Asimov's SF, October-November 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “As a necessary part of our maneuvers, we will soon deactivate both the main drive and the Millis-Clement field," Tereshkova continued. “This means that we will lose artificial gravity within the ship. For your safety and comfort, we ask that you return immediately to your seats. Put away all loose items, then fasten your seat straps and make sure that they are secure...."

  I located my waist and shoulder straps and buckled them into place. Outside the door, I could hear stewards moving past my cabin. “Once we enter the starbridge, the transition through hyperspace will take only a few seconds. The entire event will be displayed on your screens. However, if you are prone to vertigo or motion sickness, we strongly recommend that you switch off your screens, lean back in your seats, and close your eyes. Stewards will provide you with eyeshades if you so desire...."

  The last thing I wanted to miss was going through hyperspace. Yet I could already imagine some of the passengers making sure that vomit bags were within reach, while perhaps regretting that they'd ordered lunch only a few hours ago.

  “Once we're through the starbridge, our flight to Coyote will take another ten hours, at which point you will board shuttles for transfer to the New Brighton spaceport. In the unlikely event of an emergency, please be reminded that this ship is also equipped with lifeboats, which may be boarded from Deck 1 below you. Stewards will escort you to those lifeboats, which in turn will be operated by a crew member...."

  I couldn't help but snort at this. Although the Lee could still serve as a military vessel in a pinch, insurance underwriters on Earth had insisted that, once it was refitted as a civilian transport, certain accommodations had to be provided to insure the safety of her passengers just in case there was a catastrophic accident. I doubted that the lifeboats had been jettisoned since their test flights.

  “We will have engine shut-down in four minutes, and commence final approach to starbridge five minutes after that. For now, though, just relax and enjoy the rest of the ride. Thank you very much."

  Tereshkova's voice was replaced by classic jazz—Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain—and the image on the screen changed to a forward view: the starbridge, seen as a small silver ring illuminated by moonlight, with red and blue beacons flashing along its outer rim. It had grown to twice its original size when there was a knock on the door.

  Before I had a chance to respond, it slid open. Instead of the steward, though, a man about my own age stepped in. He wore the dark blue uniform of a Coyote Federation spacer, the insignia on his shoulder boards telling me that he was the chief petty officer.

  “Mr. Carr?” he asked. “Mr. Geoffrey Carr?"

  “Yes?” Pretending nonchalance, I gazed back at him. “May I help you?"

  “Just want to make sure that you're secure.” His gaze flitted about the cabin, as if he was searching for something. “Your belongings all stowed away?"

  “Yes, of course.” I forced a smile. “Thank you. The service has been excellent."

  “Glad to hear it, sir.” Another quick glance around the compartment, then he gave me a perfunctory nod. “Be seeing you."

  I waited until he shut the door, then I unsnapped my harness and stood up. Moving to the door, I rested an ear against the panel. I heard a voice just outside—the petty officer, speaking to someone else—but the constant thrum of the engines rendered his words unintelligible.

  I returned to my seat, fastened my harness again. Perhaps it was only a courtesy call by a senior crew member to a first-class passenger, but I didn't think so. The way he'd studied my cabin...

  Laying my head against the back of my seat, I stared out the porthole. Safe on third ... but the catcher had become wise to the play.

  Stealing home might be trickier than I thought.

  * * * *

  TWO

  Forty-six light-years in five seconds ... trouble comes knocking ... a chat with the Commodore ... truth and consequences.

  * * * *

  VI

  I watched through my cabin porthole as Starbridge Earth grew steadily larger, its gatehouse passing by so quickly that I caught little more than a glimpse of the small station that controlled access to the ring. I wasn't able to eavesdrop on communications between the gatehouse and the Lee'sbridge, but I knew that, at the five-minute mark, our AI would be slaved to the one aboard the station, ensuring that the Lee wouldn't enter the ring until, at T-minus-sixty seconds, the wormhole was formed.

