InterstellarNet: New Order

by Edward M. Lerner

  If the two anomalies, as he feared, were related—if mankind was, at long last, about to use its secret hoard of antimatter—it was unlikely in the extreme that T’bck Fwa would have the benefit of a reply before deciding whether to act.

  Why he felt there would be an action he could or should take, T’bck Fwa could not say. Any human detective would have called it a hunch.

  CHAPTER 7

  Carlos Montoya was a bear of a man, Eva could never help but notice. He had broad shoulders and massive arms, and sprouted thick black hair everywhere a person could. He did not seem to mind that he dwarfed his tiny office or its battered metal desk. The door to that office read: “Jovial Spacelines.” Spaceport legend claimed Montoya had been so taken with a typo that he had abandoned his firm’s original, locale-apropos name.

  Three visitors were crammed into the cluttered office: Eva herself, Art, and the ambassador. Getting Chung to agree to a meeting had been a hard sell; she found getting him through the door into this quasi-closet even harder. There was a reason for meeting here—the dingy, paperwork-covered walls masked the most snoop-proofed facility on Callisto. The spaceline was a front organization for the United Planets Intelligence Agency, and Montoya was the local UPIA station chief. He reported to the security officer of the project no one had yet identified beyond veiled references to a nearby astronomical body, to which, not coincidentally, the only civilian flights authorized were Jovial charters.

  “I don’t see why we couldn’t meet elsewhere,” Chung sniffed.

  The diplomatic mission to the Snakes and the activity on Himalia were both as sensitive as could be. Eva thought it possible she was the only person other than the UP’s secretary-general to hold current clearances in both projects. Art’s boss, the ICU secretary-general, had accepted what little Art was allowed to convey—the urgent need for “my recent little project” to coordinate with an equally secretive UP effort, that could be alluded to only by identifying Eva’s security officer on Earth.

  It was enough.

  Eva did the introductions, identifying Montoya as a UPIA operative. Chung’s eyes narrowed, but he made no comment. “Gentlemen, there are a few key facts to make known. First,” and she nodded at Chung, “the installation at Himalia is not a prison, high-security or otherwise. That’s a cover story. It’s a research facility of extraordinary sensitivity.

  “Second,” and she turned to Montoya, “our stated reason for being in the Jupiter system is equally fictitious. We’re about to meet, secretly at first, with interstellar visitors. Our callers are the species commonly called the Snakes.”

  “The K’vithians,” Chung corrected. A lab hidden in the vast Jovian system did not impress him.

  “Why Callisto?” Montoya asked. Being suspicious was what he did for a living.

  “We’re not meeting on Callisto, only nearby,” Chung said. “The K’vithians need repairs and fuel. There was mention of auxiliary vessels scooping Jovian atmosphere.”

  “Good thing you said something. Unidentified ships zooming about the area would have made the base defense team very nervous.” Montoya arched a caterpillar-like eyebrow. “I trust, Ambassador, you will direct these folks far away from Himalia?”

  “That can be arranged.” Chung stood to leave, giving his staffers a cold glance.

  Even with my few social skills, Eva thought, that undiplomatic look was easy to read: Why the fuss? “Sorry, there’s more. The K’vithians would have us believe they’re planning to scoop hydrogen. If that were their primary motivation, Art is correct: Given current planetary positions, an emergency stop at Saturn would have been more logical. Barring that, so would a closer-in orbit of Jupiter.

  “Here’s the thing. The only energy source that’s practical for an interstellar mission is matter-antimatter annihilation.” Hers was but one of the UP research teams seeking theory that might lead to an interstellar drive. About all the competing teams ever agreed upon was the energy requirement. “Fusion is at best a secondary energy source for them. They didn’t even start their fusion drive until they were mostly decelerated.”

  “Hmm.” Montoya locked eyes with Chung. “Now the other shoe drops, Ambassador. Our secret program on Himalia involves a factory. It is the solar system’s only antimatter factory. Maybe, just maybe, the Snakes somehow found that out.

