Uranus

by Ben Bova

  “Do you think so, too?”

  He nodded, but said, “Zworkyn pointed out that there’s no real evidence that Uranus got knocked sidewise at that time. It’s mostly conjecture. But it does add up, really. I mean that’s when the Late Bombardment took place.”

  Raven murmured, “If everybody else thinks that’s when it happened…”

  “Everybody but Zworkyn.”

  “And he’s not really a scientist, is he? He’s just an engineer.”

  Tómas almost frowned. “Engineers have brains, you know.”

  Raven smiled at him. “Not like yours, Tómas.”

  * * *

  Noel Dacco smiled handsomely at Evan Waxman. “As far as I can see, Evan, you’re running a smooth operation.”

  Dacco was sitting in one of the guest chairs in front of Waxman’s desk. Waxman smiled back at him, but he was thinking, This man is making a nuisance of himself. He’s obviously been sent here to check on my operation. Maybe the distributors back on Earth want to ease me out of the Rust production operation, put their own person in to replace me. Maybe I should send this black blowhard back to them in a fancy coffin.

  “I’m glad you approve of the way I’m running things,” Waxman said, keeping his smile in place.

  “One thing, though,” said Dacco, his face growing serious.

  “Oh?”

  “Raven.”

  “Raven?” Waxman repeated.

  “She’s being coy with me. Is there anything you can do to … uh, loosen her up?”

  “She’s no longer in my employ. She’s attached herself to that young astronomer from Chile.”

  “Gomez.”

  “Yes. The one who’s stirred up this hullabaloo about the destroyed city down at the bottom of the sea.”

  Just a hint of frown lines appeared between Dacco’s brows. “I’m supposed to be doing a major piece about him for CAJO.”

  Waxman thought, Honest work? How unusual.

  “About Raven,” Dacco reminded.

  “Ah yes. Raven,” Waxman temporized. “Very independent woman.”

  “I know that. But you promised me that you could, ah, break through her defenses.”

  Waxman nodded. “I’ll take care of it, don’t worry.”

  “But I do worry, Evan. I can’t stay here much longer. I have obligations back Earthside, you know.”

  “And the article you have to write about Tómas Gomez.”

  “Yes. That too.”

  Waxman drummed his fingers on his desktop for a few moments. “I’ll get Raven for you.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow night.”

  Dacco’s beaming smile returned. “Tomorrow night. Good.”

  Waxman smiled back. Bind him to you with hoops of steel, he told himself. Send him back to Earth happy and satisfied.

  * * *

  Vincente Zworkyn stood on his two legs without a tremble. The legs felt fine, quite natural, completely healed. In the privacy of his hospital alcove he dressed quickly in the clothes that he’d been wearing when his accident occurred. They were stained and dusty but, thankfully, untorn.

  Only one of his team was waiting for him at the hospital’s discharge lobby, the chunky, heavy-featured Leeanne Russell. The instant Zworkyn pushed through the lobby’s door, she jumped up from the chair she’d been waiting in.

  “They wouldn’t let me in,” she said apologetically.

  “That’s all right, Lee,” Zworkyn replied. “It was good of you to come and collect me.”

  She grinned at him. “Where do you want to go?”

  “Back to work. We’ve got a hypothesis to prove.”

  HOOPS OF STEEL

  Raven stared at the viewscreen in her living room. She had finished breakfast and was just about to leave for the boutique when Waxman’s call came through.

  Despite the early hour, Waxman appeared to be in his office, dressed for a working day, all business.

  “How’s your shop doing, Raven?” he asked, with a pleasant smile.

  He’s not calling about the boutique, Raven told herself. He gets our sales information automatically. What does he really want?

  “Sales are moving upward,” she said to the screen. “We’ll have to order more merchandise next week.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. But you could see that in the daily files we automatically send you.”

  Waxman’s smile thinned just the tiniest bit. “Do you really think you can make a success of your little shop?”

