Orphan's Alliance

by Robert Buettner

  Two minutes later, the big flatscreen above the orchestra lit up with a live feed beamed down from New Moon, orbiting twenty-three thousand miles in space.

  Scorpion appeared, a teardrop pearl flashing up from below, against the blue and white crescent of Earth. It flipped and barrel rolled around and through the space station’s rings, then shot back down toward Earth.

  Three minutes later, it floated again above Le Bourget’s runway, as though it had traveled no farther than downtown, circled the Eiffel Tower, and returned.

  Every sentient human being at the Paris Air Show stared up at Scorpion, silent and slack-jawed.

  The ship drifted down like an ermine leaf, until it hovered a foot above the runway, then it stopped, and a hatch clamshelled open. Scorpion extended no landing gear, because it didn’t land, it just hovered. After its tear through the atmosphere, its skin would have melted the runway asphalt if it touched down.

  Jude climbed out, down an extended ladder that whined out of the hatch, and kept him from touching the hull, which was so hot that the air shimmered above it. He hopped off the bottom rung onto the runway’s asphalt, and stood slender and relaxed, muscular beneath a silver gee suit, helmet tucked in the crook of his arm.

  Thirty thousand people stood rooted to the runway, as if Scorpion had melted the asphalt, amid suddenly antique jets and missiles. But the only sound was breeze that fluttered the tent canopies and ruffled Jude’s strawberry-blond hair.

  I hadn’t seen my godson in two years. Over the years I hadn’t seen him often enough since I delivered him, because we were short of medics, in a cave on Jupiter’s largest moon. As Jude grew up, my mind’s eye always measured him against my memories of his father, who had been my best friend since childhood. Jude had now grown older than his father had been on the day he died. From today forward, I could build only one set of memories. I swallowed against the lump in my throat.

  The skeptical reporter that had sharpshot Munchkin about Jude’s mental problems stood next to me, now, eyes bulging. She shook her head, slowly, and whispered into her Stenobot, “—Flying saucer. I’m standing here looking at a flying saucer come true. And next to it, the man from Mars.”

  I wiped my eyes, leaned toward her with a lump in my throat, and whispered, “From Ganymede, actually.”

  SEVENTEEN

  TWO VANS CAREENED out to Scorpion. A chipboard-and-Mediprobe bunch scrambled out of one, surrounded Jude, then hustled him back into their van for debriefing. Uniformed security piled out of the other van, and cordoned off Scorpion from the crowds that surged toward it.

  Munchkin tapped my shoulder. “They’ll be debriefing Jude ’til midnight. Lockheed prepaid a two-top dinner in Paris for their CEO, but he ‘cancelled.’ They want to know if I want to use the table. It’s swag, but you don’t get out enough. Le Tour d’Argent. Top-shel ~d.’f place.”

  “The taxpayers will eat that bill one way or the other.”

  “You’re right. Let’s just find a cafe on the Left Bank. My treat.”

  “Dutch.”

  “Done.”

  After a cab ride as exciting as a Scorpion flight, we sat outdoors at a café a block south of the Seine, sipping house red and wolfing bread without butter. A brass plaque in the sidewalk claimed DeGaulle had stopped there when the Allies liberated Paris during World War II.

  I said, “Best meal I’ve had in years.”

  Munchkin smiled across the table. “Best company I’ve had in years, for sure.”

  I rolled my eyes. “How do you stand Washington?”

  “I can’t. I didn’t stand for reelection. I’m out next year.”

  “You? Get fat lobbying?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Out, not back in through the other side of the revolving door. Maybe I’d do a blue-ribbon panel, if it was interesting.” As Nat Cobb might have said, Munchkin got tired of looking into any one window. Unless somebody told her she couldn’t. Egyptian women couldn’t serve in the infantry. Small female soldiers couldn’t handle machine guns. Non-native-born Americans couldn’t get elected to Congress. So, naturally, she had done all those things.

