Starbound m-2

by Joe Haldeman

  “I trust I have your attention.”

  “Moonboy?”

  “Yes and no.” There was a short transmission delay. “This signal is coming from the Moon, but Moonboy is not there. This is a sentient cartoon. The signal is an encrypted and filtered tightbeam that only you, Namir, can receive and decode.”

  “Okay. What’s up?”

  “This cartoon has detected that you are not on Earth.”

  “That’s right. We’re in orbit, near—”

  “You must land on Earth as soon as possible. Leave space by midnight, Greenwich time, April 23. Tell no one that I talked to you.”

  “Not even other—”

  “Midnight, April 23.”

  The screen went blank. I asked it for the source, and it said LUNA NEAR CLAVIUS.

  Midnight on the 23 would be 7 P.M. April 22 in New York; 4 P.M. in the Mojave Desert. We’d be landing that morning, if things went according to plan.

  Best make sure things do go according to plan. There was no way to interpret that message other than ominously.

  I could use a drink, maybe something stronger than wine. I opened the door, pulled myself up the trellis, and floated over the arbor toward the warehouse.

  Paul and Carmen were already there. They turned and looked at me without saying anything.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You just got a message that you’re not supposed to share.”

  “From a person who died twenty- five years ago.” Paul tossed me a squeeze bottle with brown liquid. “I think we better do as he says.”

  Scotch flavor, pretty harsh. “Yeah.” I coughed. “Almost a day to spare.”

  “If the lander works, and Earth doesn’t screw things up.”

  I wished there were some way to pour a drink over ice in zero gee. “What if they say they can’t be ready by that time?”

  “Hm. I’ve landed these things on gravel beds on Mars and the lunar regolith, with no ground support. If it’s working, I can find someplace flat. But then we’d have to explain why we left early.”

  “Life-support emergency,” Carmen said, “or a medical emergency. Hard to fake.”

  Snowbird drifted over. “A Martian medical emergency. There is probably no one on Earth who could say I wasn’t sick.” Upside down, she bumped against the couch and righted herself. “In fact, I probably will be, with all the gravity and oxygen. California heat.”

  At turnaround we’d suggested leaving her on Little Mars, and it was the closest we’d ever seen her come to losing her temper. She was going to be the first Martian to swim in an ocean, or die trying!

  Dustin and Elza joined us, then Meryl.

  “Maybe we should tell people,” Meryl said. “They’re obviously planning something dramatically destructive, in space.”

  Carmen disagreed vigorously. “The last time we broke a promise of secrecy, the Others almost destroyed the planet in retribution. And we’ve seen what they did to their own Home, because it posed a threat.”

  “Putting two and two together,” I said, “or one and one… I assume they’ve learned about the fleet, and are going to destroy it. Within Moonboy’s time frame.”

  “We could save some of them,” Meryl said.

  Paul pointed out that we had no idea of how many they were. “If they actually did build the fleet up to the planned thousand strong, and they’re in a defensive array between the Earth and the Moon…”

  “If they all suddenly withdraw,” I said, “the Others will know we betrayed them. And strike immediately.” If the fleet are warriors, I did not say, warriors have to be ready to die.

  Paul shook his head slowly. “The logistical problem. Landing a thousand ships would be impossible if you had a week. Twenty hours?”

  “And I wonder how many people are in orbit who aren’t in fleet ships,” Carmen said. “Little Mars, Little Earth, the Hilton, all those new structures. Surely hundreds, at least.”

  “Maybe they wouldn’t be in danger,” Meryl said. “Not being part of the fleet.”

  “He didn’t say anything about that,” Paul said. “ ‘Leave space’ and ‘go to Earth’—that doesn’t leave much room for interpretation. And even if you warned the people here, in Little Mars and so forth, what could they do? You might be able to cram a hundred into all the Space Elevators, but in twenty hours they wouldn’t be anywhere close to Earth. They’d still be in space.”

  I wondered where Spy would draw the line between space and not-space. Never in all my unpleasant space experiences had I so fervently wanted to have my feet on solid ground.

