The Ophiuchi Hotline

by John Varley

  "The same reason you are. Anyone would be, don't you think?"

  "How would you know about that? It's restricted information, limited to a few..."

  Javelin raised one eyebrow. "I might ask how you know about it. But I've got my own theories on that. How I know is the same way I know anything about the Line. At any given time there's always a couple holehunters in the path of the Hotline signal. There's not much else to do; they listen in. And we talk to each other. It may take a few years to finish a conversation, but we've got plenty of time; we're not in a hurry. The hunter community knew about the message before the StarLine board of directors did. We've been talking about it for months now. It's been a cause of some concern to us. So I'm going to check it out."

  "You want to see if it really translates the way it seems to?"

  "No, no," Javelin laughed. "It does. There's no doubt about that. It's a threat, all right. Listen, you're going out there to get the message in its original form; that's your only possible motive for wanting to go out there at all. Well, I've got it, in my computer. We've checked it six ways from Sunday. Now we're interested in finding out what the 'severe penalties' are all about. I've been... well, sort of elected, though that's a pretty formal way of describing it—to go out and see. If they've got the muscle to back up their threat, we hunters might need to look for some new customers."

  The statement shocked Lilo, but it scandalized Vaffa.

  "Just like that? You want to find out which way the wind is blowing?"

  "More or less."

  "Whom do you plan on selling to?" Vaffa snorted. "The Ophiuchites? The Invaders?"

  "Either one if the price is right."

  "Then I spit on you and all your kind. You're talking of treason to your race."

  "Piss on your race, Free Earther."

  Lilo quickly stepped in. "Are you expecting some kind of second message? Spelling out penalties, perhaps?"

  "It's possible. But that's not why I'm going."

  "Then I don't understand. What good is this trip to you?"

  Javelin smiled again. "Here we come to the decision I spoke of. Our bargain said I'd deliver you to some point along the line of transmission of the Hotline. But it's a long line. You probably had in mind the closest point, but you didn't specify it, did you? What I propose to do is take all of us to a point half a light-year from the sun, and on that line. I have reason to believe it could be very interesting."

  "Why?"

  "For the purpose of meeting the Ophiuchites face to face."

  Vaffa seemed puzzled by the idea. Cathay grinned, as if at some private joke, but when Lilo looked at him he shrugged. Lilo's neck was hurting from looking up. She followed Cathay's example by stretching out on the floor and folding her arms under her head. They waited.

  "You're probably curious as to why I think they're out there." Javelin looked a little disappointed in their reaction.

  "That's a fair statement," Cathay said. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

  "Okay. Hunters have a different perspective on the Hotline than the StarLine company does. They sit in a station spang in the middle of the area of greatest signal strength. And why shouldn't they? The messages are garbled enough even there. But it limits their viewpoint. Essentially, they listen from one motionless point in space.

  "Hunters criss-cross the Line in all directions, at various distances from the sun, and both closer and farther away from 70 Ophiuchi than the StarLine station. When we cross it, we listen in. Our computers note when we first receive the signals and when we finally lose them.

  "About a hundred years ago, we began to notice a few things. It was only after many years that we were able to be sure of them. It's hard to get reliable time-checks at the speeds we operate at, and it takes a long time to cross-check all the data. But now we're sure.

  "A laser signal is a cone. It's a very narrow one, but it does have an apex at the end of the laser, and it spreads very slowly the farther it goes. We began to notice a parallax shift. At one edge of the cone, the signal seemed to come from one side of 70 Ophiuchi, then when you got to the other side, it had shifted. We began to plot the lines that define the outer surface of the cone. Other evidence backed us up: the cross-section size of the cone at various points, and the rate of dropoff of signal strength. It all indicated one thing: The Hotline doesn't originate at 70 Ophiuchi at all, but from some place about one-half light-year from the sun, in the direction of 70 Ophiuchi. And that's not likely to be an accident. They wanted us to think they were that far away. Which brings up all sorts of interesting possibilities."

  "I need to make a radio call," Vaffa said. She sounded subdued.