  “Why were you ever in? You don’t suffer fools gladly.”

  She shrugged. “Because my son and you—whatever you are, I dunno, surrogate brother—deserted me to fly into space.”

  “Presumed dead isn’t exactly desertion.”

  “I never presumed either of you were dead. The only thing I could do to get you both back was to persuade the world to accelerate the space program. That meant politics. I’d suffer fools for Jude. Even for you.”

  People say mothers have lifted trucks to save their children who were pinned beneath them. I had no doubt that Munchkin, all four feet ten of her, could and would lift the U.S.S. Nimitz if Jude was pinned beneath its keel. She might even lift a dinghy for me.

  “I promised I’d bring Jude back to you. I kept my promise.”

  She nodded, raised her glass and toasted me. “To promises kept. A rarity in politics.”

  I shrugged. “You’re too cynical. Since the Blitz, the world’s changed faster than it did in World War II.”

  “Accidents accelerate change. Politicians chase it. Cavorite. Human civilizations we could reach in months. Proof that the Slugs are still lurking out there. That’s why things changed so much so fast.”

  I shrugged at the other café tables where people laughed and drank, and at people walking dogs beneath the street lamps. “Nobody here looks motivated to change.”

  Munchkin tipƒ3">gs ped our emptied bread basket toward the waiter. “Encore?” Then she said, “Appetite motivates. An average Weichselan diamond is two carats, flawless, and a child can dig up a cupful in an hour. And trade means export, not just import. Space exploration used to mean traveling for years, just to reach uninhabitable rocks. So we paid geeks to send robots. Today, entrepreneurs see virgin populations, just months away. Ripe for consumer goods, entertainment, franchising.”

  “Franchising?” I snorted. “Weichselans will love drive-through. As soon as they invent the wheel.”

  She shrugged. “Neocolonialism’s overhyped. Weichselan diamonds are literally just flash. But serious people understand the Slugs won’t go away. Especially since we’ve taken over their Cavorite.”

  “Howard thinks the Slugs may not care. That they have additional sources. Something got them to Bren and Earth in the first place.”

  Munchkin made a close-mouthed smile, then stared up at the stars. “Howard. One of too many people I haven’t thought about in too long.”

  “Speaking of. I ran into Mimi Ozawa on the way back here.”

  Munchkin dabbed her lips with a napkin, as her eyebrows shot up. “And?”

  “Forget the matchmaking. She still thinks I’m a puerile slacker.”

  “You are. But women like a challenge. I should fix you up when she gets back.”

  “Let’s order.” I waved the waiter over, to change the subject. I wouldn’t be here when Mimi got back, and neither would Munchkin’s son. Worse, our conversation was closing too fast on the fact that both Munchkin and I lost the great loves of our lives to war, and neither of us had been whole since.

  When the food came, I said, “We need to talk about Jude.”

  Munchkin pushed pommes allumettes around with her fork while she stared at them. “The French still sear these in beef lard. That’s why they taste good.”

  “Don’t weasel. Was that reporter right, today? Is Jude suicidal?”

  Munchkin shrugged. “Nobody can be sure Jude would have crashed the prototype. Scorpion has failsafes that stopped the dive. But he’s quick enough that he could have overridden them. Either way, the shrinks say his depression’s not improving. They haven’t been able to medicate him because it might slow his reflexes. Until now, he’s been the only pilot quick enough to trust with Scorpion.”

  “Change of routine, change of scene. That can be therapeutic to treat depression.” Like a trip to Tressel.

  “Maybe. Pilot
ing a flying saucer’s not routine. And here we are in Paris, but all Jude’s seen is the inside of a briefing van. Geography doesn’t solve people problems, Jason. People do.” Munchkin set down her fork, and stared at me. “You know you’re the closest thing to a father he has. You’ve got months of unused leave. Would you do something together with him? A trip? Anything.”

