“It weren’t right,” Loretta said, watching Oklahoma City find its pulse in the Unassigned Lands. “They shouldn’ta been made to suffer like that.”
“From what I’ve learned of your world,” said the specter, “I believe humans are made to suffer. The only solace to be had is in how you offset the burdens of one another. This is something Ella Watson understood.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“What do you plan to do now?”
Loretta had sold the Colt’s revolver to get herself out of Wyoming, but that money was all but gone. She looked around at the dry expanse encroaching upon the city, and Ella’s final words began to get the best of her. Desperation didn’t have to mean destruction.
“Will you...” Loretta began to say. “Will you help me?” And she realized she had never spoken those words before in her life.
“Look at this place, Loretta Vaine,” said the specter. “Doesn’t it look befit for a good miracle?”
Loretta took a deep breath, knowing the path through decency would not be an easy one. “It does,” she said. “I think we have some work to do.”
“You lead,” said the specter, “and I’ll follow.”
* * *
Los Angeles County, California
February of 1928
The phonograph in the far corner of the room played the concluding notes of “Let’s Misbehave” and in the glass in Bothwell’s hand swirled a brand of sacramental wine that often escaped federal seizure. On the marble table in the middle of his lounge sat an oddly-shaped chunk of stone wrapped around an eye of such pure blue crystal it was difficult to look away.
“She tried to have it buried with her,” said Bothwell’s lawyer. “Records from the hospital said she was dying of tuberculosis, so she moved to some barren plot of land and left a will with her neighbors. We bought the parcel, dug her up. That stone was in a box just below her coffin.”
“How did you find her?” asked Bothwell, running his arthritic fingers over the stone.
“Clerk on our payroll spotted the name Vaine on the deed. Confirmed it easily enough when we dug through the Oklahoma City records.”
“Her property. The area around her grave. Was it…?”
“Green? Yeah. Lots of producing fields out that way these days. Vaine’s grave in particular, we had to hack away some thick vegetation to get in there. It was strange, though. She hadn’t been dead for more than a couple weeks.”
“You’ve done well,” said Bothwell, suddenly ushering the lawyer towards the door. “Send along your invoice to my office and I’ll ensure you’re compensated.”
“Anytime, Mister Bothwell. I’m sure you want time to look that thing over. Strangest thing I ever dug out of a grave.”
“I’m sure. Farewell.”
When Bothwell was alone with the stone, he walked around it, inspected it closely. At long last, he had in his possession the mysterious object that had provided Ella Watson and Jim Averell such bounties. It had taken much longer than he’d ever anticipated, but now his interests could continue to prosper.
He was grateful that girl had died before him. Sending her after Watson with that revolver had been a mistake he’d regretted in the decades since.
“Now just how do you work?” Bothwell asked the stone, continuing to probe it delicately.
The blue crystal set into the stone began to glow.
“I will not work,” came a voice. “Not for you.”
Bothwell stumbled back in the presence of a being made out of pure light, knocking into the phonograph so hard the cylinder skipped. “Oh God,” he said, and he saw the specter wore a cowl made of stars.
It spoke:
“I am addressing a man who robbed the world of righteous folk. Robbed me of persons I called friends. I was charged with bringing fertility back into troubled lands, but my removal on the part of your hired hands will soon cause untold destruction. It will bring forth a black blizzard that will ravage your nation, dust from the heartlands will carry on into the Atlantic, innocent folk will die breathing desiccated soil.
“I was sent forth from the star of my creation to assist in causes brought about by compassion, progression, righteousness. Causes that might lead this world toward becoming worthy of inclusion on a galactic scale. Your cause is not righteous. Your cause will long delay humanity’s first step between the stars.
“You may have claimed me as your own, but look upon the fate that comes to claim you in the coming days. Know that death’s judgment is sooner to be swayed than my own.” A pair of eyes appeared beneath the specter’s cowl that glowed red like the light of a blood moon. “I leave you now. I leave you forever.”
The specter faded out of existence, leaving only transient wisps of light that eddied around the room for a moment and disappeared.
Bothwell stared long into that device from another star and spent the night speaking forceful commands into stone. The specter within remained implacable in its silence.
“Answer me!” he shouted until his throat went raw. “Answer me! Answer me!”
It was soon after that he realized something disturbing. The rage that had been brewing within him since his meeting with the specter wasn’t totally derived from being denied. It was that the specter had denied him with Ella Watson’s voice.
It had been pitch perfect. He could never forget that voice, even after he’d strangled it out of existence. It lingered in the days after the specter’s denial and, much to his horror, grew louder within his mind.
Bothwell would die the first day of March, his sanity ravaged by sinister figures from his past stalking unbidden through his conscience, freed from their gallows. Eventually bedridden, he stared panicked and unblinking at a point on the wall in front of him, as if some malevolent thing was staring right back.
His last words, so they said, were a long line of questions that went unanswered, pleas and weary demands that went thoroughly unaccomplished.