  “Look at the sales record,” Raven replied. “The trend is upward.”

  “It’s not a very steep climb.”

  “But it’s better than a downward spiral. Word’s spreading throughout the habitat, Evan. Women are coming in, looking at what we have to offer, and buying.”

  He conceded the point with the barest of nods. But then, “My computer calculates it will take at least six months for you to reach a break-even point. Even if your sales keep climbing at their present rate.”

  “But they’re not climbing at our present rate,” Raven countered. “They’re accelerating.”

  “Slowly.”

  Raven’s patience ended. “Look, Evan, I’ve got to get to the shop. Are we finished?”

  “Not quite,” he said, his smile evaporating. “There’s the matter of Noel Dacco.”

  “Noel Dacco? I’m not interested in him.”

  “But he’s interested in you.”

  So that’s it, Raven realized. “And you’re pimping for him.”

  Waxman’s eyes flashed angrily. But he quickly took control of his temper. “What a pleasant way to put it.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  For a long moment Waxman said nothing. Then, “It would be good if you spent an evening with Dacco. He’s very interested in you.”

  “And you’ve told him about my life in Naples.”

  “Of course. Why do you think he’s interested in you? For your intellect?”

  Raven gritted her teeth.

  “It won’t hurt you to spend a night with the man.”

  “I spend my nights with Tómas.”

  Waxman broke into a grin and pointed an accusing finger at her. “Not true. Gomez sleeps in his own quarters most nights.”

  “Not every night.”

  With a careless shrug, Waxman said, “You can spend a night with Dacco. If you don’t, I’ll have to shut down your boutique.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  “Can’t I? Just try me.”

  “I’ll tell Reverend Umber!”

  “Hah! Our beloved minister. What do you think he’d do, once I’ve told him that you’ve been whoring here in his precious Haven?”

  “That’s not true!”

  Waxman smiled thinly. “It doesn’t have to be true, Raven dear. It just has to be believable. And I’ll make him believe me.”

  Raven stared at the viewscreen, trying to think of something to say, some way to get out of this trap. I don’t want him to close the shop; that would destroy Alicia and everything she’s dreamed of. But if I do what he wants and Tómas finds out …

  Then she realized that if she did what Waxman wanted, he’d have that to hold over her forever. Tómas would leave her. She’d be right back where she was before she came to Haven.

  Waxman understood her silence. “You should go to the shop now. Call me this evening, when you get back home.”

  Raven nodded wordlessly.

  * * *

  “The bastard!”

  Alicia’s eyes blazed with fury.

  Raven sat with her partner behind the boutique’s counter. It had been a slow morning, yet it wasn’t until nearly noon that the shop went empty enough for Raven to tell Alicia of her conversation with Waxman.

  “I’ll never get him off my back,” Raven whispered, surprised at how weary, how desperate she felt.

  “He’ll be pulling my strings as long as I live,” she added, close to tears.

  Alicia stared at her in silence for se
veral moments. Then she said, “As long as he lives.”

  Raven’s eyes went wide as she realized what Alicia was thinking.

  “No,” she said softly. “We can’t go that way.”

  “Why not? You, yourself, were all for it a few weeks ago. He’s trying to kill you, isn’t he?”

  “Not murder.”

  “Justice,” said Alicia.

  “No.”

  “I’ll do it. Gladly.”

  Raven leaned toward her friend and slid her arms around Alicia’s shoulders. “Don’t talk that way. That’s not the way to go.”

  “How else are we going to get free of him?”

  Raven straightened up and looked into Alicia’s ice-blue eyes, murderously cold.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t know.”

  Alicia shook her head pityingly. “Reverend Umber’s really changed you, hasn’t he?”

  Before Raven could reply, the shop’s front door slid open and a trio of women strode in, their eyes goggling at the displays of clothing.

  EVIDENCE?

