Solar Express

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  He just hoped that the Space Command mission planners had calculated that correctly, and with a hefty safety margin.

  He watched the monitors and screens as Recon three continued to accelerate away from Donovan Base on a course that would gradually rise above the plane of the ecliptic toward an unknown object discovered by the only astrophysicist he knew.

  31

  DAEDALUS BASE

  2 NOVEMBER 2114

  At 1001 UTC, almost precisely midmorning on Friday, assuming a work day began at 0800, which it didn’t on days that fell during the lunar night when Alayna was usually in the COFAR control center by 0700, Marcel announced, “All outgoing communications have ceased.”

  “For what reason?” she asked.

  “There has been a failure in the pretransmittal process. No signals are being received by the transmitter. The streaming compression system is inoperative.”

  Alayna gulped. “What about the data from both the radio telescope array and the optical systems?”

  “The data is being saved in the backup databanks for transmittal.”

  At least the data’s not gone. But the delay would generate complaints, and that was something she didn’t need. She paused. “Shouldn’t a failure have switched the data stream to the backup compression server?”

  “That did not occur.”

  “Why not?”

  “The failure mode was not activated.”

  “Then activate it.”

  “That requires a supervisory override, Dr. Wong-Grant.”

  Sometimes! Alayna turned and entered the codes, with her password and thumbprint.

  “Communications have resumed, Dr. Wong-Grant.”

  “What about the data that was stored?”

  “It was sent first. The system will be three minutes late for the next nineteen minutes, two minutes late for the next seventeen, and one minute late for the next fourteen.”

  Assuming we don’t have another foul-up. “Is the problem in the system codes or routines?”

  “No, Dr. Wong-Grant.”

  “Where, then?”

  “The server monitoring system malfunctioned.”

  “Is that the result of a hardware failure?”

  “Until the relay override box is replaced, that is impossible to determine.”

  “Where in the storeroom is the replacement?”

  “Delta Zulu six seven.”

  “Delta Zulu six seven.” Alayna shook her head at the location codes, revealing the old United States military origin of COFAR’s developers and builders. She called up the compression server schematic and a diagrammatic map of its location in the main information processing center. “Is your link to the information processing center working?” The question was not a formality because several of Marcel’s links did not work, such as the one in the suiting/unsuiting locker room, but since repairing them would have required drilling into the walls of the base, or installing hardware that the base did not presently have, and since those locations were not considered critical, the Foundation had deferred those repairs. Alayna certainly wasn’t about to drill into base walls, not knowing just how accurate the base specifications were and not as the sole inhabitant of a base set on an airless moon.

  “The link in the information processing center is operative.”

  “Is the screen there operative?”

  “It is.”

  “Good.” Alayna immediately stood and made her way down to the lower level equipment supply room.

  Delta Zulu six seven was in a stack of bins almost adjacent to the door, something she never would have guessed from the numerical identifier. Thankfully, the stack and bin numbers were large. There were six of the server relay override boxes, all identical oblongs of black composite ten centimeters long and roughly three wide, with large white letters—SRO-2(a)—on the top. Definitely black boxes. She took two, just in case, and walked down the long corridor to the main information processing center.

  When she entered, she asked, “Marcel?”

  “Yes, Dr. Wong-Grant?”

  “Display the system plan that shows where the server relay override box goes.”

  “System plan is on the screen.”

  Alayna studied the map/diagram, then walked over to the racked electronics. She didn’t see what she was looking for. She walked back to the diagram and studied it more closely, realizing that the diagram was oriented to lunar north, and that she’d been looking at it wrong. The second time, she quickly located the relay, its upper surface covered with a thin film of fine dust, suggesting that it had not been touched or moved in some time. As with most of the other components, it was a plug-in, and she eased it out, replacing it with the new relay.

  “Marcel, the new relay is in place.”

  “The replacement relay is not functioning.”

  “Frig!” Alayna eased the supposed replacement out and tried the second. “Now?”

  “The replacement relay is not functioning.”

  Two out of two not working? Alayna studied the flat panel under the relay, finally noticing a stud or button that had likely once been white but was a dark gray. She pressed it.

  “The replacement server override relay is functioning. The streaming compression system is inoperative.”

  “Why?”

  “The coding integration module has also failed.”

  Alayna went back to the screen. “Display the location of the coding integration module.”

  This time, before she went to find another part, she checked the location around the “failed” module. There were no reset studs anywhere near. With that, she turned and once more headed for the equipment supply room.

  Ten minutes later she slipped out the old integration module and replaced it with a new one—yet another blackbox replacement—simply numbered LACCD 761—and that put the main data compression server back on-line.

  As she walked back from the information processing center to replace the relay she had not used and then up the ramps to the COFAR control center, she was still thinking about the design. Why a relay that could be overridden or bypassed by the main system, and one with a reset stud as well? That didn’t make sense. Either that, or there was a reason she didn’t comprehend. How many other things are there here like that? It all brought home to her the fact that COFAR was old, very old as astronomical installations went, although the main optical mirror had been replaced comparatively recently. Still …

  When she reached the control center, she immediately asked, “Marcel, if the main system could physically activate the failure mode and switch to the backup compression server, why is there even a relay override box?”

