by David Brin
“Aye, Carl,” Lani answered. Saul sensed the Earth vessel as a looming image of burnished gold and silver…a globe too mirror smooth to be any substance at all. In that surface a tiny shape wavered and grew, brightening now and then s the colonists’ robot puffed and flared to match velocities. Their little envoy was dwarfed against the curve of reflected starglow, a spindly crudity that dared to reach out and touch angelic beauty.
“Contact! We’re locked onto a spinneret,” Carroll announced.
“Pulsing a probe-to-probe communications code,” Lani reported. “We’ll see what it has to say.”
Then Virginia wailed.
“Those mad sons of bitches!”
It was as if a knife blade had come down and sliced off one of Saul’s hands. A tsunami of noise and pain tore at his moorings like a hurricane, yanking shreds of himself away into a storm of wild data. It felt like drowning, and he had no idea where up was, anymore. The hurt and chaos was overwhelming.
One thing happened then, that saved Saul’s mind. He sneezed.
The jerking explosion was so violent that the neural-tap helmet flew off his head and banged into the console. Suddenly the world was light and air and real noise— a tumult of human voices that seemed, in comparison, like the whispering of a morning breeze.
“What happened—”
“—blew up! —”
“My God, pure annihilation…!”
“Itaka, get on alert channel! Tell the surface crews to take cover at once!” Carl’s voice commanded above the panicked ferment. “Get them below before the neutrons hit!”
Hands pulled at Saul’s shoulders, attempting to drag him back. He blinked through spots and saw Andy Carroll’s limp form being cut free of his webbing. Keoki Anuenue was fumbling at the back of Virginia’s lolling neck, tugging at her neural tap while others hurried up bearing stretchers.
“No!” Saul screamed. He grabbed Keoki’s wrist so hard that the big Hawaiian gasped in surprise.
Saul croaked, “Don’t let anyone touch her. Nobody!” He picked up the helmet he had just thrown off. “Leave her alone!” Trembling, he put it back on.
In an instant he was back down under the roiling, churning tide of electrons, the roar of an explosion large enough to break a small world.
Better prepared, this time, Saul rode the surges, seeking a rock, an eddy, anywhere to stand and gather threads.
A piece of JonVon’s personality-mimicry program hurtled by, murmuring something about refusing an “Academy Award”…whatever that was. He grabbed it and linked the fragment to sub-routine for searching library data bases, and another containing information on stock-raising on the Isle of Wight.
“Virginia,” he whispered. “Where are you?”
What instinct had told him, with deeper certainty than mere knowledge, that she was lost somewhere in this maelstrom… ? That to disconnect her would be to leave her— if not a vegetable— then with something basic lost forever to chaos? Saul cast about, gathering a ragged construct, a troop of bits and flotsam, and sent scouts out, searching.
A whisper of tropical air, over there!
A scent of chrysanthemum blossoms, here!
A secret memory from childhood… of embarrassment with a neighbor boy… bring it in.
Traces, all, precipitating out of a whirling jumble. One by one, it would have taken a thousand lifetimes to recognize and even stack them all, let alone sort them into what they had been. He didn’t try. All he could do was love them.
Fear and pain… a whispered curse.
“… those mad sons of b…”
It hurtled past. But Saul reached out after it.
I love you, Virginia, he called. Blemishes and all… Stupid and blind as I am. I love you, and I’ll love you forever…
… forever…
The word echoed.
… forever… ?
Yes. Down time until even the Hot fades and all ice comes alive… l will never leave you …
… never… ?
Oh… Saul…
Oh…
“Oooh,” her real-world voice sighed beside him. “Oh, Saul…” The webbing vibrated with movement and suddenly her hand was gripping his, so hard that the welcome pin added to the free flow of tears in his eyes.
CARL
Carl gritted his teeth in irritation, but didn’t let it show. Four hours had passed since the explosion. The searing heat from the nearby blast had flash vaporized a layer of ice off one face of Halley. There had been extensive damage to mechs and diagnostic instruments on the surface, and some casualties. Data was slow coming in, but that hadn’t stopped people from jabbering and theorizing.