  17

  CLOCK-WATCHING

  We put on our gecko slippers and lined up at the air lock. I turned around for one last look at the cave in the ice that had been our home for almost four years.

  It would have been twelve without the Others’ gift of time compression. Hard to imagine eight more years’ confinement here. We’d all be crazy as Moonboy.

  I knew every square centimeter of it better than anyplace I’d ever lived before, but there was no sadness in parting. I hoped never to see it again.

  A robot crew was coming aboard to maintain it as a historical artifact. It would become a museum, eventually. But first it could see service for other starflights, to places nearer than Wolf 25, before its fuel ran out.

  If it survived whatever was happening tomorrow.

  “Here you go, girl.” Elza smoothed a patch on the back of my hand. I immediately felt calmer. She gave them to everybody else but Paul and Namir. And Snowbird had her own resources.

  We secured our luggage in the back, the stern I suppose, and came forward to strap in. I was right behind Paul, and so had the dubious privilege of being able to watch us land, if my eyes weren’t squeezed shut.

  Namir was in the copilot chair, though he’d only flown light planes. More than the rest of us, though I didn’t know how much good that experience would be. Paul cheerfully told me it was like landing a slightly streamlined brick.

  He had been talking quietly over the radio, I assumed to the control people on Earth. He switched on the intercom, and said, “Brace yourselves. We’re gonna kiss this rock good-bye.”

  The steering jets made a low rumble and a sharp hiss. In the forward viewscreen, the rock-strewn ice fell away. Then a gentle acceleration pressed me back into the soft seat.

  I half dozed for an hour or so as we approached the atmosphere. Then the ship started to vibrate and shake. Then buck alarmingly, with serious-sounding creaks and pops.

  It had been more than six years since I last went through atmospheric braking, landing on Mars. Earth is more violent, but shorter. And when the red glow faded away, I was looking down at blue ocean!

  We banked around and started falling toward the desert, which was not at all like home. Too much vegetation and high mountains everywhere. Maybe hills, technically. Mountains to me.

  I knew the approach angle was going to be steep. But it felt way too much like a vertical drop. I shut my eyes so hard I saw stars, and didn’t open them until the huge thump and then jittery scraping as Paul executed a somewhat controlled slide toward some buildings on the horizon.

  We stopped in a cloud of dust, which rapidly blew away. A vehicle almost large enough to be called a building lurched toward us on tracks.

  Paul swiveled half around. “There’s a decontamination unit coming toward us. They say it will only take an hour or so, with, quote, ‘a minimum of discomfort.’ At least for the humans. Snowbird, they have to take you to another place.”

  “I’m on Earth, Paul. It’s all another place.”

  We all unstrapped and did some stretches. I felt a little weak and had twinges in both knees, but the gravity wasn’t too oppressive. It was good to be on solid ground.

  My wrist tattoo was working again, and it had set itself to the right time zone, 10:32 A.M. So we had about five and a half hours before something impressive happened.

  “Should we say anything?” Meryl said. “About—”

  “No,�
� Paul said. “What would we say? What would be safe?”

  Namir nodded. “Some of the pilots and crew might be able to take measures to protect themselves. From whatever it is. But then our Others get pissed and fry the Earth. Or bake it, as Spy suggested. Or cover it with sulfuric acid. Too big a gamble.”

  The decontamination team hooked their vehicle onto the lander with a crinkled metal tube like the one we used in space. They came on the viewscreen and asked for me and the other women first.

  I went through two air locks into a white room, where three female techs were waiting, clad in heavy protective suits. Meryl and Elza went into other rooms.

  They asked me to disrobe and filed all my clothing into individually sealed plastic bags. Then they vacuumed me, an experience that could be full of erotic possibilities, depending on who was doing it to you.

  Then the internal part: they gave me a glass of what they called a “super-nano-laxative,” and warned me not to drink it until I was seated on a toilet. It had a pleasant lime flavor and a less pleasant explosive effect. A businesslike enema completed the charming sequence. All of this internal fortune duly cataloged and sealed away.

