Starfire

by Unknown

  “Hold released. Counting from T minus two hours eleven minutes.”

  Starfire began to hum with contained electromagnetic energies seeking release. Soon the commander was very busy…

  “T minus one hour and counting.”

  Heavy couplings beat against the hull, ringing it like a bell. The ship lurched sideways. Everywhere there was a shriek of escaping gases, quickly squelched…

  “Umbilicals away. Separation fifty meters…two hundred meters…approaching launch radius.”

  “T minus forty minutes and counting.”

  On the feed from Archimedes Station they had time to gaze upon the dwindling winged needle of their ship, floating free and clear in space…

  “T minus ten minutes and counting.”

  Communications channels crackled between Starfire and launch control on Archimedes Station; overeager Houston waited on the sidelines, itching to grab the ball.

  “Nine minutes…”

  Like a head of water behind a tall dam, Starfire’s bank of seventy-two squat black capacitors constrained an enormous electrostatic potential, uncounted electrons eager to cascade freely when the spillways were opened…

  “Eight minutes…”

  …to be shaped into hundred-billion-watt pulses, each ten nanoseconds in duration…,

  “Seven minutes…”

  …each fed to flash lamps surrounding the master laser…,

  “Six minutes…”

  …each lamp exciting a discharge of coherent infrared photons inside the laser’s glass…,

  “Five minutes…”

  …each coherent wave refracting and dividing, channeled down twenty-four separate columns of glass…,

  “Four minutes…”

  …each wave crest encountering crystal wafers that filtered the polarized light…

  “Three minutes…”

  …and amplified it…

  “Two minutes…”

  …so that each pulse of light, now ultraviolet, bounced from mirrors and simultaneously converged…,

  “One minute…”

  …traveling through the apexes of an imaginary solid resembling a soccer ball…,

  “Thirty seconds…”

  …speeding radially inward toward an emptiness, where any nanosecond now there would appear…

  “Ten…”

  …a small sphere, recently bubbled out of liquid isotopes of hydrogen…,

  “Five…”

  …having fallen freely through vacuum to be enclosed in a perfect jacket of plastic film…

  “Three…”

  …then to be gently seized, this ringed sphere, by electric fields…

  “Two…”

  …and propelled to the very center of an empty hemispherical chamber, plated with gold…,

  “One…”

  …arriving just as twenty-four pulses of light converged…

  “Power.”

  …to crush it…

  “Ignition.”

  …and slash the night with fire.

  4

  “Damn fine! Damn fine!” Senator Albert Kreuger slammed a heavy glass, empty but for its still fresh ice cubes, down on the pecan-wood surface of his desk.

  A big pixel-array screen was mounted on the senator’s paneled wall, and on it Starfire was visibly dwinding, its steady one-gee acceleration piling on velocity at the rate a stone would fall toward an airless Earth.

  But Starfire was falling away from Earth. Falling for minutes. So crisp were the electronic sensors of NASA’s remote cameras and the emitters in the office screen that the sun-bright ship and its much brighter trail of glowing exhaust were held in visual equilibrium against faint stars and velvet night. “Damn, damn, damn, look at that son of a bitch go!”

  An aide turned from the sideboard, Jack Daniel’s bottle in hand. “Sir?”

  “Why thank you, Bob, I believe I will. Just a splash.” The silver-haired senator cocked an eye at his visitor, standing rigid in the shadows. “Help yourself, Travis. Don’t be shy.”

  Travis grunted his thanks and unbent enough to hold out his hand. Bottle clinked against glass.

  On the screen, as the angle between ship and line of sight declined, bright exhaust overwhelmed the ship’s outline, and its image became that of a rival planet, a wanderer among the stars.

  “You would have given somethin’ to be on that ship, wouldn’t you, son? Makes a man proud to be an American. Hell, I woulda given a lot, too.” The senator’s pride seemed oddly soured. With a sudden slap of his hand, Kreuger cut off the video replay; the video chip popped out of the desktop player. No one reached to retrieve it. “Thanks for showing it to me,” Kreuger growled. An oil portrait of hill country bluebells descended to cover the blank television screen. The only light in the room was from the senator’s desk lamp and, through the blinds, from the brilliantly illuminated Capitol dome a block away.