  Once again, I wondered if many of the passengers appreciated the delicate yet infinitely complex ballet of quantum physics that made this miracle possible, or just how much their lives depended upon split-second calculations that only a pair of AIs could make. If everything worked right, the Lee would be transported across forty-six light-years in little more than the blink of an eye ... well, fifteen blinks of an eye, if you really want to nitpick. If anything went wrong, the ship and everyone aboard would be sucked into a singularity and reduced to a stream of subatomic particles ... at which point, the notion of using lifeboats would be too absurd to even deserve a laugh.

  I tried not to think about this, and instead sought solace in the fact that no ship had yet suffered such a fate. Even if I was in the command center—which is the place where I really belonged, not sitting in first class—there would have been little that I could've done. So I grasped my chair armrests and took slow, deep breaths as I continued to watch the monitor.

  The chronometer at the bottom of the screen had just reached the sixty-second mark when, from within the center of the ring, there was a brilliant flash of defocused light. I winced and involuntarily raised a hand to my eyes, but not before I had a retinal afterimage of every color of the visible spectrum swirling around each other as if caught in the cosmic whirlpool of the wormhole's event horizon.

  And then the remorseless hand of gravity shoved me back in my seat, and the Robert E. Lee plunged into the maelstrom.

  * * * *

  VII

  The transition through hyperspace was as violent as it was swift. I tried to keep my eyes open. Really. I wanted to see what it was like, to be shot through a wormhole like a bullet down the barrel of God's own gun, but maybe there're some things that the Great Spirit just doesn't want us to see. In any event, my eyes squeezed shut as, for the next few seconds, reality itself seemed to twist inside-out. The ship shook so hard, I thought I'd lose a molar or two, and when it turned upside-down, I opened my mouth to scream only to find myself unable to breathe. Only the pulse hammering in my ears told me that I was still alive. So I clutched the armrests and gritted my teeth, and then...

  It was over. As suddenly as it had begun, the violence ceased.

  I opened my eyes, let out my breath. On the screen, all I saw at first were stars, yet even then I noticed that their patterns weren't the same as those I'd seen only a few seconds earlier. I had an urge to retch, but managed to fight it down. Sure, I knew how to keep from throwing up, yet despite years of training and hundreds of flight-hours, hyperspace was the most grueling experience I'd ever endured.

  The screen changed a few seconds later, this time to depict a schematic diagram of the Lee moving away from a different starbridge. Tereshkova's voice came over the speaker: “We've successfully made hyperspace transition. Many apologies for any discomfort you may have experienced. We will soon restore internal gravity, and then we'll reactivate the main drive and commence the final leg of our journey. If you require assistance, please alert the nearest steward and they will help you as soon as..."

  I ignored the rest. Unfastening my harness, I pushed myself out of my seat and, grabbing hold of a ceiling rung, pulled myself closer to the porthole. The hell with what was on the screen. This was something I had to see for myself.

  For a minute or so, I saw nothing but stars, with a white sun shining just beyond my range of vision. Then the Lee rolled to port and an immense planet hove into view. Swathed by wide bands of pale blue, violet, and purple upon which nearby moons cast small black shadows, the gas giant was encircled by
silver-blue rings, so close that it almost seemed as if I could reach out and touch them.

  47 Ursae Majoris-B, the jovian locally known as Bear. And nearby, illuminated by the sunlight reflected from its outer atmosphere, its inner system of satellites. Dog was the closest, shepherding the rings. Hawk was a little farther out; Eagle was on the other side of the planet, so I couldn't see it. Yet in the far distance, little more than a small green orb, lay the fourth and most significant of Bear's companions.

  Coyote.

  Something moist touched the corners of my eyes. I tried to tell myself that they weren't tears, but when I blinked and rubbed at my eyelids, tiny bubbles rose from my face. Yeah, okay, so I'm a big wuss at heart. Perhaps tears were appropriate at that moment, though, just as they'd been for the first person who'd laid eyes upon the new world.

  I was here. After all that I'd gone through, all that I'd sacrificed ... I was here.

