Leaping to the Stars

by David Gerrold

  After its last journey to Outbeyond, the Cascade's command module had been brought down to Luna for refitting. Boynton had wanted to upgrade her IRMA unit for advanced hyperstate modeling. Theoretically, it was possible to boost her realized velocity to eighty C, but he'd have been happy adding even one-tenth of that to the Cascade's top speed. That would cut three weeks off the journey to Outbeyond. He had also wanted to install fittings so the command module could eventually be landed, so IRMA could become the colony's brain. The Cascade would not be returning from this voyage. There was no point.

  The original plan had called for the construction of a brand new command module and the old one would be landed on Outbeyond, but in the nine months prior to the polycrisis, things were already so unstable that the colonists realized they might not have the time and decided instead to upgrade the existing command module, just in case. A good plan—but it put the command module on the Lunar surface, and in reach of the invisibles … who set off a focused EMP-grenade and scrambled IRMA's circuits. IRMA died instantly.

  So that left HARLIE.

  Could HARLIE pilot a hyper state star ship?

  In principle, yes. HARLIE was smarter than IRMA.

  In practice … well, HARLIE had no personal experience. There were no other brightliners in the system that HARLIE could learn from. There were IRMA files he could download and assimilate, and HARLIE was confident that the problem was solvable, he just wasn't certain how long it would take him to wrap his identity around the necessary mind-set. There was a lot more to it than that, but that was the simple explanation.

  The complex explanation—well, even Douglas frowned when HARLIE started explaining, and Douglas probably knew more about synthetic intelligence than anyone else in the solar system—because he had synthesized his own intelligence instead of going through puberty. I used to explain Douglas to my friends by saying he was what you got when you didn't let teenagers masturbate, so don't let this happen to you. (Old lady Dalgliesh, the English teacher, heard me say that one time—I thought she'd choke to death on her own tongue. Mom was not amused and I got detention for a week.) But based on the bragging, none of my peers were in any danger of turning into a Douglas in any case.

  Anyway, by the time the polycrisis turned into a global meltdown, 98% of the cargo pods had been installed on the Cascade and the last hundred or so were already in transit. For almost a year, the colonists had been planning for this voyage as if it might be the last—and the cargo manifests had been altered accordingly. Added to that, the colony had begun purchasing cargo and equipment from the other three brightliners under construction and she ended up with an extra thousand pods on her racks. The whole thing was pretty impressive, and I couldn't figure out why Boynton was so worried about the survival of Outbeyond colony. This voyage would deliver enough supplies to keep everyone there alive for years.

  —Except we were bringing fifteen hundred new colonists to join the forty-three hundred already there, and when you did the math, dividing this by that, carry the six and round it off to the third decimal point, what you found out was that it costs a lot more than you think to keep one person alive for thirty days, let alone thirty years.

  Oxygen. Water. Protein. Shelter. Fertilizer. Electricity. Software. Memory. Clothing. Educational materials. Medicine. Diagnostic units. Manufacturing tools. Fabricators. Encyclopedias. Training resources. Seeds. Artificial wombs and fertilized ova. Replacement organs. Assorted appliances and machines. Entertainment. And all sorts of stuff for dealing with unforeseen circumstances—except if you could figure out all the stuff you would need, it wasn't really unforeseen, was it? Never mind, you get the idea. It was almost as bad as watching Mom pack for a weekend trip with Stinky.

  There was too much to think about. And even though these people had been thinking about it for years—they were still worried they might have missed something.

  This was their last chance.

  And our last chance too.

  NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LAUNCH

  The command module was a spaceship in its own right. It could detach from the starship and travel almost anywhere in the solar system under its own power. That's why it was here on Luna for refitting.

  Like most spaceships, it was built out of cargo pods. The keel was a stretch-pod, made out of three pods connected end to end. Another six cargo pods clustered around its waist, and there were swiveling thrusters mounted at both ends.