  I was ready for a shower then, and got the most thorough one of my life, three strong women scrubbing away where angels fear to tread.

  When I was finally able to dress, they had some fancy and futuristic clothes waiting. Formfitting but also form-altering, with smart fabrics that applied light pressure here and there. Very flattering. Hundreds of tiny bright strings hung from the fabric, revealing and concealing. Men who never gave me a second look back then… well, they’d be too old to do anything but look now.

  They gave me a bowl of vanilla ice cream and put me in a darkened room with a couch and suggested I might want to rest for an hour or so. I got a light turned on but couldn’t find anything to read. No flatscreen or cube obvious; no controls. But I said “space news” out loud and a cube appeared, no projection frame, with a picture of us landing, with this big crawler in the foreground.

  Then it showed the president, beaming over his beard, congratulating us and saying that he would be out in California for the landing and the debriefing.

  The station noted that live coverage would begin at 7:00, Eastern time. They might have a bigger story than they bargained for.

  I did doze for a little while. It was after three when a big blond tech (whose name I didn’t know but who knew parts of me better than Paul did) woke me with the news that I’d been pronounced clean and was wanted at the Green Room.

  She stopped me just before I got to the door. “Oh, you wouldn’t know this. The president’s from Kentucky, and he’ll offer you his favorite bourbon. It’s a hundred proof; you shouldn’t refuse, but you might not want too much of it.” Doubly true since all I’d had to eat on this planet was a bowl of ice cream. But hell… I could knock back a couple of shots and ask Professor Gold if he’d like to play some Texas Hold-’em.

  A lot of famous people do seem larger than life when you meet them. I knew Gold had been a large man from his visit with Paul a half century ago. But now he was an old shaggy bear, moving with slow sureness, glowing with charisma, a man obviously happy with the world he’d helped to make. The world that had twenty- five minutes to go.

  His hand was warm and dry, a measured fraction of large strength. “Paul tells me you don’t care for spirits,” he said. “So instead of a tot of Blanton’s, perhaps you’d like a glass of champagne? A big glass?”

  An assistant came up with the biggest champagne flute I’d ever seen, and I took my place at a round table. There was only one other empty place—no space for Martians?—and Namir came in, accepted a glass of bourbon, and sat down. He spooned an ice cube from his water glass and put it in the whiskey.

  “Should I address you as ‘General’?” the president said.

  “We have no rank together, sir. Only Namir.”

  He nodded and leaned back in a chair that was slightly larger than ours, slightly higher. “I exercised my right as Grand Inquisitor of this honky-tonk, and asked the scientists whether I might talk with you first. They acted like a bunch of folks who do have a sense of rank, Namir, not to mention tenure. So they agreed.”

  I think our response was appropriate, for six people who were trying to behave like a proper audience while actually wanting to scream. Twenty minutes.

  “What I’d like to do, before we go on camera and do all the cube-ops, is ask each of you, if it’s possible, to sum up your feelings in a line or two.” He smiled a wry curve. “Something I can misquote in an off-the-cuff speech. Namir, you’re oldest.”

  “May we speak without fear of being exactly quoted? Let alone misquoted. No one will like what I have to say, and I would as soon have it not be ‘on the record.’ ”

  “There are no recording instruments in this room. You have my word on that.”

  Namir took a sip and his brow furrowed. “It’s not complicated. Never trust them, not one iota; not on the most trivial thing. But never forget that we have to live with them.” He set the glass down and smiled. “The lone Israeli speaks. I got that with my mother’s matzo.”

  Meryl was next. “I think we should find a way to disconnect from them. Even if it means giving up free energy; even if it means giving up space. They’re too powerful and too unpredictable.”

  Gold chuckled. “Watch out, Meryl. That attitude could get you elected in thirty states. Elza?”

  “I think we’re in a position like a child with a toxic, abusive parent… who is also extremely rich. So our problem is twofold: Can we live without the wealth? And can we leave it somehow without the parent exacting revenge.”