MUSIC OF THE STARS
Jennifer Dunne
A small yellow dot appeared in the upper left quadrant of Syrah’s L-RIPS screen, announcing itself with a soft chime. The intensity of the color would grow, and the tone would become increasingly insistent, until the object could be clearly identified as either a potential strike on Earth, Mars, or one of the mining facilities in the asteroid belt, or as something that would pass harmlessly by the inhabited areas of the solar system.
Sighing, she closed her essay comparing and contrasting the work of Johann Strauss Sr, Johann Strauss Jr, and many-times-granddaughter Ionne Strauss, the retro-classicist composer from Mars. It was her latest attempt to justify what she experienced when she listened to their music, in a way that others could understand. She’d long ago learned that describing the color and texture of music was more likely to lead to strange looks and visits to the medical center than any shared comprehension.
The peace and quiet of her position beyond the edge of the asteroid belt in one of the six Long-Range Identification of Potential Strikes stations gave her plenty of time to indulge her avocation, but she understood the importance of her role. When the system picked up unknown objects, they needed to be immediately tracked and their trajectories computed as far from habitable space as possible in order to maximize the possibility of diverting potential strikes. She’d grown up on one of those isolated mining facilities, and her parents still lived there, overseeing the automated ore shipments and coordinating the activities of the independent miners. Her teammates on the station might think they were protecting Earth and Mars, but she was out here to protect the mining facilities.
She focused her screen on the upper left quadrant, silencing the insistent warning tone, and began initiating queries. How big was the object detected? What was its speed? What was its chemical makeup? Was its trajectory straight or did it have spin or tumble?
While she waited for the answers to her queries, she pulled up the standard qualifying form in a sub-window, and began filling in all of the data she alr
eady knew, such as time of first sighting and operator in charge.
Results from her queries started popping up around the dot. The first and most important result was size—under 1km in diameter. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a “planet killer.” Syrah let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Even if the object was on a direct path for one of the mining facilities inside the belt, they could simply use the emergency jets to alter the facility’s orbit and take it out of danger. The mining equipment on the asteroids was all robotic, and could simply be replaced if necessary. Miners routinely lost robots to asteroids bouncing and ricocheting off of each other, and factored those losses into their profit and loss projections.
Syrah frowned as the composition result blinked red. The mystery object was not matching any of the known classes of asteroid. It was closest to an M-class nickel-iron asteroid, but the spectral analysis was a confusion of colors, indicating a much higher than usual combination of elements were present.
She bit her lip, as her brain shifted into problem-solving mode. She hated anomalies, and wouldn’t feel comfortable until everything about the object was safely analyzed and explained, so that its behavior could be predicted. The unusual spectral analysis might also indicate that the object was moving so quickly the light shift was overlaying the pattern. That would be a serious problem.
Her fingers flew over the screen, tapping and dragging query icons as she worked to solve the puzzle.
The good news appeared quickly. The object was moving relatively slowly. The shift was barely detectable, but it was present.
Syrah requested readings from the known objects near the mystery object, to assist in standardizing the spectral analysis. Then she let the computer loose to figure out the chemical composition in the chaos.
She filled out all the fields in the intake form except for class and composition. Hesitating, she eventually selected M-class. She’d rather make a preliminary classification and revise it with later data than leave the object unclassified. Her screen chimed again, chemical names and percentages scrolling by in answer to her query.
M-class was the correct choice. The largest component of the object was iron. But it also contained a vast array of other elements—everything from high volumes of carbon and chromium to trace amounts of nickel, molybdenum, silicon, and aluminum. There were also traces of precious metals, such as gold, silver, and copper.
The familiar series of tones signifying shift change echoed through the control room as her replacement wandered in sipping his bottle of coffee. As usual, Tomas had lurked outside until he was in danger of being late for shift. Although he wore the same pale gray uniform jumpsuit that she did, somehow the clingy material always managed to look rumpled on him.
“Just let me finish entering the info on this new object I found,” she called. “Then the screen’s all yours.”
“Anything interesting?”
“M-class asteroid, less than a kilometer in diameter. It’s loaded with metals and trace elements, though.”
“You have all the luck. That could be worth a tidy finder’s fee.”
“Huh?” She swiveled her chair around to face him. “What finder’s fee?”
“Oh, you didn’t know?” He grinned, the weaselly expression that always reminded her of her older brother’s no-good friend Drexyl, right before he said or did something bound to end with her in trouble. “If you identify an asteroid that can be pulled into the belt for mining, you get a share of the miner’s profits off of it.”
He leaned over her shoulder to slot the coffee bottle into the desk. Syrah ignored his attempts to crowd her and continued carefully completing and filing the form. If there was a finder’s fee—and she wasn’t entirely certain he was telling the truth—the records would clearly show that she was the only one entitled to it.
“All right. I’m finished here. The screen’s all yours.”
She sidled out of the chair. He dropped into it, then swiveled it around to face her.
“Hey, Syrah. If you’re not here to get rich, what the hell are you doing on a cemetery station? You finger your boss for something and this is your payback?”