  According to Douglas, before the polycrisis there was so much cargo coming up the Line that there were extra cargo pods everywhere; more than enough for habitats and stations and outposts. On Luna, they hung pods from overhead cables and used them as aerial trains. They put them on wheels and made them into trucks. They attached thrusters and made them into flying moonbuses. And sometimes they put on wheels and thrusters and all kinds of other whatnots to make utility vehicles like Alexei's Mr. Beagle.

  So why not cluster a bunch of pods together, attach some Palmer tubes, and build a spaceship? With the right fittings you could land on Luna or Mars. And even if you didn't have landing gear, if all you had was an airlock, you could still dock with any habitat anywhere else. So pod-ships were the workhorses of the solar system.

  The starship Cascade had three pod-ships, and the equipment onboard to build three more. The biggest one was the Command Module, and it could carry as many as 145 people at a time, if they were friendly; but for this trip, there were only 112 of us, and the rest of the space was rice and beans and noodles.

  Boynton settled me down in the assistant flight engineer's position, just behind the pilot's couch. Flight Engineer Damron was on the right, just behind Copilot O'Koshi. HARLIE was plugged into an access on the flight engineer's equipment rack. From my position, it didn't look much different than the front end of a Lunar bus, or a Lunar train, or a Lunar house. Some of the interior fittings were different, and there were a lot more control boards and display screens than in a utility vehicle, but the general layout was the same. There's only so much you can do with a pill-shaped pod.

  The important difference was the view out the front window.

  It was … marvelous.

  Ahead lay the lighted track of the catapult. It looked like it stretched out forever. It didn't, of course. It was only three kilometers. It was built up the long gentle slope of Glass Crater, named after Harvey Glass, the father of the first lawyer on the moon. (Don't ask.) (Okay, do ask. Not only was James Glass the first lawyer on the moon, he was also the first lawyer murdered on the moon. According to Christie, the reason they named the crater after his father instead of him was because no one wanted to name a crater after a lawyer. If Christie was telling the truth, then Lunar history was not only stranger than I imagined, it was stranger than I could imagine.)

  Boynton looked back over his shoulder at me. "Here, pin this on." He handed me a sticky-backed insignia for my jumpsuit. It had an officer's bar.

  "What's this?"

  "It's a field commission. Regulations prohibit noncoms on the flight deck, so—congratulations, Ensign. You are now the Acting Assistant Flight Engineer for the starship Cascade." Damron and O'Koshi added their own congratulations.

  "Uh—" I didn't know what to say. Was this serious? Or was it some kind of feel-good badge like the plastic wings they gave me on an airplane once?

  "It's real," said Boynton. "You're playing with the big kids now."

  I found a word. "Wow." And two more. "Thank you."

  "Pin it on. And give HARLIE his orders, please. We'll all feel a lot better when we get off this rock."

  I put the insignia on over my heart. It gave me a very odd feeling to do so—mostly good, but kind of scary at the same time.

  "Go ahead," Boynton prompted. "Just say, 'Initiate launch sequence, HARLIE.' He has to hear it from you."

  "Isn't it automatic? Aren't we on a countdown?"

  Flight Engineer Damron tapped my shoulder and pointed to a chronometer. "We have an eleven-minute window. We can launch any time wi
thin that window and correct our course after launch. All the boards are green. Once that timer starts counting positive numbers, we can go any time." He turned back to his board.

  I opened my mouth to speak—

  The communicator beeped. An overhead panel lit up. A stern-looking man in black. Standing in the cargo dock directly beneath us.

  "Starship Cascade," He held up a badge. "Lunar Marshals. We are on the loading dock. We have a warrant for the arrest of Charles Dingillian, Douglas Dingillian, Robert Dingillian, Michael Partridge, Beverly Sykes, Margaret Campbell, and fifteen John Doe warrants to include any and all persons traveling with the Dingillians. Open your hatch now, please."

  Boynton snapped a switch on his panel. "Lunar Marshals. Please vacate the loading dock immediately. Launch sequence has been initiated. It is too late to abort. You will be endangering yourselves and others if you do not immediately vacate." He snapped off. "Go ahead, Charles."

  I swallowed hard—while Boynton was speaking, the timer had begun counting positive numbers.

  "Will they be hurt?"

