Between the Strokes of Night

by Charles Sheffield

  He turned around with a little smile on his face. The secretary was staring at him, her eyebrows raised. “Sorry if I startled you, Mr. Gibbs, but the staff meeting is over and the Director can see you now. She suggests that you might prefer to talk over lunch, rather than meeting here. That way you’ll have more time.”

  He hesitated. “My business with the Director — “

  “Is private? Yes, she says that she understands the need for privacy. There is a quiet room off the main dining room; it will be just you and the Director.” “Fine. Lead the way.” He began to rehearse his arguments as she preceded him along a dingy, off-white corridor.

  The dining room was hardly private — he could see a hundred ways it could be bugged. But it did offer at least superficial isolation from other ears. He would have to take the risk. If anyone recorded them, it would almost certainly be for Judith Niles’ own benefit, and would go no farther. He blinked his eyes as he entered. The overhead light, like every light he had seen in the Institute, was overpoweringly bright. If darkness were the ally of sleep, Judith Niles apparently would not tolerate its presence.

  She was waiting for him at the long table, quietly marking entries on an output listing. As he sat down she at once folded the sheet and spoke without any pause for conventional introduction.

  “I took the liberty of ordering for both of us. There is a limited choice, and I thought we could use the time.” She leaned back and smiled. “I have my own agenda, but since you came to see us I think you are entitled to the first shot.”

  “Shot?” He pulled his chair closer to the table. “You’re misreading our motives. But I’ll be pleased to talk first. And let me get something out of the way that may save us later embarrassment. My cousin, Wolfgang, works for you here at the Institute.”

  “I wondered at the coincidence of name.”

  And did you follow up with a check on us? Hans Gibbs nodded and went on. “Wolfgang is completely loyal to you, just as I work for and am loyal to Salter Wherry. I gather that you’ve never met him?”

  Judith Niles looked up at him from under lowered brows. “I don’t know anyone who has — but everybody has heard of him, and of Salter Station.”

  “Then you know he has substantial resources. Through them we can find out rather a lot about the Institute, and the work that goes on here. I want you to know that although Wolfgang and I have talked generalities from time to time about the work here, none of my specific information, or that of anyone else in our organization, came from him.”

  She shrugged in a noncommittal way. “All right. But now you have me intrigued. What do you think you know about us that’s so surprising? We’re a publicly funded agency. Our records are open information.”

  “True. But that means you are restricted in the budget available to you. Just today, for example, you have learned of additional budget cuts because of the crisis in U.N. finances.”

  Her expression showed her astonishment. “How in the name of Morpheus can you possibly know that? I only found out a couple of hours ago, and I was told the decision had just been made.”

  “Let me postpone answering that, if you don’t mind, until we’ve covered a couple of other things. I know you’ve had money problems. Worse still, there are restrictions — ones you find hard to accept — on the experiments that you are permitted to perform.”

  The lower lip pushed forward a little, and her expression became guarded. “Now I don’t think I follow you. Care to be more specific?”

  “With your permission I’ll defer discussing that, too, for the moment. I hope you’ll first permit me a few minutes on another subject. It may seem unrelated to budgets and experimental freedom, but I promise you it is relevant. Take a quick look at this, then I’ll explain exactly why I’m here.”

  He passed a flat black cylinder across to her. “Look into the end of it. It’s a video recorder — don’t worry about focus, the hologram phases are adjusted for a perceived focal plane six feet from the eye. Just let your eyes relax.” She wrinkled her brow questioningly, put her unbroken bread roll back on her plate, and lifted the cylinder to her right eye. “How do I work it?” “Press the button on the left side. It takes a couple of seconds before the picture comes.”

  He sat silent, waiting as a waitress in a green uniform placed bowls of murky brown soup in front of each of them.

