Tomorrow’s Heritage

by Juanita Coulson

  “That goes for us both.” Todd forced his brother to look at him. “The backlash from your speech is bound to be terrible.”

  “I deserve it. I’ll take it. But I’m not giving up. Not ever. Oh, Mari . . . !”

  “Goddard’s defense-capable, Pat. They’ll make it. She’ll make it.”

  “Ask her to forgive me. She was telling the truth and I wouldn’t listen,” Pat said. “I learn slow. But I learn forever.”

  Awkwardly, shaking with wildfire emotions, they embraced again, then exchanged one final look. Each was acutely aware of the abyss awaiting the other, and awaiting Earth. Then Todd ran out the door, the uniformed woman and other guards and P.O.E. troopers galloping along with him.

  Forever, to get the elevator upstairs to the vehicle park, then up to the roof.

  Forever, to get Pat’s fastest flier airborne. One of his military-style craft. The woman, Ames’s ally, piloted. She was good, as reckless and skilled as Mariette Saunder, better at handling the craft than Todd could ever be. He resented his amateur status and the advanced equipment encasing him. Supercargo. But he was the most important supercargo these troopers would ever transport.

  He made the necessary calls from the air, en route to the space terminal. Dian. Mikhail. Relay. Shut off Jael. Button up ComLink tight. It was Pat’s package, to carry his words to all the world. The whole system in top gear. All translator-splitters full function. Make the world believe. Choke off the plunge toward disaster before it could carry through on its desperate plan.

  Taking forever to get to the terminal. The ship was set, but they had to gear up, program. You couldn’t operate a heavy orbital vehicle as you did a private flier.

  The alien messenger, creeping across the astronomical units in a leisurely approach to Earth, on cosmic terms. Its electronic hand was out in greeting. Kusta. Talk, Earth. I am the Vahnaj messenger. I will talk to you.

  For it, time was not of the essence. It had been traveling a very long while, in all probability. For Todd Saunder, straining to reach a space station at L5, time was a brutal enemy. He was racing the conspirators and the paranoia generated by Patrick Saunder’s speeches.

  Earth First must rule.

  But Earth First Party was Pat Saunder. And Pat Saunder was, at this moment, on his way to a podium at Protectors of Earth assembly, to ComLink’s visual and audial window to the world. And Pat Saunder was going to cancel every item on the Earth First Party platform, everything Jael Saunder had done in the campaign to make her son ruler of Earth.

  Forever.

  Ninety minutes to establish basic orbit. To link up with an IOTV. The suit systems couldn’t keep Todd’s sweat and shivering under control. He squirmed inside his protective gear and swam on his tether, in free fall once more, heading down a shining tunnel into another ship in parking orbit.

  Not his ship. Military. Todd protested, saying Goddard would deem them hostiles. Their arguments overrode his. Faster than anything he owned. As fast as the Goddard Defense Units. The fastest ships humanity had yet flung into space. He had to concede.

  Listen to me on the com, Mari. It’s me. I’m on board, Just as I was with Gib. This ship, these people with me—friends. We want to help you. Don’t shoot!

  The launch from parking orbit drove most of the breath from him, slamming him into the couch, reddening his vision near blackout. Had he sweated an expensive burn on his little IOTV shuttle? This ship had many times the power, and nobody was counting the fuel expenditure at all. They were a meteor leaving Earth. Climbing, climbing, across orbits, rising, velocity impossible. One-quarter gravity, up to one-half gravity, the screens yowling, warning of the stresses on the ship.

  Above the point where the tyrants had built their missiles, now. Masking them with holo-modes, like the false cubicles and their occupants, like the trees outside the Spacer hangar.

  Ward Saunder had shared his genius with the world. How he would have alternately marveled at and raged against the uses to which they had put his work!

  How many missiles had hit Goddard? How many were still hidden in orbit, ready for follow up strikes? How soon could McKelvey’s underground on Earth find them and disarm them? And if more were being built? It was a race. A long one. Distance, on Earth, could be reduced to a handspan by modem transport. In space, Todd Saunder still needed light-year boots to get where he was going fast.

  Pat’s speech, coming up on the com. Delayed basis. They were far enough out that the signal was starting to show an infinitesimal lag between the time it left Earth and the time it arrived on the ship’s screens.