  I reached across the table and took her hand. “Look. I flew over here to tell you something about Jude. And now you’rƒ. A hee going to think I manipulated the whole thing.”

  She wrinkled her forehead as she laid her other hand over mine. “Whatever it is, you’re the only person on Earth I trust like a brother. It’s fine. Besides, you couldn’t manipulate a pound of lard.”

  “Remember you said that.” I gritted my teeth and told her.

  EIGHTEEN

  ONE WEEK AFTER Jude and I left Paris, I convened a meeting of Howard, Ord, and me around a Plasteel mess table in the wardroom of the Kabul, bound for the first jump of the latest pony string Howard had rigged. Howard had justified the cost of this pony because we had to get to Tressel, do our business, then arrive at Bren in time to rendezvous with the slow-boat Eisenhower, which was still en route from Tressel loaded with our hovertanks and their technicians.

  I asked Ord, “What’s the latest from Tressel, Sergeant Major?”

  Howard answered before Ord. “Nothing. We can’t spare the drones. We’ll be lucky to know anything before we land.”

  I sipped coffee from a thermcup. “Good. We finally have nothing else to talk about except the ‘thing.’ ”

  Howard squirmed. He gave up secrets as easily as Japan gave up Iwo Jima. “Maybe we should wait. Isn’t Jude cleared to hear this, too?”

  “He is. But I sent him to the launch bays. So you couldn’t argue that he wasn’t cleared. Which you would have. Cough it up.”

  Howard sighed. “Okay. Can I begin at the beginning?”

  “Stall as long as you want. You’re gonna have to end at the end.”

  Howard sniffed. Then he said, “We like to think of the worlds of the Union as equal contributors. But except for Earth, Bren, and Tressel, the populations compare to Earth’s from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages. The primitive Outworlds’ greatest contribution to the Union will be as defensive buffers. We assume the Pseudocephalopod entered this area thirty thousand years ago, via jumps near the primitive Outworlds. It would re-enter by the same jumps.”

  I nodded. “If the Slugs come back, the Outworlds will be our speed bumps.”

  “Let’s say tripwires. Speed bumps actually slow something down, and the primitive Outworlds won’t.” Howard said, “Earth can never have enough equipment or manpower to defend all the avenues of approach simultaneously.”

  Ord nodded. “But if we base a force in the Mousetrap, we can meet a threat wherever it appears.”

  I said, “Sure. But Howard, a crash program? What if the Slugs only swing through this corner of the galaxy once every thirty thousand years? And they just left.”

  Howard frowned. “That’s the thing, Jason.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What?”

  Howard tapped the table in front of h†"4%im, and its holo gen popped. It showed an overhead image of a frozen river snaking down a snow white valley. Something black and rumpled stuck up from a bar in the stream’s middle.

  Howard said, “This image was gathered on Weichsel. A De Beers mining operation.”

  I squinted at the black object. “That’s a diamond mine?”

  Howard shook his head. “That’s a pilot project to dredge bort—industrial-grade diamond slag. Or what’s left of the project. When the cruiser that De Beers chartered returned to retrieve the survey party, it found the camp destroyed. No survivors.”

  I shook my head, too. “Survey parties are armed. Weichselans can barely spear mastodons. And they’ve never bothered us.”

  “It wasn’t Weichselans.” Howard zoomed on the scene.

  I shuddered, then squinted at the black object. It was the scorched, twisted carcass of a massive barge, stern- upturned on a sandbar in an iced-over river. Around it were familiar craters. Made by Slug Heavys, projectiles the size of wall safes. A wolf trotted away from the wreckage, dragging a human thigh.

  Howard said, “While the cruiser recovered the remains, its Tactical Observation Transports flew Weichsel, pole-to-pole. Every native encampment had been hit. The Pseudocephalopod effectively wiped the human race off the planet.”

  The Slugs did the same thing to my mother. And to sixty million other Earthlings in the Blitz. I swallowed hard, and shook my head. “But why Weichsel?”