Joao Quiverian was getting insufferable. He used the full impact of his height, towering over the others, his voice ringing with a hollow, magisterial command.
“We have erred in a way I find unfathomable. This mishap is a direct result of our meddling with what we do not understand, rather than placing our trust in our fellow human beings. Obviously the mech somehow ignited the fusion chamber of—”
“Perdeeyn!” Sergeov swore. “Arcist idiot.”
Quiverian bore on. “— the Care Package. and—”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Carl said sharply. “Shut up, everybody!”
The knot of people turned its attention to him. “Look at these numbers.” He gestured at one of the screens. “That was a full thermonuclear blast. Not a malfunction of the fusion drive.”
Quiverian gaped. “Not… But why would they send to us…”
Sergeov’s blue-tattooed skin creased with a bitter smile. “Not to us— for us.”
Carl nodded. “I think so.”
“A… bomb?” Lani Nguyen asked wonderingly, her almond eyes widening at the thought.
Carl said flatly, “JonVon estimates the yield at several hundred megatons. Plenty of neutrons, gammas— the works. No fusion chamber I ever heard of can go off with anything like that yield.”
Quiverian said slowly, “Then they intended…to…”
“Have us take that package into our ice and then blow it up. Shatter everything inside Halley. Melt away the top kilometer, cave in the shafts everywhere else.” Carl had to control his jittering nervous energy. Back home, in gravity, the muscles were always doing some work just to remain standing, burning away minute tensions. Here, inner demands for action found no expression. You had to focus it all into other avenues-voice, expression, gesture.
“I… find that difficult to believe,” Quiverian said, suddenly uncharacteristically quiet.
“Is typical,” Sergeov said. “Earthside has been same always. Destroyed Edmund, poof!. Now us.”
Jeffers said sourly, “Yeah, askin’ us for guidance, tellin’ us to lead the package right down Shaft Three. An’ we woulda done it, if it hadn’t been for curiosity, makin’ us send out a mech to see what Daddy’d brought us.” He snorted derisively.
Carl said, “Earthside kept up their story all this time— for three years— when all along they’ve plotted to destroy us entirely.”
“To preserve their holy biosphere,” Saul said mildly as he approached.
Carl raised an eyebrow— How is she?—and Saul nodded reassuringly. Virginia had been unconscious when the med-techs bore her away on a stretcher. Carl felt relief, but in Saul’s quietly pleased expression an unsettling confirmation: Somehow, he and Virginia were back together. The crisis had done that. His own chances— which he now saw he had allowed to build beyond prudent expectations— were zero again. Saul and Virginia seemed able to survive any buffeting that chance could deal them.
“— can expect a full explanation from Earth, I am sure,” Quiverian finished. Carl realized he had missed one of the man’s pontifical declarations.
“What?”
Quiverian’s face knotted with exasperation. “I expect we have been the victims of a political faction. Someone who, under cover of their allotted cargo, included a warhead. This does not mean all Earth is opposed to us. Once we inform high
Earth authorities of how this humanitarian gesture has been aborted in a most foul way, I am sure the leadership will take measures to punish and silence this cabal of.”
“Bullshit,” Carl said vehemently.
Quiverian blinked, his lips pursed, but he said nothing. One of his lieutenants began, “Look, you can’t—” but Carl cut him off.
“Look.” Carl said. “they don’t know what’s happened yet, right?”
Jeffers calculated in his head. “Lessee… ’Bout two hours each way light travel time. We should be able to pick up what they were sayin’ when the thing blew.”
Carl nodded. “Let’s pipe into their transmission.”
Carl glanced toward a wall camera and nodded. JonVon was listening, as he suspected, and immediately the room filled with the hiss of solar static. Then a tinny voice said monotonously, “Cannot copy you here emm-dot, Halley.”
Jeffers said, “They’re still sendin’ telemetry for guidin’ it in.”
