The Ninth Science Fiction Megapack

by Arthur C. Clarke

  He doubted that he would have the time. An expert in endangered species, he had won the invitation to conduct the first exhaustive, nondestructive study of the asteroid belt’s mysterious life forms because he had fought so tenaciously for Yellowstone’s grizzlies—and his odds then had been a hundred times better.

  Abruptly the asteroid shuddered. Taken by surprise, he almost lost his balance. He yelped and grabbed at nothingness. Dust shaken from the crater wall glittered in the blue-green auras, hung in micro-jewel motes, drifted slowly to the ground. Teetering on one foot, he waited for gravity to find and take him. Before it did, a chill wind swept through him, hissing, “Miko Tomimuri.” He caught his breath. The wind swung about to throw “Kitano Habishi” at him. Somewhere in his soul two places once filled came vacant again.

  Like a well-anesthetized amputee, he knew loss but not pain. Not yet. Now a sick certainty washed through him. His guardians, his constant companions for the last two years—his friends—had died. He knew it beyond a doubt. And he wanted not to know it. Eyes squeezed shut, face twisted toward a shadow-draped crater wall, he said, “No, they’re fine, they’re in the hangar”—as if by rejecting the knowledge he could reverse reality. He could not.

  Eighteen times that bitter wind had blown through him. Eighteen times he had learned that the one so named had died moments before. Always someone close, a dear friend or a brother or a parent.

  It came rarely, then, because he had no more than an average complement of people special to him. And it came more wrenchingly because already the complement had dwindled.

  He wished he knew the source of his sensitivity or at least the name of one other person who bore its curse. But he could only feel its impact. Save for Irish folktales of banshees and the occasional story of a twin aware of his siblings danger or demise, he had never encountered anything akin to what was happening to him. And in an empire skeptical of claims to paranormal talent, he had to keep it his secret. Were he even to hint at it, the reek of instability would foul his life and all his works.

  It did give him something in common with endangered species, though.

  He moved to wipe his eyes. His gauntlet crashed into his helmet, leaving in his ears a ringing that took a long time to quiet. It brought him back to that choir in the garden beneath the unblinking stars.

  And stirred the knowledge gained over two years in space. Item: heavy vibration in the rock. Item: small asteroids display no seismic activity. Item: odds against meteor strike prohibitively high. Item: eighty-five Celestial Equity prospectors—poachers—operating in this sector of Belt at last report. Item: ten billion dollars worth of gems at my feet.

  He tongued the intercom switch. “Watson-san!”

  “Hai, Livingston-san?”

  He gave an inaudible sigh of relief. At least the base computer had survived. “What’s going on?”

  “Syntax error, Livingston-san.”

  “Ah—” He tried to remember what Habishi, the laconic dabbler in haiku, used to say. “—Ah, status report?”

  “Shin Matsumoto Base at present uninhabited. Life support systems functioning in all areas except [click] Hangar. Tunnel Two beyond hundred meter door [click]. All readings nominal in all areas except [click] Hangar Tunnel Two beyond hundred meter door where surviving monitors report dangerous levels of radioactivity.” [click]

  Of course the poachers had hit the hangar first Without their ship, the two Imperial Marines could barely defend Shin Matsumoto Base against an unarmed ore carrier—certainly not against a tough, fast Belt Breaker that could zing a nuke into a trash basket from twenty kiloclicks.

  And of course the fates would make Tomimuri and Habishi choose that morning to overhaul a balky attitude jet.

  Again he stood among the liverocks, washed in their auras, tingling with their inaudible, immutable music. He knew exactly what he had to do: hide the treasures so the rebel raiders would depart empty-handed, get word to the Imperial Space Force at Shin Edo on Mars, then hold the poachers off till reinforcements arrived. If they ever did. The Celestial Equity Rebellion had raged for more than four years and showed no signs of cooling down. The rebels’ demands for immediate exploitation of all resources had proved popular. They controlled two tin can cities at the L5 position, most of Africa and South America, and sizable chunks of the more developed continents. Their unceasing attempts to put more ships into space kept most of the ISF tied up in near Earth orbit. Beyond Mars, poachers outnumbered ISF ships six to one. Even Shin Edo, the sprawling HQ on Mars that directed all ISF forces in the outer system, ran eighty percent under strength.