  “Listeners, I have many things to tell you. I have made promises. I believed I could keep them. I still want to keep them. But I’ve learned that I have been lying to you. I didn’t know I was, yet that is what has happened. Earth First Party members, acting in my name, out of good and evil motives, have done terrible things. I am here tonight to tell you about them. And perhaps the worst of all is the lie about Saunder Enterprises Antarctic Enclave. The heritage of Earth’s tomorrow. The thousands sleeping there, awaiting the future. Many of them will never wake. I have killed them. People acting in my name have killed them, Listeners, and I must take full responsibility . . .”

  Bleary-eyed, too anguished to weep, Todd watched him confess to the billions. And on another circuit, he continued to send out the call to Goddard, trying again and again to reach Mari. Blackout. If they were receiving—and they must be—they were refusing to answer him.

  “. . . payments made. Decisions to turn off the machines and kill the helpless people within the cubicles. I am sorry. I can never bring them back. I can only offer myself, my life, to atone. And I can bring to light the hideous mockery these people have committed in secret!”

  Patrick Saunder. All the nuances of that voice, all the power of that presence. Thousands of kilometers away, yet beside Todd in the spaceship hurtling up toward Goddard.

  The vain adolescent, posturing in front of a mirror, running his hand through his hair, turning his left profile—his best one—to his non-existent audience. He had learned to use those striking, hypnotic eyes, to hold his own gaze, as he now held the gaze of an entire planet.

  Was there anybody down there who wasn’t watching him, hearing him? Yes, there were probably those who were still working, scrabbling, even as he spoke, to commit still more crimes before Patrick Saunder might turn the tide of world opinion against them and drown them in the flood of revulsion.

  He could do it, if anyone could.

  Most important of all, was Goddard listening to him? Missiles poised to counterstrike, Mari must listen.

  The speech went on. All of it. Everything Todd had relayed from Fairchild and Ames and his own digging into the dark, putrid underlayer of Saunder Enterprises and those who had paid them to kill. The power dealings to gain votes. The swaps of property and slaves to make the Saunders secure and fat. The quasi-nation that had become a world-gobbling monopoly in critical fields.

  “Mari, please answer me,” Todd pleaded into the com.

  “Signal incoming, sir. Masked. I think it’s Goddard,” one of the crew said.

  Todd woke out of frightened speculations. “I thought . . .”

  “Breaking silence.”

  No picture. Either Goddard wouldn’t send one, or the mask was so strong it wouldn’t allow images to penetrate. Mari’s disembodied voice, concerned, reaching out for Todd. “We hear him. Dian relayed us the tapes.”

  “Okay! He means it, Mari. He really means it. All of it. Give.” us a chance!”

  “The missile strikes . . .”

  He ignored the regs, talking over her com. “The Spacers are trying to disarm. You know that. Your agents, Fairchild’s people—give them time. You’ve got to . .

  A long pause, static-ifiled. “We read you, Earth ship.” Mari, but sounding cold.

  “I’m aboard, Mari. If you shoot us down, you take me out, too.”

  One of the crew interrupted. “Sir, tell your sister . . . tell McK
elvey that we won’t return fire if they hit us. Our armament won’t be used against them. We’re Spacers. We volunteered.” Todd swiveled his head awkwardly, helmet still togged down, staring at them one by one. The Goddard isolation syndrome. Shuttle pilots and crewmen. They had known the risks when they took Todd aboard. Known his mission. Even if they survived to Goddard, there was still the chance the war would continue and they would be interned for months or years or the rest of their lives, people in limbo, citizens of Earth trapped on an independent Colony planning to go on out to Mars, not stay with Earth.

  He did as they asked. Another long silence. This one wasn’t broken. The signal was there, still heavily masked. But Mari didn’t come back on the system to talk to him. There was no way of knowing if she believed Pat, believed him.

  Pat’s speech ended. It had been a long one, breaking all Pat Saunder’s rules about leaving an audience before they got bored. Todd doubted anyone had been bored by this speech, despite its length. Pat had an awful lot to say, a whole lifetime of guilt to lay before them.

