Day of the Dragonstar

by David Bischoff

  “How long before you’ll have some more hard data?” he asked Labate.

  “Not long. Another hour and we will have enough to make some more correlations. If the object has an unpowered orbit, we will have a good lock on it. We will have velocity, period, eccentricity, semi-major axis . . . maybe even its size and mass.”

  “Right,” said Kemp, employing all his authoritative manner. “I’m going ‘to have to put a security blanket on this project. “I’m sure you’re aware of that, aren’t you, Professor?”

  Labate sighed. “I was expecting it. I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”

  “How about Boucher? We can’t let this information slip out. Could get in the wrong hands. Has he been in contact with anyone since the beginning of this business?”

  “Absolutely not. Only me.”

  “Very well. I want you to assume command of this operation. Boucher will be assigned .to you, and will remain here. I’ll have Rheinhardt provide you with meals and some security personnel, if this thing drags out to a few days and you two need sleep. In effect, you’re going to be confined to the Observatory.”

  “I practically live here anyway. Boucher, though . . .”

  “We’ll have to issue some kind of cover story for your confinement. Security will take care of things. From now on, all communications to and from the Observatory will be classified and on Security Intercept. I’m going to convene a meeting of the Joint Chiefs right away . . . that is, as soon as you get the rest of the hard data collected. When you tie down an orbit, I want you to present the information to the Staff.” Kemp adjusted the collar of his uniform, cleared his throat. “Now, tell Boucher I’d like to have a few words with him . . .”

  WITH A TENTATIVE SMILE, Becky set the plate down before him. “Best I could do at such short notice,” she said, wrapping her dressing gown tighter around her slim body.

  “Thanks,” said Kemp. He picked up a piece of toast and began to munch it between sips of steaming, aromatic tea. He scanned the preliminary readouts that Professor Labate had provided.

  “Joint Chiefs of Staff meeting in an hour, huh?” said Becky, settling down with her own plate of soy sausage and scrambled reconstituted eggs.

  “Yeah.” The hardfacts had come in, and they’d been absolutely incredible. Labate was going to present them to the meeting, implications and all. That was going to be some meeting, all right. “You stuck around just to find out that was going on, right?”

  “I stuck around because I fell back to sleep” Phineas.” Her dark and attractive Semitic features lost their smile. “I just happened to overhear—”

  “And you’re just dying to know what all the hoopla is about. I know you, my dear. I don’t blame you. I’d be the same way. But frankly, this is classified stuff. I can’t tell you.”

  She wiped her long black hair away from her face and glared at him, ignoring her meal. “You know, Phineas, you’re probably the most tight-assed man I’ve ever met. I truly resent your lack of trust in me. I want to talk about it. It goes deeper than just this and—”

  Kemp cut her off with a single cold and curt word. “Later.”

  She blinked her dark brown eyes in a vexed manner, and then settled down into a surly silence over her breakfast.

  Too bad she’d stayed the night. This wouldn’t have had to happen. Rebecca Thalberg was the one person he really didn’t like to treat this way. But the qualities he admired most in her—curiosity, intelligence, and a cute womanish stubbornness—were also the things that caused them to occasionally lock horns. Still, he loved her. She was different from the other women he had known. And Kemp had known plenty of women. They were attracted to his rugged good-looks, his abrasive, cocky demeanor, his status as a rising star . . . a man to be respected and listened to. A man in control. But Kemp’s affairs with women had always managed to be such ephemeral, casual liaisons. The women had never seemed to be able to delve beneath his surface, and he’d never sought to know them in any other way than physically. Rebecca was, different. She’d met him will to will, and demanded that he know her as a person. Kemp had chosen to do just that, and there were moments, like this, that he regretted that.

  Still, she was a beautiful woman. He liked the way her raven hair was parted in the middle, with a little curl or additional arrangement—the way it framed her oval face. He liked the way her high-breasted body shone with health and warmth. She was the Coordinator of Copernicus Biomedical Division, clever and intelligent, gentle and loving . . . and sometimes a royal pain in the ass.