The voice oscillated slightly, dispersed by its journey of three billion miles. “By our estimates, the package is nearing final matching RPX. Advise you now send it laser marker designation for Shaft Three. Automatic homing will then take over.”
Carl said “They’re still working on their approach.”
A steady blur of static. Then:
“Confirm docking? Negative on auto-servo coupling pip, but we do show counter-comm on reppledex four-over, though. Await that marker pip for none-in.”
The men and women listened to the words from a civilization now as distant in time as it was in space. The mission monitors Earthside, they knew, were trained in the jargon of 2060, to minimize confusions, but still odd terms and mannerisms from the more modern era slipped in. A glance at his thumbnail told Carl that three hours had passed since the explosion. It felt more like a year. He ordered refreshments brought in. The faction leaders listened sullenly, silently.
“Should come anytime now,” Jeffers said.
The wavering voice kept on. “Carrier cinch-by reads nominal. Coded.”
A sudden pause. The sun’s own spiky popping seemed to flood the room, bringing a reminder of the warm regions they had left so long ago, the brooding eternal voice a pressing presence.
Then vague shouts, a commotion. “UV and visible flux! It’s gone off!”
“Too early!” Somebody else cried out. “By my estimate…”
A babble of talk, a distinct thump. “Get away from that! It might’ve already docked, we don’t know.”
An argument, voices shouting one another down. “See if those infect rejects are still transmitting. Goddam, I knew we shouldn’t have safe-armed the bastard.”
Another thump. “Neg, Fred. They’re off the air.”
Faintly, someone yelled, “Those screamers are steam!”
Everyone’s eyes widened s a thin sound came, plainly from somewhere near the speaker— a hearty laugh, a cry of celebration, then the rolling sea-sound of many hands clapping.
The men and women of Halley looked at each other for a long time, silently. There seemed very little to say.
Carl cycled the doors and stepped out through the crystalline refractions of the surface lock. It was eighteen hours later. He had conferred with envoys of various factions, won agreements, soothed as best he could. By all rights he should be holed up in his bunk, getting some rest.
But that would have meant crawling away and licking his wounds, something he might well have done a few decades ago … Now it wouldn’t work, he knew. Too much had happened, too fast. If he brooded over it, he would just get depressed and accomplish nothing.
That was a standard he had slowly learned to impose on himself: What will you have when this is over? Amemory of bitter ruminations, drunken attempts to forget? Recriminations against the hand fate had dealt you? That might satisfy something inside that wanted such sour fruit. But now he knew from experience that he would feel better in the long run if he threw himself into a job, built or fixed or moved something. Let the muscles work their own logic. Then he would be able to sleep, knowing that he had at least gotten something done, kept moving, shown the bastards.
A slight puff of air followed him onto the ice. instant billowing fog. He moved at a steady ground-hugging, ice-gripping lope toward the equator. He could hook on to the cable and jet over, but this way he got more exercise.
There had been a lot of craziness to contend with, and he was glad to be out here now. Where I belong. I’m still a spacer, goddammit!
Some pop-eyed idiot had stopped him in a corridor, accused him of deliberately sabotaging the Care Package. Madness. People didn’t want to accept the cold clear reality— that their homeworld had sworn to erase them.
Well, okay. Just like I didn’t want to face the reality that nothing is ever really going to separate Saul and Virginia. It’s just a matter of scale…
The belt of launchers loomed above the horizon as he loped along, feet finding purchase on the crusty, speckled ice. They were like slender, elegant cannon, each canted at a slightly different angle from its neighbor. Weeks ago they had slowed and stopped Halley’s spin, to make alignment of their thrusts simple. Now the stars hung steadily above, and each launcher aimed exactly at the same point in the sky: Right Ascension 87°, Declination +35°.
—Yo, Cap’n.—Jeffers waved from atop Launcher 16.
“I’m not captain,” Carl said automatically.
—Might’s well be.—
“I’m just operations officer. That’s all the clans will tolerate.”
—Bunch of horses’ asses.—
“I don’t suppose I’ll be getting a promotion from Earthside now, either.”
