He got it anyway, a minute later. "Traitors," remarked the major, flipping through his notebook. He scratched at his chin. "We're going to pull us in some traitors. Quiet-like. Before they can run." He glanced at the lieutenant. "You just mind your driving, and put us at the rendezvous point on time." After that, he had no more to say until Tachylab was in sight, a twinkling dot in the distance.
The major watched silently while the lieutenant notified Tachylab Control and executed the course change. "As soon as you track the other shuttles, raise them on the narrow beam."
"I have one already," said the lieutenant. He tapped a phosphor-green dot on the screen and snapped several switches on the console. "Trying to raise them now, Major."
Contact was established with both shuttles, and then the lieutenant was far too busy achieving three-way rendezvous to worry about the major's business. The maneuvering rockets hissed and banged, the other two pilots' voices droned laconically in his ear, and first one and then the second shuttle floated alongside. Over the lieutenant's head, just behind one of the shuttles, the Earth glowed rusty and blue and misty white, the crooked line of the California coast just visible beneath the clouds.
The shuttles thumped together, and the major disappeared through the docking hatch into the adjacent craft. A few minutes later, he returned and gave the lieutenant a new set of coordinates. "Put us on course for the science settlement, Lieutenant. That's where our pigeons are roosting."
"Yes, sir." The lieutenant began punching numbers.
Soon the homestead settlement came into view, a cluster of spherical and cylindrical bubbles joined by spindly tubes. It was "low-rental" housing, built fifteen years ago to accommodate small teams of scientific personnel whose work demanded their presence at the station in spite of limited and erratic funding. Later, when budget restrictions were eased, the ramshackle housing, rather than being replaced, was expanded for scientists and private entrepreneurs who were willing to make do with less for the privilege of pursuing their interests in geostationary orbit. The settlement had grown with its own version of urban sprawl, until it now was a spider's web of tubes and pods.
The lieutenant guided the shuttle toward the leading end of the cluster, skirting the paths of a small tug and several men in motorized worksuits. The address the major had given him proved less than easy to find in the controlled chaos of the cluster; but once they'd established the location of the correct docking port, the lieutenant quickly guided the shuttle into place.
He felt the heavy click of the latches. "Docked, Major." He turned to his left and checked the docking-environment panel. "Pressurizing . . . clear to egress."
"Thank you, Lieutenant. Please remain here." The major turned as he floated out of his seat and swam toward the rear of the shuttle, followed by the two MPs.
The lieutenant secured the hatch to the safety position and settled in to wait.
* * *
"Major, I want some answers. Whatever's going on here—" The wiry, bespectacled man paused, puffing with frustration. For the last fifteen minutes, he had been pacing—throwing himself back and forth, really—in the netted-off detention cubicle, and he'd only gotten short of breath for his trouble. Volatile temper. According to the report, he'd protested loudly during the transit from Tachylab to GEO-Four—until the arresting officer had threatened to have him put in irons. From then until a few minutes ago, he had been sullen and silent.
The security officer—a corporal, not a major—eyed the man warily. "Dr. Irwin, you're under arrest for conspiracy to violate military security. The orders came from Space Forces Command HQ. As you've been told before." The soldier added, in a not-unkindly tone, "I wish you'd calm down and stay in one place, Professor. You're driving me crazy bouncing around like that."
Irwin drifted to the netting and hooked his fingers through it, like a monkey hanging from its cage door. "I did nothing," he said, glaring at the officer. "But if you think I'm going to tell you anything without a lawyer present, you're crazy."
"No one's asking you to," the corporal said. He drifted back to his desk—little more than a velcro board and a laminated writing surface—and removed the place-mark clip from a paperback book. He'd barely found his place when Irwin called to him again.
"When am I being assigned a lawyer?"
The corporal looked up, shrugged. "Someone will let you know, I'm sure."
Irwin scowled angrily. "Am I the only one you're holding?"
Once more the corporal shrugged.
"I heard someone talking about 'the others.' I know I'm not the only one."
Annoyed, the corporal clipped his place in the book again. "So what, Professor? We're not going to let you talk to each other, so you can just put that out of your mind."
"You did arrest other people, then."
"Yeah. We've got a few of your friends here, as a matter of fact." The corporal was losing his patience.
"I want to talk to them. I must talk to them."
The corporal sighed. "Now, what did I just say?"
"You don't understand. We haven't done anything wrong. You have to let us see each other," Irwin insisted urgently.
"Listen, Dr. Irwin." The corporal scratched his chin, then shook his head. "I don't know what you and your friends did, but it sure must have been a lulu. They're assigning a military prosecutor to your case, and none of you are even in uniform. Whatever it was, you and your friends are in some trouble. Now, what did you want to know, Professor?"
Irwin didn't answer. He stared past the corporal, focusing on something on the far wall—focusing on nothing at all.