  Tómas Gomez sat in the living room of his quarters, staring fixedly at the wall screen, his makeshift laboratory jammed with analysis equipment, sensor receivers, and computers of half a dozen different types.

  He ignored the mug of chilled malteada that he had made for himself. The drink rested on his cluttered coffee table, unnoticed.

  Gomez studied the readouts from the analyses of the battered debris recovered from the seabed. Every reading of their age centered around the two-million-year mark.

  Can Zworkyn be right? he asked himself. Was that city destroyed only two million years ago?

  He leaned back in his sofa and rubbed his eyes. Two million years ago. Was Uranus knocked sideways then, not during the much earlier Late Bombardment? Could that be possible?

  Taking in a deep breath, Gomez pushed himself to his feet. All around him, display screens showed scraps of metal, chips of stone, bits and pieces of the ruined city from the bottom of Uranus’s worldwide ocean. The city was destroyed two million years ago, he told himself. That’s what the evidence says and that must be what had happened.

  But is that true? Could it be true? If it is, it flies in the face of all we’ve told ourselves about the history of the planet—of the whole damned solar system.

  Yet that’s what the evidence shows.

  With a dogged shake of his head, Gomez stepped past the accumulation of sensors and computers and headed toward his bedroom. Get yourself cleaned up and then call Zworkyn. Talk it over with him. And then—maybe—face Abbott with your evidence.

  Briefly he thought about calling Raven. Then he decided against that. I’ve bothered her enough with this problem. She listens, but this is way above her level of understanding. I’ll talk to her tomorrow, when we have dinner.

  Twenty minutes later, showered and dressed in clean clothes, he started for Zworkyn’s quarters, in Haven II.

  * * *

  For one of the rare times in her young life, Raven felt nervous about going out on a date.

  Dacco had called her at the boutique and asked to take her to dinner. Raven knew that the man had much more than dinner in mind, but she also understood that Waxman would shut down their boutique if she refused Dacco.

  To the man’s image on the shop’s desktop screen, she had said carefully, “Yes, I’ll go to dinner with you. But please don’t expect anything more.”

  Dacco had smiled toothily. “Dinner at seven P.M.”

  “In the main restaurant here in Haven,” Raven had said.

  “Fine. I’ll call for you at your quarters at six forty-five or so.”

  Before Raven could reply, he cut off the connection.

  Raven said nothing about her dinner date to Alicia. They closed the store at 5:00 P.M.—actually shooing out a pair of women who’d been browsing through the skirts and blouses for the better part of an hour.

  “Time wasters,” Raven muttered as she and Alicia turned off the display lights.

  “Oh, they’ll be back,” Alicia said, with a smile. “Sooner or later.”

  “To waste more time.”

  “Patience. You have to be patient. And remember that the customer is always right.”

  Alicia’s smile was infectious. Raven grinned back at her. “Whether she’s right or wrong.”

  “Exactly.”

  Raven rushed home and changed into one of the boutique’s outfits: a sleek pale pink dress with knee-length skirt and round-necked bodice, attractive without being overtly seductive. You want to keep Noel happy, she told herself, but not salivating.

  Dacco rang her door buzzer precisely at six forty-five, wearing a one-piece form-fitting outfit of white and gold.

  His eyes brightened when Raven opened the door.

  “You look beautiful!” he said, then amended, “You are beautiful.”

  “And you look dashing,” answered Raven, as she closed the door behind her. “Very handsome.”

  Dacco offered his arm. Raven took it, smiling sweetly, and together they walked to the restaurant.

  * * *

  “Do you really think so?” Zworkyn asked.

  Gomez shrugged. “I don’t know. All the evidence we’ve dug up so far leads to the conclusion that Uranus was clobbered only a couple of million years ago. But…”

  Gomez had ridden over to Haven II and gone straight to Zworkyn’s quarters. Despite the piles of equipment arrayed from wall to wall, the engineer’s living room was as tidy and precisely arranged as a military barracks. Everything in place, neat and well-ordered. Even the coffee urn that Zworkyn had brought in from the kitchen seemed to be polished and standing at attention.

