“Then we'll bob-and-weave.”
“You'll what? Haven't heard that one before.”
“I think the expression originated from an archaic sport. It's far more apropos of politicorps survival. The best of us use it as a matter of daily recourse. And your father has made quite the career of it. In essence, the bob-and-weave draws from the belief that everything I do in the politicorps structure will be wrong.”
She blew smoke through her nose and removed the cigar from between her teeth. “Wrong, daddy? Since when were you …”
“Fortunately, almost never. But a belief in failure is essential to success. Far more than any mid-level hack will ever understand. Take tonight's game, for instance. I was very meticulous in putting together the stratagem. But I never lost sight of the potential backlash if any or all of the components were miscalculated.”
He winked.
Dana caught on at once, and she laughed. “You're a brilliant man. So, this is how you go about every day of your presidency?”
“Every minute. Where one trapdoor exists, another needs to be placed directly behind it. Failure is only a disgrace if you have not prepared for it.”
“I love the way you play, Daddy. Will the other trapdoors be so much fun?”
The president grabbed the cigar from her hand and tossed it over the precipice. He turned to Dana and wrapped both arms around her and held tight.
“Guaranteed, sweetheart.”
The musty presence of cigar on their breaths did not lessen the sincerity or the duration of the kiss that followed. And when their lips parted, the president quickly kissed his daughter on both cheeks, then he rested his head on her shoulder.
He looked beyond her, across the wasteland that was once the center of Bryan Drenette's power, and into the eyes of the young black woman who would never understand why she had to die.
“Guaranteed,” he whispered into his daughter's ear.
92
L
ife in the Badlands of the Dakota Territory was never easy. The march of technology only slightly lessened the effects of the harsh, soul-stripping winters that seemed to go on forever. It bit hard into the perseverance of the members of Second Sunrise. They came to value any chance to step outside their mountain enclosure.
For Adam Smith, it all came down to the stars. They hypnotized him as a child, egged him along as a student of engineering, beckoned him in the final years of Andorran's construction, and focused his sanity in the years after Marte's death. But only in these past few years of isolation did Adam move past what the stars represented and instead begun to love them simply for their sheer beauty.
On a clear night in the Badlands, he appreciated these wonders, as did his daughter, Arilynn.
Adam had not intended to bring her outside the mountain tonight – and certainly not at such a ridiculous hour. But in the aftermath of her life almost coming to an end, she needed something special.
First, he and Rand surveyed the damage on the upper platform.
“If we go straight through the night, we're looking at seven, maybe eight hours before we can restore atmospheric controls up here,” Rand was saying as he watched a handful of uptechs finishing the first stage of debris removal from outside the armory.
“Not the sight we'd have wanted for our guests,” Adam sighed.
“They don't have to see it,” Rand said. “We can route them the long way around. Use the North elevator to get them to quarters.”
“No, no. We'd have to jigger the docking protocol for New Terra. Perhaps it will be good they see this. I don't want to give them a false sense of where we stand. Andorran has been gone 34 years. I'm sure the crew can wait a few more days to really come home.”
“Or weeks.”
Adam couldn't argue with Rand's more pessimistic outlook. At this point, they simply did not know what the Andorran mission produced. A mere introduction of the crew to a stunned public would not necessarily be effective.
“So much to do,” Adam said. “This day doesn't want to end.”
“Yes. Almost midnight.”
“If all has gone well, we should hear something within the hour.”
“Straczynski is still trying to restore partial functionality to the global net. Until he does, all we've got to go on regarding PAC movement is on the Grid. We're hoping to cut down on the 24-hour expectation for …”
Adam turned away, distracted by a series of jumbled whispers. He formed an awkward smile of joy and bewilderment.
Arilynn was bathed – the ashen evidence of a surprise visit to the furnace long gone. She was dressed in a clean, white bodysuit. Her sea blue eyes focused on her father, but her lips moved wildly as the mumbles of MassGrid delirium continued unabated.