  “I mention this mainly for the reason we keep the factory’s very existence a secret. In the wrong hands, our stockpile could make the biggest H-bomb ever built look like a firecracker.”

  The mission had reconvened in the Valhalla City community center for the final briefing before a subset headed off for the first in-person encounter with the K’vithians. Art had waved over Carlos Montoya to sit with Eva, Keizo, and himself.

  “…momentous occasion,” intoned Ambassador Chung from the dais at the front of the room. “The first face-to-face meeting between interstellar neighbors.”

  “They’re about one meter tall,” Art netted to his companions. “Face to face doesn’t exactly describe it.” Without turning, Eva shot back a glowering emoticon.

  A large graphic popped up beside Chung. “The contact team will be on the embassy ship, shown here in red. UP escort vessels”—on which Montoya had insisted—“are blue. We’ll rendezvous with our visitors, shown in green….”

  “Uh-oh.” A neural alarm demanded Art’s attention. His implant had put through an incoming newsbreak on Interplanetary News Net. It was prioritized TEOTWAWKI.

  He wasn’t the only one still linked in. As a buzz erupted across the hall, Chung’s deputy whispered into his boss’s ear. Scowling, Chung nodded.

  Chung’s visual aid dissolved into a telescopic close-up of a stony cylinder in a field of stars. “…continues to decelerate. Experts extrapolate that it will assume orbit around Jupiter sometime tomorrow,” said the voiceover. A talking head replaced the starship. “To repeat what little we now know, the visitor is coming from the direction of Barnard’s Star. This reporter has monitored its approach for much of the day. In that time there have been several exchanges of coded radio messages between Earth and this vessel, all using the Snakes’ standard commercial frequency.

  “As interesting, perhaps, as the onrushing starship are the actions of United Planets authorities. That they are aware of the approaching starship is evident: UP vessels have been converging on Jupiter in large numbers for about three weeks.

  “What did the authorities know, and when did they know it?” The camera zoomed into a close-up of the reporter. “Why have they withheld this incredible news from the citizens of the United Planets?

  “This is Corinne Elman, reporting exclusively for Interplanetary News Network.”

  Repeatedly, and over many years, the collective leadership of the Unity had directed T’bck Fwa to search vigilantly for evidence in human space of two technologies: antimatter and interstellar drive. No reason was ever given for those requests, nor for the loss of interest five years ago. At least he interpreted as loss of interest the discontinuance of those inquiries.

  His evidence for starship research was in all ways the opposite of his antimatter investigations. The human infosphere teemed with speculations about interstellar drives—none of them close to reduction to practice. Ironically, human starship enthusiasts were almost unanimous in the belief antimatter technology would be needed to conquer the interstellar void—and in their urgings the UP should therefore proactively develop antimatter technology.

  Fond in his own way of his long-time hosts, T’bck Fwa had hoped that a future starship was, in fact, what the UP intended for its antimatter. The alternative, antimatter’s use in weaponry, would be horrible indeed. Alas, the same patient data mining that had revealed the UP’s disguised antimatter program had yielded no conclusive proof of a mature companion program for starship development.

  The Unity’s uncharacteristically insistent requests … the humans’ unexplained huge investment in antimatter … the absence of any credible evidence for an interstellar-drive progr
am … these were all very confusing. Decades of diligent sifting through unimaginably large amounts of data had offered no reconciliation.

  Then came today’s news.

  There was a starship. It was arriving from what the humans called Barnard’s Star—not only humanity’s second-closest interstellar neighbor, but also the Unity’s.

  And that starship was heading not for Earth, but towards the humans’ undeclared antimatter facility.

  As T’bck Fwa formulated a coded report to the Unity leadership, he could not help but wonder: Had knowledge of an alliance between Earth and K’vith motivated the insistent questions from home? Or had Pashwah, his Snake counterpart, independently discovered the secret of Himalia?

  Once more T’bck Fwa feared that decisive action would be required of him before he could possibly expect any guidance.

