Analog SFF, July-August 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  All Don heard from the other end was squawks and gabble. “No baggage,” he said and made show of his sling bag. “Just this.”

  “Love you too,” Scarborough said, thumbed off, and pouched the phone. “A minder is ... well, the next few days you'll be meeting a number of people in a very public way. A webcasters conference, of course; the news service people are mostly a sedate lot, but some of the op-edders can be terribly obstreperous. Agendas of their own and wanting to put words in your mouth. All that bother. And President Habib wants a video op. Same for the House and Senate committees. We need to schedule those. Landmark moment, after all these years...”

  “It's not done yet,” Don said. “Five hundred thirty-three still up there, if some haven't died since I last heard. Don't want to forget them.”

  Scarborough appeared to bite a lip. “My understanding...” He unpouched his unit and touched up a code. “...the Schiaparelli took eighteen on board three months ago and is on the way, and the Lowell will dock at Mars Synch Two in about three weeks and should be able to take another twenty one. Same for the Bradbury, also en route outbound.”

  “Means a long wait for some,” Don said. “And some, too sick to travel. What's to be done about them?” Hard questions. He hadn't planned to bring them up so soon; probably this man wasn't the one to talk to, either.

  “Still a lot of work to be done,” Scarborough admitted, too quickly. “I understand the repatriation schedule has been structured as efficiently as ship capacity and the orbital situation allows.”

  “Mars Petro had eight ships,” Don said. “What happened to the other four?” Useless to negotiate with this functionary; other people made the decisions. Regardless, things had to be said. Over and over. Until things got done.

  “My understanding,” Scarborough said, and checked his unit, “to replace Mars Synch and restore the cable skein, the best judgment was that four ships would be adequate. The other four would have been excess capacity.”

  Don quirked something that could pass for a smile, but let silence speak. Mars Petro had gone into receivership only days after Mars Synch fell out of orbit; something like half a year later, after haggling, the bankruptcy trustees sold the Burroughs and the Schiaparelli to Space Administration for the relief program. Later, when the repatriation project was authorized, Space Administration bought the Lowell and the Bradbury, but not the remaining four. Who did the deciding—and why—Don hadn't heard. That he and his people up there had been beggars dependent on the generosity of ... well, he wasn't sure exactly who ... made him stay quiet. He'd had to make a few hard choices himself.

  “Right now they're mothballed,” Scarborough said. “With the infrastructure between here and Mars Toehold restored, there's talk of reviving Mars Petro. Or possibly a new corporation. Certainly their market value—not to mention the four we hold—is greater now than it was.” “The trustees wouldn't sell?” Don asked. “Wanted too much, maybe?”

  “It's possible they were looking ahead,” Scarborough said. “I don't know. I only came to Space Ad eight years ago, so it was before my time.”

  “Long time for money people to hold their breath,” Don said.

  “I'm told Rome wasn't built in a day because the cost estimate was out of line,” Scarborough said. “Old joke. But there's times it makes sense to be patient. Mars Petro was a long-term development, I seem to recall.”

  Don had to nod. Let it go, he decided. For now.

  “But I was explaining my own function,” Scarborough said, and pouched his unit. “A minder is to help you negotiate the ... call it a labyrinth, in which persons not accustomed to being public figures find themselves. For example, you'll be meeting with the web people. The mainline services will be mostly interested in factual material, but the op-edders ... you have to understand, a lot of them cater to audiences with preconceived notions. Frequently, I'd have to say, they're rather paranoid. They'll ask questions in a way that, so they hope, you'll answer with words that tend to confirm some rather outlandish theories. Even if they have to carefully select from what you actually say.”

  “Such as...?” Don asked warily. Did this man hope to tell him what he should say instead of actual facts?