  No adjournment to the V.I.P. lounge and the eyes of admiring colleagues and laudatory ComLink interviewers this time. The trial of Pat Saunder and Saunder Enterprises, accused of collusion in the murder of thousands in Antarctica, among other crimes, was beginning. The lenses stayed with Protectors of Earth assembly. Feedback—hostile, outraged, murderous—pouring in from ComLink’s systems on day and night sides of the planet. The procedure was going to last for hours, it was plain. Night, where Pat was, and it would be day before this session ended, perhaps another night and day from now. Not until he was freed. He was never, really, going to be freed. He had clamped the guilty man’s manacles on his own wrists.

  Todd had to sleep. His systems refused to operate any longer. The screens glimmering, propulsion still coming on intermittently, pushing them to the acceleration limits, the soft, conducting-business murmur of the crew. Mari wouldn’t come back on the line. And Pat wouldn’t be able to. The would-be Chairman of P.O.E., his power still intact but his reputation in ruins, was enduring hell, verbally, accepting it, his chosen martyr’s role. Lulled, helpless to do anything, suspended between Goddard and Earth, Todd floated into dreams.

  He awoke to monitors’ excited jabbering.

  Missiles. Launched. From Earth parking orbit. And Goddard?

  “Still holding, sir,” a crewman said. They were tracking the deadly climbers below. “Masked. We just penetrated the screen. Goddard’s picking them up, too. They’re about half an hour or less below us. I make it about seven of them . . .“

  Todd was past being scared. The whole arsenal. One last gamble. And he was riding ahead of it.

  “We’ll put you at Goddard if we can, Mr. Saunder. Then we’ll join their units and help them fight, if we can.”

  “Fight them from here,” Todd said with sudden deciciveness. “Look, you’re maybe closer to them than the Defense Units . . .”

  Their smiles were tolerant. “You’re a civilian, sir. And what you can do at Goddard is a hell of a lot more important than you could do getting vaporized in orbit with us. Hang on . . .“

  He didn’t think it was possible for them to squeeze any more power out of the systems. They did. Numbers spinning wildly. Yet the ETA was a million kilometers away. He wanted to flog them to still more speed, get himself off the ship, free them to fight—free himself to convince Mari and Kevin.

  Dian, safe planetside. Ames had promised.

  Pat had promised, too, so much. And Pat hadn’t been able to fulfill those promises, thanks to Jael.

  They rose ahead of the hostiles. Being shadowed. Again. Half hours and hours ticking, even at full power. Todd made wistful jokes about an improved ion drive and a Mars trip. The crew winced. They wanted such a system now. They pushed their own still more.

  They barely made it.

  Goddard fighters, Lunar City fighters—a lot of them coming out, patrolling and heading down. Todd braced himself, seeing the blips approaching. It looked very much like a collision course. He waited for the red streaks to lace toward him, convert him and the swift shuttle into molecules and tiny bits of debris.

  The explosion didn’t come.

  They had heard! They accepted! At least this much! The shuttle was going to be allowed past. At speeds that Todd couldn’t believe, they flashed inside the moving cordon of fighters, and another, larger blip began to form in the monitors. Goddard Colony, dead ahead. The shuttle decelerated, trying to bring all that tremendous velocity back under control, lest they become another form of missile.

  Section Four had been hit again, Todd saw when they reached eyeball status. Not taken out completely, but hurt. And Section Three, too, was damaged. One of the orbiting attendant shacks was abandoned, a shattered hulk. Some missile had come in slightly off vector. It hadn’t nailed Goddard, but had gotten one of its workshop suburbs.

  Docking grabbed them, Traffic somehow coping with the shuttle’s speed and nearly ramming it into the berth at the Hub. Todd was out of his safety webbing and clawing his way into the tunnel before the craft had fully engaged. Guards met him at the air lock, studying him a long minute, their weapons leveled.

  Then Mari was there. Not closing with him. Not touching. Looking at him. “No weapons on me, Mari. The ship could have fired at you, coming in. The crew are with you. Give them a chance to help. They’ll give you the ship if you demand it. But it’s theirs. You know these people. They’ve carried Goddard Power Sats’ products before. Spacers. Fuel them. Let them fight those missiles.”