  “I don’t see anything at all,” Judith Niles said after a few seconds. “There’s nothing I can focus on — oh, wait a minute.…”

  The jet-black curtain before her took on faint detail as her eyes adjusted to the low light level. There was a backdrop of stars, with a long, spindly structure in the foreground lit by reflected sunlight. At first she had no sense of scale, but as the field of view slowly shifted out along the spider-net of girders other scene elements began to provide clues. A space tug lay along one of the beams, its stubby body half hidden by the metal. Farther down, she could see a life-capsule, clamped like a tiny mushroom button in the corner of a massive cross-tie. The construction was big, stretching hundreds of kilometers away to a distant end-boom.

  The camera swung on down, until the limb of the sunlit Earth appeared in the field of view.

  “You’re seeing the view from one of the standard monitors,” said Hans Gibbs. “There are twenty of them on the Station. They operate twenty-four hours a day, with routine surveys of everything that goes on. That camera concentrates mostly on the new construction on the lower boom. You know that we’re making a seven-hundred-kilometer experimental cantilever on PSS-One? Salter Station, most people down here apparently call it, though Salter Wherry likes to point out that it was the first of many, so PSS-One is a better name. Anyway, we don’t need that extension cantilever for the present arcologies, but we’re sure we’ll use it someday soon.”

  “Uh-uh.” Judith did not move her eyes from the viewing socket. The camera was zooming in, closing steadily on an area at the very end of the boom where two small dots had become visible. She realized that she was seeing a high-magnification close-up from a small part of the camera field. As the dots grew in size, the image had begun to develop a slight graininess as the limit of useful resolution was reached. She could make out the limbs on each of the space suits, and the lines that secured the suits to the thin girders.

  “Installing one of the experimental antennas,” Hans Gibbs said. He obviously knew exactly what point the display in front of her had reached. “Those two are a long way from the center of mass of the Station — four hundred kilometers below it. Salter Station is in six hour orbit, ten thousand kilometers up. Orbital velocity at that altitude is forty-eight-eighty meters a second, but the end of the boom is travelling at only forty-seven-sixty meters a second. See the slight tension in those lines? Those two aren’t quite in freefall. They feel about a hundredth of a gee. Not much, but enough to make a difference.”

  Judith Niles drew in a deep breath but did not speak.

  “Watch the one on the left,” said Hans Gibbs quietly.

  There was enough detail in the image to see exactly what was happening. The lines that secured one of the two suited figures had been released, so that a new position on the girder could be achieved. A thin aerial had opened up, stretching far out past the end of the boom. The left-most figure began to drift slowly along the length of the aerial, a securing bracket held in its right glove. It was obvious that there would be another tether point within reach along the girder, where the securing line could be attached. The suit moved very slowly, rotating a little as it went. The second figure was crouched over another part of the metal network, attaching a second brace for the aerial. “In thirty seconds, you drift away by nearly fifty meters,” said Hans Gibbs quietly. His companion sat as still as a statue.

  The realization grew by tiny fractions, so that there was never one moment where the senses could suddenly say, “Trouble.” The figure was within reach of the tether point. It was still moving, inching along, certainly close enough for an outstretched arm to ma
ke the connection. Five seconds more, and that contact had been missed. Now it would be necessary to use the suit controls, to apply the small thrust needed to move back to contact range. Judith Niles suddenly found herself willing the suit thrusters to come on, willing the second figure to look up, to see what she was seeing. The gap grew. A few feet, thirty meters, the length of the thin aerial. The suit had begun to turn around more rapidly on its axis. It was passing the last point of contact with the structure. “Oh, no.” The words were a murmur of complaint. Judith Niles was breathing heavily. After a few more seconds of silence she gave another little murmur and jerked her body rigidly upright. “Oh, no. Why doesn’t he do something? Why doesn’t he grab the aerial?”

  Hans Gibbs reached forward and gently took the cylinder away from her eye. “I think you’ve seen enough. You saw the beginning of the fall?”

  “Yes. Was it a simulation?”

  “I’m afraid not. It was real. What do you think that you saw?”