  “Watson-san!”

  “Hai, Livingston-san?”

  “I need a sled out here, quick!”

  “Hai. [click] Dispatched.”

  While he waited for the self-propelled sled to skitter over the lip of the crater, he crouched by the nearest liverock, the proud, gnarled one he called The Abbot. He grasped it. Yes maybe a hundred kilos, bitch of a mass to have to muscle around, but the low g would help, and the autosled tool kit boasted a crowbar. He could move it. Afterward he could apologize for upsetting its dignity.

  Rocking back on his heels, he scanned The Abbot’s eleven companions. The largest of them, The Crown Prince, massed maybe half what The Abbot did, though it stood straighter and taller. The Lawyer, twenty kilos—twenty five, tops. The sled would haul up to six hundred kilos; he could probably transport all of them in one trip.

  And unlike the days of Project Grizzly, he would get no argument from those he labored to save. No praise, either, but who expected that? In the seven years since a Sony Steel Corporation exploration team had discovered and named the liverocks, Terran scientists had established a mere four facts about the aliens. They broadcast steady sine waves in the high megahertz, they wrapped themselves in wondrous auras, they added perhaps a centigram a year to their mass—and stopped doing all three when shattered He wondered if they would even notice being moved.

  “Watson-san!”

  “Hai, Livingston-san?”

  “What’s gang on up there?”

  “Syntax error, Livingston-san.”

  He shook his head in frustration A civilian volunteer with multiple degrees in biology, forestry, and wildlife management, he knew nothing about the battle computer’s operating system. “Look Wat—”

  Dust plumed a meter from his left foot. Reacting immediately, he dove, heedless of risk, behind the nearest boulder So maybe he tore the outer layer of his suit. He could patch that. But a bullet hole in the head, now, that was somewhat harder to patch out here in the vacuum of the Belt.

  The boulder loomed over him, bleakly obsidian. Hunkering down under sniper fire was second nature to him. He had emerged intact from a dozen firelights at Yellowstone. He wished he were back there—the International Park Service had given him an automatic rifle, not merely a signal pistol.

  “Watson-san!”

  “Hai, Livingston-san?”

  “There’s a poacher here shooting at me!”

  “Ah so, desu.… Recorded.”

  “Recorded?!” The bellow rang in his ears. “For God’s sake, Watson-san, would you give me some help?”

  “Hai! Running Program Heads-Up.”

  Across the inner face of his transparent helmet sprawled the crater as seen from above. He groaned. A lot of good it would do him to get a bird’s-eye view of his attacker advancing across the battlefield. But then a second bullet kicked dust centimeters from his hand. At least the map would help him find something solid to put between himself and that rifle He squinted at the twelve tiny bubbles of green light, mentally rotating them until he picked out his own figure, a broad-shouldered hump of aluminum behind a coal-black outcropping. That glint of metal just above the crater rim would mark the rebel.

  Pyrite-flecked splinters flew.

  “No!” screamed Livingston. “No!”

  The Abbot’s aura dissolved. Slaughtered, the liverock collapsed into a pile of rubble. The Crown Prince’s aural
fringes brushed the mound of gray gravel and flashed brilliantly where they touched the exposed crystalline core.

  Livingston peeked around the edge of his shelter. In theory, a liverock The Abbot’s size would have a core.… he gasped. Not softball size, oh no. Junk another theory. More like a bowling ball. And dammit, the poacher had spotted it, too.

  What the hell kind of people would finance a revolution by eradicating an alien species? Not even the grizzly killers at Yellowstone had tried to cloak greed in metaphysical pap about claiming a fair share of heaven’s largess. They had been blunt: “I can get half a mill for the skin, jack. A full mill if I c’n make ’em believe it’s the last.”

  Celestial Equity, though—“God has given us the tools to help ourselves, and if we do not use whatever tools we need, God will hold us accountable.” He could not understand their shortsightedness, their disregard for their descendants.