  He was afraid his plea was in vain. Mari could order the guards to drag him and the crew off to Goddard’s version of the brig. Would she? She was talking into her suit com, blocking him from hearing her. He read Kevin’s name on her lips. Conferring? Telling Kevin what he had said? The guards were listening. Another exchange, again masked from Todd.

  Then, behind him, he heard the noises of refueling apparatus connecting. Unexpectedly, the com mask was gone. “. . . turn around in six minutes. Give us your guidance key. We will direct. You are hereby deputized into the Goddard Defense Units.”

  They were accepting the offer of the crew! They couldn’t afford to waste the ship. But it was a miraculous concession that they would trust this crew, even if they were fellow Spacers.

  Mari swung her arm slowly, adapting to the null gravity. “Come on.”

  Command center was at the Hub, behind one of those doors Todd had been barred from entering the last time he had been to Goddard. The place was like the hangar, like Pat’s subterranean control center, but even more concerned with survival and military efficiency. Goddard had had all too much experience with defense lately. And were they now going to get experience in offense as well?

  Lunar Base’s military capabilities. Correction: Lunar City’s. Deserters. Revolutionaries. Kevin looked as if he had been on his feet for days. Leaning over his trackers’ shoulders, coordinating, keeping them. alive. The governor, but also the man at Goddard with the most training in exactly this sort of deadly game, and the people manning the systems looked to him for leadership. He couldn’t afford to sleep, any more than Goddard could afford to let the shuttle sit idle.

  “More incoming, Governor. They’re going to try to get us good this time.” Trackers picking out the distant blips amid a horde of defenders. Somewhere another monitor was showing a huge blip, the shuttle, moving out of docking and swinging around for a plunge back down from L5 toward the intruders.

  “This is McKelvey,” Kevin was saying to the Defense Units. “Don’t take any chances. We don’t need any pieces any more. Blow them to hell. We know who our enemies are now.”

  He glanced up, at Todd. No hatred in his rugged face. Trust.

  We trust you. Or you wouldn’t be here.

  “Mari . . .” Todd reached out, caught her hand. Gloves between them. But she was there, and she didn’t pull away from him. They floated at the end of their tethers, looking at each other through their faceplates. “Pat did it.
You heard it.”

  “He’s lied before. Is this a campaign trick?”

  “No! Mari, Kevin, believe him.”

  “Quadrant five . . . !”

  Screens flashed. Impact, out there. A missile? Or one of Goddard’s gallant Defense Units?

  “One getting through, Commander—bracel”

  The air seemed to boil. Concussion wave, Todd cataloged as he and Mari bobbed about helplessly, clinging to each other. Techs struggling for handholds on their tethers and stanchions, screaming orders and calls for Damage Control into their monitors and suit coms. “Rode him out!” McKelvey exulted. “Now get the next bastard!”

  “Secondary, incoming!”

  Todd hung onto Mari and the guide rails. Another shock, the command center’s power flickering. Somewhere, transmitted through the incredible immensity of the torus, a groaning, ripping sound.

  “Damn!” McKelvey shouted. He managed to drag himself back toward the fire-control screens. “Hit them! Stop them! Everything! No reserve!” His breath rattled hoarsely in the com circuitry coming into Todd’s helmet. No masking devices shutting Todd out. He was part of it, like it or not. He had wanted to be in. He was, and a target along with everyone else at Goddard. Kevin shook his head, the helmet waggling. “Prepare to arm our offensive orbiters . . .”

  “No! You can’t!” Todd yelled. He fought his way toward the man. Security blocked him, then moved aside as Kevin jerked a gloved hand. “This is the last wave, Kevin. Your agents have to have told you. You got Riccardi. Protectors of Earth is finally moving . . .” Todd pointed frantically at one monitor. ComLink. P.O.E. assembly. Voting. Pulling the plug on a dozen tyrants and generals and top-level payoff experts who had ruined the promise of Saunder Enterprises Antarctic Enclave. It was daytime in that hemisphere now. Hours had passed. A lot was being done—finally. Months too late. Time gap. Acting against Todd. Com lag into space. Missile launch time to reach target. If McKelvey acted to strike back, the missiles could hit even after the criminals had been caught and punished. And the war would start anew and engulf them all.