuttles.”
“And those four new Goshawks at Orientale,” Jorge said.
“Five,” Caleb said. “Five Goshawks.”
I looked at him. “How do you know there are five?”
He nodded toward the window. “Because I can count.”
I wheeled to stare outside. Five Goshawk spacefighters, sleek and shining and deadly, streaked overhead in a vee formation and out through the black vacuum on a direct course between Luna and Ellfive, and they weren’t coming our way.
At that moment Archy erupted from inside my helmet with a sound like the tsunami siren in Seldovia Bay. “Star! Star! Where are you? Answer up!”
I yanked the headset out of my helmet. “I’m here, Archy. What’s wrong?”
“It’s the Patrol! Lodge has taken over O’Neill! Simon says you have to get back here now!” There was a sound like feedback through a microphone wrapped in a fuzzy blanket, and Archy’s voice became shriller. “Don’t let them do it! Don’t—”
“Archy!”
“Star, help me! No, don’t—” Archy’s voice raised to a shriek, and was abruptly cut off.
“Archy!” There was no
response. “Archy, back door, load Freddy the rat, now!”
Nothing answered me but silence, dark and deep and less than lovely.
I was at the communications console in a single jump, pressure suit and all. There was no viewer, only a mike and speaker. “Copernicus Base, this is Star Svensdotter, do you have contact with Ellfive?”
There was a hiss and a spit as the channel became live. We could hear shouting in the background of the lunar communications center. “Star, it’s Marie. Will everyone just shut up, please! Okay, Star, we’ve got an incoming call for you. Stand by to receive.”
In the next minute we were treated to the mellifluous, Bostonian tones of Commodore Grayson Cabot Lodge the Fourth. “Have I reached Star Svensdotter?”
“Grays, what the hell are you up to? What’s happened to Ellfive’s computer? Put him on the speaker!”
He sounded about as smug as I’d ever heard him, and I’d heard him pretty smug. “I’m afraid that is impossible at the present time, Star. We have been forced to take up residence in your facility and your computer objected, so we had to disconnect all but the life-support functions. It is a purely temporary measure, I assure you, and strictly a matter of national security.”
I said, trying to match his calm, “And from what clear and present danger is Ellfive being secured, pray tell?”
His voice continued bland and soothing. “We have reason to believe the United Eurasian Republic is mounting an attack on Ellfive from Ellfour to retrieve two defecting Russian nationals by the names of Viskov and Bugolubovo.”
I lost it. “Grays, are you crazy? An attack from Ellfour to retrieve a couple of small-time apolitical defectors? Ellfour doesn’t even have spin yet, let alone a military presence capable of launching an attack on Ellfive!”
I swear I could hear him grinning. “Peace is our profession, sweetheart, and we intend to keep it.”
“And Ellfive, too, you four-star prick,” I hissed, and slammed my palm down, ending the transmission.
I spun away from the console. Jorge looked angry, Elizabeth alarmed, Caleb alert. As for me, I couldn’t take it in enough to feel anything. My Ellfive in the possession of the Space Patrol. My Ellfive, that vital, essential step forward into the future of, for, and by the human race, my Ellfive at one blow reduced to just one more American Alliance fiefdom, just one more debtor nation, just one more Terran bastard child. Just the next in the line of victims of Grayson Cabot Lodge’s voracious appetite for power.
But this was no gradual militarization like LEO Base, this was no blatant Patrol stronghold from the beginning like Orientale. This was outright assault, this was invasion, this was rape. And my people, my friends, my coworkers, they were fighting back even as I thought the words. I knew it, I felt it, I could almost hear the blows struck from where I stood. Sam and Tori and Petra, Elmo and Drake, Bolly Blanca, Roger and Persis, even Whitney Burkette and Torkelson and Lachailles and Nesbitt. I had picked my crew too well. I knew exactly and precisely what they were capable of, and what I had told Caleb was the exact and precise truth: Not one of them was capable of rolling over while Lodge rolled in. My eyes blurred for a moment. Crip and Paddy. Simon. Charlie. My people. My family. My home. My child.
I had never felt so helpless. So ineffectual. So impotent.
I felt someone stir beside me, and looked down at Elizabeth. She tugged on my arm. Let’s go, Auntie, she said.
When I didn’t move right away, she tugged harder. Let’s go. Possession is nine tenths of the law. The longer Commodore Lodge has Ellfive, the less chance we have of getting it back. Let’s go.
I stared down into brown eyes that were narrowed and fierce. My head cleared. I took a long, deep, shuddering breath and turned. “We are going back to Ellfive,” I said to Caleb. “Now.”
Elizabeth nodded once, in sharp, determined satisfaction, but Jorge demanded, “What do you think you can do, the two of you, against Grays and the entire Patrol?”
“I’ll figure that out when I get there!”
“You’ll be killed when you get there,” Jorge yelled. “Don’t do this, Star, there has to be another way.”
I shoved my face down so we were nose to nose. “Name one,” I demanded, “name me one thing I can do from Luna to stop Lodge taking over Ellfive! I’ve got to be there, Jorge, and you know it as well as I do!”
