Joan D Vinge - Lost in Space

by Unknown

  Will frowned. Her body became an ape's.

  Just then his mother yanked open the closet door. Light poured into his cramped hideout, exposing his covert activities. Will grinned up at her.

  Mom shook her head, her expression stalled between aggravation and laughter. "No more monkey business," Mom said, as sternly as she could manage through the unproductive urge to smile back at him.

  Will shrugged, and fiddled with his deck. Out in the living room the principal was suddenly herself again, still droning on, utterly oblivious.

  "…but the boy is starved for attention. I know your life is anything but normal right now, but was there no way his father could have attended the science fair?"

  Will sighed, and his smile disappeared.

  John Robinson stared out the window of his office in the elevated dome of Houston Space Command, and sighed. The view from the thirty-story structure of the Jupiter Mission launch platform was panoramic, letting him see the vast urban sprawl of the Houston-Austin-Dallas mega-tropolis extending beyond even the horizon under a dark, wet sky. Immense industrial air purifiers drifted high above, like the bizarre ships of an invading alien armada.

  If he turned 180 degrees, he would see the same sight, where Houston-Austin-Dallas merged imperceptibly into its sister city beyond the Mexican border. He glanced at his watch, wishing he could be anywhere else; wishing most of all that he could be home with his family, today of all days.

  But he was doing this for his family. What he wanted right now wasn't important; what he wanted would have to wait.

  "Professor Robinson — " The hundred separate voices all calling his name at once penetrated his thoughts by their sheer volume. "Can you confirm reports that Global Sedition attacked the hypergate last night? Is that why the mission has been pushed up?"

  "Urn… sorry?" John turned, tugging absently at his beard as he faced the monitor in front of him. A mob of reporters jostled for position on its screen. All waiting to talk to him.

  The media had been given short notice about this much-hyped guided tour, which had been moved up along with everything else; but in spite of that, it didn't look like anyone at all had refused the invitation. The crowd was a living portrait of the human race: The varieties of skin color and hairstyles and clothing he saw among them reminded him that they had come from every part of the globe for this event—because if the Jupiter Mission succeeded, it would change the future of the entire world. Because if it didn't, the world might not have a future…

  He shook his head, hoping that he only seemed to be clearing it, and not letting his subconscious express how he really felt about facing the relentless curiosity of billions of watchers. "Sorry, you'll have to ask the War Department. As far as I know, we're leaving tomorrow because celestial rotations have produced a preferable launch window."

  The lie came out so smoothly that it shocked him, as if Media Relations had reprogrammed his brain without his knowing it, to match his digitally perfect image in their ads. It was a wonder anyone recognized him in a live broadcast.

  "So, let's begin." He pressed on before anyone could badger him for nonexistent details. If he could just get their attention back on the mission itself, they might forget about the new launch date, at least until it had become a meaningless question.

  The media were already on board Jupiter, ready to begin their tour. The crowd filled Engineering nearly to capacity—a sea of human faces dotted with the empty humanoid stares of the 3D/VR cams. Watchful ASOMAC guards ringed the crowd; the utilitarian black of their military uniforms made a pragmatic comment on the colorful excess of the media's streetwear. The plasma rifles they carried made a more pointed comment about any questionable behavior on the part of their guests.

  Beyond the mob of reporters, John could see the stolid, gleaming drive technology of the nuclear-electrics, and the sleek, streamlined tech of the long-range fusion engines. Red-hatted technicians were running final systems checks on the banks of displays around the hyper-drive—the true heart of his lifelong dream.

  "As you know," he said, slipping inside the speech he now knew by rote, "Alpha Prime is the only habitable planet yet detected by Deep Space Recon. My crew will sleep away our ten-year journey there in suspended animation." His crew—his family. The surreal feeling that he had become two different men with the same name washed over him again. "Once we have rendezvoused with the research colony on Alpha, I will surpervise construction of a hypergate."