  "I thought you might. Let's see if I have Boss Tweed's phone number here in my files...."

  Vaffa looked down at Lilo and Cathay. Lilo was about to protest, but Javelin interrupted her.

  "They didn't tell me anything. I checked your phone records before you came aboard, and you've made a lot of calls to Luna. I was sure you were a Free Earther, and you proved it a few minutes ago. Now you're slavering to have someone tell you what to do, so you don't have to think. Who else would you be calling but Boss Tweed?"

  "That's none of your business," Vaffa yelled. "Now you put me through. We chartered this ship, and—"

  "And has it occurred to you that you shouldn't talk to your captain that way? In case you hadn't noticed, I am in complete control of this ship. You can't even enter the bridge; your pointy head would make it, but not your shoulders. This ship goes where I want it to go, and you will watch your mouth if you want the oxygen ratio in your room to stay the same."

  Lilo was on her feet now, and she dug Vaffa hard in the ribs. She got away with it, which was a measure of how much the other woman had learned in the last month.

  "We really do have to check back, though," Cathay said, reasonably. "You're talking about vastly increased expenses, and none of us has the money for that. Tweed would have to authorize it."

  "You're right, and you're wrong," Javelin said, calmly. "Understand that your situation has changed completely. I know why she is along." She made a face. "She's loyal to Tweed. You two don't seem to be, if my instincts are worth anything. I assume he has some hold over you. Well, that's over. I don't condone slavery, and I won't take orders from a man six billion kilometers away. You will call Tweed, but you won't ask him for anything. You will tell him this. Pay attention now; I don't want to repeat.

  " 'The Cavorite is headed for the Hotline sending station.' Here you can insert the explanation I just gave you. He's bright; he should understand. 'Expenses for this trip will be about four hundred times the figure originally discussed. A drone tanker is now departing the catapult head on Pluto, and will soon start to accelerate at nine gees. As you know, these ships are not recoverable; hence the drastic increase in expenses. It will rendezvous with us in about twenty million seconds. Without it, of course, we would have fuel to reach the station, but not to return.

  " 'If you, Tweed, wish to be represented on this expedition, you will cause to be deposited in my account in the Bank of Lowell a sum which my bankers have already communicated to you. Should you not desire to pay, your interest in this expedition will be considered terminated. The ship will go on as planned, underwritten by the Holehunters Trade Association of Lowell, a fact which you are free to check. And your agent, Vaffa, will be put out the lock and invited to walk back. Signed, your obedient, humble former slaves, et cetera, et cetera.' "

  "You can't do that!" The veins were standing out on Vaffa's neck. Her clenched fists were bleeding. Cathay seemed delighted, and Lilo wanted to allow herself the euphoria she felt, but knew she wasn't home free yet. Carefully, gently, she stroked Vaffa's shoulder. If the woman exploded now, it could be fatal.

  "Listen to me, Vaffa," she whispered. "You've got to do what's best for the Boss, don't you? Don't do that! Let go of me!" The grip on her arm loosened for a moment. Cathay had come over and put his head close to theirs.

  "She's rig
ht," he said. "Don't lose your temper. Think it out. Sure, she's got the Boss over a barrel, but she's offering him a good deal. She'll kill you if you can't learn to live with this, and then the Boss is never going to get out to the Ophiuchites and find out what he wants to—"

  "She couldn't kill me! That freakish, puny little—"

  "Think about what you're saying, Vaffa. This is her ship. You can't even get into her room. You don't have a weapon, and there's no telling what she might have. She even beat you bare-handed. You're going to have to swallow your pride and admit it. You've got to do this for Tweed, remember, for the Boss."

  Slowly, painfully, Vaffa released her grip on Lilo's arm. Her shoulders slumped, and she sank slowly to the deck with her head on her hands. Lilo glanced up at the screen and the impassive face. She went out into the corridor, up the ladder, and into the solarium. A screen came to life, close to her feet. She looked down at Javelin's face.

  "I want to thank you," she said, and felt tears coming to her eyes. She didn't bother wiping them away.