Dr. Marissa Solomon, who cared for Second Sunrise members for 12 years, hung on to Arilynn with one hand while toting a large blue parka in the other.
“I think the adrenaline of tonight hasn't quite settled,” Solomon said softly, glancing at the parka. “I thought one of your occasional walks with her would be more effective than medication.”
Arilynn reached over and grabbed the parka without looking, then stepped lively to her father, pressing the coat in between them.
Adam kissed her on a cheek and laid a delicate hand upon her bald head. “You love them, too,” he whispered and turned to Rand. “The shaft is still open?”
“Yes. Take all the time you need. We'll finish the prep.”
As he dressed his daughter in the parka and pulled the hood over her head, Adam said, “What a night. What a day it's going to be.”
The ragged terrain outside the mountain was softened in a weak, milky glow from a moon that settled well into the western sky and was not immediately visible from the eastern entry into Second Sunrise. Far away, silhouettes of the low peaks that dotted this high country stood vivid against the base of a field of countless stars.
There were no clouds, no wind. It was 5 degrees C and falling.
One arm wrapped protectively around his daughter, Adam took them 50 meters from the entrance. The ground was hard, compacted, but finding a comfortable, rock-free viewing site was not difficult.
Arilynn craned her neck as she allowed the universe to entrance her. As she sat, she was like a statue for moments at a time, and suddenly her neck would jerk as she focused on another part of the night sky. Her bottom lip continued to move in tiny, almost involuntary quivers, but the whispers of the delirium went silent.
Adam took a long breath, exhaled slowly and allowed himself to relax. He stared off into the shadows of the brush, and almost immediately his eyelids felt heavy.
“I'm becoming an old man,” he whispered into the darkness. “Tends to happen when you spend your whole life fighting history.”
Something moved. Straight ahead.
Adam caught only a glimpse of the silhouette. He was certain his eyes captured the legs and tail before what was almost certainly a wolf disappeared into the night.
A reaction came up just shy of his lips, and instead Adam was left only with a simple smile and a shake of the head. He lived in the Badlands for 19 years, and this was his first wolf sighting.
Rare animals, he convinced himself. Hiding from the world.
The reality, Adam knew, was that if he bothered to venture out of his protective mountain more often – were he not been such a paranoid recluse for two decades – he would have seen these animals often enough that just possibly, he would have known them.
Inside the mountain. Always inside the mountain.
“You're a coward, Adam Smith.”
The bitter words of Samuel Raymonds suddenly flooded the fore of his thoughts. “You just weren't man enough to confront those bastards, so you played it the only way that allowed you to stay hidden inside this mountain. You didn't have a clue how to fight the PAC then, and you don't now.”
Adam tried to tell himself the years of virtual inactivity were not a product of
lack of ingenuity or of cowardice. He thought patience was the proper course. Premature, overt actions against the PAC would have labeled them as mere terrorists, forever undermining their cause. They had no choice but to wait until history gave them the perfect opportunity to blindside the PAC.
“We had to wait,” he whispered. “Wasn't a choice.”
The mountain, he always reasoned, would be a safe house for as long as needed. They built a community, knew themselves as family. They didn't have to strike.
So, what happened when history finally allowed them to knock over the strategic tables? Thirteen of them died. Two others were in Earth orbit with no guarantee of safe return.
“This is what 19 years produced? A fool's errand?”
Again, Sam’s bitterness tortured him. But Adam was not going to allow these notions to drag him into a wallow of self-pity.
“Janise understood what she was dying for,” he whispered. “All of them did. They knew this was the time. Just like Marte. She always knew when it was time.”
He turned his eyes to the stars, and he fully expected that at any moment, one of them might begin to dart across the sky – a tiny flicker that would grow into the form of an orbital shuttle. And that shuttle, New Terra, would carry more than just Stephen Kreveld, George Cleopolous, and the crew of Andorran. It would bring more than the best hope for a needed shift in the onrush of history. Or a treasure that could finally end the reliance on this mountain.