  Scarborough pursed lips, as if to gather all threads of thought into one handful. “Well,” he said, “most of the theories center around what really happened. One holds that Mars Petro was an elaborate swindle; that the prospect of ever showing a profit was either small or nonexistent, and that the organizers schemed to pay themselves huge salaries while establishing the necessary infrastructure—that would be the magnet ships, the Mars Synch station, the cable skein, and the facilities at Toehold; all that—and then, intentionally, allowing Mars Synch's orbit to degrade. The corporation would be essentially ruined, at which point the organizers would walk away with all those years of executive salary in their pockets.”

  “I'm supposed to know something about that?” Don asked.

  “You won't be asked directly,” Scarborough said. “They'll ask what you know about the skein coming down. What you think made it happen and so forth.”

  “Uh huh.” Don thought it through. “Seems to me, Space Administration spent two, three years looking into that and came out with a report too big to drop on your foot. I looked at the summary. Nothing I'd argue with.”

  “Meaning you agree? That's what they'll ask.”

  Don shrugged. “Don't know. I'm to argue with seventeen professors from big universities and people who've done real work? While they were poking around, us up there were trying to stay alive. Why it happened wasn't what mattered.”

  “The Special Commission's report would have been a government product,” Scarborough said. “Therefore, in the opinion of the people you'll be dealing with, automatically suspect.”

  “About that, you'd know more than me,” Don said.

  “Exactly,” Scarborough said, and grimaced.

  “Also,” Don went on, “seems like I remember, Shuster and company took a lot of their pay in stock options.”

  “Which they could exercise. A lot of them did, and then sold on the open market at a hefty profit. You need to remember, people who've lost money on an investment don't always think clearly, and people like Bilakis and Jack Sato came away with more in the bank than when they started. By quite a large margin. Shuster, well, it's a bit more murky. But the point is, the theory tends to fit the known facts.”

  “Uh huh.” Don let it rest a moment. “Well, I'd say I don't have anything to add to all that, it's speculative, and it happened down here. We were up there. All right, I'm warned.”

  “There's some other theories,” Scarborough said. “That it was sabotage by some outside group. The popular targets are either a petrochemical mining company down here who wanted to eliminate a competitor, or some bunch of whackos that didn't like the natural beauty of Mars being spoiled. Other targets, pick your hobby horse and there's someone who'll take you serious.”

  “Natural beauty?” Don wondered. He gave it a half smile. “Got sort of tired looking at it, to tell the truth.”

  “Looks best from a distance,” Scarborough said with dry inflection.

  Don shrugged. “Like I said, we had more important things. You're worried they'll stuff words in my mouth? Make me say something they can grab and run with?”

  “I'm saying beware of questions that suggest a phrase for your reply. Also, questions based on incorrect assumptions.”

  “Do I have to talk to these people?”

  “They will want to,” Scarborough said. “And until they've had the satisfaction they can be terribly obnoxious. They'd claim you're concealing something. Therefore, best to have it over and done with.”

  Don gave it thought. “So you want me to tell them...?”

  “I'm here to advise you what the game will be. Not to instruct what you should say.”

  “And you work for...?”

  “Space Administration, Office of the Mars Repatriation Project.” He fished in his p
ouch. “My card.”

  With a practiced hand he flipped open a credentials wallet to show a reasonably standard 3D mug shot and thumbprint ID, data chip embedded in the lamination. The holographic eagle and shield looked official; without a hand unit of his own Don had no way to make sure. Neither did he know what new techniques of fakery had emerged while he was away. “And you're holding my travel tickets, reservations? All that?”

  “Understand, we have no brief about what you should tell them. We only want to see the business conducted in orderly fashion. The op-edders ... we're confident that, regardless what information you give out, few minds will be changed.”

  About that he was probably right. Don let it go. He'd have preferred to just vanish into the mass of humanity, but it had been a long time since he had control of his life. “So do we get on with it?” he asked.

  * * * *

  III

  Scarborough checked that he had everything properly pouched, then got to his feet. “Baggage?” he asked, and took a tentative step toward the claim area.

  “Traveling light,” Don said, and made show of his sling bag.

  “But...?” Whether question or simple disbelief, Scarborough failed to make clear.

  “Anything I had,” Don said, “my people needed up there. No such thing as personal stuff.”