  Another bullet sparked off the patch of bare stone before him. He found himself waiting for the whine of the ricochet and cursed his own foolishness. He drew his flare pistol. At that range, it would do the other no harm, but maybe it would dazzle him. Or her. Impossible to tell, given the bulkiness of spacesuits.

  He crouched aimed at a slight upward angle, and squeezed the trigger just as the poacher reached the crater floor A second later, the one in the silvery suit slapped at the fire on his chest and lifted backward off the ground as he took the flare’s velocity for his own.

  Livingston chuckled, inordinately pleased with his luck. Three meters high, nearing the peak of his arc, the burning rebel leveled his weapon and let loose a wild burst. Now Livingston laughed aloud. In his panic, the other had clearly forgotten about recoil. The downspray of bullets boosted him like a rocket. He—or maybe she—was tumbling heels over head backward, away from the crater.

  “Watson-san!”

  “Hai, Livingston-san?”

  “Do your screens detect that poacher?”

  “Hai.”

  “Can we capture him?”

  “[Click] Remote Servo Number Seventeen reports total destruction of fighter ship. Capture [click] is not viable option [click].”

  “Damn.” He had spent cumulative months studying calligraphy with the deft Tomimuri, why had he not asked for instruction on the care and use of Watson-san? Surely the damn machine could do something. Crouching by the debris that had been The Abbot, he gently brushed chips of rock away from the crystalline core. Flawless, a single massive jewel, it shimmered in the shadows.

  If the poachers could carry it to Celestial Equity territory, the rebel government would purchase it with CE dollars, then sell it surreptitiously for good, hard Imperial currency They would have no problem finding buyers. As generations of museum thieves had established, a market for irreplaceable works of art always exists.

  More of the core came into view, refracting more and more of the surviving liverocks’ auras. Colors roiled in its depths and pulsed in near-tangible waves from its facets. The very soul of the now dead rock, it made him understand why people would kill—and die—to own it. And it made him more determined than ever that no one would. On that, at least, he was in complete accord with the Empire. Only barbarians rape beauty for quick reward.

  It occurred to him that if he came through the attack alive, an autopsy of the core would offer an invaluable look at the alien’s nervous system. Assuming he could devise a means of autopsying crystal.

  If the poachers could carry it to Celestial Equity territory, the rebel government would purchase it with CE dollars, then sell it surreptitiously for good, hard Imperial currency They would have no problem finding buyers. As generations of museum thieves had established, a market for irreplaceable works of art always exists.

  More of the core came into view, refracting more and more of the surviving liverocks’ auras. Colors roiled in its depths and pulsed in near-tangible waves from its facets. The very soul of the now dead rock, it made him understand why people would kill—and die—to own it. And it made him more determined than ever that no one would. On that, at least, he was in complete accord with the Empire. Only barbarians rape beauty for quick reward.

  It occurred to him that if he came through the attack alive, an autopsy of the core would offer an invaluable look at the alien’s nervous system. Assuming he could devise a means of autopsying crystal.

  He clapped his gloved hands as an idea struck. “Watson-san!”

  “Hai, Livingston-san?”

  “Please list our viable options for dealing with the poacher.”

  “[Click] Program Arrow…[click]”

  He had no idea what Program Arrow entailed. He could ask of course. He shrugged. Anyone who would murder a living alien to sell its soul to bankroll an uprising deserved whatever he—or she—got. “Then do it.”

  “Syntax error, Livingston-san.”

  “Oh, shit.” He stared off at the distant stars There had to be a thousand ways to tell a computer to run a program. If he had to try each way in turn.… He sighed. He had no other choice. “Okay, how about this. Run Program Arrow.”

  “Password of the day?”

  “Ryoan-ji.”

  “Running [click].”

  Harsh light flashed beyond the crater rim as a surface-to-air missile hit the poacher.

  He did not need to ask Watson about the glare. The holo of the SAM destroying the President’s ’copter had made it famous. Queasiness wriggled in his gut. He had sworn himself to life not death. And yet the rebel had helped nuke Tomimuri and Habishi. Those who live by the blast.…

  Watson said, “Program Arrow executed. Run terminated.”

