Tomorrow’s Heritage

by Juanita Coulson

  “That first attack taught us some lessons.” Mariette’s voice shook. “We did confuse their guidance frequencies a trifle, though.”

  “Yes,” Kevin said. “A slight diversion, enough to put it off target.” He had forgotten his drink. “We got lucky, or the outcome would have been much worse.”

  The playback wasn’t holo-mode, but it was far too realistic, anyway. Todd gripped the chair arms, his knuckles whitening. It was difficult to convince himself this was merely an image. His heart was starting to race just as it had when the missile had homed in on him.

  “It dodged our outlying detectors,” Kevin said. “Terrific masking devices they’ve got, Todd. The best military developments. They’ve made some modern improvements on your father’s original telecom patents, the ones the brass bought up during the Satellite Wars. We had to catch up fast, so we borrowed.”

  “From Lunar Base Copernicus.”

  “You named it. I am a liaison officer. Thank God the Base is on our side. The next hostile didn’t get through so easily.”

  Todd tried to pry his fingers loose from the chair arm. Our side. He had warned Pat. The lunar science and military bases had suffered fund cuts in much the same way Goddard had. The results had been predictable. Starving economically, united by their common space environments, Goddard and the military base on the Moon had joined forces. The base was giving Goddard classified weapons and ships, probably lending trained pilots and other personnel to boot. Allies, against their enemies on Earth.

  On the monitor, the hostile loomed in the exterior scans. Mari’s electronic servants showed him the last seconds before impact. The missile hurtled in, its apparent size exploding awesomely until it filled the entire screen.

  No zoom focus. Real-size factor.

  Involuntarily, Todd flinched. Pointless. This had taken place nearly two months ago. It was all over. If he had been in Section Two of the station . . .

  “Explosive decompression,” Todd whispered.

  “Not quite,” Kevin corrected him. “Close, though. The sheer size of the torus, and the meteor strike buffers, helped. And if it hadn’t been for our outer radiation shield of lunar soil, that damned thing would have ripped the whole section to bits and fried us all. It was bad enough as it was.” He sighed tiredly and went on. “The bastards programmed the strike during Section Two’s nocturnal hours. Some people never had a chance to get moving. I mean, that missile came in on burn mode all the way, Todd. They wanted us dead. And they used a hell of a propulsion system to do the job—top-quality military hardware. Killed fifty-eight people outright and put another one hundred and six in Sickbay. Some of them are still there. Four Planning Group members were killed or hurt. That’s when we woke up. The Group ordered a total Colony meeting and an election to fill the vacant offices temporarily. That’s when they slapped this governorship on me. I barely got us organized when the second missile came in a few weeks later.”

  The screen went blank. Todd massaged his temples. He was dizzy, and not from Coriolis effect.

  “Second missile? My God. Slow down and give me a chance to take all this in. For starters, why haven’t you broadcast this? Earth has to know. They’d be as horrified and angry as I am. And why haven’t you taken the injured planetside? Surely Goddard’s Sickbay isn’t equipped to handle injuries of this nature . . .”

  “They refused,” Mari said simply, sounding surprised that Todd had asked the question.

  “What? And you went along with their decision?’ Todd gasped in outrage. “Critically wounded people! How in the hell could they make rational judgments about their treatment? Mari, what’s the matter with you and Kevin? You know they could get better medical care on Earth!”

  “We don’t agree.”

  “And for terminal cases, you could have arranged for cryo preservement in our own Antarctic Enclave—”

  “No!” Mari’s color was very high, her sharp features taut with defiance. “No! If they’re going to die, they want to go clean, the way we’d want to. We’re fellow Colonists. We’re damned if we’ll send any of our people to the Pole. They’d just love to get a few more of us into that frozen limbo and dispose of us, just like they’re picking off our planetside allies.”

  Invisible hammers were pounding Todd’s skull. “You’re not making any sense. What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means our allies go to SE Antarctic Enclave and disappear—that is, if their enemies don’t simply assassinate them instead.”

  “Disappear? Confinees are cryogenically preserved, for God’s sake! You know that. Get off this paranoia track!”