  “Uh...” Scarborough let a few heartbeats pass while he adjusted his mind. “Yes,” he said at last, turned, and started off in another direction. “We go this way.”

  Not toward one of the broad, long walkways leading to boarding gates, Don saw. Well, he supposed Scarborough knew what he was doing. Breaking free of the crowds, they passed through a gated portal—AUTHORIZED PERSONS ONLY in five languages—that gave way to Scarborough's thumb, then down the spiral ramp beyond. Footfalls whispered in the silence. Softly Don's mobility whirred. Out of long habit, he adjusted its power system to recapture mode; energy lost to friction braking would be gone forever and, up there on Mars, wasted energy would have meant less oxygen to breathe, less heat to warm the bones. Also, possibly, a morsel less to eat. “Where...?” he asked.

  “Our plane's down here,” Scarborough said. He took out his phone. “Fred?” he said into it. “We're on our way. You can start the preflight.”

  The phone gabbled a few quick words in reply; Don couldn't make them out. He told himself it didn't matter. “Not a commercial flight?” he wondered. “All I asked for was...”

  “We decided this would serve us better,” Scarborough said as he returned the phone to his pouch. “You're not what we'd think of as an ordinary traveler.”

  Don could think of a dozen objections, but he let them die. At the bottom of the ramp another gate yielded to Scarborough's thumb. “He's with me,” Scarborough said to the uniformed man who stepped into their path with a hand drifting close to a sidearm, and flipped out his ID.

  Without a word the man moved aside.

  They emerged into sunlight. Don felt a warm touch of breeze that took him a moment to make sense of. Commonplace, he realized then, and felt dumb. Down close to the horizon, cottonball clouds crowded like a herd of sheep. Far to his left, made threadlike by distance, the twin skeins of cable traced upward until lost in haze. At eyeball level, the land sprawled emptily.

  Almost like Mars, Don thought, but here his wheels rolled on grey pavement; up there he hadn't needed wheels. At the horizon's edge he could make out touches of green.

  “Over here,” Scarborough said, and nodded to their right. Several aircraft of assorted design and color trim hunched down on their hulls like cattle at rest in the day's heat. “Number three.”

  Number one was a module hauler being fitted with a freight pod, the pod's logo not the same as the one on the hauler's nose. Number two was a blunt nosed whale body merely taking up space like a fallen log of outrageous dimensions. Only when they'd gone past that one did Don see more than the knife blade prow of number three. Sleek and somehow a sinister outline, silver metal glossed to a mirror finish, and all sharp angles. Stubby retractable wings like the fins on a fish. Don's thumb on the control of his mobility flinched, making it surge and subside. “That?”

  “Somebody decided you deserve the best,” Scarborough said.

  Don wasn't sure it was the best, or what the best might be. He halted his mobility to look up at it. “It flies?” he asked finally.

  “They tell me it can do figure eights around a mosquito,” Scarborough said.

  Don did a rough calculation in his head. A thing like this probably went suborbital. “Big figure eights,” he decided.

  “Maybe they exaggerate,” Scarborough said. “It's not my department.”

  “Where we going?” The deep suspicion he was being controlled could no longer be ignored.

  “DC,” Scarborough said. “Does it matter?”

  “All I asked, travel to a good medical center with a GI specialist,” Don said.

  “Bethesda,” Scarborough said. “You're all set up.”

  “Isn't that government?”

  “So? You qualify.”

  To Don that was news. He tried to wrap his mind around it, but it fitted poor. “Among other things,” Scarborough said, “they're wanting to check out all you survivors. Something like twenty years in low G, cosmic rays, and ultraviolet. All that with malnutrition and a chronic shortage of medical supplies. Lots of other nonstandard factors. Stuff to be learned, they tell me.”

  Don could think of a thousand objections, but his situation didn't give a whole lot of choice. “I get any say about all this?”

  “I didn't make the decisions,” Scarborough said. “Something wrong?”