  "They'll probably be killed by the backwash." Boynton pointed to the display. The marshals weren't moving. "They don't think we'll do it."

  "Do they know I have to give the order?"

  "Yes. That's why they're not moving."

  I looked at the chronometer. Nine and a half minutes.

  "I can't do this," I said. My voice cracked.

  "Then they win." Boynton began unfastening his seat belt. He turned to face Flight Engineer Damron. "Stand by to power down."

  "Wait!"

  "For what?" Boynton said angrily. "You just said you can't do it. Either you can or you can't."

  "I can't kill people!"

  "Charles, I don't have time to give you the whole speech. Whatever you decide right now, people are going to die. Either those six marshals—or 4300 people on Outbeyond. You choose."

  "That's not fair—"

  "No, it isn't. But that's the choice anyway. How many deaths do you want on your conscience?"

  "None!"

  "I'm sorry, that's not an option anymore." His eyes met mine and I knew he hated this situation as much as I did. He lowered his voice, "Listen to me, Charles. If I could, I'd take this responsibility away from you in an instant—if I could. But I can't—" He reached over and put his hand on top of mine. Just like Dad used to do.

  "We're running out of time. If you're going to do it—"

  I gulped. "Open the channel, please—?"

  He turned forward, reached up, and flicked the switch. "Go ahead," he said quietly.

  "Lunar Marshals, this is Charles Dingillian—"

  "Son!" The Marshal held up his badge. "You cannot launch. You must surrender now."

  "—I'd like to know your names, please?"

  "Eh?"

  "I'm about to give the order to launch. I don't want your deaths on my conscience—but if I do have to launch, at least I want to be able to send my apologies to your families. Your names, please?"

  Two of the Marshals looked nervously at each other.

  "Please?" I glanced to the chronometer. "I don't have much time left. Only forty seconds." That was a lie, I had six minutes and forty seconds, but the sweet spot of the launch window was the five minute, thirty second mark.

  "I am Colonel Michael Stone," said the man holding up the insignia. "And I don't believe you'll do this."

  "My condolences to your family, Colonel Stone. And the names of your men—?"

  "The hell with this!" said one of the others. He bolted. A moment later, two others followed him. And then one more. And then Colonel Stone was alone—

  "Twenty-five seconds, sir."

  "I'm not moving, son."

  "Then I'm very sorry." I motioned to Boynton.

  "Listen to me, you little—" Boynton snapped off the image.

  "HARLIE?"

  "At your service, Ensign."

  "Initiate launch sequence."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  I cried as we launched—why do stupid adults have to spoil everything?

  ANGER

  The launch catapult was 3.5 kilometers long. There were twenty-one thousand superconducting electromagnets spaced along its length. Depending on the mass of the payload, depending on how much acceleration was applied, enormous launch velocities could be achieved. The command module would pass escape velocity less than halfway up the track, and we'd still be accelerating.

  Almost immediately upon my giving HARLIE the launch command, the capacitors under the catapult began discharging enormous amounts of electricity into carefully timed bursts of power to the magnets in the track. The command module slid forward in a gathering rush. We sank back into our seats, and then we sank back some more, and then some more—and then we were pushed hard against the cushions. And then some more—one of the displays ticked numbers upward toward three gees, three point one, three point two. A little more than was promised; an accommodation for the early launch window. The track raced away beneath us. The horizon rushed toward us—

  And then we were in free fall and Luna was dropping away below. Craters shrank against silvery plains. Larger and larger became smaller and smaller. The curve of the horizon sharpened—and then, at last, the moon was behind us.

  As soon as Boynton finished with the post-launch checklist, he swiveled in his seat to look at me. His expression was hard. He reached up over my head and pulled a tissue out of a dispenser. He handed it to me without comment. I began wiping my eyes. Except for the background sounds of the ship's controls, there was silence on the flight deck.

  Boynton said, "You scared me, Ensign."

  "You didn't think I was going to do it?"

  "No. I was pretty sure you'd do it. What scared me was the look on your face. Remind me never to piss you off."

  "Was I really that angry?"

  "For a moment, yes, you were."

  "I was thinking about my Dad. This was his dream!"