  He made a face. “Interesting choice of words, Watson-san.”

  “Syntax error, Livingston-san.”

  “I need some help, Watson-san.”

  “[click] Detail nature of inquiry, and this program will attempt to provide appropriate command structure [click].”

  “Are there other poachers?”

  “You must request status report on unauthorized personnel, specifying either radius of volume of space to be investigated or physical object demarcating space to be investigated from space to be ignored.”

  “Okay, do it.”

  “Syntax error Livingston-san.”

  “Dammit!” He kicked a pebble in frustration. As he began to somersault backward, the pebble soared up over the crater rim. It twinkled in the feeble sunlight, then disappeared. “Status report, unauthorized personnel, um, maximum range?”

  “At three point seven five times ten to three meters, on twenty-three minute equatorial orbit, one AMC-Renault reconnaissance vehicle model RC-808X, fully equipped, of Imperial Space Force registration, five humans aboard.”

  He blinked. “An Imper—”

  “At five point seven times ten to six meters, on eighteen hour intercept trajectory with Shin Matsumoto Base, one Honda-Moi interplanetary vehicle, model Belt Breaker, fully equipped, of uncertain registration, three humans aboard.”

  Confused, Livingston sat on a smooth black boulder and peered into the ebony sky. Somewhere up there an ISF recon ship orbited the asteroid. The Imperial Forces had claimed they had no troops to spare but Tomimuri and Habishi. Why then had the ship come? Why did the computer consider it unauthorized?

  “Watson-san?”

  “Hai, Livingston-san?”

  “I need some more help.”

  “[Click] Detail nature of inquiry, and this program will attempt to provide appropriate command structure [click].”

  “I want to know what that ISF ship is doing up there, for one thing.”

  “You must request backtrace and extrapolative report, specifying vessel in question by either name or location and establishing commencement and termination dates.”

  “Okay, Watson-san, give me a backtrace and an extrapolative report on the ISF ship now in, um—” what’d it say? “—twenty-three-minute equatorial orbit around this asteroid commencing, um, when it left its last port of call and terminating in twenty-fou
r hours.”

  “[Click] Ankai Maru departed Shin Edo eighteen November 2021 on three-year reconnaissance mission of asteroid belt, with primary focus on distribution and density of Celestial Equity liverock prospectors, and secondary focus on identifying and locating ninety percent probable liverock gardens. Twenty-two February 2023 Ankai Maru encountered flotilla of seven fully equipped Belt Breakers, brief engagement broached hull integrity of Ankai Maru [click]. Three of seven crew members died in battle. Four survivors placed in medi-freeze by boarding party and remain in medi-freeze as hostages against Imperial Space Force missiles.”

  Livingston shuddered. Medi-freeze suspended metabolic activity successfully for periods up to two years but that poor crew had slept in ice for going on seven years already. “Watson-san!”

  “Hai, Livingston-san!”

  “What are the survivors chances of emerging undamaged from medi-freeze?”

  Average probability of permanent skin damage, 0.857; probability of permanent organ damage excluding brain and spinal cord, 0.739; probability of permanent bone damage, 0.644; probability of permanent brain and/or central nervous system damage, 0.579. Average probability of emerging undamaged is 0.006.”

  He would be doing them a favor if he ordered Watson-san to run Program Arrow on their ship. If they were anything like Tomimuri and Habishi…

  Once, late of an evening, as Tomimuri’s magic brush inscribed Habishi’s latest haiku on a bolt of pure white silk, unleashing the thought in space as well as in time, they spoke of the inevitable. Tomimuri had said, “The way of the warrior leads always to death. All the sweeter, then, the life en route. What I fear is not the road’s end but its shoulder—to know the way without being able to walk it is more frightening than any other thought I can imagine.”

  Habishi had frowned into his tea, then pursed his lips and said, “Yes, that is the way of the way.”

  Looking up again, Livingston quartered the sky with his gaze. They orbited less than four kilometers high. He should be able to spot them, unless they were on the other side of the asteroid.