Solar Express

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  President Yates called for a three-party conference to discuss the issues surrounding the space elevator issues. Sinese Head of State Jiang agreed “in principle,” but reiterated that a necessary precondition for any such talks was a multination inspection of Indian space installations to assure that no militarization of those facilities was occurring. Prime Minister Ravindra countered by indicating that no such inspection would be allowed until and unless a similar inspection of Sinese installations occurred concurrently. None of the three have made further statements.

  Since there wasn’t much he could do about any of that, when he finished reading the news summary, Tavoian called up the first personal message—from his sister Kit.

  Chris—

  I don’t want to bother you. Not now, with all the problems with comms and the Sinese, but I haven’t heard from you. As soon as I could get away from Ottawa after the hearings, I flew to Cedar, and drove to Brian Head.

  Tavoian winced. Even with her salary, the cost of flying would have cost half a month’s pay.

  Dad didn’t expect me. He didn’t want us to worry, he said. How could we not worry when he’s been hiding something? I know you’re on some kind of training for something, but is there any possibility at all you could come home, for even a day? I wouldn’t ask, but I thought you should know. Mom’s got T3.

  Tuberculosis three? Tavoian felt like he’d been punched in the gut. T3 was resistant to every known treatment. It didn’t kill immediately, but most people who contracted it had only a few months. A few might last a year, but their mother was already frail. He kept reading.

  Is it at all possible for you to get emergency leave or something, sometime, before too long? I’m sorry to send a message like this, but I knew you’d want to know, even if you can’t get home. She made me promise not to tell you. So I lied and said I wouldn’t. I hope you can come home. If you can’t, and even if you can, PLEASE don’t let her know I told you. She doesn’t want you to worry when you could be in danger with Noram, the Sinese, and the Indians all threatening each other. I hope I’m not wrong, but I did think you’d want to know, rather than be kept in the dark …

  She was right about that. Tavoian had been worrying anyway. But … T3? How had she even come in contact with anyone? Then, the reports were that it was far more contagious than previous versions of TB. He continued to read.

  I hate testifying before legislative committees, or even advising anyone involved. Almost none of the politicians want anything objective. They barely listen until some fact comes up that they can use, distort, or turn into a campaign issue. I suppose it’s always been that way, but it doesn’t make me feel any better …

  Tavoian read through the rest of the message, mostly about her expensive and tedious flight to Cedar City, and how their father was handling matters, then immediately began to compose a reply, even if he wouldn’t send it until later, with everything else he needed to write and include.

  Dear Kit,

  Thank you for letting me know about Mom. I’d worried that she was having some sort of trouble, but I never imagined it was as terrible as T3. Something like that makes any of my problems seem trivial. Compared to what she’s facing, I don’t have any real problems …

  Not any that you can mention or would want to.

  There’s no possible way I can get home for some time. I wish I could. You know that I’d come if there were any way possible, but with what’s happening right now, I doubt that anyone in the Space Services is going anywhere at the moment …

  All that’s true, but misleading. What else can you say?

  … I hope the politicians can resolve this mess peacefully, but the Sinese seem determined to find a way to dominate the solar system, one way or another, and the Indians and the UAAS seem equally determined not to let them. Our official position seems to be …

  He paused and then deleted the last sentence. He really had no idea what the Noram official position was, and there was little point in speculating, because that might be censored and that would delay the message.

  Until matters settle down, and probably for some time after that, I’m stuck where I am. I can’t tell you how glad I am that you can see them both. I also can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you’re doing. I’ll never be able to make that up to you, and it’s so unfair, but life isn’t always fair. We can only try our best to make it that way when we can. Sometimes, we don’t get even that chance. My love, and more appreciation, to you.

  After putting his reply to Kit in the “send” queue, he checked all the screens and indicators, not that the AI wasn’t faster and more accurate, then asked, “Are there any objects anywhere close to our immediate course line?”

  THERE ARE NO OBJECTS NEAR THE COURSE LINE WITHIN DETECTION RANGE.

  Compared to the more than a million large and small objects already detected in the solar system, there were only a comparative few that had either supra-ecliptic orbits or orbits inclined more than twenty degrees to the plane of the ecliptic, most of which were comets or cometary remnants. Of those few asteroids with such orbits, the largest was Hildago, with an inclination of forty-two degrees, and for an asteroid with such an irregular orbit, it was huge, with a diameter of twenty kilometers.

  Tavoian smiled. If he hadn’t looked all that up, as a result of both the mission and his message correspondence with Alayna, he would never have known that. A million objects sounded like a lot, but with time to spare, he’d worked it out … and come up with the rough estimate that within twenty degrees above and below the plane of the ecliptic, on average there was just one object in for every five million cubic kilometers—and almost none for that part of the solar system where he was presently traveling. Of course, those numbers didn’t include very small chunks of matter that could still wreak havoc.