  Don didn't know if there was or wasn't. Bethesda, he supposed, was as good a place as he could ask for, and things learned might help the people still up there. “Well...” he said, and shrugged it away. “How we get into this thing?”

  “Boarding steps, around the other side,” Scarborough said, started to move, but stopped. “I don't think anyone thought...” He let eyes dwell on Don's mobility.

  “Maybe I can,” Don said, and rolled himself forward to where he could see. Midway back along the aircraft's long body, the boarding steps arched up, bent like a feeding insect, and descended to an open hatch. “Can give it a try,” he decided.

  It took effort, and each small step he had to plan. At the foot of the steps he forced himself to sit up straight, got feet under him, and with a deliberate heave made it all the way to a standing posture in one quick coordination of moves. Bone, then, could take some of the strain. Gripping the handrails of the steps on both sides helped too. After a deep breath, he levered himself one step upward. Then again with the other foot. Then the first foot again. Using arms as well as legs, step by step, he made it up, paused for breath, then carefully let himself down through the hatch, which was no larger than it had to be. All those hours in the Burroughs' exercise compartment had been worth it, after all.

  Inside, the cabin looked more capacious than possible, given the aircraft's external dimensions. Softly upholstered armchairs waited in apparently random arrangement; gratefully, Don sank into the first he could get to. Scarborough, who had come up behind, came past and took one facing him. Don looked around; no windows—suborbital craft kept such amenities to a minimum—but large display screens forward and on either side, blank for the moment. Presumably they'd give an outside view once they were aloft. The closed door left of the forward display would lead to the cockpit, he assumed.

  As if to confirm, it opened. A dark face showed. “Mist’ Scarborough? We're ready any time, ‘cept for runway clearance. Shall I?”

  “Shake hands with Don Tenbrook,” Scarborough said. Something close to astonishment showed. “The Mars man? That's who we came for?” He stepped all the way into the cabin. Almost timidly he extended his hand. “Really?” Don lifted his arm. “Sorry not to stand,” he apologized. “The gravity here...”

  “Hey, man. Sure.” His grip gentled; Don responded with all the strength he had.
r />   “You're...?”

  “Fred Ramsey,” Scarborough said. “Our pilot.”

  “I'll try to keep the G force down,” Ramsey said. “Just the necessary.” He turned eyes to Scarborough. “Can I talk about this?”

  “It's not confidential,” Scarborough said. “He'll be meeting the web people when we land.”

  It was news to Don, but he kept a straight face.

  “Oh, my boy will be excited,” Ramsey said. And to Don, “You're one of his big heroes.”

  “Nothing heroic about it,” Don said. “Just a long, hard job.”

  “Sometimes that's what it takes,” Ramsey said. He sounded puzzled.

  “Ask for runway clearance,” Scarborough said.

  Ramsey grinned. “A pleasure.” Then, to Don, he corrected himself. “An honor, sir.” When Ramsey had returned to the cockpit, Scarborough fished out his unit again. “Need to make sure we have our information right,” he explained. “Some of the webbers will expect a handout; too busy to look things up. Born in Alliance, Nebraska? In ‘27?”

  “Correct. Sort of,” Don said. “'Liance is where the hospital was. And the county seat, except it was one county over, if you know what I mean, so that's where the records got kept. Our spread was something like an hour out of town.” Wry smile. “By road that is. If the weather was good.” Not sure an urbanite could understand about weather, he paused to let it sink in.

  “And that's where you learned self reliance?”

  Funny way to put it, Don thought. “That's not really it,” he decided. “It's...” He tried to put the idea together. “Well, it's like when Mr. Ungrodt up the road broke his leg. We went out and found him—if he hadn't had his phone, he'd have been there till spring—and took a door out of his house to slide under him—Pops and m'brother did that; I just held on to his leg, and him yelling and fighting—strapped him down and loaded him in back of the bucketer with a couple of sofa cushions under it, and—”

  Scarborough was pecking notes into his unit. “Bucketer?” he asked. “Standard range vehicle. Go anywhere, do anything. If you ever rode in one, you'd know why it's called that.”