  “They’re dead! Not figuratively, not cryogenic sleep— dead! Killed in their own countries, or sent to the Enclave and conveniently allowed to die.”

  Todd looked from one to the other, stunned. “How can you believe that? Dad set up the Enclave, remember? Its purpose is to save lives, not take them. The P.O.E.’s Human Rights Committee watchdogs tour there twice a year—you can see anyone, criminal or would-be saint, who’s preserved there, any time, via holo-mode relay. The Enclave’s neutral territory, strictly protected by the P.O.E. There’s no ‘enemy agent’ involved, dammit. It’s an altruistic gift from the family, and it costs Saunder Enterprises plenty to maintain, too.”

  “It’s a sham,” Kevin said quietly. As Todd started to argue, the young governor softened the accusation. “Maybe not the whole Enclave. We’re not sure. Probably it does fine by the famous artists and musicians and philosophers, the non-political confinees. But our people, dissidents and rebels, like those Pat’s arbitration committee just shipped from the Trans-Pacific, they’re getting a one-way ticket. I don’t care how glorious a future the Earth Firsters deliver if they live up to their promises—those people aren’t going to be revived, ever. They’re gone.”

  Todd rubbed his temples harder, his head throbbing. “Look, you seem to forget I helped set up the Enclave, too. I worked with Dad. I was on the board of directors. Okay, I was a kid, getting in on a courtesy pass because I was Dad’s ‘aide.’ But I was there. I know how it operates. It’s a genuine, workable facility. We proved that with a successful revival of that criminal volunteer before we ever started building—”

  “And you haven’t been on the board of directors for what—eight years?” Mari cut in. Todd had to think back, realizing she spoke the truth. “You don’t know what’s going on there, do you? How long since you’ve been to the Enclave?”

  “It’s restricted territory, P.O.E. franchise; only Enclave personnel and the Human Rights Committee are permitted access. Not even the P.O.E. Chairman can go there if he isn’t also a member of the Human Rights Committee . . .”

  “And who’s on the Committee? Anyone you ever heard of? Do you know if they’re trustworthy? Or do you just take P.O.E.’s word for it?” Mari demanded. She added with a vicious snarl, “Or Earth First Party’s word for it, that is.”

  “Mari . . .”

  “Don’t tell us any lies about the Human Rights Committee,” Kevin said, stopping Todd. “We don’t trust it. The truth is, there are damned few planetsiders we do trust any more.”

  “Does that mean you don’t trust me, either?”

  Todd waited a painfully long time for a reply. His shock deepened as the moments passed. Kevin and Mari were silently swapping opinions, and he was locked out. He hadn’t realized this wall had come between them. When the missile shattered the torus sections, buffers had gone up to protect the survivors. There was a buffer between him and his sister now, too, and Todd had no weapons to break it down except words and a lifetime of love.

  Then, just as he had begun to despair, Marietta stretched her hand to him. He seized it as he would a lifeline. She was still angry, but there was love in her pale eyes, too. The wall could be breached!

  “We trust you, Todd,” she said very softly. Her fingers tightened about his, her short nails digging into his flesh. He endured that, feeling the high-strung nature of her emotions. Even a hurtful touch was better
than no touch at all.

  Todd struggled to collect his thoughts. “This tape was made October ninth? Just a week after I was here. My God,” he breathed. “Today’s December fifteenth. How . . . how many attacks in all?”

  “Four, counting today’s.” Todd’s jaw dropped at McKelvey’s response. Kevin shrugged. Perhaps he could accept the horror with such courage because of his background and training. “Mari wanted to call you today, while we were scrambling. I couldn’t let her. We were on full scrambler. Nothing to help the missile track us, no personal messages. We didn’t have any time to spare. It’s damned fortunate Unit Three was on patrol out where they were. Do you understand what I’m saying, Todd?”

  “Not really. Gib said our shuttle wasn’t the target, that we just got in the way . . .”

  “That’s right.” Marietta explained as she would to a child. “They shadowed you, using the shuttle’s systems output as a screen. They must have figured, after Pat’s little speech, that the Colony would be in too much of an uproar to stay on top of the defense scans.”