  He played with his eggs as he concentrated again on the figures, reading them over again to make sure his eyes hadn’t played tricks on him.

  A large unidentified body was entering the main plain of the solar system at an oblique angle, out near the orbit of Jupiter, approximately forty degrees to the ecliptic. Cometary orbit with a period of about two hundred years. Velocity, thirty kilometers per second, increasing as object approached perihelion, closest position to Earth before heading back out.

  The thing was some kind of cylinder.

  Three hundred and twenty kilometers in length.

  Sixty-five kilometers in diameter.

  And it wasn’t a comet, either. Labate’s mass estimates indicated that neither was it a solid body.

  Question was, just what was the thing?

  He swallowed the last of the tea, packed the papers together, and placed them in his briefcase. He pushed the half-eaten breakfast away and stood to go, still feeling baffled and excited and . . . somehow, distant. If Labate’s wildest notion were reality . . . the thought just took one’s breath away.

  “You’re not finishing?” Becky said, trying to take the sourness out of her voice. She wasn’t one for holding grudges, though when her temper flared, it was scorching.

  “No. I’m sorry, but I’m just not hungry. This is pretty important stuff, Be-cky. I . . . I do wish I could tell you about it, but—”

  “I know. You’re a stickler for rules. Especially for your own rules. Never sleep with your girlfriend more than three times a week; it takes too much time and attention away from work otherwise. Never take more than a half-day a week off. People depend upon you. Never say ‘I love you’ other than when absolutely necessary. Makes your lover too smug and self-assured and hard to handle. Have everything in control. Never let loose of too much emotion. Kemp’s Commandments.” She spoke blithely, with no bitterness.

  “I do love you. You know that.”

  “Do I? Hmm. I guess the only reason I put up with your crap is that I love you, too.”

  “Rotten luck, right?” Relieved, he let go of a boyish grin.

  “For me, maybe. You seem to handle yourself pretty well.”

  “Thank you for, staying, Becky. Thank you for breakfast.” Almost reluctantly, she accepted the invitation of his open arms, hugging him softly and firmly.

  “One promise.” she said.

  “Which is?”

  “You’ll tell me what all this was about at least one minute before you are officially allowed to.”

  “I think that can be arranged.”

  * * *

  The shuttle whined to a stop. Phineas Kemp jumped onto the subway platform. The terminal was almost empty at this early hour since the night shift—a skeleton crew anyway—was still on duty, and the day-personnel were probably still sleeping. Kemp took the elevator to the top floor of the Admins Dome, the only level located on the lunar surface.

  As he entered the office complex, he nodded curtly to the security woman on duty. He walked straight through to his office, adjacent to the conference room. Soon that chamber would be occupied by the Joint Chiefs, sealed off from the rest of the base under a Level One Security net. Kemp knew that he should be preparing some kind of introductory speech, something to quickly explain the nature of the emergency conference, but the words would not come to him. Inst
ead, thoughts of his father kept interfering. Kemp tried to temper those memories by asking himself how his father might handle the impending situation. The old boy had indeed had quite an effect on him, Kemp thought, smiling with a touch of sadness.

  Kemp walked to the broad, curving slope of smoked glass, the executive-sized window which gave him a spectacular view of the northern quadrant of Copernicus Base. Roughly a hexagon in design, the Colony was a series of domes and geodesic structures connected by underground tunnels. Eighty percent of the Colony was located beneath the surface of the crater basin, partially for protection from the infrequent meteoroid showers, but primarily because it allowed a more efficient use of lunar construction materials. Copernicus Base was the oldest permanent lunar settlement. Hard to believe it would soon be celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. During that time, it had grown from its original complement of twenty-eight men and women to its present permanent population of eight hundred and sixty. Copernicus was the first extraterrestrial Small Town, containing everything from a general store to a village barber shop.