  A computer-generated image of the hypergate appeared on the monitor's screen—what viewers everywhere were seeing now. He smiled at the vision of his infradimensional theorems made real.

  He'd first had the idea that would lead to this moment when he was only a boy. He had spent the decades since then trying to make it work, first in computer simulation, and then in the far more unforgiving arena of outer space. Sometimes he had wondered if he would ever live long enough to see it through. He had almost given it up as futile, more than once.

  It had been Maureen's faith in him, their love for each other and for their children, that had kept him believing in his dream of a better future—a dream that had come to include not just their own family, but all families…

  "By then, technicians here on Earth will have completed the companion hypergate in our planet's orbit." Now his words were matched to a visual of the gate already under construction in near-Earth space, the image enhanced by graphic overlays showing its completed form. "Once both gates are complete, ships will be able to pass instantaneously between them. Immediate colonization of Alpha Prime will be possible."

  "Can't you just use the Jupiter's hyperengine to zap straight to Alpha Prime?" another reporter asked.

  Doesn't the press ever read the PR releases about this mission? He felt as if he had been answering these same questions endlessly, for years; wasting time that could have been spent working constructively on the project… or even spent at home with his wife and children. He swallowed his impatience, and said, "As you know, hyperspace exists 'beneath' normal space. If you try to enter hyperspace without a gate"—behind him the graphics produced a spaceship, positioned randomly in the corner of a turning schematic of the galaxy—"your exit vector is random. There's no telling where you'd come out. Ninety-eight percent of the galaxy is still uncharted. There's a lot of space to get lost in out there."

  "Professor," someone else shouted, "how is Captain Daniels recovering from the flu? Will he still be able to pilot the mission?"

  John glanced away. General Benjamin Hess, the military commander in charge of the project—and his father's longtime friend—stood silently in the doorway to his office, observing and listening to the interview. Help me out here, Ben.

  Hess stepped forward as if on cue into the sight of the reporters onscreen. "Ladies and gentlemen, you came to get a look at the Jupiter One," he said, smiling. "Don't you think you've waited long enough?"

  Relieved, John touched a button on his desk, and the room went dark. The immense display screen set up in his office specifically for this occasion came alive, showing the watching reporters an image of the launch area.

  The enormous saucer-form ship rested on its launch pad, still firmly bound to the earth by a maze of gantries, fueling systems, and loading belts. Steam and venting gases shrouded it with ephemeral clouds.

  "Professor"—some reporter asked, before he could escape—"how do your children feel about leaving Earth behind?"

  John paused, and smiled. "They couldn't be more excited."

  Chapter T in □

  "This mission sucksl" The voice of Penny Robinson, fourteen and furious, echoed down the stairwell of the Robinson family's large suburban colonial.

  And probably all through the neighborhood, too, Maureen Robinson thought wearily, looking up the stairs at her screaming daughter.

  Penny stood at the top, dressed in black from head to foot, as if she were in mourning; though Maureen knew that it was simply her preferred mode of dress. Her daughter's clothes and mood
were the antithesis of the cheerful pastels Penny was always shown wearing in the computer-enhanced mission portraits, where the whole family looked like they had been extruded from a plastics factory.

  "I don't want to leave early! I don't want to go at all!" Penny shouted, as if light-years separated them, instead of twenty-odd steps.

  "We'll talk about this over dinner—" Maureen repeated, feeling by now as if she could have recited the words in her sleep, and probably had.

  Penny clenched her fists, still shouting, "For the last three years I have missed everything, training so I can spend the next ten years missing everything else! I am not staying home for dinner. I am going out to see my friends. I am going to say good-bye to my entire lifel"

  "Penny," Maureen struggled to keep her tone firm and even, to keep the same kind of anger and exasperation out of it. "I need you home tonight." She shook her head.

  Penny glared daggers at her mother, shaking her own head as she retreated into the shadows of the hallway. Mom stood unmoving and unmoved at the bottom of the stairs, guarding the front door like an ogre.