  “Construction for the boom on Salter Station — on PSS-One. And they were two of the workers, rigging an antenna section.”

  “Right. What else?”

  “The one farther out on the boom just let go his hold, without waiting to see that he had a line secured. He didn’t even look. He drifted away. By the time the other one saw, he was too far away to reach.”

  “Too far away for anything to reach. Do you realize what would happen next?” Neither of them took any interest in the food before them. Judith Niles nodded slowly. “Re-entry? If you couldn’t reach him he’d start re-entry?” Hans Gibbs looked at her in surprise, then laughed. “Well, that might happen — if we waited for a few million years. But Salter Station is in a pretty high orbit, re-entry’s not what we worry about. Those suits have only enough air for six hours. If we have no ship ready, anybody who loses contact with the station and can’t get back with the limited reaction mass in the suit thrusters dies — asphyxiates. It was a woman in that suit, by the way, not a man. She was lucky. The camera was on her, so we could compute an exact trajectory and pick her up with an hour to spare. But she’ll probably never be psychologically ready to work outside again. And others haven’t been so lucky. We’ve lost thirty people in three months.”

  “But why? Why did she let go? Why didn’t the other worker warn her?” “He tried — we all tried.” Hans Gibbs tucked the little recorder back into its plastic case. “She didn’t hear us for the same reason that she released her hold. It’s a reason that should really interest you, and the reason why I’m here at your Institute. In one word: narcolepsy. She fell asleep. She didn’t wake up until after we caught her, fifty kilometers away from the boom. The other worker saw what had happened long before that, but he didn’t have the reaction mass to go out and back. All he could do was watch and yell at her through the suit radio. He couldn’t wake her.”

  Hans Gibbs pushed his half-full plate away from him.

  “I know there’s a desperate food shortage around most of the world, and it’s a sin not to clear your dish. But neither one of us seems to be eating much. Can we continue this conversation back in your office?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was early evening before Judith Niles picked up the phone and asked Jan de Vries to join her in her office. While she waited for him she stood by the window, staring out across the garden that flanked the south side of the Institute. The lawns were increasingly unkempt, with the flower beds near the old brick wall showing patches of weeds.

  “Midnight oil again? Where’s your dinner date, Judith?” said a voice behind her. She started. De Vries had entered the open office door without knocking, quiet as a cat.

  She turned. “Close the door, Jan. You won’t believe this, but I did have an offer of dinner. A wild offer, with all the old-fashioned trimmings — he suggested oysters Rockefeller, veal cordon bleu, wine, and the moonlit Avon River. Oysters and wine! My God, you can tell that he’s from way out in space. He honestly believed we’d be able to buy that sort of food, without a contract or a special dispensation. He doesn’t know much about the real situation. One of the scary things about all the government propaganda is that it works so well. He had no idea how bad things are, even here in New Zealand — and we’re the lucky ones. Oysters! Damn it, I’d give my virginity for a dozen oysters. Might as well hope to be served roast beef.”

  Her voice was longing, and it carried no trace of the usual authority. She sat down at her desk, eased off her shoes, and lolled back in her chair, lifting her bare feet to rest them on an open desk drawer.

  “Far too late for any of that, my dear,” said Jan de Vries. “Roast beef, good wine, oysters — or virginity, for that matter. For most of us they’ve fled with the snows of yesteryear. But I’m just as impressed by the other implications of his offer. Only somebody out of touch with the climate changes and literally out of this world would want to look at that ghastly river — not when it’s eighty-seven degrees and ninety percent humidity.”

  He sat down gracefully, reclining on a big armchair. “But you turned down the invitation? Judith, you disappoint me. It sounds like an offer you couldn’t refuse — just to see his expression when he could compare reality with his illusions.”