Jeffers chuckled dryly.—Not much of one, I’d say. You through soothin’ ever’body?—
“Yeah.” Carl leaped up to the launcher cowling.
—Funny, how some of ’em can’t believe what happened.—
“It was their Great White Hope.”
—Pretty rough, when Mother Earth offers you a tit and then— boom.—
Carl smiled despite himself. From here he could see many launchers, a dashed line sketching out Halley’s equator, as if drawn by a careful high-school student for a science project. Their muzzles veered gradually to the north as his eye swept to the horizon. Each lay buried in an oil-hydraulic pad that absorbed the recoil and transmitted it to the all-too-fragile ice. Robos and mechs stood beside each narrow tube, ready to unsnag any trouble with the conveyor-belt feeders.
—They agree down below?—
Distracted by the orderly march of launchers to the horizon, Carl could not understand for a moment what Jeffers meant. “Oh, about Earthcomm?”
—Yeah, ever’body agree to shut up?—
“Not exactly.”
—Who?—
“Sergeov. Quiverian.”
—Sergeov I’d expect few people to listen to, sure. He’s good ’ol boy, straight-arrow Percell. Maybe li’l heavy-handed. But Quiverian? He’s murderin’ bastard! Who’d pay attention to—
“Some Arcists still think it must’ve been a mistake. They can’t picture Mom slaughtering her children, even if they are carrying diseases.”
—Craaaazy.—
“Right.”
Beneath the silent ebony sky these issues seemed petty, diminished. Carl could deal with them inside, encased in ice…but here, human problems and opinions seemed dirty, small, shameful. “So…I had JonVon take a few mechs and…knock out the microwave antennas.”
To his surprise, Jeffers laughed. —Damn right!—
“You…think so?”
—Course I do! We let Earth know we’re still alive, they’ll send another Care Package. Only this time they won’t tell us.—
“This will but us maybe a couple of crucial years. Maybe.” Carl nodded. “They didn’t fail utterly, of course. We lost a couple of people on the surface, and with our attention on the Care Package, we lagged a little on the nudge. We’re starting late.”
Jeffers nodded. �
��Damn near aphelion. Gonna be a big job, givin’ that much push to this much ice.—
“You’ve realigned the launchers already?”
—Just like you said. Gonna deliver big delta-V if we get started soon enough.—
At least the Care Package fiasco was behind them. While others mourned, Carl was relieved, in a way. It meant they had to break from Earth, ignoring their homeworld, even hiding from it for as long as possible…
Who could tell? In forty years new people might be in charge, back home. Or Phobos colony might have its independence by the time the cometary refugees came streaking in on their blazing aeroshells. Who am I kidding? Carl thought.
The tension in him wouldn’t go away. He needed something. Or someone, he thought, and shut away as quickly as he recognised it.
The launchers. They were ready, calibrated.
“You check the pin settings?”
Jeffers tapped on his board, nodded.
“Pressure manifolds? The magnet alignments?”
—All okay.—
“What are we waiting for, then?”
Jeffers looked up and slowly grinned. —Damned right!—He switched channels and spoke rapid-fire to the engineers.
Around Halley the belt stirred to life. Electromagnetic surges mounted, reached saturation, lay in wait for their release. And inside the ice, Carl knew, men and women were involved with their own lonely questions, doubts, despairs. They needed something to rouse them.
“Let ’er fly,” Carl said.
He felt it through his boots. A trembling, a gathering rush, a sudden trembling release. From the muzzle of Launcher 16 came…nothing he could see. But he could feel each slug of coated iron flee down the electromagnetic gun, fevered pulses shaking the slender tube. Machine gun aimed at the stars. Against the black oblivion above they made no mark, merely arced into its nothingness.
It was a feather’s brush against a boulder, but over time the effects would mount up.
He turned to look down the row. Each launcher flung its shots steadily skyward, the electromagnetic fringe fields sounding as a faint but persistent rata-rata-rata-rata over the comm line.