  Boynton reached over and put his hand on my shoulder. "Charles, listen to me—that kind of anger can be dangerous. Very dangerous."

  I looked at him, hurt. "Now, you're saying I shouldn't have done it—?"

  "Listen carefully. Anger is a drug. You can get addicted to it. There are times when it's useful. This was one of those times. But try not to have any more, please?"

  I wasn't sure what he meant, not yet, but I nodded anyway. I had a feeling that this was one of those conversations that I'd be replaying in my head for a long time—usually late at night while I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep and not doing a very good job of it.

  He didn't believe my nod. "Do you understand what I'm saying?" he asked sternly.

  "Yes. I think so."

  Boynton studied me for a moment. "I want you to talk to Dr. Morgan."

  "I don't need a doctor."

  "She's not a doctor—she's a counselor. Her full title is Reverend Doctor Morgan. We call her Morgs."

  "I don't—"

  "Yes, I know you don't. That's why I'm making it an order."

  "An order—?"

  "You're an officer on my starship. I have the authority to order you. And if you don't follow my orders, I can court martial you for insubordination and put you in the brig." I guess he realized that was too severe, because almost immediately, he added, "We're going to be in transit for a long time, son. You and I and HARLIE are going to spend a lot of hours on this flight deck. You're carrying around a lot of anger. I don't want it on my bridge ever again."

  "What did you want me to do?"

  "I wanted you to do exactly what you did—but I didn't want you doing it out of hate."

  "Well, it sure wasn't an act of love—"

  "I don't want you getting the idea that hatred justifies killing. That's how wars get started."

  "I didn't hate him—I didn't know him well enough to hate him."

  "Ensign, do you want me to play back the log? You said a lot of interesting words in a very short time. I hope that's
not the same mouth you use to kiss your mother."

  "I didn't—" And then I realized. I did.

  But Boynton had it wrong. I didn't say all that stuff because I hated the late Colonel. I said it because I was angry for what he had made me do.

  Boynton was right about one thing. There was a lot of stuff I was angry about—and there were a lot of people I was angry at. The Rock Father tribe was first on my list. Alexei Krislov, in particular. And Dad for getting killed—and Mom for just being Mom. And Bev. And Douglas and Mickey. And Colonel Stone. And Stinky. And Commander Boynton. And Judge Griffith. And Judge Cavanaugh. And all the colonists on Outbeyond.

  And HARLIE.

  And everybody else too.

  And most of all, myself. I hated this. I hated what I was, what I'd had to do, what I was turning into.

  This was supposed to be the adventure of a lifetime, but before I could even get off the launchpad, I had to kill a man.

  And according to Boynton, it was okay to kill him—it just wasn't okay to hate him.

  So who else could I hate, but myself?

  NECESSARY

  Nobody talked for a long time after that—except for piloting stuff. Boynton phoned ahead and told the starship that we'd launched and we could hear them cheering in the background. But when he told them what we'd had to do—he didn't say that I'd had to do it—the celebration subsided. Launching in blood was a bad omen.

  Boynton finished his report, then turned to O'Koshi. "Seal the log. The details of our launch are eyes-only. Until I say otherwise."

  "Aye, Captain."

  "You have the conn." Boynton unfastened his safety harness, floated out of his seat, and swam aft. I started to unbuckle myself, but Boynton pushed me back into my seat and told me to stay where I was. "I have business to take care of. You don't. And I don't want you talking to anyone for a while." And then, realizing how bad that must have sounded, he said, "It's for your sake, Ensign, not theirs. This business stays on the flight deck."

  Did he really think he could keep it a secret? Our launch conversation must have been heard by hundreds of people. It would be all over the net within minutes, rippling outward on the rumor-web as fast as people checked their e-mail and relayed the juicy bits. It would be on all the Lunar news channels just in time for breakfast at Armstrong Station. And after that, all the other planets too: Earth, Luna, Mars, the habitats, the asteroids, and everywhere else. Anyone scanning the news would catch it. And everyone was scanning the news these days—watching the endless slow-motion collapse of civilization, like some ghastly soap opera.