  Penny turned and stormed off down the hall, fighting tears as she activated her cam/watch. "On the eve before she is torn from all she knows," she dictated, "kidnapped, hurled into deep space against her will, what thoughts fill the mind of the young Space Captive …?"

  She passed the doorway to her own room and barged uninvited into the bedroom of her younger brother.

  Will looked up with a scowl of annoyance. He stood in the middle of a sea of toys and science experiments, holding onto a single empty packing canister, the last one labled PERSONAL CARGO. The posters on his walls, the CDs in their rack, the lab equipment on his shelves… even the replica of a Great White shark's head and the weird green thing with the lizard hanging from his ceiling… were still untouched.

  He looked, she thought, like someone being forced to abandon ship, trying to choose which precious items from all his worldly goods he would take with him. Which, in a way, he was.

  " 'Will there be boys on Alpha Prime?' " Will said theatrically, talking through his nose as he tried to mimic her voice. " 'What will I wear?'"

  She glared at him. Then she looked down at her cam/watch. "In the future," she said, "the video journals of Penny Robinson, Space Captive, will be devoured by millions. I will be world famous." She looked back at her brother. "You, on the other hand, will be totally forgotten." Will frowned.

  Penny resumed her narrative, satisfied. Holding the camcorder out where it could scan her other arm, she recorded the black sleeve of her shirt, which was adorned with ribbons from wrist to shoulder. "The Space Captive has decided to wear ribbons of support for fellow sufferers, green for ecological issues, white for human rights—"

  "Wait until your arm drops off from lack of circulation," Will said sullenly.

  Penny ignored him. Shutting off her cam, she began to rummage in the packed boxes sitting along the wall. She found a vacuum-sealed bundle and lifted it out. "I wonder what it'll be like to jettison your body into deep space… ?" She turned back to him, fixing him with an ominous gaze. "First you'll try holding your breath. But your blood's already begun to boil. Then your skin inflates like a balloon. And pop't Space soup."

  Will's face wrinkled up like a prune. "Do they have a name for what's wrong with you?" he said.

  Penny pulled one of several palm-sized, gold-plated stars out of the crate, and turned it over in her hand to read the inscription: FIRST PRIZE. They all said "first prize." Probably for Best Nerd, she thought. Her brother had no life. Using a sharp-edged arm of the medal, she deftly slashed open the plastic on the mystery bundle. She handed the star to Will.

  "Dad says don't bring them…" Will said, looking down. He tossed the medal aside like a used tissue. "Like anything I do matters to him."

  Penny felt a sudden pang of empathy. The same thought had been in her mind lately more often than she could count. "Don't sweat it, kid," she said casually, trying to snap them both out of their mood. "I got videos for two birthdays, and he forgot last year completely." She reached out to give him a brief hug. "This mission is the only thing he cares about anymore." She stepped back, unwrapping and uncoiling her mystery bundle: the mesh ladder she had hidden here for exactly this situation. She tossed it out the open window and got ready to climb down.

  Will looked on in amazement, surprised by the hug as much as by his sister's resourcefulness. "So, that's a no to family dinner?"

  Penny turned back, giving him the usual pained expression. "Let's see," she said, tapping her forehead. "Do I spend my last night on Earth watching Mom and Dad pretend not to be fighting again, or blow ten years worth of allowance at the mall… you do the math." She turned away again and put a leg over the win-dowsill. Her foot thumped the siding on the outer wall, searching for a rung of the ladder.

  Will grimaced. "Mom's gonna go thermal."

  Penny laughed. "What's she gonna do? Ground me?"

  She swung her other leg over the sill. Inch by inch she disappeared downward, until all he could see in the window's frame was the summer dusk.

  Will stood shaking his head, where way too many thoughts and feelings lay tangled inside his brain. His sister always seemed to be off in some imaginary world, making up adventures starring herself. He'd told Mom that Penny should become a writer; then she could be lost there all the time, and still make a living. The sooner she left home, the better he'd like it.

