Zero-G

by William Shatner

  From a three-dimensional icon floating in the lower right corner, Adsila knew that Lord was watching and listening, but he was also talking to Dr. May. Before she could even consider how much to tell the PD, the transmission was interrupted by a calm male voice delivering an emergency alert from Empyrean command.

  “The Dragon’s Eye is once again active,” Stanton reported.

  “Hell’s full acre,” Al-Kazaz uttered as he also received the information.

  All ICs immediately turned toward the spot in the heavens where the AIMS mission had now, demonstrably, failed. A familiar, very unsettling darkness was spreading across the heavens and appeared to be expanding toward Earth.

  “Sir,” Adsila said.

  “I see it,” Al-Kazaz replied, and looked away.

  When the PD turned, Adsila sent a cautioning look at the other members of the team—though none of them seemed poised to make a remark. The pause was actually a relief: it gave everyone a moment to process the fact that by diverting the missile and saving everything in Earth orbit they may have doomed another spot on the home world.

  “Hold on,” Al-Kazaz said, still looking toward something out of view. He waited, squinting. “Now what?”

  It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. There was no urgency in his tone, just puzzlement. The Zero-G team remained quiet and very attentive.

  Then another alert from Empyrean command. “Magnetic activity at the base of the thermosphere.”

  Grainger accessed the Empyrean’s outboard lenses and filled the space above them with a holographic view of the region just below the upper limits of Earth’s atmosphere. The optics showed nothing other than the characteristic black of night beyond a terminator of bright sunlight. Grainger was about to switch in a series of filters when Adsila spoke.

  “Stop right there!” she said, and pointed to a ribbon of red just above the lower mesosphere.

  “Are you seeing this, EAD Waters?” Al-Kazaz asked.

  “We are, sir.”

  “Earthers are getting a real show!” He was still looking off to his right, slowly shaking his head. “It can’t be, it shouldn’t be, not during the daytime—but there it is.”

  “An aurora,” McClure said, exhaling as he studied the slowly undulating ribbon. The area of rippling atmospheric unrest grew wider and added an orange glow beside the red. A few moments later, yellow joined the flux.

  “That is way outside the geomagnetic poles,” Adsila remarked.

  McClure brought up readings from the station’s Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. “It’s also not being caused by highly charged electrons from the solar wind,” he said. “Antiprotons are infusing the Van Allen belts from the direction of Jade Star. The electronvolt measurements are—thirty . . . forty . . . fifty times the normal energy range.”

  “Are you saying that the Chinese device caused this?” Al-Kazaz said.

  “Almost certainly, sir,” McClure replied. “The antimatter is usually produced by cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere. That is sporadic—this is a flood. Now it’s up to sixty times normal.”

  The colors expanded along the spectrum and descended through the thermosphere, producing a liquid rainbow that poured through the stratosphere and down into the troposphere. Despite the sunshine, the sheets of color were vivid, luminous against Earth, turning the brown and green of the plains into a quilt seeming to blow in the wind above.

  “Is there any danger?” Al-Kazaz asked.

  The prime director got his answer when his image vanished.

  “Janet, was that us or them?” Adsila asked.

  “Them,” Grainger said ominously.

  After a moment, McClure added, “I believe the light show has turned off the power.”

  “How?”

  “Looks to me like a coronal mass ejection, mostly protons and electrons,” he said. “In short, a geomagnetic storm disrupted the power grids.”

  While Adsila was still processing that, she received a communication from on board the Empyrean. It was Ziv.

  “If you’re free, I think you had better come to the reception area,” he said.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Stanton lost most of his security team on the Jade Star, and he’s probably going to need one,” Ziv told her.

  Adsila looked at Lord’s face in her IC. He nodded.

  “Janet, you have the comm,” Adsila said as she hurried from the ­Zero-G command center.

  “Acknowledged,” Grainger replied.

  The associate executive assistant director wasn’t sure how much of this her nerves could take. Though her ego liked taking control very much, the fragility of Earth was something truly frightening.