* * *
The colonel sealed the arrest papers back into their plastic pouch and slid them into his desk. "We didn't want to believe that there was a conspiracy, either, Mr. Louismore. It was the evidence that forced us to that conclusion."
Sam Louismore rubbed his ample cheeks and tucked his copy of the papers into his own brief pouch. "The evidence, as you say, hardly seems all that persuasive to me," he answered. "A lot of circumstantial details, one audio recording of dubious legality, and a good deal of jumping to conclusions. You're going to have to do better than that to prove a conspiracy." Louismore smoothed the front of his shirt as he swung slowly from a handhold beside the colonel.
"If you're referring to our surveillance of Irwin's apartment, we had federal clearance for that activity," said the colonel.
Louismore allowed his facial expression to mirror his disdain. "Did you have a court order—from a civilian court?"
"Not necessary. It's a military security matter. I'm sure you know the Security Act of Twenty-six as well as I do."
"Better," said Louismore. "We'll contest that, of course."
The colonel looked at him in irritation. "I suppose you think we're grandstanding, trying to draw the press off our backs?"
"The thought had occurred to me," Louismore said dryly. "The reporters have been asking some embarrassing questions lately, haven't they?" The colonel glared at him, and he chuckled. Louismore had in fact become aware of this case only a few hours ago, though he was well aware of issues raised in the press recently, relating to alleged military activities in deep space. As one of seven practicing attorneys on GEO-Four, it had been the luck of the draw that he had been tapped as public defender; but it looked to be an interesting case.
The colonel grunted and hooked his dispensacup to the coffee spigot for a refill. "If anything, our missions could be hurt by the publicity of a trial. But dammit, when you smell a rat, you have to go after it."
No doubt, thought Louismore. But maybe there's more than one rat around, eh?
"We plan to ask for a groundside hearing," the colonel said casually, placing his cup carefully back in its holder.
"Reason?"
"We think it can be heard more impartially in a less closed setting, less room for gossip and hysteria. By the time it could come to trial here, everyone on the station will have heard of it. It will be hard to get an objective hearing
under those circumstances."
"What ever happened to a trial by a jury of one's peers?" remarked Louismore. "We'll oppose that motion."
"Figured you would. Well, see you at the preliminary tomorrow."
Louismore nodded as he turned to leave. He swung his massive frame into the passageway and pushed himself slowly toward the detention center. His bantering with the colonel notwithstanding, this was likely to be a tough case, and the sooner he talked to his clients, the better.
* * *
Traffic, even Space Forces traffic, was still being rerouted around the Deep Space Readiness Area, but that inconvenience would be ended shortly. Final checkout was concluded, the two-man crew had radioed their readiness, and only a few special technicians from the Ordnance Group remained in the area, gathering their equipment.
Traffic Control at GEO-Four reported all lanes cleared for departure of Aquarius. In the vast, stark silence of near-Earth space, the soft-edged crescent of the Earth on one side, the distant metal sculpture of the GEO-Four space city on another, and the nearby hangar and construction sheds on yet another, the maneuvering jets of Aquarius fired briefly, nudging the ship toward a slightly higher orbit. When a precalculated distance separated the ship from its hangar, the large booster engines ignited, propelling the United States Space Forces vessel Aquarius out of geosynchronous orbit.
The booster pods burned for three and one half minutes, then separated from the ship. Less than an hour later, with the hangar and GEO-Four and all other structures well behind it in the blackness, Aquarius lit its fusion engines and began its long climb out of Earth orbit, bound for the dark emptiness of interplanetary space.
Chapter 54
One thing Hathorne had learned in years of dealing with the political process was that what mattered most on a given issue was not so much the logic of one's position as one's connections, and whether one had the ability and shrewdness to apply leverage at the correct point and the correct time. Twenty-three years ago, to a bright young college graduate, the shocking realization that logic and moral conviction alone were insufficient had nearly been cause for abandonment of a promising career. Hathorne had adapted, however, learning to walk the tightrope of power, treading a fine line between reason and will, and benevolence and enlightened self-interest. It was a walk he had learned well.
Just now, however, he was teetering on the tightrope, and the crosswind that was threatening his balance was General Angus Armstead, commander of Space Forces fleet operations at GEO-Four. With the shift in mission priority from Father Sky to Aquarius, Armstead had gained considerable leverage with the Oversight Committee—and, Hathorne worried, with the President.
"He's in the power position," Hathorne said to Charles Horst, the director of NASA's GEO-Four space laboratories and a Committee member. "I just wish I hadn't promised that Father Sky would pull through." He shook his head, smacking a fist into his open palm.
Horst's hologram shifted, blurring slightly. "You didn't promise," he said. "We made the decision on the best available information. It was a gamble worth taking. It just didn't work out."