  The ship's bell rang four times, signaling the reactivation of the Millis-Clement field. I grasped the brass rail above the porthole and tucked the toes of my boots within the foot restraint. A minute later, there was a brief sensation of falling as weight returned, then my feet gently settled against the carpeted floor. I released the bar, but remained by the window.

  If my identity had been discovered, as I suspected, then it wouldn't be long before I knew for sure.

  I was right. A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door.

  * * * *

  VIII

  My first impulse was to open it. But that's something Jules Truffaut would've done. Geoffrey Carr, on the other hand, was a spoiled young turk with little zero-gee experience; I had to pretend to be him, if only for a little while longer.

  “Just a sec!” Pushing myself back to my seat, I buckled the lap strap, then took hold of the shoulder straps and gave them a quick twist and pull that tangled them together around my chest. A few loud obscenities for good effect, then I called out again. “Come on in!"

  The door slid open, and I wasn't surprised to see the chief petty officer who'd visited me earlier. “Thank heavens you're here!” I exclaimed, making a show of fighting with the straps. “Why these damn things couldn't be designed better, I have no idea. Could you please...?"

  He coldly regarded me for a moment, then silently nodded to someone in the passageway. Another crewman appeared; my heart sank when I saw that it was the same one whom I'd befriended on Highgate a few weeks earlier. He gazed at me, and I watched as his expression changed from astonishment to anger.

  “That's him, Mr. Heflin,” he said quietly. “Same guy."

  “Thank you, Mr. Marcuse. If you'll wait outside, please.” Mr. Heflin stepped into the cabin. “I think you know how to release your harness, Mr. Guthrie. Please don't embarrass yourself by pretending you don't."

  I can't tell you how relieved I was to hear this. Not that I wasn't dismayed that I'd been caught—I knew that was coming—but that Mr. Heflin had addressed me by my alias. My other alias, that is. This meant that no one had yet matched Lucius Guthrie's biometric profile to that of Jules Truffaut ... and that meant there was hope for me yet.

  “Certainly. Of course.” I deftly unsnarled the shoulder harness, then unbuckled the lap strap. “Yes?” I asked, looking back at him again. “May I help you?"

  “Commodore wants to see you.” He cocked his head toward the door. “Let's go."

  I could have made a fuss about this—I'd purchased a ticket, after all, so I was technically a first-class passenger—but I had little doubt that the chief petty officer could've called in a couple more crewmen and had me frog-marched to the bridge. And just then, I wanted to show that I was willing to cooperate. So I stood up and left the cabin without protest. The steward stood in her alcove, her face set in prim disapproval; past her, I caught a glimpse of second-class passengers craning their necks to see what the commotion was all about. Mr. Marcuse had the sullen expression of someone who'd been betrayed; I gave him an apologetic shrug, but he just looked away. I felt sorry for him; it would be a long time before he'd trust anyone during shore leave again.

  I was heading down the passageway, with Mr. Heflin behind me and a warrant officer waiting at the hatch, when I spotted another passenger standing in the open door of his cabin. A short, middle-aged man, with a shaved scalp and sharp eyes. He studied me as I walked past, and I was about to dismiss him as another curious bystander when he favored me with a sly wink. Almost as if he knew something that I didn't.

  This was the wrong place and time to strike up a conversation, though, and the warrant officer wasn't interested in letting me make new friends. An unnecessary shove against my shoulder, and I ducked my head slightly to exit the hatch leading from the first-class section. Now I was back in the utilitarian confines of the rest of the ship. Mr. Heflin slammed the hatch shut behind us, then the warrant officer beckoned toward an access shaft. As I began to climb the stairs, I noticed that they went downward as well, leading to Deck One.

  A useful bit of knowledge. I tried to keep it in mind.

  * * * *

  IX

  The bridge was located on Deck Three, within the superstructure that rose above the ship's bow. Although I'd seen photos of the command center during UA intelligence briefings, nonetheless I was surprised by just how small it actually was. A narrow compartment, with major flight stations on either side of a long aisle: very tight, without an inch of wasted space. Nothing like those of the Western Hemisphere Union starships that once journeyed to Coyote at sublight speeds ... but then again, the Union Astronautica weren't building them anymore, were they?