  Now they sat on the living room sofa, side by side, frustrated and unhappy.

  “But?” Zworkyn prompted.

  “But it’s kind of fantastic to think that some alien invaders wiped Uranus clean of life.”

  “That’s what the evidence is telling us.”

  Gomez shook his head slowly. “Maybe that’s what we want the evidence to say, and we’re fooling ourselves.”

  Zworkyn stared at the younger man. “Maybe,” he conceded.

  “We should try to come up with an alternative scenario,” Gomez mused.

  “Like what?”

  Gomez shrugged elaborately. “Damned if I know.”

  “There isn’t any other possibility!” Zworkyn shouted, startling Gomez. “It happened two million years ago, not four billion.”

  Staring into space, Gomez muttered, “Aliens entered the solar system—”

  “About two million years ago,” Zworkyn added.

  “And they found an intelligent civilization on Uranus.”

  “And wiped it out.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s not our problem,” Zworkyn said. “Our problem is to prove that our dating is correct.”

  Gomez nodded wearily. But suddenly he brightened. “Wait a minute. If I remember my classroom studies correctly…”

  He got up and threaded his way through the rows of equipment, heading for Zworkyn’s desk. “May I use your desktop, Vincente?”

  With a gracious nod, Zworkyn replied, “Be my guest.”

  Sitting at the engineer’s desk, Gomez tapped the computer’s ON button and said, “History of Neptune’s moons, please.”

  Zworkyn got up from the sofa, puzzlement showing on his face. “Neptune?”

  It took a few minutes of jiggering the program that the desktop brought up, but at last Gomez leaned back in the desk chair and gestured at the computer’s screen.

  “I thought I remembered this from my history lessons.”

  Zworkyn bent over Gomez’s shoulder and stared at the screen.

  “Display system of Neptune’s moons, please,” Gomez commanded.

  “Thirteen moons,” Zworkyn read off the computer’s monitor. “Only one big one, Triton. The rest are just little chunks of rock.”

  “Show history of Neptune system,” Gomez commanded.


  The screen blinked once, then showed the planet Neptune with a retinue of twenty-five tiny moons, bits of irregularly shaped rock and metal too small to pull themselves into spherical bodies.

  Then a much larger body—perfectly spherical—swung through the system, tossing the tiny moonlets into a wild jumble of looping, asymmetrical orbits. As the two men watched, twelve of the moonlets were hurled out of the picture entirely, while the rest settled into new orbits around Neptune. As did the much larger body.

  “That’s Triton,” Zworkyn said, awed.

  “Right,” Gomez agreed. “According to present thinking, that interaction happened during the time of the Late Bombardment.”

  “Some four billion years ago,” said Zworkyn.

  “But what if it happened only two million years ago? What if this cataclysm forced a much larger moon into a collision with Uranus?”

  “But the analysis doesn’t show a big moon.”

  “That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a major-sized moon in the system. A moon big enough to knock Uranus sideways.”

  Zworkyn reached for a chair and dropped into it. “Orbital analysis might be able to prove the dating.”

  “Maybe,” said Gomez.

  “And if the dating shows it happened two million years ago…”

  “We’ve proved my theory,” Gomez said.

  For several moments Zworkyn remained silent, staring at the mayhem that the computer screen was still displaying.

  Then he said, “We’ve got to show all this to Abbott. First thing tomorrow morning.”

  TRUTH

  Raven was growing more nervous with each step as she and Dacco strolled leisurely along the passageway toward her quarters.

  Dinner had been pleasant enough. Noel chattered endlessly about himself, especially about the interview he was planning with Tómas.

  “Interesting fellow,” he was saying.

  Raven nodded absently, thinking about how she could get rid of Dacco at her door.

  Smiling contentedly, he pointed. “That’s your place, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Raven.