  “The relay override box was part of the original design. The data transmission system was upgraded after the installation of the present main optical mirror. There is no information on why the relay override was retained.”

  “Why was there a reset stud as well? Is that information available?”

  “It is both a reset and an on/off switch.”

  That makes at least two other ways for things to go wrong. But was that true, or was she still missing something? “Thank you.” She settled back in front of the displays, going over the system indicators, and then the messages, except the only thing that had arrived was an outsystem news flash, beginning:

  “Free Mongolia!” terrorists claim to have obtained five Indra scramjet missiles, along with the coordinates of locations where top Chinese political officials are often located …

  Alayna hadn’t even heard of whoever or whatever the “Free Mongolia” terrorists or political agitators might be, but how had they obtained Indian high-level weaponry? Or had they? Who would know until it was too late, one way or the other? Since COFAR was back to operating normally, she searched the news databases, especially HotNews!, which for all of its racy and sexually obnoxious content, also had the most recent revelations, and with a high degree of accuracy.

  She didn’t find that much that wasn’t old history, such as the Ch
inese takeover of 2081, and the infighting among the Sinese multinationals to control the resource subsidiaries. Most of the Noram corporations had agreed to cash settlements for their interests or even whole subsidiaries because the United States had been essentially bankrupt, and the whole world knew it could exert neither economic nor military pressure, and hundreds of billions of hard yuan had been more than welcome in a collapsing U.S. economy …

  She shook her head. There was nothing about the “Free Mongolia!” movement, but she supposed that was to be expected with the effectiveness of the Sinese “media guidelines.” Except … why had they allowed the story to be reported? Again, more questions than answers, and she didn’t have access to the sources she would have had back on Earth. But there wasn’t much she could do, not from Daedalus Base.

  She was also concerned about Chris. He’d avoided saying what he was doing, and he’d been very clear about his piloting duties between the Noram space elevator and the lunar stations, either L1 or the Low Lunar Orbit Station. Since he’d been transferred, he hadn’t written a word about his new duties, except about training and doing supervisory duties in the middle of the night—she stiffened in the chair. An officer supervising in the middle of the night at 0400? That’s watch-standing. He’s on what amounts to a military installation!

  Alayna swallowed. If Noram had a de facto military base, then so did the Sinese and the Indians most likely … and everyone was right to be worried. How could you not have seen that?

  He’d never said he was an officer, except when she had noted his uniform on the trip to the LLOS. He’d passed it off as a requirement imposed by DOEA for all Noram pilots. She’d wondered about that and looked it up. It was a requirement with the rationale that Noram wanted to assure pilot loyalty. But that requirement allows rapid militarization and control of Noram fusionjet spacecraft.

  She tried to think matters through. The last message she’d received from Chris had been on October twenty-fifth. While he’d expressed his “appreciation” for keeping him informed and congratulations on the uniqueness of her discovery, that had been all he had written about. At first, she’d been upset, almost hurt, before considering that the way in which he had replied might well have signified how important it was. At least, that was what she hoped, especially after the prosaic responses from Director Wrae and the total lack of response from the IAU. Then again, after two centuries of seeking evidence of other intelligent life in the universe, maybe no one wanted to commit to saying much of anything until there was absolute proof.

  But why hadn’t he replied to her last message? It had been over a week, hadn’t it? And he hadn’t taken that long in replying in some time. Was he in trouble? Or was he on some military mission, something dark and secret?

  32

  THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

  3 NOVEMBER 2114

  (BEIJING) “Government operatives have seized one of the Indra missiles reportedly missing from the Indian military,” Sinese Defense Minister Wu Gong announced late yesterday. According to sources close to the ministry, the missile was located in an undisclosed location in Mongolia, close to being ready to launch, and was of Indian manufacture. The official announcement did not name the group possessing the missile, presumed to be Mongolia First!, but indicated that further antiterrorist operations were ongoing in Mongolia. Other sources reported sporadic outbreaks of violence outside Ulaanbaatar and Choibalsan.

  Local observers have also reported the movement of close to a division of Sinese troops into the northern sector of Arunachal Pradesh, an area China has claimed for well over a century, but which India has held since 1914.

  Indian Prime Minister Narahaj Ravindra denounced the movement of troops and declared that the “so-called Indra missile is a fabrication by the Sinese government to justify aggressive action against India to prevent its completion of the Dyaus space elevator, which is designed only for the peaceful use of space.”

  Noram Secretary of Defense Olassen Trudeau cautioned the Sinese Federation against “overreacting” and inaccurately linking a homegrown independence movement within the Sinese Federation to legitimate and reasonable aspirations to improve access to space by India and the UAAS.