  “I disagree with you both,” Dustin said.

  “Your turn.”

  “We can’t maneuver our way out of this, Mr. President. They’re too powerful, and they’ve said outright that they’re testing us. We have to pass the tests. Channel all our energy right there. Maybe they’ll give us an A and leave us alone.”

  “And if we fail the tests?”

  The air shimmered and a holo of Snowbird appeared between the two men. “I have been listening; sorry for not appearing.

  “If you fail the tests, then you cease to be. If you were Martians, then that would be of little consequence.”

  “So if we were Martians,” Gold said, “the problem would disappear. Along with us.”

  Her image pressed her head. “You are a humorist, Mr. Gold.”

  “That’s a nonanswer,” Dustin said.

  “Wait,” the president said, and touched his ear. “Oh my God.”

  I looked at my wrist. It was 1600:22.

  “Pipe it in here.” He shook his head angrily. “Jesus Christ! They don’t need clearance to see the fucking moon!”

  An auditorium-sized cube suddenly filled a third of the room. It was London, the Thames at midnight, ancient Ferris wheel lighting up the darkness, the full moon’s reflection a rippling ladder up the river.

  The moon suddenly changed. It became much brighter, and the markings on its face faded to an even glow. It grew to double its size, triple… and then it faded into a fuzzy round cloud, glowing dimmer as it grew.

  “Was that the Others?” the president said, unnecessarily. “They actually blew up the moon?”

  It could be a lot worse, I thought. Still could be.

  “They sent a message. Just before it happened.” The weird night landscape faded, to be replaced by a huge face, all too familiar: Spy.

  “You lied to us,” it said. “You sent emissaries, machine and man, to say that you were pacifistic. In return for our aggressiveness, you said, you sent a plea for peace and understanding.

  “All the while, for fifty years, you were building a gigantic fleet of warships. Hidden from us.”

  “Not for invasion!” the president cried, as if the image could hear. “Just to protect Earth!”

  “Those thousand ships are about to be destroyed,” it said. “We are going to disassemble your Moon and use
it for ammunition, from gravel-sized pebbles up to huge boulders.

  “High-speed projectiles will target every warship, and all their support. Other rocks will destroy every smallest satellite structure. Your Space Elevators will have fallen by dawn.

  “All of the space between the Earth and what is now the Moon’s orbit will be filled with gravel. Any spaceship you attempt to launch will be a sieve before it leaves cislunar space.

  “We do this with a spirit of charity and generosity. You must realize that we could easily drop mountains on the Earth, and humans would go the way of the dinosaurs. But we do want to give you another chance and see what you do with it. This is your last test.

  “I am speaking to you from the crater Clavius. In a few moments, it will cease to exist.”

  The face disappeared. The Thames was dark except for the blinking lights of emergency hovercraft. A brilliant meteor lanced through the sky, then two more, then another pair.

  We sat in stunned silence.

  I would never see Mars again?

  18

  RESPONSES

  The president had delayed flying for a day. All civilian flights were canceled as well, until the danger from the constant meteor shower could be assessed.

  At night they fell like brilliant snowflakes, with occasional bright crawling fireballs. But those were mostly grains of sand, or dust. Every now and then one would be large enough to make it to the ground, but most of those were man-made, the debris of thousands of satellites. (Ad Astra no doubt was pelted, but the iceberg had so much mass it stayed put in orbit.)

  There were no casualties on Earth that first day, though seven thousand did die in space, mostly in the first few minutes. Worldwide havoc had been expected, especially from the Space Elevators, unraveling and lashing the surface of the Earth like huge bullwhips fifty thousand miles long—but they had been engineered with the possibility of disaster in mind, and the cables disintegrated into harmless dust as they fell. Two passenger carriers flamed into the land and sea, their human cargos ash.

  So there was no danger to atmospheric craft, but the peril to spacecraft was real. Every cubic centimeter of space between Earth and where the Moon had been held a piece of gravel.