  As Adsila made her way to the reception hall, it was difficult to believe that there had been a party here just the day before. It felt like some strange relativistic effect: time had kept up its pace around her, in space, while the clocks at home, receding from her into the stars, had run slow.

  The halls were empty, despite the fact that there were twenty-eight extra people on the Empyrean. When the Earth shuttle had arrived, Stanton ordered it grounded at the docking port. Adsila had noted that the pilots were still on duty, in the cockpit, and knew that wasn’t for the well-being of the shuttle. There was no reason to think it would be any safer from the Chinese device here than in transit. Stanton wanted it ready in case the Empyrean was hit and evacuation became necessary. At least thirty people would be able to leave the station—assuming that many occupants survived an antimatter blast.

  As she arrived at the Empyrean’s event area, Adsila saw some of the “missing” population of the Empyrean—off-duty station staff, shop workers, guests from the shuttle that had just docked and those who hadn’t yet been able to depart. They were congregated beneath the large dome and at every viewport, jockeying for a better look at Earth, their faces striped with shimmering bands of red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. The expressions Adsila could see, those nearest the door and looking up, ranged from excitement to fear—especially those who pointed up at the sliver of nighttime Earth visible from Empyrean’s geostationary orbit. The lights that were traditionally so visible on the home world were gone.

  Ziv Levy was standing beside the doorway, waiting for her. As she approached, she saw a pocket of some of the distinguished guests from the reception: pornographer Fraas Dircks, banker Wallace Brown-Card, gambling magnate Maalik Kattan, and Colonel Jack Franco were grouped in a near corner, standing as still as figures in a cave painting, speaking in hushed but intense whispers. Brown-Card and Dircks were distracted by something she could not see, but Kattan and Franco were fully engaged. She heard the colonel mention “Red Giant,” obviously expressing concern that the Russian space station was now the only other fully functioning platform above Earth’s atmosphere. Though Red Giant did not possess shuttles or on-site robots, and their space station was beyond thruster-pack reach of Jade Star, Franco would be concerned that they could still send a rocket from Earth to the stricken Chinese outpost and try to grab a module or two for study.

  Like vultures on the carcass of a bison, she thought. Her eyes lingered on the agitated Defense Intelligence Agency officer. So what do you call the one who feeds on the vultures?

  A maggot, she decided.

  Adsila arrived at the reception area, lingering as she passed Ziv. He looked, uncharacteristically, slightly beaten from his quick roundtrip to the vicinity of the Jade Star. His short hair glistened with a sweaty fluid, his jaw was loose, and his shoulders less erect than usual.

  “The duties of a spacefarer do not always permit vanity,” he said, responding to her look.

  Standing this close, the electronic glint in his eyes reminded her of their encounter in her cabin. Even sober and in the midst of a crisis, a part of her still longed for him.

  “Thank you for what you did out there,” she said so that the ot
hers could hear. As she spoke, she leaned in so their ICs connected. A proximity connection would only give the spy the ability to communicate, not to read her open files.

  “How is your agent?” Ziv asked, his mechanical voice carrying. His fingers moved at his side.

  “He is very well, thank you,” Adsila said.

  As Adsila continued to lean in, Ziv replayed a recording he had just made showing a VIP antechamber just off the reception hall. It showed Dr. Vishnu Chadha facing Birousk Rouhani. The pacifist and the guru of the Julijil antinational cult were arguing heatedly and drawing a crowd.

  That’s where the rest of the people are, Adsila thought.

  Rouhani was talking “apocalypse.” Chadha was urging calm, but the listeners were becoming loud and angry and frightened. Even if they had no political or philosophical stake in the discussion, the aurora had left emotions very near to the surface.

  “It’s escalating fast,” Ziv said.

  Adsila watched the replay as someone mentioned the shuttle, projected an image for the group showing the pilots remaining on board as the passengers exited.