  CHAPTER 8

  “…and so the great spacecraft from Barnard’s Star will soon complete the initial phase of its historic journey. As I speak, the welcoming delegation of the United Planets is about to dock with humanity’s first interstellar visitor. Using the UP shuttle for scale, I hope you can begin to appreciate the enormity of the starship, a cylinder roughly a kilometer in length and a half kilometer in diameter.”

  The bridge crew mostly ignored the broadcast now echoing through most of Victorious. In a way, thought Arblen Ems Firh Mashkith, that was understandable: The human voice register was an annoyingly low rumble. He insisted nonetheless on airing it, the better to acclimate all hands to the disagreeable sounds. Planning ahead was what the Foremost did.

  The human reporter droned on. She, and eight more like her, appeared side by side in a row of holos. Backdrop to the narrations were panoramic views of his ship beside a full Jupiter and a crescent Callisto. Far larger than any broadcast image was the 3-V tactical display. The situational hologram tracked swarms of human vessels: media, diplomatic, and merely curious observers. Six United Planets frigates policed the region, keeping the flotilla at an almost comfortable distance. A single small ship with the human envoys decelerated on its final approach.

  “The voyage has conquered a void of six light-years: an heroic accomplishment. As the vessel spins, we again see the blackened area surrounding a large patch. Our interstellar neighbors were fortunate to have survived their epic crossing.”

  Simultaneous translations scrolled up the right edge of each monitor. Mashkith’s trust in Pashwah-qith remained tentative, but he had no substitute for her expertise. A specially constructed, physically isolated network for the AI, with access to these specific displays, was an acceptable risk; full connectivity, such that he could have tapped the running translations in real-time by neural interface, was far less desirable.

  Unhappily, a full link-up was necessary during the coming meeting. Generations of clan doctrine stressed the avoidance of all eavesdropping risk during negotiations, and surely he and his officers would require occasional private consultations with their translator. Dogma, properly safeguarded by firewalls, would take precedence over his speculative uncertainty about the AI—but he would use that connection only when necessary.

  The tactical display did a routine refresh; yet again, the number of icons increased. He could not deny the wisdom of Pashwah-qith’s advice: that the human media be manipulated to discover Victorious on final approach. The local military forces were fully occupied keeping gawkers at bay. No warships were left to shadow the auxiliary vessels he had deployed as rendezvous approached.

  He watched the lidar tracks of his support ships peeling off one by one to plunge through the dense upper atmosphere of the world called Jupiter. The stripes and cyclonic storms of the gas giant—so like K’far, the largest object in the sky above K’vith—made Mashkith’s heart ache. But that momentary sentimentality was misguided. Long before this adventure, clan Arblen Ems had been expelled to the cometary cloud, far from the race’s cradle. He set aside that bitter recollection, as he rejected all his innermost doubts about the audacity of their plans. His plans. The clan’s future began here, not on K’vith.

  Each dive increased their store of deuterium and tritium, but resupply was incidental. The auxiliary ships’ maneuvering was primarily defensive. So, too, was the precautionary charging to full capacity of the fuel-cell banks that powered the meteor-defense lasers. He thought it extremely unlikely these precautions were necessary—but he would not be Foremost if he did not reflexively assess risks, plan options, prepare for contingencies.

  Any contingency. He thrummed his throat for the attention of his tactical officer.

  “Sir?” Arblen Ems Rashk Lothwer scurried to his side with a clatter of toe talons on steel deck. Dependable, dedicated Lothwer.

  “Prisoners secured?” Mashkith’s front eyes never left the tactical display.

  “Yes, sir!” his aide agreed. “Lockdown complete. Access codes reset. No risk of interference from that source.”

  “Always some risk,” responded the Foremost. Lothwer flinched at the soft-spoken rebuke—as well he should.

  The human broadcast chattered on. “The shuttle carrying the UP delegation is settling onto the de-spun docking platform at the bow of the alien craft. The ship’s main body is rotating about twice per minute, presumably to simulate gravity for those inside. Two rotations per minute may not sound like much, but because of the ship’s size, it gives the outer surface a velocity above 150 kilometers per hour. Anyone so foolish as to attempt standing on the outer hull would instantly be flung into space!