  "It's okay. The situation had to be resolved."

  "It isn't, not yet. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I... it occurs to me that you could space all of us. After you've got the money."

  Javelin shrugged. "I won't. It's a chance you'll have to take. I'm not above pulling a fast one to save myself some money—no holehunter ever is. Stinginess is second nature to us. But I won't break a bargain. I contracted to take you there, and that's what I'm going to do."

  "Why?"

  Javelin looked a little embarrassed. "Well, we're going to meet some aliens, maybe. I guess I do have a little loyalty to the human race. It didn't seem right to go alone; I thought I ought to take a cross-section of the race, if I could."

  Lilo laughed. "A holehunter, a killer, a disbarred teacher, and a condemned criminal."

  "Is that what you are? You'll have to tell me all about it one of these days. We'll have plenty of time."

  Lilo choked up. She did want to talk about it. She hadn't been able to bring it up with Cathay; maybe Javelin would be the person.

  "What about Vaffa?" she asked.

  "I don't know. I'll take her along if she behaves. But I won't feel I've broken the contract with Tweed if I have to destroy her like a mad dog, as a menace to the safety of the ship."

  "That's it. I'm worried about her. She's not good with abstractions. I can explain to her that being good, not causing trouble, is what the Boss would want her to do. Otherwise, you kill her and Tweed loses out. Damn! Why should I be trying to save her life? She's threatened to kill me many times. She's killed two of my clones."

  "All you'd have to do to kill her," Javelin observed, "is to leave things alone. She'd clash with me, and that would be it, right?"

  "I think so." Lilo sighed. "I don't know if it's that I hate to see anyone killed, or if I'm afraid I might get killed before you got rid of her. Anyway, it's an explosive situation. Here's what I want. I don't think Vaffa's capable of disobeying a direct order from Tweed. I want to add a demand to your list. He must order her not to harm you, or me, or Cathay. She's to be relieved of her duties guarding us. He must impress on her that she is his only representative on the ship, that it's all in her hands. She's got to live to report back to him, and to do that she must live peacefully with us."

  "Done. Will that work?"

  "I'm sure of it. It will settle her mind, make her accept it. And Tweed will go along. He won't be happy, but he doesn't have much choice, does he?"

  "That's how I saw it," Javelin said smugly.

  Lilo smiled, and finally dared to let herself believe she was free. She was cooped up on this ship, but she was free.

  "How long will we be gone, by the way?" she asked.

  "The trip will take about three hundred million seconds, going out."

  "Would you mind putting that into standard Earth months?"

  "About one hundred and twenty. Twenty years, round trip."

  19

  We could have made the trip to Poseidon much faster than we did. Even hauling my entire Ring base, that tug Cathay stole had plenty of power; it was built to shove quantum black holes around with a minimum of fuss.

  But the whole stunt depended on arriving at Poseidon at exactly the right time, coming from just the right angle. We were constrained by the relative positions of Jupiter and Saturn at the time of departure, the orbital speed of Poseidon, and its rotation rate.

  I had never bothered to give my rock hideaway a name. As we neared Poseidon and cut in the tug's engines again to get the rock up to speed, Cathay named it Vengeance.

  They were hanging motionless relative to Poseidon, about fifty kilometers away. Without magnification it appeared as a small, irregular patch of gray, but on Lilo's screen it could be seen in more detail. It was dark and jagged, and coming around the horizon was a small cup with a fierce blue light in it.

  Lilo thought back to the last time she had seen Parameter/Solstice. She had wanted them to come along, but it was obviously out of the question. If she and Cathay were successful with what they were about to do, there would be no time for dropping Parameter off anywhere; they would have to leave the system quickly. But Lilo wished they could have been with her to see their plan work.

  If it worked, she reminded herself, swallowing nervously.

  "Ten seconds," Lilo called out. She was wired into the computer, monitoring its performance through the cameras on Vengeance. She could feel the tiny bursts from the steering rockets as the guidance program made fine adjustments to the course. Now the target was coming up at blinding speed, made accessible to Lilo's senses only through the computer link. She got a glimpse of silver, then the impact destroyed the camera.