  “My hunch?” Howard said.

  Ord and I leaned forward and stared at Howard. The Army put up with him because his hunches about the Slugs were usually right.

  Howard shrugged. “The Pseudocephalopod doesn’t differentiate among humans any more than we differentiate among strep bacteria. When we expelled the Pseudocephalopod from Bren, It would have taken the event as evidence that a superbug strain has cross-bred. A strain capable of hurting It. It will destroy humans wherever It encounters them, even primitives.”

  “Is this an isolated incident?”

  Howard said, “Well, the cruiser didn’t find any remaining Pseudocephalopod activity as of when it left Weichsel. That was eighty-six days ago. The cruiser just got back last week.”

  Ord shook his head. “If the cruiser could have come via the Mousetrap, we would have known months ago.”

  Howard said, “Weichsel’s just a tickle. It’s winding up for the punch.”

  If you understood the Slugs, and Howard did, genocidal carpet bombing was just a tickle.

  Ord asked Howard, “When and where next, Colonel?”

  Howard unwrapped a lollipop, sucked on it, then cut the holo. Then he shrugged again. “Weichsel, presumably. This looks like a probe. But it could be a feint. When? My hunch, based on the interval between the Expulsion and this first reaction, is that the big push starts within three standar‹n tt id years from now.”

  I said, “Weichsel’s one jump from Mousetrap. Mousetrap’s one jump from everywhere. Especially from Earth.”

  “You can see why we haven’t told anybody before we have a plan.”

  The Slug Blitz traumatized Earth like no war or natural disaster ever had. At the low point, Las Vegas odds were five-to-one against mankind surviving four more years. When the Slugs attacked Bren, that quainter society suffered misery of biblical scope. And neither of those attacks represented a fraction of the Slugs’ apparent destructive capacity. When word got out, widespread panic would understate the reaction. Fourteen planets. Three years. Impossible.

  I said, “Have a plan? Howard, how can you plan to eat a rhino?”

  Howard shrugged. “One bite at a time.”

  I pushed back my chair and stood.

  Howard asked, “Where are you going?”

  I turned and walked toward the launch bays, one hundred yards aft. “To take my first bite.”

  NINETEEN

  FIVE MINUTES LATER, I reached the hangar deck, amidships. I found Jude, in blue flight coveralls, climbing, thirty feet up one of a pair of inspection ladders that paralleled the fuselage of one of the Kabul’s troop transports. Kabul was the third of the Bastogne-class cruisers to become operational. The B-class were the first operational vessels advanced enough to rely solely on Cavorite drive for propulsion, as elegant as a Slug Firewitch.

  I cupped my hands, and called up to him, my voice echoing in the bay, which was one of thirty-six on Kabul, each as large as a dirtside aircraft hangar. “Getting a workout?”

  The stolen Slug-tech gravity cocoon that kept a Cruiser’s cargo from getting squashed had no effect inside the cocoon. Humans had to rely on Kabul’s rotation, as it augured through space, to stick us feet-outward, to the deck. We weighed more at the faster-rotating outer shell, where the launch bays were, than closer to the centerline.

  Jude looked down at me, and just shrugged.

 
; I said, “This is a big improvement over Hope.”

  United Nations Space Ship Hope had carried me and ten thousand others, including Jude’s parents, to war in response to the Slug Blitz. Mankind’s first space warship had burned chemical fuel, so it took nearly two years just to reach the orbit of Jupiter. Its troop transports had been unpowered gliders.

  I drew a breath, then followed Jude up the companion ladder, shaking from wrists to ankles. I didn’t look down, and I wheezed, from acrophobia, not exertion.

  I caught up with him, and said, “On Hope, the drop ship inner hulls were scavenged airliner fuselages. The drop ships were just tethered outside the mothership, for hours. The bouncing around made everybody airsick. We actuallyŽwer looked forward to landing on Ganymede, just to get away from the vomit.”