  “In the telephoto close-up, you can see the flames of the UP shuttle’s maneuvering engines. Touchdown is imminent … the shuttle has landed.” Sensors within the docking station confirmed contact. “How tiny our courier ship seems in comparison!”

  “Rotation up,” Mashkith ordered. Shipboard instruments and human broadcasts alike showed the magnetically coupled docking platform turning faster and faster to match rotational velocities with the main body of the starship. Other magnets held the shuttle in place as the centrifugal force grew. When spins matched, the platform would again be accessible from the on-axis main airlock.

  “Lothwer,” Mashkith said. The friendly tone was meant to ease the sting from the moments-earlier rebuke. “Honor guard to assembly point. Time now for the welcoming of our guests.”

  Time now, therefore, for strict adherence to the plan.

  An unexpected bonus of Corinne’s return to the airwaves, mused Helmut, was the restoration of order on the Odyssey‘s bridge. As ship’s owner she found no value in tidiness, but as a reporter she shunned clutter in her improvised studio. Whatever worked.

  She launched into yet another recap, stalling until the diplomats disembarked from their shuttle. Helmut scarcely heard her, concentrating instead on his 3-V command display. Space around the starship swarmed with spacecraft. Four frigates from the tiny Galilean navy, Corinne had reported, were under the temporary command of a UP officer from Himalia. The prison base had provided two of its own armed vessels.

  The space-traffic-control wavelengths crackled with orders for and threats to the many civilian ships. Some vessels carried media reps, others diplomatic observers, most thrill seekers from across the many moons of Jupiter. Few from out-system had had time to arrive. Yet. Helmut frowned at the chaos.

  “To me, the starship most resembles an orbital habitat, a giant cylinder carved whole from an asteroid, hollowed, and spun up for gravity. Once again, the damaged portion of its hull rolls into view.” Corinne had cleaned herself up for the broadcast. He had forgotten she owned clothes not a mass of wrinkles. “There is surely a tale of adventure and bravery surrounding that mishap, a story this reporter will do her best to bring you.”

  The region was simply too crowded for most ships to maintain position by choice of orbit. Ships a little closer to Jupiter than the starship slowly gained on the visitor, and were repeatedly commanded to fall back. Ships a little farther from Jupiter than the starship as predictably fell behind until they pulsed their engines to c
reep nearer. Of course one speeds up by dropping to a lower orbit and slows down by rising to a higher one. Each course correction raised fresh prospects of collision. More and more pilots realized that claims of collision avoidance could mask their ever closer approach to the starship. The armed UP vessels were soon reduced to playing chicken with the boldest of the onlookers.

  At least most ships carried standard traffic-control transponders. Radar was the only means of monitoring the Snake aux ships and their swooping paths. Was their refueling need so urgent they couldn’t wait for the navy to impose order? The civilian flotilla, the UP ships trying valiantly to herd the civilians, the Snake scoopships suddenly bursting out of Jupiter’s opaque lower atmosphere, as often as not initiating a fresh cascade of evasive maneuvers … the pattern in the command display was too complex for Helmut to absorb.

  He didn’t much care for it—and there was nothing he could do about it.

  “You’re fine.” Art wanted to sound reassuring, which was hard on the fifth try.

  The dash to Jupiter, it turned out, was Keizo’s first off-world experience. Before the starship’s arrival, a xenosociologist had no special reason to leave Earth. Despite tutoring from a shuttle crewwoman and Art’s repeated assurances, Keizo exuded anxiety about the imminent spacewalk. “The K’vithians came all this way. Would it kill them to do the last twenty meters to our shuttle?”

  “Our esteemed boss says since they came so far we should do the walking.” It felt odd to agree with Chung. “Besides, won’t you learn more in their environment than in ours?”

  “Just let me gripe, okay?”

  “Check your partner,” came the order through helmet speakers. This was the official safety inspection.