  "A hit," she said quietly. She pulled the computer cord from the socket in her head.

  Vengeance had gone into the nullfield bowl that contained the black hole. In a fraction of a second the mass of rock was churned into a mixture of lava, hot gas, and plasma. It splashed.

  Immediately, the hole began to devour it. The gravity gradient quickly collapsed the matter close to the hole and began to pull it down the bottomless pit, releasing energy as it was compressed. As matter was destroyed, more moved in, but was pushed away by the pressure of the reactions happening just outside the vent horizon. There was a huge explosion, and ninety percent of the mass of Vengeance was blown free of the combined gravity of Poseidon and the hole. What was left began to collapse again.

  None of this made any difference to the hemisphere of the nullfield. It was proof against anything the human race had yet been able to produce. The impact of Vengeance had no effect on it.

  But Lilo watched very closely to see how the electromagnetic field generators were withstanding the strain. The one wild card in Parameter's equation was the generators. They were already supporting the mass of the hole. What could not be known for sure was whether they would hold up under the sudden acceleration caused by the impact. If they failed, the hole would start to drift downward, quickly destroying the nullfield generator beneath it. With the field off, the hole would drift through Poseidon as if it were empty space, and they would have to try to recover it on the other side.

  "I don't see any movement, do you?" Lilo asked.

  "No. It seems to be holding."

  There were more explosions, coming only a few seconds apart, until the molten remains of the rock had rid itself of enough mass to reach stability. Now it was a tightly packed white-hot star, brighter than the surface of the sun, and only about a meter in diameter.

  "Let the astronomers wonder about that for a while," Lilo said, and turned on the radio. "Can you hear me down there? Vaffa, Vaffa, are you listening?"

  There was no answer for a while, and Lilo kept repeating herself until a male voice came over the radio.

  "Who is calling?"

  "This is Lilo, returned from the dead. And Cathay is with me. We brought back your ship, along with a present. You felt it coming in a few minutes ago. Is anyone hu
rt?"

  "I don't know," Vaffa said, impatiently.

  Lilo understood that he really didn't care, either. She shivered. It was her first contact with Vaffa.

  "Just what did you hope to accomplish, anyway? You must have known you couldn't kill us with whatever you did. The best you could hope for was to entomb a few of us—which you did—but our suits will protect us until we can dig out. Which we are doing." The voice was imperious, used to being obeyed, but there was a note of uncertainty.

  "He's damn sure you're not that dumb," Cathay said, with satisfaction. "Sometimes it doesn't help your nerves to know a lot about someone."

  "I hope so," Lilo whispered. Then, into the mike: "What we accomplished is to push Poseidon out of its orbit. That's done, and it's too late to do anything about it. It was spectacular, let me tell you. In a few minutes people all over the system will be wondering what's going on out here. Does that suggest anything to you?"

  There was silence from the other end.

  "Before you run off to consult with the Boss, there's some things he needs to know. The way we figure it is simple. Everyone's going to wonder what's going on out here, but they'll figure it's Invaders up to something. This is Jupiter, after all. They won't dare send anyone to investigate. You can see if Tweed agrees with that."

  There was no reply, so Lilo went on.

  "We would like to point out that we are in possession of a powerful radio. I'm sure Tweed's been worried about that for some time now, wondering where Cathay is and what he's going to do. He's probably ready to get out, quick, if something should start to break. Okay, that's fine. But it's bound to take him some time. What we want you to ask him is this: How much time is he willing to buy?"

  "Explain that, please."

  "I was going to. First, an answer from you. How long would it take you, not counting ninety-six minutes of lagtime, to get Tweed on the radio, talk to him and get his answer? Don't hesitate; tell me right now." Cathay had emphasized the importance of that. According to him, Vaffa was not very bright, and was not a good liar. He should not be given time to think. They would be helped by the fact that his impulse would be to ask Tweed for orders as soon as possible.