  Adsila moved a finger. “Dr. Carter, Agent Abernathy, to the docking bay,” she ordered. “Watch the shuttle for possible forced entry. AeroSol if necessary.”

  That last command was for the medic. AeroSol was a riot-control gas that magnified sunlight and caused temporary blindness. Just seeing law enforcement arrive wearing goggles was typically enough to disburse a crowd.

  Levy pivoted aside so Adsila could enter. As she stepped in, the sight of Hiromi Tsuburaya flashed in her peripheral vision. The Japanese reporter sat alone on a bench, her fingers, eyes, and head repeatedly going through the ritual of trying an IC link that would not connect. Adsila had seen her expression on the faces of lost children. Maybe Tsuburaya would be luckier than others. All of northeastern Japan was still silent. Perhaps her loved ones had survived.

  Adsila turned toward the antechamber, shifting to her male nature before she entered. As he stepped into the ballroom, he saw the people gesturing and yelling.

  “It is time for us to seize control of our species,” Rouhani was saying, “not leave it to the whim and ego of princes and politicians.”

  “That is the road to chaos,” Chadha insisted. “Look at you—ready to fight others for a ride to Earth.” He turned to the guru. “Is that the path to your global paradise? Violence?”

  “Not violence,” Rouhani answered. “Action. We are faced with a twenty-first-century flood. One must swim or be washed away.”

  The threat of Armageddon didn’t faze the Indian doctor. “If you are correct—and there is no evidence to support that—but even if you are right, this is our chance to cooperate, to find common ground among our differences, not to scrub away individuality.”

  “Diplomacy has failed humankind,” the guru said dismissively. “Your pacifistic happiness cannot be achieved through talk. We must ride this disaster to the unity of Pan Terra.”

  Adsila shouldered through the group and stepped beside the men. He turned his hands in a prayer position to Chadha, flashed angry eyes at Rouhani. Then he faced the crowd of twenty-odd guests.

  “I am Adsila Waters of the FBI’s Zero-G space group,” he said. “You will all disburse immediately.”

  “We have the right to speak!” someone yelled.

  “Do it by IC,” Adsila replied.

  “You have no authority here,” Rouhani commented.

  “Pan Terror is not an authority either!” someone else cried from the fringe of the crowd.

  The group began to murmur loudly. Chadha raised his arms to calm them. Rouhani glared sternly at the person who had yelled.

  “All of you, I have the authority to investigate and suppress sedition on American facilities off-Earth,” Adsila said. “This station qualifies under Section 11, Paragraph 59 of the NASA Affiliated Responsibility Charter.” She sent a copy to everyone in her immediate area. “Those of you who have rooms will go back to them. The rest can remain here or in one of the bars, but you must separate.”

  “More borders?” Rouhani said. “No, I refuse to be quarantined.”

  “Fine,” said a deep, loud voice from outside the small crowd. “But you will shut up and go somewhere else.”

  Adsila glanced over to see that Ziv Levy had joined them—the CHAI standing just behind him making it clear whose side he was on. Standing a head higher than the tallest person present, he parted the group as Moses had parted the sea.

  “Mechanical muscle asserts its will,” Rouhani said with heartfelt indignation. Without taking his eyes off the CHAI, he thrust a shaking finger toward the viewport. “How do you know that this is not our burning bush, Pan Terra’s call to action?”

  “Because that voice in your head isn’t God, it’s megalomania.” Ziv moved closer, then closer still. “I grew up fighting agitators like you,” he said angrily. “Ethnic cleansing masquerading as glorious homogeneity, hate pretending to be charity, clerics advocating an end to war provided you accept their belief system. That is not peace. That is subjugation. And the human spirit will not, cannot tolerate that.”

  “What right does a tea bag have to lecture about human spirit?” someone yelled from behind.

  Ziv turned sharply. Adsila put a restraining hand on his arm.

  “Mr. Levy just risked his life to save one of my team members,” the EAD said quietly. “Humanity is in mind and deed, not flesh. Again, please—all of you stop this, now, before things get out of hand.”