  Israeli Prime Minister Meir spoke briefly with Indian Prime Minister Ravindra, but did not disclose the substance of the conversation. Israeli military experts downplayed the ability of a terrorist group to program and launch such a sophisticated weapon, especially with the need for either a rocket-assisted or high-speed air launch. One suggested that the Sinese had obtained a prototype mock-up that had disappeared five years ago and were using the mock-up for political and military purposes …

  33

  RECON THREE

  5 NOVEMBER 2114

  Although Tavoian was trying to keep to a schedule, if only in an effort to hold his biological rhythms close to regular, he woke close to 0500 UTC on Monday morning, climbed out of the sleeping bag strapped to the control couch, stowed it, and checked all the monitors and screens. There was no sign of any hull damage, certainly less of a possibility now that he was largely above the system ecliptic, not that there was that large a probability, but as the old saying went, an extremely low probability high speed impact could kill him just as dead. He could only hope that he didn’t run into anything that the Whipple shields and the graphene aerogel couldn’t handle. He also really didn’t want the booster to shred on him before at least some deceleration, since there was no way he’d have enough fuel to kill his outbound speed, let alone attain enough inbound velocity that he could return to the inner solar system before his habitability collapsed. The problem of traveling at the velocity Recon three had achieved, well over 315 kps, was that even the most sensitive scanning systems couldn’t detect small objects still large enough to turn the fusionjet into fragments exploding everywhere early enough that even the nano-quick reactions of the AI could move Recon three to avoid such a collision. If they were to encounter something larger, the systems would detect that soon enough.

  Far from the first time, he tried not to think about that as he strapped himself into the body-exercise suit and went at it for an hour. Then he cleaned up and returned his attention to his mission. He called up yet one more set of technical and operating details on another of the specialized AIs stowed in the cargo section of Recon three. After more than an hour, he shook his head and closed his eyes, trying not to think about anything for several minutes, but that was difficult with the only sound being the faint hissing of the ventilation system. He could have asked the AI for music from the tracks he’d loaded, but most of the time, except when he was trying to sleep, he preferred hissing to music. As for realies … although he’d loaded a few, he wasn’t desperate enough yet to sample the technically sophisticated production of so-called entertainment that, if the viewer was lucky, actually had a plot, if basic, on which subliminal emoticons, suggestive rhythms, and four-note background music from a synth orchestra had been piled.

  Finally, he called up one of the books he’d loaded into his personal system—The Economics of Failure—on his screen to read and continued from where he had left off, although he had certain misgivings already.

  … one of the worst miscalculations by both American financiers and politicians was the equation of liquidity to the availability of capital for both mid-and-lower income home-owners and for small businesses. In point of fact, the excessive liquidity created by speed-trading and lax regulation of the U.S. securities industry merely subsidized increasing speculation and led inexorably to the second and then to the final collapse of the old American economy. The growing misallocation of capital starved small and regional businesses and overemphasized service and media-oriented enterprises relying on comparatively few employees and capital-and-technology intensive infrastructures …

  Tavoian paged ahead. He’d thought the book would be more interesting than it was turning out to be. It had been advertised as a tell-all about the Great Collapse.

  … the final bulwark against en
croaching financial anarchy collapsed with the decision in Goldman Sachs v. U.S.…

  He kept paging.

  … the first sign of unrest occurred when the Grads WithOut Work [GWOW] simultaneously severed major high-speed fiber-optic cables serving the major securities trading networks of U.S. financial institutions, then deployed sophisticated self-replicating malware that transferred the assets of the institutions randomly to individuals and small businesses across not only the United States but Canada and Mexico before destroying a significant percentage of financial records … The unsolved sniper shootings of David Jindal, the president of Wells-Fargo, and Robert L. Sullivan, the chairman of Goldman-Sachs, created greater consternation … followed by the imposition of martial law—

  At that moment, slightly after 0700 UTC, the ship’s AI informed Tavoian, MAJOR, YOU HAVE A MESSAGE.

  Tavoian frowned. “Display, please.”

  The pages of Economics of Failure vanished.

  Tavoian, Christopher A.

  Major, NSC

  NSS-21/Recon Three

  Communications block is hereby lifted. All communications will be burst-sent to Donovan Base, including personal transmissions, no more often than once every twelve standard hours, with the exception of those of an urgent or emergency nature.

  Official and personal messages follow.

  The first message was official, as well as short and without any identification. As soon as he began to read it, he understood why.

  Sinese fusionjet recently docked at Sinese counterweight orbit station. Receiving supplies. Crew size unknown. Armament, if any, unknown. Ship type: Twin-drive longliner, Jiang class.

  The newest class Sinese longliner, when longliners almost never docked at the counterweight station? Their quick conversion to an alien-artifact chaser? Tavoian nodded, then looked for others that might be official. There weren’t any, which surprised him. The next message was the official Space Service news summary. The only entry that was of great interest was the summary on the continuing developments surrounding rising tensions between the Sinese Federation, the Indian-UAAS alliance, and Noram.