  After several minutes, he turned his thoughts back to the next message, a moderately long and cheerful message to his parents, saying very little, except that the training and what piloting he had been doing were both very challenging, but rewarding in the sense that he was continuing to learn. He also mentioned learning in another sense, with what he’d picked up from an astrophysicist he’d ferried to the Moon months before, but with whom he’d maintained a message contact.

  He felt almost dishonest in not saying anything, but he did add a few lines at the end, which he likely would have written anyway if Kit hadn’t told him.

  I haven’t heard much about how either of you are doing personally, and that worries me. I suppose Kit and I are now reaching the stage where we worry about you, rather than you about us, although I also have the feeling that you’ve never stopped worrying about us. Once the current uneasiness subsides, I’m looking forward to coming home, but at present, I don’t think anyone here is going anywhere soon.

  When he finished that message he just sat, loosely strapped to the control couch, thinking about how surreal the situation was. He was hurtling at incredible speed through the darkness toward a strange object that was at the least unique and at most might well be the evidence of alien intelligence that humanity had been seeking for over a century. Back around Earth three powers were positioning themselves for a conflict that could effectively cripple, if not destroy, most of civilization. And he was composing messages as if nothing at all was happening. But there was little else that he could do. Not yet.

  Had it always been that way? He supposed so. Alexander’s soldiers had done far more walking than fighting, even when they had been in the process of conquering much of what they thought of as the known world.

  After checking with the AI again and going over all the systems, he got back to composing another message, this time to Alayna. He really owed her as much of an explanation as he could provide. He frowned. The colonel had said that he could tell her once the comm block had been lifted. He wasn’t certain that he exactly wanted to blurt it out, though. He began the message.

  Dear Alayna—

  I must apologize for being incommunicado for the
past week, but I’ve been in a situation where communications were not possible. I’m still on an extended assignment, one closely associated with your discovery, and will be for a while, although I don’t know yet exactly how long it will last, certainly past the end of the year. It appears as though I’ll be able to send and receive messages for a time, provided, of course, that matters between the Sinese and everyone else don’t deteriorate too much.

  Is there anything new on your asteroid/possible artifact? I’ve not seen anything in the news. In a way, that surprises me, because it is definitely unusual, at least from what you’ve let me know. Sooner or later, I suppose, something will appear somewhere in the media. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to whatever can be discovered. Also, have you made any progress in discovering more about the solar multi-fractal mini-granulations? [I hope I got the terminology correct.] It seems so strange that we really know so little about what lies beneath the surface of the sun, except for the massive processes that produce light and energy. The more we investigate other bodies in the solar system, the more we discover. It’s like the sun’s surface is a flexible, but impenetrable barrier to greater discovery. Or maybe there have been more discoveries over the past century than I’m aware of. I’m certainly no astronomer or astrophysicist.

  Going to less grand and glorious subjects, how about this? I thought about this because I’ve been reading a book called Economics of Failure, which is about the economic and political collapse of the United States. You don’t even have to guess from where I got it.

  An economist has an advanced degree and years of study and experience in order to be able to predict less accurately than a coin flip. And most economic explanations after the fact only make sense if certain facts are omitted, which they usually are.

  Then again, we all would prefer not to deal with unpleasant facts. Maybe honesty is defined by how many of those we’ll face and accept.

  That’s all for now. Until later.

  When he reread the message and decided he had no more changes to make, he put it in the dispatch queue, paused, and then, because there really wasn’t anyone else he wanted to contact, he took a deep breath and sent the entire batch.

  You might as well get on with your technical refresher on the AI equipment.

  And he didn’t even know, yet, whether he’d be using it to explore a unique asteroid or an alien artifact of some sort.

  34

  DAEDALUS BASE

  5 NOVEMBER 2114

  The night line had crept past Daedalus Base sometime in the last twelve hours, but Alayna hadn’t actually taken note, not totally surprisingly, because COFAR workloads dipped during the transition hours, although, with the lack of atmosphere and what was in an atmosphere, Earth’s anyway, especially associated water vapor and particulate matter, there really wasn’t much of a “transition” on the Moon. One moment there was sunlight; the next there wasn’t.

  The message queue wasn’t that long. It never was early on Mondays, because few people on Earth, even astronomers, worked over the weekend, and the astronomers who did weren’t the ones who sent messages to COFAR. The messages came from administrators and bureaucrats, and they’d arrive later in the day, usually after 1200 UTC. Those messages were seldom welcome and usually required more essentially nonproductive work, something that was a growing irritation for Alayna, especially as she realized how ambitious her own research was and how much observational time it was likely to take.

  There was a perfunctory message from the IAU thanking her for continued reports on “her” asteroid, except it was always referred to officially as “2114 FQ5,” and requesting that she continue providing updates. Then there was a message from the director of personnel at the Farside Foundation, dated the previous Friday, advising all employees, permanent and contract, that any changes in elective additional health insurance needed to be registered before the first of December in order to have coverage beginning the new calendar year.

  As if you could afford additional elective health insurance beyond the government minimum.

  Then there was a message from Emma, which, since there didn’t seem to be anything exceptionally pressing, Alayna immediately read.