  Todd laughed weakly. “This . . . this is impossible. This whole mess. You put classified military equipment in my shuttle. Okay, after today, I appreciate the fact that I’m still alive partially because of that equipment. But the stuff also makes me fair game for whoever’s . . . who is launching these attacks?”

  He couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t asked that earlier. The gray medications and stresses must be heavier than he had realized; either that, or he was getting old.

  They were maddeningly quiet for so long he wanted to yell at them.

  “When we’re sure, we’ll tell you,” Kevin said at last. “They’re obviously putting the missiles together in orbit, covering their activities with jammers, maybe with holomodes to pass the missiles off as empty space or orbiting junk, until they’re ready to launch. They’re not amateurs. It’s either bootleg materiel or captured war booty. Damned good stuff, too,” he added, admiring the enemy’s ingenuity and cunning. Kevin locked his large hands behind his golden head and tilted far back in his chair, threatening to overturn it. “The birds disintegrate both what they impact and themselves. The launchers don’t want to leave us any leftovers to trace back to them, obviously. What they apparently hadn’t thought out is—we can sweep up the dust in our net and sift through the pieces until we pin down their identities.”

  “Net?” Todd brightened. “Of course! The mass driver package collection station. It must work just as well on missile pieces as it does on lunar soil being lobbed up from the Moon.”

  Kevin grinned, a predatory leer. “You named it. But you’re a Spacer. Even though they’re building in orbit, they’re not. Eventually, we’ll have it all analyzed.”

  “Good! Rely on it, that’s what you need,” Todd said. “While you do that, let me handle the groundwork. I can spread this news worldwide on ComLink. When we haul the hard evidence into P.O.E.’s court, we can slap sanctions on your attackers and cut them off at the ankles. Listen, don’t wait. Go with what you’ve got right now. I don’t know why you’re sitting on it. We have to stop this before anyone else gets hurt. The Space Neutrality Treaty—”

  Their response was less obscene than Gib Owens’s, but equally contemptuous. “Don’t quote that farce,” Mari retorted. “The Earth Firsters have ignored any treaty that gets in their way, especially anything pertaining to Goddard. And now that they have the Chairmanship practically in their pockets, they’ll bury us.”

  “Are you implying Pat’s responsible for these attacks?” Fists clenched, Todd half rose from his chair, anger overcoming common sense. Kevin’s own chair came down with a thump, and the man was ready to fight back if Todd crossed over the line. It wouldn’t be a contest.

  Mari caught Todd’s arm, urging him to sit down. “No! Not Pat!” she cried. “Not . . . personally.”

  The fact that she qualified her retraction shook Todd more than anything else she or Kevin had said. He wrenched out of her grasp, walking away from them both, thinking hard.

  What was happening to them? How could Mari doubt Pat, even for an instant? Yet . . . how could Pat so ruthlessly cut out Goddard’s planetside allies economically when he knew he was also destroying Goddard in the process? Pat had voted against every funding measure for Goddard for the past year. Earth First Party’s platform was adamantly against Goddard’s continuance. A frivolous waste of Earth’s irreplaceable resources, they called it, shouting down counterarguments, their majority ruling. And Pat was their star, following the party line, swaying global opinion more and more to their side.

  Todd came back to the mural of Saunderhome, to Mari. Pat’s dreams and Mari’s were 400,000 kilometers apart. Tentatively, Todd caressed Mariette’s high cheekbone, wanting to recapture the old closeness. Danger was fraying their lifelong affection, trying to pull them apart.

  “Mari, Pat can’t see things your way. He’s planet-bound. He always will be, both he and Jael. Space makes them, literally, sick. But that doesn’t mean Pat hates you. Sure, he wants that Chairmanship, wants it more than he ever wanted anything. But even to win votes, do you think he’d order missile attacks against Goddard? Against anyone? Not after what we all lived through in California and outside Chicago during the Death Years, Mari. Life is precious to him, all life. He spouts a lot of garbage, I know, in those speeches. But what happened to us, and especially what happened to Dad, shaped his ideas forever.”