  Kemp supposed that the Base would remain the crowning achievement of technology until the L-5 Colony progressed beyond the planning and financing states and actually began construction. At thirty-seven, Phineas Kemp was proud to have been placed in charge of Copernicus. An honor, yes . . . but he always felt that his appointment had also been a testament to his exemplary record as an astronaut. His record of space “firsts” would never be equaled, and he often imagined that his name would find a place in the history texts beside Lindbergh’s, Gagarin’s, and Armstrong’s. There had been a time in Kemp’s career when he thought about this kind of paper immortality so much that it seemed to be his consuming passion, the driving source of his energy and competence. His father had always wanted him to be the best—the best at whatever he attempted—and he had dedicated his life to that end.

  But now, as Kemp sensed the age of forty rapidly approaching, he also sensed a subtle change in his attitudes toward life in general, his own life in particular. Some of the things which had seemed so important earlier had lost their fascination. Priorities were slowly shifting, rearranging themselves in his mind, and there were times when Phineas Kemp felt insecure, actually fell unsure about how he would conduct his future affairs.

  Smiling, Kemp shook his head slowly as he stared up at the blue-green jewel that was the Earth. His colleagues perceived him as astute, authoritative, decisive, unshakably calm, and ambitious. He did not want them to alter their opinions one jot. And yet . . . he was getting tired—tired at such a young age. It almost seemed criminal to him. He thought of his father, and how that man had driven himself and his small Canadian semi-conductor company to the heights of the industry, wondering how embarrassed he would, feel to know his son was . . . what? Growing bored with over-achievement? Impossible! Bullcrap! the old man would have said, and Phineas would have agreed with him.

  But something was happening to him. Things were changing. He thought it might be Rebecca . . . Perhaps that “urge to settle down” his mother had confidently assured him would strike him someday was slowly sinking its sedentary hooks in.

  Kemp looked down at his watch. They were all late. He’d been the only one on time. Typical. They’d all feel pretty bad when they discovered the importance of the meeting. Something had to be done immediately, before Ramadas Khan Base got word of this business. That could be a very sticky situation. He glanced again out the observation port. The Earth, covered with angel-hair wisps, hung several degrees above the horizon. It looked so close that one might be able to reach out and touch it. His home . . . but he’d never be able to appreciate it again. No. Almost instinctively, he knew that his destiny lay somewhere beyond the Earth, in the stars. He’d known that, or sensed it rather, since his early adolescence when his father helped him build a telescope from the Edmund Scientific Company. After all the hours in the dusty basement, grinding lenses, machining the fittings, mounting everything, it had been such a joy to take the instrument out into the crisp, black night in the back yard, where the universe peered down at him. Some called it a sense of wonder, of coming to terms with the boundless cosmos, but Kemp called it a sense of destiny.

  The intercom chimed.

  “Security, sir. Doctor Labate, Major Rheinhardt, Doctor Kolenkhov, and the rest of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have just arrived.”

  Kemp closed his eyes almost solemnly, thinking of Labate’s closing words to him: “Yes. Yes, Colonel. It looks that way. Some kind of spaceship. Chances are good. An alien spaceship.”

  Kemp said, “Send them in, please.”

  LIKE A GIGANTIC insect, the Astaroth hung in the blackness of space, hovering silently.

  The general symmetry of the cylindrical ship was broken by a series of three-dimensional trapezoids—the outer bulkheads of its great ore-holds. The bow comprised two command blisters which resembled multifaceted eyes—further enhancing the insect-image of the enormous vessel. Within its hull labored the ore-crushers, the processors, and the furnaces. The Astaroth was a self-contained factory in space which provided metals and alloys to the IASA moonbases and Bradbury Station, the Mars colony.