  Travis watched his uncle’s once handsome face, his dull eyes teary with emotion and alcohol.

  The senator swung around in his leather chair. “Sit down, son, you make me nervous stalkin’ around like that.”

  Travis perched on the edge of the matching leather couch opposite the desk.

  Kreuger grinned, disconcertingly. “How ya like the office?”

  “Looks good, Al,” said Travis. “Didn’t take you long to get settled.”

  “Bob here’s right efficient.”

  Travis glanced at the blond aide, whose expression was inscrutable. He looked back at his uncle, tried to put on a bright and friendly expression. “Had a chance to look over that report I brought by, sir?”

  The senator looked at the aide. “Bobby?”

  “The staff is making an evaluation, sir.”

  Travis kept his eyes on the senator. “If this isn’t a good time…”

  “Good as any. Details ain’t important. What we need to discuss is political realities.”

  Travis hesitated, then gulped a mouthful of bourbon. “I’m not much of a politician, Al.”

  “Oh, you’re a quick study, son.” Kreuger smiled at him, that foxy-grandpa grin some politicians hope implies that they can think faster than they talk. “I confess I was a might overwhelmed when the governor informed me he was appointin’ me to fill out poor Manny Castro’s term. ’Bout the only advantage in it for him I could see was, well, nobody had nothin’ against me. Not much to argue about in my corner of the state. Long as the price of oil’s up.”

  “Things are busier here in Washington, I reckon.”

  “It’s a sure bet I’m gonna’ make more enemies than friends, no matter what I do.”

  Travis said quietly, “Still, you’ve got a chance to leave your mark. Fight for what you believe in.”

  “I swear my sister, your esteemed mother, used much the same words to me, not one week ago.” Kreuger took a gulp of his drink. His grin slid. “You know, Travis, I had no idea what a substantial contribution your father’s estate had made to our governor’s last election campaign.”

  Melting ice cubes clinked in Travis’s glass. Kreuger eyed the glass. “Bob, I wonder if you would be so good as to freshen my guest’s drink one last time. And my own. Then I don’t think I’ll be needing anything more from you tonight.”

  The aide moved efficiently to do as he was asked, and Kreuger bestowed a warm smile upon him as he reached the door. “Thank you, Bobby. Get a good night’s sleep, you hear?”

  Travis and his uncle sat quietly until they heard the door of the outer office close. Kreuger’s patter lost its folksy charm. “Edna May never consulted me about this, Travis. She found out—from me, and I regret openin’ my trap—that Manny was sick, and she started right then puttin’ the governor in her debt. God knows I can’t get elected to this seat. Morales and Polonski between ’em will chop me into dog food. And that’s just the primaries.”

  “Then why did you accept, Al?”

  “Why? I’ll tell you. You can’t think of anything bigger than ridin’ around in outer space, nephew, i
n your world. In mine…hell, I’m a U.S. senator, boy. I’m at the top. Today, and for the next three years.”

  “You’re not going to run for re-election?”

  Kreuger took a long sip, then guided the glass back to the desk top. “Well, could be I’ll get to like it here.”

  Travis studied him. “I suppose it could hook you.”

  “Maybe there’s ways to keep the options open,” said Kreuger languidly. “Old Jack Fassio, now there’s a popular fellow.” He let out a sigh that was half a groan. “Not that folks from my old district care much for him.”

  “Chairman of the space committee. A good friend of NASA.”

  Kreuger snorted. “Any Texas senator in the last half century ain’t supported space?”

  “Some people think what NASA spends at home is all there is to the space program.” Travis paused to sip his drink, then rattled the ice in his glass. “Fassio’s been courteous to me over the years. Barely courteous.”

  Kreuger nodded. “He’s up for re-election. I could identify myself with the guy. Support him on every single issue, campaign for him. Maybe arrange for funds.”