"Scientifically, it was worth taking," Hathorne said. "Politically, I'm not so sure anymore. It made us look weak."
"You mean us, Earth?"
"I mean us, supporters of Father Sky. We've given Armstead entirely too much room for gloating." And the prick is doing plenty of it, he added silently. Where does he get off, telling me not to be concerned what weapons Aquarius is carrying? Does he think those things are fucking children's toys? His toys?
"He does act as though he has the Committee in his pocket," said Horst. "Do you think he has a special line with the President?"
"I intend to find out. Also, whether he might be doing some things even the President isn't aware of."
"Well, I haven't seen him overstep his bounds in any clearcut way—even if he is strutting like a bantam rooster. But I'll tell you one thing—if there turns out to be anything fishy in those Tachylab arrests—"
"Is there any substance to the charges?" Hathorne asked. "If there have been leaks, I want to know about it."
"Well, John Irwin's always been a bit of a radical, but that's not against the law. All I know for sure is that the warrant was issued under the Twenty-six Security Act."
Hathorne rubbed his jaw, scowling. It didn't take that much to obtain a warrant in the space settlement, under the latest security laws. The fact that people had been arrested could be nothing more than a diversion. On the other hand, if those scientists knew something that was upsetting to General Armstead, he wanted to know what it was. "We need more information, Charlie."
"I'm trying to find out what I can," the director answered. "But it's not really my turf."
"I can send someone up."
"As an official Committee inquiry?"
Hathorne thought a moment. "No, I think I'd rather keep it separate from the Committee. I have friends in some of the agencies who might be willing to help me out." He drummed his fingers thoughtfully. An independent inquiry into the alleged conspiracy would make a good cover for the investigation he really wanted. Hathorne had several questions concerning the Aquarius mission, questions to which he was sure Armstead would not give straight answers. What he needed was a man of his own on the scene, but someone not obviously connected to him.
"Leonard?" said Horst.
"What?"
"I said, have you seen the tracking report?"
"Yah." That was the other thing worrying him. The latest tracking showed the Talenki asteroid accelerating unexpectedly—though as usual, there was no information on why, or how—but it was already much closer to Pluto's orbit than predicted, and if the rate of change of its velocity followed the present curve, it could be here in a matter of months, rather than the better part of a year that they'd been told before.
Even in the fuzzy holographic projection, Hathorne could see the worry in Horst's eyes. "Leonard, suppose Armstead is right, and we're being naive. Should we assume the worst until we know the best?"
"I don't know, Charlie. Jesus. Don't we all wish we did?" A light blinked on Hathorne's console. "Can I put you on hold for a sec'?" Hathorne snapped several switches. Horst remained visible, but the transmitter at Hathorne's end now sent him only a frozen frame of Hathorne's image. "Hello, Lew."
A second hologram appeared, across the table from the first. It was Lewis Smythe, the representative from the British Defense Ministry, the third Committee member to call today. He appeared perturbed. "Leonard, I'll get right to the point. What's this I hear about several of your people at Tachylab being arrested? Claiming that they have information that your ship is armed with contraband weapons? Good God, man!"
Hathorne cleared his throat, thinking, nice to know you have better sources than I do. "I'm glad you called," he said. "We'll be covering this at the meeting, of course, but right now, we're just looking into it."
"Well, what about it? Is that ship armed or isn't it? Since it's one of Armstead's, I assume it is—but with what? I thought this mission was supposed to be under the Committee's control—or has your government decided to strike out on its own?"
Hathorne pressed his lips together, and finally said, "It's under the Committee, Lew—unless I hear differently from the President. But I can tell you there have been no orders from here to put unusual weapons aboard the ship."
"That's not exactly answering the question," the Englishman pointed out.
"Well, as I say, I'm checking into it now," Hathorne said carefully. "I'll let you know what I find. Was there something else, or should I call you back? I have Charlie Horst on hold, and he's paying the long distance charges."
"Just keep me informed. I wouldn't want to break poor Charlie's bank account."
"Very good, then." The Englishman's image blinked out, and Hathorne took a moment to sigh before reactivating the connection to Horst. "Charlie." Horst turned back to the phone. "Look—on that investigator—I'll let you know when he's coming. See what you c
an do to help him, but keep it low-key, okay?"
"Sure. Whatever I can do."
"Just your best. As always."
* * *
The interorbit transfer shuttle fired its maneuvering jets four times in fast succession, banging Donny Alvarest first one way in his seat and then another. This wasn't the carefree ride that the brochures depicted. He'd been fighting freefall sickness most of the way out from LEO Station, and had only in the last few hours gotten his stomach under control. The latest zero-g medication worked wonders on ninety-five percent of the population, he was told; it was his luck to be in the five percent who reacted to the drug with dizziness and nausea. One of the old standbys had cured him eventually, but only after hours of misery.
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