  On the belly-side of the ship hung a series of launch-bays—each platform holding two- and four-man ships. These smaller crafts, officially designated as SP2’s and SP4’s, were nicknamed “Snipes” by the miners. The little ships were employed primarily as surveying/prospecting vessels and were crammed with all manner of detection and measurement gear. Shaped like teardrops with the point-ends truncated, the Snipes were powered by small but efficient MHR reaction engines. They had exceptional range and maneuverability, and were equipped with retractable “grapples” —servo arms which allowed the Snipes to attach to the rough-contour surfaces of asteroids and ferry them back to the Astaroth’ s ore-holds for crushing and processing.

  At launch bay six, Peter Melendez and “Big Chuck” O’Hara climbed into their Snipe, sealed the hatches, and waited for bay-decompression and subsequent ejection into space. They had, only minutes previously, been ushered from Major Franco’s office after receiving concise, if mysterious, orders.

  Neither man had spoken since entering the ship, other than to verify pre-launch checks on their consoles, but when the routine task had been completed and final countdown had commenced, O’Hara nudged his partner and put a hand over his throat-mike. “What do you figure’s going on?” he asked in a husky whisper. O’Hara was a large, beefy man. His face was round and freckled, his complexion always on the florid side. He looked like a hard drinker and would have been if lASA regulations were not so strict about such things. It had been more than five decades since man had entered space, and more than two decades since the frontiers had been opened up for the common man—the blue-collar, workaday types who would build Earth’s extraplanetary empires. Big Chuck O’Hara was one of those men. He was a miner, with a miner’s view of the world, whether back on Earth or out in the asteroid belt.

  After hearing O’Hara’s question, Peter Melendez only shrugged, then indicated that they wait until their mikes were not patched directly into the Astaroth. Melendez was almost a perfect opposite of O’Hara: small of frame, delicate features, soft-spoken, and well-educated, He had been working on a post-graduate degree in Sociology at Cornell several years ago when he abruptly had become bored with it all. He’d acquired a wanderlust which had eventually led into space—the IASA Mining Division being the only branch of the service which would accept him. After a quiet life of safe, dilettante experiences, Peter Melendez had decided he would cast it aside for a sample of the rugged existence of the “new frontier.”

  As the countdown ebbed away, Melendez glanced over at his partner. He had been running missions with O’Hara for more than three months, and Peter was growing tired of the man’s abject boorishness. Their cabin conversations comprised little more than O’Hara’s running monologues about women and tales of his physical prowess in figh
ts.

  Melendez was beginning to think that the new frontier was not so very new after all, and he had been having thoughts of going home. But now his blood was up. Something odd was going on, and Peter was curious to know why Major Franco had sent them out on a very secretive recon mission.

  A lurch. A sudden assault of G-forces. The Snipe catapulted from the launch bay. Automatically, the engines cut in, stabilizing the craft. The intersect coordinates had already been keyed into the Snipe’s on-board computer, and the little ship began burning through the darkness towards a predetermined rendezvous point. For the moment, at least, O’Hara would have little to do in the way of piloting the craft.

  “Pretty strange, isn’t it?” croaked the bigger man, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand the way he did when he hadn’t had a drink all day.

  “I guess so,” said Melendez, pretending to be carefully examining his consoles of detection and recon gear. “Wait a second, will you?”

  The radio crackled in their headphones. “SP2 double A, this is Big Mother. We have an A-OK launch here. Do you copy?” Major Franco’s voice.

  “We copy, Big Mother,” said O’Hara. “Launch is nominal, and we are locked into programmed flight.”

  “Stand by, SP2 double A. Further instructions to follow. Out.”

  O’Hara flipped off the radio and looked at Melendez. “Now tell me, what do you think is goin’ on? And what’d you mean—you guess so?”

  Peter Melendez looked up from his consoles. O’Hara’s face was a mixture of curiosity and intimidation. “I don’t know what to make of the secrecy, if that’s what you mean. We’re supposed to run a recon mission. You know as much as I do.”