She shook her head, idly wondering if that was how Tomas had ended up assigned to his post. “I like the quiet. Since I left home, it’s the only place I’ve ever been where I can get decent sleep.”
* * *
Despite her words to Tomas, Syrah didn’t sleep well. After confirming that he was telling her the truth about finder’s fees, some quick calculations about the possible bounty on the asteroid filled her head with visions of wealth and possibilities. She could take an extended leave and visit symphony halls for an entire season of music. Ordinarily, she didn’t like the crowded conditions on planet surfaces, but she’d put her distaste aside to experience live music.
As she ran, pulled, lifted, and kicked her way through her favorite off-shift exercise routines, she pondered the great unanswered questions. Which would be better, to enjoy the ambiance and history of classic venues such as Vienna or New York, or enjoy the perfectly engineered acoustics in new venues such as Dogun or Barsoom? Was it better to hear the music in venues similar to the ones it had originally been written for, in more intimate settings, or outdoor settings where the very air swelled with sound as it passed through the surrounding trees?
Consumed with such deliberations before drifting into sleep, it was no surprise that her dreams were filled with music. She woke humming a snatch of Mozart. While she couldn’t immediately place the piece, the crisp repetitions of motif that fell so easily on the ear with just enough difference to prevent boredom could be no one else’s.
Perhaps she should use her finder’s fee to travel to Salzburg during the Mozart Festival.
She smiled as she took a quick vibra-shower, brushed and braided her hair, and slipped into a fresh uniform. The music lingered in the back of her mind as she heated a pair of frosted breakfast pastries and brewed a bottle of hot chocolate, her caffeinated beverage of choice. Definitely Mozart. His work was the original earworm, tunes that got into your head and refused to leave.
Nibbling and sipping her breakfast, she felt the rush of sugar and caffeine hitting her system and banishing the last of her mental cobwebs. Lunch and dinner were nutritionally balanced and calorically calculated for the optimal functioning of the crew on the L-RIPS station, but the individualized choice of breakfast options had been proven to increase the crew’s psychological well-being.
Syrah entered the control room a few minutes before her shift began, and acknowledged the tall brunette currently at the screen. “Hey, Cherie. Anything interesting?”
“Nothing large enough to matter. Top-side station is tracking an incoming on an orthogonal vector, and wants us to keep an eye out for it, make sure it stays on that trajectory.” She spun the chair to face Syrah. “Tomas told me about your find. The computer’s been tracking and processing solar reflections. We should be able to get the first visual constructions in about half an hour. Mind if I stay and take a look?”
“Not at all. I’d love to have someone to share my excitement with.”
They switched places when the shift chimes sounded, and Syrah pulled up her unfinished report on the object. She half expected Tomas to have filed an addendum report, trying to lay claim to some portion of the object’s potential value, but he’d merely updated her findings as more data came in. Initial projections were that the object would miss Mars but could pass near Earth and one of the mining facilities. Her heart picked up speed, adrenaline flooding her system at the thought of her parents in danger. She took a deep breath, willing herself to relax. More detailed projections would give a clearer picture of any potential danger. There was no point getting worked up with worry until she had more data.
The two women chatted companionably while waiting for the visual construction to complete. Cherie came from a large family on Mars, and the weekly mail bursts always included videos of some child’s first steps, first words, science
fair projects, or sports triumphs. The latest video featured one of her nephews’ mostly successful attempts to master a jump stick.
The screen interrupted their laughter with a chime, announcing, “Visual construction complete.”
Syrah’s heart kicked into a higher gear. “Ready to take a first look?”
“Tap it already!”
Laughing at Cherie’s impatience, Syrah tapped the icon to display the visual construction. For a moment, both women stared in silence. “I guess I’m not getting that holiday after all.”
The visual construction showed a regular form, roughly cylindrical, with a high degree of reflection, and three pairs of roughly rectangular sections of low reflectivity extending on highly-reflective spokes around the central cylinder. Open conical forms protruded from the front and back of the cylinder, aligned with its rotational axis.
“It’s a space probe,” Syrah whispered.
Cherie’s fingers tightened on her shoulder. “It’s not ours. We have all of their flight trajectories in the system already.”
Moving mechanically, Syrah’s hands followed the protocols she’d memorized and used so many times in the past. She attached the visual construction to the intake form, revised the classification to be “Non-natural object,” and noted the appropriate time and date. Then she took a deep breath and touched the icons she’d memorized and never used, flagging the report as urgent and requesting immediate instructions from her superiors.
In the meantime, she launched a flight of drone observers toward the probe. Their tiny ion engines would propel them to a rendezvous in about two days. It would be the longest two days of her life.
* * *
All three members of the crew were clustered in the small command chamber as the time of the rendezvous drew near. Tomas was on his off-shift and Syrah had cut her sleep shift short by an hour. She rubbed her eyes and smothered a yawn. Whether it was the fault of the change in her sleep cycle or the Mozart ditty she still hadn’t been able to get out of her head didn’t matter. What mattered was that she’d be seriously dragging by the end of her assigned work shift.
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