Jorge cursed and bounced his helmet off the window. Caleb ducked the ricochet and snagged the helmet out of the air as it slid by. Jorge rounded on me. “Okay. Here’s what we do. We call Frank and he’ll go down to Denver and get the Alliance Congress to—”
“Jorge, come off it!” I was sweating worse than ever inside my suit. “There’s no time for that, and Lodge has the Alliance Congress in his back pocket anyway!”
“But there is time for you to lead some quixotic charge into the Valley of Death!” he bellowed.
I fought for control. I couldn’t get back to Ellfive without Jorge’s help and I knew it. I rested my hands on his shoulders and gave him a gentle shake. “Amigo mío, you know I’m right. We must act quickly, before Grays has time to settle in. If I know my Fivers, they’re over there fighting for their lives right now. Help me get back.” He was silent and I boiled over, slamming my fist against the bulkhead hard. “Goddammit, Jorge, you owe me, help me get home!”
He didn’t even look at the dent I’d left in his wall. His bright brown eyes looked into mine for a long moment. “What about the solarscooter you came in on?”
My breath expelled in a long, relieved sigh. I said, “Not the scooter. By now Grays knows I left in a scooter. He’d meet me at the lock holding a noose.”
“Well then, how about a tender? There’s one scheduled to leave here in an hour with a load of LIMSH.”
“Too slow.”
He thought rapidly, his face remote. Caleb opened his mouth as if to say something. Jorge forestalled him. “There’s a liberty shuttle down for maintenance in the flight shop. I could get on the mechanics to speed up repairs.”
“Too long, too long, dammit.” I wheeled and paced the length of the room away from him. Abraham and the other two launch controllers spoke in hushed voices as they began shutting down the mass drivers. Outside, activity slowed and finally halted altogether.
Caleb shifted his weight from one foot to another. I turned to look at him. He said, almost apologetically, “There is one other way. A road less traveled, so to speak.”
“What…” My voice trailed away as I looked in the direction of his pointing finger.
“And we might even survive it,” he added. And didn’t smile when he said it.
The comm channel crackled into life again. Marie sounded more harried than ever. “Jorge, this is Marie. Remember the activity in Solar Area 378 I was telling you about? The one on Hewie Seven? It looks like a go for a Class One flare, peak in five hours.”
The sweat inside my p-suit seemed to freeze to my body. “Oh, Jesus, no, please not again,” I breathed. Elizabeth slid her hand into mine. Jorge touched my shoulder briefly. Abraham cursed. The other controllers left on the run, Marisol on their heels.
“Sound the alert,” Jorge said, his voice firm and calm. “I want everyone under shelter within the hour. Double-check anyone working offsite.” He looked up at the wall clock. “If you mean what I think you meant,” he said to Caleb, “we don’t have much time.”
— 7 —
The Storm
The use of the sea and air is common to all; neither can a title to the ocean belong to any people or private persons, forasmuch as neither nature nor public use and custom perait any possession, thereof.
—Elizabeth I
“ON THE WHOLE, I’d rather be in Philadelphia,” Caleb said over my commlink. His voice was harsh with strain.
Our helmets were jammed together into the nose cone with Elizabeth’s smaller helmet coming somewhere below our chin windows, her body sheltered between ours. On Terra or Ellfive the three of us together weighed in at around two hundred kays; Luna�
�s gravity cut that down to a sixth of its original total. It was a pity size didn’t decrease along with weight. The crew accommodations inside a mass capsule were luxurious only if you were a chunk of lunar slag. “How do you feel about dogs and little children?”
Especially little children, Elizabeth said in her tinkling code. Caleb actually managed a wheezy chuckle when I told him.
“Jorge?” I said.
There was a brief pause and then Jorge’s warm, liquid voice sounded over our commlinks. “Coffee, tea, or milk?”
I swore at him but it lacked force. “You know what to do, Jorge?”
“Go to Plan A.”
“On my signal from Ellfive.”
“No hay ningún problema. ‘I am myself and what is around me, and if I do not save it, it shall not save me.’ ”
“Get under cover, you twenty-first-century Torquemada.”
“Vaya con Dios, querida,” he said, his voice for once serious.
With that for a benediction we heard an audible click as the receiver cut us off from the rest of humanity. I could hear my heart thudding in my ears, feel my breath rasping painfully in my throat, taste the sourness of fear in my mouth. Never had mere existence required such an effort.
The capsule began its long, slow slide backward toward the ejection mechanism. The procedure left me far too much time to worry over which way I would prefer to die—crushed to death by gee forces inside the mass capsule, captured and shot by Grays on Ellfive, or deep-fried by solar flare. Shooting would probably be the least painful, if only Grays wouldn’t be on the other end of the rifle. Made into hamburger in the gravity grinder had the advantage of ending my worries quickest. REM overexposure was the only method I’d had personal experience of and, I decided now, was the least attractive of my three entrees into the hereafter.
Second Star (Star Svensdotter #1) Page 16