  “He’d surely be obliged to you.”

  “I do believe that’s what Edna May has in mind.” In the lamp’s glow Kreuger eyed Travis with something close to malice. “You’re a popular fella too. And nobody could object to askin’ NASA to devote part of that fancy new rocketship’s time to asteroid research—hell, they’re already makin’ noises about doin’ it themselves. That part’s easy.”

  Travis waited. Uncle Albert had never shown much spine, but he’d always been transparent, even naive. It kept him almost honest. And unpredictable.

  “Gettin’ you a ride on it…” The senator leaned back in his chair. “You gotta bring me somethin’ special, Travis. Somethin’ completely out of the ordinary.”

  “Say what you need, Al.”

  “I don’t know what I need, dammit. What I know is, all the relatives workin’ together can’t buy Jack Fassio’s committee without an excuse that’ll persuade the voters. Even if he wanted to sell.”

  “Al…”

  “You just heard my offer.” Kreuger leaned forward abruptly, planting his forearms on the desk. “Now go away. Before I stop actin’ like your uncle and start actin’ like a real senator.”

  Travis stood and laid his glass on the sideboard, harder than he meant to. “Thanks for the drink.”

  Kreuger eyed the glass. “One more thing. From your uncle.”

  Travis was already at the door. He waited, one hand on the heavy knob.

  “This whiskey business. I’ve had occasion to study it. There’s drunks who admit it and quit. Others admit it, try to keep goin’ anyway”—he put on a twisted smirk—“yours truly, fer example. Then there’s the real dumb ones, who don’t admit it even to themselves.”

  “Jesus, Al. Do I need a lecture from you on this?”

  “Who better? I knew your daddy pretty well. And I’m your ma’s brother. They say it’s in the blood.”

  “I don’t drink when I’m in training.”

  “Maybe it’s time you started trainin’.”

  Back in Austin, Travis found a fax from NASA on his desk at the Asteroid Resource Center. Still depressed from his interview with Texas’s newest U.S. senator, he picked up the fax in anticipation that it would boost his spirits, if only a little.

  Travis had achieved tenure at the University of Texas in the five years since he’d left NASA and, when it was convenient to be so known, he was Professor Hill. He owned a restored nineteenth-century house within walking distance of the state capitol building and the university; the Asteroid Resource Center occupied the ground floor of the house, and he had his living quarters upstairs.

  The airy and fashionable offices of ARC housed a secretary and a programmer, who sat in the outer office, and a full-time postdoctoral fellow of planetary sciences who rated a private cubicle like Travis’s own. The center also had the half-time services of an astrophysics graduate student who was pursuing her Ph.D., with Travis as one of her advisors.

  To the surprise of a great many people, the center had made substantial contributions to planetary science in its short life, through its ingenious computer-programmed exploitation of disparate data on meteorite geology, asteroid spectrometry, orbital mechanics, and a dozen other scattered disciplines from equally scattered laboratories and academic offices around the world. Travis and his colleagues had authored notable papers in the area of meteorite parent-body identification, providing surprising insights into the early history of the solar system and into the far from simple relationship between comets and asteroids.

  The university administration had bargained for nothing more than Travis’s notorious name and the access it implied to Hill Foundation funds. As a bonus, the center’s solid science brought honor to the Texas faculty. Not only did Travis produce results, he cultivated his departmental colleagues. His reward was his youthful professorship.

  Even NASA was happy with ARC. The original research contract, granted on a grudge, had been extended twice. The first time the contract was renewed Travis was surprised; the second time he was pleased and a little smug. He fully expected the fax from NASA on his desk to be still another extension of ARC’s satellite infrared observation program—

  “We regret to inform you that your request, while upholding the high standard of scientific inquiry your organization has established in the past, cannot be met at present owing to a backlog of other urgent research needs…”

  Shit.

  It was a blow, but he supposed—after a moment’s thought—that he should not have been surprised. The elevation of Uncle Albert to the U.S. Senate had brought Hill family affairs under NASA scrutiny; this cancellation was just as likely a bit of judicious distancing on the part of some NASA bureaucrat as it was an act of spite.