  But now here they were, all leaving home; and they didn't even have any choice. Suddenly he could barely swallow because of the lump in his throat. No wonder Penny was acting out her daydreams: real life had become totally unreal. He kneeled down again, and went back to sorting toys.

  Chapter Three

  John Robinson walked beside General Hess down the echoing metal corridor of Space Command headquarters, wondering whether he would still see metal corridors when he closed his eyes tonight to sleep. He had seen them every previous night…

  "Did all the preflight checks show ready?" Hess asked him.

  John glanced up. "Ready as we can be," he said, a little irritably. "We've pushed this mission up three months, Ben."

  "We're lucky those reporters didn't press us on Daniels's condition," Hess murmured, staring straight ahead, as if John's answers were not really of any significance.

  John suddenly wondered whether Hess slept with his eyes open. "I'm worried about jamming in a new pilot at the last second," he said, pressing his argument more insistently. You're putting my family at risk. But he didn't say that.

  "The Global Sedition is getting brave. They're not just renegade terrorist factions any more," Hess said, as if that was all the response his concern needed. "First the hypergate. Then Daniels. Next time, they may attack the launch dome. We can't afford to wait."

  John didn't answer, knowing there was no point. He knew how Hess's mind worked —just like his father's had: Duty first. The big picture… He also knew how a career officer, focusing on constant threats of war, could find his definition of "the big picture" getting progressively narrower.

  John had access to the same information—most of it classified —that Hess did. And there was something else he had learned from his father: how to read a report in which the real truth lay hidden between the lines. The Global Sedition was too well-equipped, too well organized, to be simply a "terrorist supergroup"—there were even rumors that they were secretly constructing their own hypergate. Terrorists were extremists. The idea that they would cooperate with other extremists of a different sociopolitical stripe was highly unlikely.

  He was sure something subtler, and more dangerous, lay behind the attacks on this mission. Something like a conspiracy of multinationals—the vastly powerful, internationally based corporations that had made fortunes stripping the natural resources and exploiting the people of all but the richest nations; whose uncontrollable greed had left their homeworld all but unhabitable.

  Who might be looking to the stars for future profit
s.

  It was a scenario he found much easier to believe; especially when a multinational corporation already had the resources to co-fund the Jupiter's voyage to Alpha Prime.

  Whoever was behind the sabotage, he wasn't going to let them win. Not when the hypergate might be the last chance for the survival of every living thing on Earth. He thought of his family again, of all they were sacrificing… of how much he loved them. Too much to leave them behind…

  And as he thought of them, a nagging, misplaced memory surfaced in his brain. "Damn!" he said out loud. "Will's science fair." He activated the memo function on his watch. "Reminder: apology video for Will."

  "He'll understand." The General glanced at him with a smile and a lift of his eyebrows.

  John forced a smile in return, answering Hess's unspoken question. But the smile never touched his eyes. He looked away again. "I agree a military presence may be necessary now, Ben. But my family's on this mission. I need a pilot who's more than just spit and polish — "

  "I've got your man," Hess said confidently. He stopped, pressing his palm against an ID panel. "He just doesn't know it yet." A door hissed open, revealing an empty conference room.

  Not quite empty. A lone figure waited by the windows on the far side of the room, staring out at the darkening sky. Something about the way he stood made John think of a bird of prey trapped in a cage.

  The man turned as he heard them enter, and saluted smartly. He wore a major's eagles, and an asomac patch with the name WEST, on the black leather jacket of his duty uniform.

  Brown hair, blue eyes, medium build… the only remarkable thing John could see about Major West was that the man was young enough to be his son. He found the thought depressing.

  Hess returned the salute. "At ease, Major."

  West's mouth opened even before his hand fell away to his side, as if he had been holding back a flood of words by sheer willpower. "Sir, why was I pulled off active duty? Those cybertechs may attack again. I need to be up there—"