That tiny ship, he prayed, could bring meaning.
To Marte. To Janise. Even to the miserable Sam Raymonds.
“And to you,” Adam told his daughter, who was no longer hypnotized by the stars.
“One day you’ll come back to us,” he whispered. “And when you do, I’ll give you a gift. A treasure your mother kept with her to the end. It’s called Discours de la méthode. Not just a book, Ari. It’s a dream. Our dream. It’s all that remains.”
Her head rested against his shoulder. Arilynn was asleep.
93
L
ara Singer and her four surviving crewmates were only minutes from entering Earth's atmosphere, this long and ultimately disastrous journey coming to something that resembled a merciful conclusion. As Lara sat in the cabin of the shuttle New Terra, she was sad, exhausted, confused, guilt- and grief-stricken and, with disgust, philosophical.
Our expectations were always too high. She thought. We were all so arrogant. We told ourselves we'd be the next great human pioneers. Find new worlds, new life. And they'd have a reception for the 11 of us that would top all the others. Marco Polo, Neil Armstrong, Shanna Kostapovich. We'd dwarf them all.
If we'd been humble. Thought about all the obstacles. Thought about all the luck we'd need. We never considered the consequences. This mission was never about consequences. Why? Why?
She knew it was futile to ponder what might have been.
Peter Stewart was not doing well. He was breathing, attached to the medi-kit's portable respirator. But his injuries festered for almost an hour, and his blood pressure was weakening at a slow but steady pace. There simply wasn't much Stephen Kreveld could do beyond hooking up the equipment.
The crewmates stared in desperate silence at Peter, knowing that had Olivia survived, his fate might not be an issue for debate.
He was not helped by the fact that New Terra required some fancy maneuvering by a rookie pilot and almost 30 minutes before successfully docking with Andorran's severed stern.
The pilot shouted back into the cabin from his perch in the cockpit. “Stephen, I need you. Thirty seconds to re-entry.”
“Oh, yes. Coming right up.” Stephen faced the survivors. “Won't be long, folks. Good, you're all strapped in. And, um, don't worry about Mr. Stewart. He'll hold his own. Our Dr. Solomon – she’s a good one. She'll take care of him fine.”
Once Stephen disappeared into the cockpit, Lara was struck by parallels between this moment and the nightmare of the escape from Centauri III. During the height of that awful escapade, it was Miguel Navarro who was stretched over swivels in the passenger cabin of an orbital shuttle.
Her crewmates were in the same state of shock/denial/confusion. There was, perhaps, a bit less rage in the mix – this time, Susan Morehouse had nothing to curse, no one to blame. And Peter had been the pilot who, on that day, somehow managed to fly a junkyard of a shuttle into orbital rendezvous with Andorran.
Self-appointed Captain Mifuro Nakahita closed his eyes, and Lara could only wonder about the swirl of emotions he was containing. How much of his thoughts were turned toward Japan? Toward the redemption he was so anxious to find?
Lara turned to Anatoly Tryvinski, then to Susan, who sat directly behind him. The former lovers said nothing to each other since the rescue, and Lara was not ready to deal with this rift. Anatoly helped Susan up the docking tube into New Terra, yet Susan never acknowledged him.
She needs to be told the truth about the rape, Lara thought. She needs to know it never happened. How do I tell this powerful woman she imagined everything Anatoly did to her? It has to be done. But not now. I can't. How do I explain any of this? Everything that happened to me and Fran in the core? My journey with Daniel to Centauri III?
Metal rattled as the shuttle vibrated.
“Could be bumpy,” George shouted. “But we should be through it in 35 seconds. And don't be alarmed if it gets a bit warm – had to divert power from a thermal regulator. We're properly shielded.”