  I can’t believe you didn’t say more about your discovery! Just plain old 2114 FQ5? An asteroid in a cometary sun-grazing orbit … with an albedo brighter than ice with an odd silicon spectrum? Sonya was dancing when she found it … until she realized someone had discovered it earlier. It’s either the greatest outer system oddity in more than a century or something even rarer. You know exactly what I mean, but I won’t say/write more. Why no media or joyburst? Nothing from the IAU. Nothing from Farside Foundation.

  Is someone squashing this? How could this happen? Everyone knows everything about anything. Or is everyone afraid it won’t pan out? There’s not even any word or plan about someone sending at least an uncrewed probe to look. Somebody has to be doing something about this, don’t they?

  Someone is. Noram Space Service. Alayna had no doubts about that. She just didn’t know what.

  Can’t imagine that this will be secret much longer. They’ve probably managed it so far just because everyone’s worried about what the Sinese and Indians are going to do … and whether our so-called President will do anything at all. I can’t believe I actually voted for her. I wish I could blame Carlina, or someone, but I did it all on my own …

  Alayna smiled at that and kept reading. Once she finished, she asked, “Marcel … where is our strange asteroid or object?”

  “The object is approximately twenty-five million kilometers inside the orbit of Mars.”

  “Can you calculate its speed?”

  “Thirty-six kilometers per second.”

  “That’s faster than we’d calculated earlier.”

  “The data baseline is better, Dr. Wong-Grant.”

  Alayna tried not to wince. She hated being corrected, even by an AI. “Do the calculations continue to support a sun-grazing orbit?”

  “They do. 2114 FQ5 has a calculated perihelion of two point four million kilometers on eighteen December 2114.”

  Two point four million kilometers? The number seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place it for an instant, until she realized it was the sun’s Roche Limit, if for fluid bodies. “That’s close.” Still … the asteroid or artifact was a solid object, unlike most comets, few of which had survived that close an encounter with the sun. Compared to those that had survived, however, it was much smaller, and its shape, especially at two kilometers long, likely made it more vulnerable. And more likely to be artificial than natural. Except … there were more than a few “unnatural” natural shapes in the solar system. Still …

  The corner of her personal screen showed an incoming message. She checked immediately. It was from Chris. Her smile was more one of relief than pleasure. She had been worried about him. As she read what he had written, that worry returned in full. Even if there hadn’t been anything in the news, his words confirmed that he’d been sent out to scout her discovery. Why else would he have said that he would be on extended duty past the end of the year … and linked to her discovery?

  When she finished, she checked the timestamp. His message had been sent four hours earlier, UTC. It had just arrived. Why the delay? Were his messages being reviewed and censored? By whom and why? She shook her head. Of course. He’d been in some at least semimilitary installation, and the way he had written it didn’t give much indication of where he was or what he was doing. Yet he had written, In a situation where communications were not possible. Just what had he been doing? Had it been anything to do with the surveillance that the Sinese had complained about? Or something even worse?

  How could it have been worse without something appearing in the media?

  She worried her upper lip with her teeth. While she was relieved that he was safe, for the moment, it appeared, the evasiveness of his message suggested that he was still in danger or had been and might be again. Because the Sinese might send anot
her ship after him? Or even try to attack his ship? And for what? Hostilities between the major powers would only devastate everyone, and no one seemed to understand that. The struggling countries of the UAAS would only be worse off, and Noram was still struggling financially, as she knew directly from the IG visit to COFAR and all the concerns expressed by Director Wrae. The Indians would certainly lose their partial space elevator. For that matter most likely everyone would lose effective access to space. And how long could the various lunar installations last without replacement equipment and technology? Months, certainly, possibly years, but definitely not forever.

  Then again, with the Sinese spread across the solar system, they might end up with a monopoly on space travel—except, with all the Indian scramjet missiles, there might not be a great deal of central China left intact.

  Could the politicians be that stupid?

  Considering that over a fifth of the old Middle East remained uninhabitable, that the Crimean peninsula was essentially black glass, and that there were radioactive ocean floors where Tel Aviv and Alexandria used to be, Alayna thought her question was largely rhetorical.

  Still … she could hope … and send cheerful messages back to her father, Emma, and Chris, especially Chris—right after she read his message. She had the feeling that he might need some cheer. And then, she’d continue to struggle with the seemingly unsolvable puzzle of the solar multi-fractal mini-granulations, as well as keep tracking her artifact. She hadn’t yet given in to using the official identification numbers, at least in her own references to it.

  35

  RECON THREE

  7 NOVEMBER 2114

  Wednesday morning Tavoian spent programming and setting up small AI sampling units, designed with various forms of grappling and grasping capabilities. Which one he’d deploy he’d decide after an initial scan of the target. Then he set up a string of signal repeaters so that a rover AI could immediately relay its findings from within caves, crevasses, or passageways. At 1200 UTC, while he was still working on the AI with the diamond nanorod drill, the message indicator lit.