  “I might have taken it if Hans Gibbs hadn’t made me the other offer.” “Indeed?” Jan de Vries touched his lips with a carefully manicured forefinger. “Judith, from one of your strongly heterosexual tastes, those words ring false. I thought you longed for offers like that, attractive beyond all other lures — “ “Stow it, Jan. I’ve no time for games just now. I want the benefit of your brain. You’ve met Salter Wherry, right? How much do you know about him?” “Well, as it happens I know a fair amount. I almost went to work on Salter Station. If you hadn’t lured me here, I’d probably be there now. There’s a certain je ne sais quoi to the notion of working for a aged multibillionaire, especially one whose romantic tastes before he went into seclusion were said to coincide with mine.”

  “Does he really own Salter Station? Completely?”

  “So it is rumored, my dear. That, and half of everything else you care to mention. I could never discover any evidence to the contrary. Since the charming Mr. Gibbs works for Wherry, and you met with him for many hours this afternoon — don’t think your long cloistering passed unnoticed, Judith — I wonder why you ask me these things. Why didn’t you ask Hans Gibbs your questions about Salter Wherry directly?”

  Judith Niles padded back to the window and stared moodily out at the twilight. “I need to do an independent check. It’s important, Jan. I need to know how rich Salter Wherry really is. Is he rich enough to let us do what we need to do?” “According to my own investigations and impressions, he is so rich that the word lacks real meaning. Our budget for next year is a little over eight million, correct? I will check the latest data on him, but even if Salter Wherry is no richer now than he was twenty years ago, this whole institute could be comfortably supported on the interest on Wherry’s petty cash account.” “Maybe that’s his plan.” Judith swung back to face into the room. “Damn it, he certainly timed it well.”

  “Money troubles again? Remember, I’ve been away.”

  “Bad ones. I’ve had it with our brainless Budget Committee. They want to squeeze us another five percent, and already the place is falling apart around our ears. And we can’t keep some of our experiments and results secret indefinitely, much as I’d like to. Charlene Bloom and Wolfgang Gibbs are stumbling over the same lead that we found. Wherry couldn’t be approaching us at a better time. It could work out perfectly.”

  “As I have told you many times, Judith, you are a genius. You can maneuver simple innocents like me around like puppets. But you are not — yet — a manipulator to match Salter Wherry. He is the best in the System, and he can call on seventy years of experience. When you think of your own objectives, and your hidden agenda — which I do not even pretend to be privy to — remember that he undoubtedly has a hidden agenda also, with quite different goals. And if you
are a genius, he is an undoubted genius also in finance and organization. And he has a reputation of getting his way.”

  De Vries crossed his legs carefully and adjusted the sharp crease on his trousers. “But from the look on your face I suspect I’m digressing. What’s this great offer you want to discuss? Why aren’t you off by the great gray-green greasy Avon River, dining on strawberries and cream to the sound of trumpets — or whatever other delights of dalliance the sadly out-of-touch Mr. Gibbs had in mind?”

  Judith Niles rubbed delicately at her left eye, as though it was troubling her. “Hans Gibbs brought me an offer. They’re having problems on Salter Station. Did you know that?”

  “I have heard rumors. The insurance rates for Station personnel have been raised an order of magnitude above those for conventional space operations. But I fail to see any connection with the Institute.”

  “That’s because you don’t know what the problems are. Jan, the offer I had today was a simple one. Hans Gibbs came here with authority from Salter Wherry. The budget of the Institute will be quadrupled, with guaranteed funding levels for eight years. In addition, the schedule of experiments that we conduct here will be free from all outside control or interference. So will our hardware and software procurement.”

  “It sounds like paradise.” De Vries stood up and went to stand next to Judith. “Where’s the worm in the apple? There must be one.”

  She smiled at him, and patted his shoulder. “Jan, how did I get along before you joined the Institute? Here’s your worm: to get all the good things that Salter Wherry promises, we must satisfy one condition. The key staff of the Institute must relocate — to Salter Station. And we must do our best to crack a problem that has been ruining the arcology construction projects there.”

  “What! Up into orbit. I hope you didn’t agree to it.”