  The hush that settled on the group spread throughout the reception area. Even Franco’s group was silent, listening.

  “No one wants conflict.” Rouhani spoke quickly, so he wouldn’t be put in the position of concurring with Chadha if the Indian doctor agreed first. “I will retire to the chapel to reflect.”

  The guru turned and left by himself, though Ziv’s sharp eyes stayed with him like those of an eagle on the wing. Chadha lingered, moving to the main room, where he stared out the dome toward Earth. Under Adsila’s stern gaze, the others separated, some milling by the viewport but most departing.

  “Track them, Janet,” Adsila said into his IC. “Make sure they don’t recongregate.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Dr. Carter, Agent Abernathy, stand down,” Adsila added.

  They quickly obliged.

  Finally, Adsila turned to Ziv. “Thanks for that.”

  “It was necessary,” he said, resentment clinging to his voice as he continued to stare after Rouhani. “I think I’ll go to the chapel myself.”

  “To pray, bait, or monitor?” Adsila asked.

  The CHAI considered the question. This was a Ziv he hadn’t seen, the truly human figure who had meant every word he had just uttered.

  “I don’t know,” Ziv admitted. “Probably all of the above.”

  “You might want to consider doing something else, something more constructive,” Adsila said.

  “Such as?”

  “Checking with your colleagues on Earth,” the EAD said.

  “About what?”

  “About how that argument we just heard might be playing out among nine and a half billion people six hundred miles below us.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  POWER RETURNED TO Armstrong Base nearly an hour after the John Young soared from its bay on the moon. The solar panels, jostled by the moonquake, had been realigned. The dust that had landed on external contacts had been flushed away. Internally, the conduits of wiring that had been shaken loose were back in place.

  For Trine Jørgensen, forty-seven-year-old second-in-command, the rush of fresh air from the vents was invigorating, the brilliance of the illuminated facility was like dawn back home, and the return of her IC was reassuringly normal—especially when the first thing she saw in it was Earth. Above the distant planet was a liquid prism, a wedge driven into the
atmosphere; below it was a complementary slab of darkness that seemed the general shape and color of an old, open grave. A blighted spot, unhealthy and unnerving.

  She flicked off the flashlight she’d been using to observe the crew at work in the engineering sector. She gave the team a big smile and a bigger thumbs-up.

  “Excellent work, everyone,” Commander Tengan said over a basewide IC broadcast. “You’ll be pleased to know that structural anchors and joints all held beyond design expectations. Whoever was on rest period, as soon as you’re finished, back to it.”

  Jørgensen stood beside the massive power-storage unit as she ran through her IC checklist, making sure there were no anomalies anywhere on the base. Now that she could breathe, she realized how lucky they had been. This event was not only unprecedented, it hadn’t been planned for.

  The base had been constructed to survive the four types of moonquakes: the relatively common, very mild “thermals,” caused by the expansion of the crust when the sun ended lunar night; rare and barely noticeable “sliders,” caused when crater walls collapsed; rarer “tidals,” which originated around five hundred kilometers below the surface and were caused by the gravitational tug of Earth; and “impacts,” which were common but brief shudders caused by meteorites striking the surface.

  No one factored a space weapon into the engineering, she thought. Then she smiled lightly. Given Tengan’s views, maybe they should have.

  That wasn’t a criticism: the woman shared her idea that colonialism was not only an outdated idea, it was counterproductive. People worked best when they worked for themselves.

  “Number two,” Tengan said over Jørgensen’s private IC channel, “I have some back-patting to do all around. In the meantime, go see Mr. Christie in the sick bay. Sam Lord wants his IC.”

  “Authorization?” she asked, even as she headed toward the stairs that led below.

  “From Director Lord,” Tengan said, reading the code the Zero-G leader had sent her before boarding the John Young. “S, Sam, L, Lord, A, Authorization, T, Traitor,” she said, “numerals 33045.”