  His throat ached with suppressed anguish. Marietta cradled her head in his hand, sighing. Kevin didn’t interfere for several long moments. But then he said, “Maybe your brother didn’t sign the orders, Todd. But the Earth First Party has a big interest in wrecking Goddard. You can’t deny that. And Patrick Saunder leads the party. By my definition, that does make him responsible for this, even if only indirectly. Ah!” He looked away, gazing out the window at the vacuum barrier that safely shut them off from Section Two’s wreckage. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. Earth wants to get rid of us, and it goes both ways. Only our technique is a trifle different.”

  Mari glanced at Kevin searchingly, and he turned toward her. Again they conferred in that private, silent language. This time, though, Todd understood them. “Secession? You can’t pull it off. Not yet.”

  “They’re cutting our throats, Todd,” Mari said, chewing her lip. “Too many of our planetside supporters are quitting or bailing out. And plenty are disappearing into Antarctica. No wonder those who are left are scared or becoming too weak to fight back. Dummy corporations and undercover stuff! Somebody’s trying to make the power sat sabotages look like the work of the Ganz-Heil League or the Nakamuras. But we don’t think it is. Whoever they are, they want to destroy Goddard, not just shut us off as an energy source. We won’t play games with Earth First, and Earth First has to rule it all. If they can’t enslave us, they’ll wipe us out!”

  “You still haven’t got the clout or the funds to swing total independence. Section Four was an agriculture area, wasn’t it? I thought so. You’re on short rations, have a severe housing crisis, funds drying up, power sats being sabotaged or boycotted . . . you just can’t do it. Not yet. This is the wrong route. I keep telling you, broadcast this. You’re, what, clamping the lid on everything? No leaves? Full censorship? That’s stupid. How long can you hope to hold the blackout? Look, go to Earth with it. I’ll donate all the air time you need. You can have ComLink’s entertainment and docudrama departments, full propaganda push. You don’t have to limp along with just a few staunch planetside allies. Turn Earth’s attitude around. Mari shouldn’t have to bankroll you singlehandedly any more, and I know she’s exhausted her trusts.”

  “If Jael would—”

  Todd cut his sister off. “You know she won’t. She can’t. She’s plowing everything into Pat’s campaign. You had a third of the inheritance from Dad, Mari. The division was fair, admit it.” He rushed back to the basic topic. “Spread the news. I’ll get you Frank Chabot and Miguel Falco, my best media people. Lay it on. Goddard will be s
wamped with sympathy and support—and funds! People always root for the underdog.”

  “We don’t need their help,” Mariette said pettishly, pulling away from him.

  Todd snorted in derision. “Don’t you? Who’s buying Goddard Power Sats’ output if not planetsiders? Where are your new recruits going to come from?”

  “We’ll stand by our allies. And when we pinpoint the missile launchers, we’ll handle that. Then we can think about more recruitment.” Mari stood up and began pacing. “Sooner or later, we’re going independent, Todd. There’s no stopping us. So just quit telling us we can’t do it. As for telling Earth about the missile strikes, we’ll probably have to let Fairchild go to Protectors of Earth with the news, whether we like it or not. But not for the reasons you cite.”

  Kevin frowned, and Mari continued on in support of their Third Millennium Movement ally. “What else can she do? Pat’s killing Fairchild with the voters, her and Dabrowski and every other Chairmanship candidate. She’s fighting for her political life. We’ve got to crack the barriers, for the Spacers’ sake. That speech of Pat’s! ‘For the good of humanity . . .!’ For the good of Pat Saunder, he would have said if he’d been honest.”

  Todd stepped into Mari’s path, holding her. “It is for the good of humanity. Or do you want mankind to head back into the Chaos and the Death Years? Pat and those arbitrators swung some juicy deals for themselves, granted. But they ended the war. It’s called compromise, Mari. Remember? Jael taught the Saunders how to be experts at that. It’s the only way we got out of some mighty tight places. Come on! Pat’s not your enemy. You know that.”