  The captain's chair was located at the opposite end of the bridge, overlooking a split-level sub-deck where the helm and navigation stations were located. Commodore Tereshkova was waiting for me; when she stood up, I almost had an urge to ask for an autograph. Or even a date. Sure, she was nearly old enough to be my mother as well, but no command-rank officer in the Union Astronautica ever wore a uniform so well.

  Then she turned glacial eyes upon me, and my sophomoric fantasies were forgotten. “Is this our stowaway, Mr. Heflin?"

  Before he could respond, I cleared my throat. “Pardon me, but..."

  “When I want to hear from you, I'll let you know.” She looked at her chief petty officer. “Mr. Heflin?"

  “Yes, ma'am. Cabin 4, first-class section, just where the passenger manifest said he would be.” He paused. “He came quietly, without any resistance."

  “And you have no idea how he got aboard?"

  “No, ma'am. When Ms. Fawcett double-checked the manifest, she discovered that his ticket hadn't been scanned at the gangway. It was processed at the gate, but not..."

  “Let me save you a little time,” I said. “I slipped aboard through the cargo airlock, right after I ejected from the pod I was driving. If you send a man down to check, he'll find my suit in the ready room. Second locker from the left, if I..."

  “We already know you're a longshoreman.” Perturbed by the interruption, Tereshkova glared at me. “That we learned when we matched your ticket against Highgate's employment records. In fact, we had you pegged as a stowaway even before we went through the starbridge.” She returned to Mr. Heflin. “Have someone go down to Airlock Five and see if he's telling the truth."

  The chief petty officer nodded, then touched his headset mike and murmured something. “Excuse me, ma'am,” I said, “but if you knew I was a stowaway, then..."

  “It took some time.” A faint smile. “Your steward became suspicious after she noticed that there were no carry-on bags in your cabin. This was, of course, after she found you wandering around the passenger section. She checked the cargo records, and when she discovered that you hadn't checked any baggage, she alerted the chief petty officer. The two of them accessed the passenger database, and that's when they realized that you weren't the same person who'd checked in at Highgate. So Mr. Heflin pulled up the IDs of everyone who works at the station, and when your face came up, he put it on the crew d
ata screens. Mr. Marcuse recognized you as someone he'd met while on shore leave, and that was when Mr. Heflin decided to pay you a visit."

  “But by then,” I said, “the ship was already on final approach for the starbridge. Too late to turn back then, right?” She blinked, but said nothing. “Well, at least I got that far..."

  “Too far, so far as I'm concerned. We'll have to review our security procedures.” Tereshkova sighed, then resumed her seat. “Good work, Mr. Heflin,” she said as she picked up a datapad. “Please extend my compliments to Ms. Fawcett and Mr. Marcuse as well. Now, if you'll summon the warrant officer back to the bridge, I think Mr. Guthrie would like to see his new quarters."

  “And you don't want to know why I'd go through so much trouble?” I tried to remain calm, even as I heard Heflin mutter something else into his headset. “After all, I purchased a ticket. That means I'm not a..."

  “Without bona fide ID or a valid visa, you're whatever I say you are.” Tereshkova was quickly losing interest in me. So far as she was concerned, I was little more than a nuisance. “Hope you enjoyed our first-class accommodations. I regret to say that the brig isn't nearly as comfortable."

  “My name isn't Lucius Guthrie.” Straightening my shoulders, I stood at attention. “I'm Ensign First Class Jules Truffaut, formerly of the Union Astronautica, Western Hemisphere Union. I hereby request political asylum from the Coyote Federation."

  Tereshkova's gaze rose from her pad, and the navigator and helmsman darted curious glances at me from over their shoulders. I couldn't see Mr. Heflin, but I could feel his presence as he took a step closer. All at once, the bridge had gone silent, save for the random boops and beeps of the instrument panels.