  The outer office was unusually quiet; Travis stuck his head around the corner of his partition to see his secretary and programmer working at their consoles with uncharacteristic concentration. Quickly shifting his glance, Travis caught Don Sloane, the bearded postdoc, peering out of his own cubicle. Sloane shrank back, realized it was too late, then tried to pretend he had merely stumbled on his way to the water cooler.

  Travis waved the fax at them. “Okay, you’ve all read this already. It’s not the end of the world.”

  The guilty trio exchanged glances. Sloane was the first to fess up. “Right. Not so bad,” he said, filling a paper cup with water. “Hey, there’s lots of meteorites around, right? Poor man’s space probes.”

  “And ground telescopes,” Ruben, the programmer, added brightly. “When you can get time on them.”

  “Yes, and that’s exactly the way we’ve made our reputation,” Travis said, “analyzing other people’s data.”

  The secretary, Irenie Su, gazed at him in silent admiration.

  “Actually,” Sloane began, pausing momentarily, “we have always been able to confirm our hypotheses with our own observations. That is the real basis of our reputation.” He swallowed the water in one gulp. “Face it, Trav, things are going to slow way down around here.”

  “Don, I don’t agree. We’ll do a little horse tradin’, get some of these other teams to expand their programs and let us piggyback. It’s done all the time. Meantime, I don’t want anybody to worry.”

  “What are we gonna trade ’em?” asked Ruben, hooking his long silky black hair out of his eyes; his split ends hung so low they threatened to get tangled in his keyboard when he leaned over it.

  “Prestige. Expertise,” said Travis. “Ahh…mmm.”

  Three pairs of eyes gazed at him in polite silence. Not too convincing a speech, he thought. He focused on his secretary; she had black hair and blue eyes and a pout that said talk-to-me-if-you-dare, stranger, and she thought she had a date with Travis tonight and was probably, he figured, trying to do him a favor when she asked, “How’d it go in Washington? With the senator?”

  He winced. �
�We’ve got a deal,” he answered firmly.

  Don Sloane’s eyes widened. “Travis! Why didn’t you say so? Kreuger’s really going to help get you on that ship? To go pick up rocks?”

  “The deal’s not final. But he’ll work to move an asteroid flyby to the top of Starfire’s mission list.”

  Sloane’s grin faded into politeness. “Hey, well…” He crumpled his paper cup and tossed it into the designer-provided woven Indian wastebasket. “Great.”

  “The main thing is, I don’t want anybody worrying about their jobs.” Travis wondered why he was displaying his doubts. Certainly money wasn’t an issue; he had access to plenty, and besides, it wasn’t exactly fabulous amounts of money that lured people into studying the small bodies of the solar system in the first place.

  But he stood to lose Don…and Doris, the graduate student…and maybe even Ruben, his star-struck programmer, if he couldn’t keep them interested in the program. He didn’t want to lose them.

  Nobody’d ever warned him that starting a small business is like marrying a woman with kids of her own. Instant family. He grinned with all his teeth—“Things are gonna be busy. So don’t worry, okay?”—and retreated into his cubicle.

  Travis managed to keep himself busy with scheming and paperwork until the sunlight got long and yellow through the spade-leafed tallow trees outside his windows. Finally, Don and Ruben called their good evenings; the front door closed behind them. Irenie Su appeared at his cubicle doorway, smiling languidly, fingering her string of Egyptian beads.

  “Hey, Irenie Su.” He grinned up at her. “Say, you been to that new Hoof ’n Claw out on Airport Road? Near your place?”

  Her smile developed a dubious kink. “Yeah…”

  “What say we go on out that way? I’ll follow you.”

  She blinked and thrust out a lip. “Wouldn’t mind stayin’ right here, Trav…in town.”

  “I’m headin’ on out to the ranch, hon. Tonight. Plenty of time to treat you to steak and lobster first.”

  She recovered nicely. “Let me just call up my roommate before we go. Make sure she’s got other plans.”