Lara thought nothing of it. She already went through the worst-case orbital scenarios. And as such, those 35 seconds were gone in a virtual instant. And with them, the shuttle's vibration.
So, Lara thought. Here we are. Aren't we supposed to be excited? Shouldn't I be smiling and laughing? I waited so many years to look at the blue sky, the clouds, the sunsets.
Michaud! Miguel! Olivia! Boris! Fran!
Oh, Daniel. Did your soul find a destiny elsewhere? Were you just trying to give me some kind of comfort? I'll cry for you again. I promise.
She snapped up and removed the buckling around her. Her eyes caught Mifuro dead-on, and she smiled.
“Do you want to see?”
He shifted toward the cockpit, then nodded.
“I will,” he said, and motioned her forward.
Lara needed to see the world to which she returned as a virtual alien – the world where she would have no choice but to forge dreams very different from anything she conceived in the past 34 years.
Stephen bumped into her as he made his way back to the cabin.
“Oh, crapper. Almost took you out there. So sorry, Lara.”
“No, I'm fine. Is it safe up front?”
“Sure. Can't see why not. But mind that you sit right down and buckle yourself in. Shields are coming down any second now.”
“I will.”
She exhaled deeply and entered the cockpit.
“Is it all right?” She politely asked George, and he split his attention between her and the viop controls.
“Certainly, Miss Singer. But you'll have to strap in. We're about to begin a steep descent. Unfortunate but necessary.”
“Necessary?” She asked as she sat in the co-pilot's seat.
“Yes. To evade detection. This shuttle is equipped with what we call a wv.scan shield, which effectively cloaks us from electronic detection. The problem is the Quinnian trail left by the Sprintjet boosters. The residue doesn't hold up for long, and you've got to be looking for it to see it, but we can't chance the PAC getting a lock on our path. So, we're going steep and, I'm afraid, somewhat circuitous in our route. Will take a little longer to get there, but it's pivotal.”
Lara lost interest in George's words somewhere right after “evade detection.” As he rambled, the forward re-entry shield lowered, and the world opened up below them.
This was not the stuff of her dreams. There was no blue sky, no sunset. In a sense, it was more beautiful. Thick continents of clouds drifted as milk
y embers against the light of the moon. At first, it was almost impossible to differentiate the clouds and the land beneath them. The shuttle was coming in over the Arctic, and the ice world seemed to shimmer in ivory.
“Remarkable, isn't it?” George said, maintaining his focus on the guidance data. “Can't imagine what it must mean to you.”
“Honestly, George, I don't know what it means to me.”
That got his attention.
“Yes, it's going to be an adjustment. A great deal has happened. For everyone.”
George activated his Fountain, and a holographic display of alternate return routes flashed in succession inches from his face. Lara mumbled something, then smiled in bewilderment.
“Those things ...” she started. “I saw Stephen with one and ...”
“Oh, yes. Well, as I said, a great deal has happened. Thirty-four years can bring incredible change.”
“As we've been told,” she said. “This isn't going to be easy, is it?”
George did not look at her, and she was uncertain if he didn't want to respond or was simply caught up in his responsibilities.
“Nothing is easy anymore,” he finally uttered, then offered Lara a brotherly grin. “And there are no promises. I won't mislead you. But the fact that you're here – that the five of you made it – that’s a miracle in itself. And it has given us all a great deal of hope. I suppose it will all have to be sorted out when we get home. But you are going to make the difference for a whole lot of people. Before it's over, you'll probably look as exhausted as you do right now – but it will end. We're going to change things down there."
Lara massaged her red eyes. “Can't fault you for lack of honesty, George. And I'm sure I do look horrid.”
“Understandable. And might be about to get worse. I suspect you'll start to feel the effects of Earth's gravity right about as we finish this descent.”
She threw up her hands and offered a smile of disgusted recognition. “Oh, hell. I'd forgotten all about gravity rehab.”
Unknown Page 43
