“I was kidding,” said Siegel.
Rankin held his hand up again. “It’s only been a few hours. We don’t have all the answers, but we’re gonna’ get them.” He let his accent slip into his native Texan twang. He always did it when he wanted to settle people. “Let’s all just calm down, okay? We’re alive—”
“Which might be more than anyone left on Earth,” Siegel muttered.
“We were all chosen for this,” Rankin continued, ignoring her, “because we’re exceptional under pressure, and are the best at what we do. So let’s stay calm and work the problem, and not let the problem work us. No matter how big.”
He looked at each crewmember’s face in turn.
“Now let’s start with looking at this video from Ufuk Erdogmus, what do you say? It’s probably just some encouragement for our mission, blah, blah, blah, but let’s have some dessert and watch the movie.”
He balled one fist and hesitated before finally punching the play button on the terminal next to him. Maybe it was just a pep talk, but with this being the last message they had from a dead Earth, Rankin was afraid there was more to it than that.
He’d met the multi-billionaire Ufuk Erdogmus in private several times and found him to be a nice man. He’d had even been invited to a drinks party in the main hall of the Museo del Prado in Madrid where Erdogmus had paraded him, his latest acquisition, a former NASA Mission Commander. In public, Erdogmus wore a very different face, just like every other man Rankin had met who occupied an extreme position of wealth or power: a mask that conveyed only the emotion Erdogmus wanted others to see.
In front of them now, on the galley’s main screen, Erdogmus chose that public-facing mask. “Commander Rankin, crew of Mars First. Perhaps you already know something of what is about to happen, what will have already happened by the time you watch this. Perhaps you saw it unfold. I am not certain how the mission will play out.”
Ufuk’s face shifted from conveying optimism into one projecting sadness.
“What I can tell you is that the Earth will suffer a terrible tragedy. The full details are in a scientific briefing prepared for you and the crew.” At that moment, terminals around the ship pinged. New messages arrived into the in-boxes of each crewmember. “Your mission to Mars has been suspended indefinitely. Instead, there are new mission parameters which are of vital importance to humanity.”
Erdogmus’s face faded from the screen, replaced by a graphic of the solar system, similar to the ones Siegel had been creating with the astrometrics software. A foreign object sliced through the solar system at high speed, and in the background, Ufuk’s voice explained Nomad, the massive black hole pair that ripped the solar system apart. He detailed the expected size of the tsunamis, massive volcanism, and earthquakes, but stressed that it shouldn’t wipe all life from Earth, and that Earth should remain in a habitable orbit afterward.
Not wipe out all life?
It seemed like he was trying to upsell the end of humanity.
Rankin had no family beyond an estranged brother in Nevada. Coming on this mission, Rankin never expected to see him again, and they hadn’t even said goodbye when he left. Even so, he wondered what had happened to his brother in the final hours. A bottle of Jack Daniels, no doubt, drunk in the arms of a Vegas stripper. Rankin couldn’t help smiling sadly, but pushed the thought away.
He rose from his chair, still listening to Ufuk detail the probable scale of the death and destruction, the nature of the solar radiation storm induced by Nomad’s passing. At least it all made sense now. Rankin walked over to one of the windows. Outside, the star-scape rotated as the Mars First hab module spun to create the centripetal force that simulated their gravity. He looked out at a universe that was suddenly vastly different.
“The lateness in which the event appeared to us left national governments with limited options.” Erdogmus’s voice filled the communal area. “There was little time to prepare. I doubt we will have an opportunity to transmit once the disaster arrives. Not for some time.”
Siegel joined him at the window. Her shoulders shook and she sobbed. He wasn’t ever very good at consoling, and he had no idea how to even approach something like this. He felt very little himself. Surprise of course, but it always took him much longer than anyone else to process the emotions of an event.
“Much of the Earth will be covered by dense cloud,” said Ufuk’s voice behind them. “Most of our satellites will be destroyed in the event, and much of our ground-based equipment. We have no way of really knowing until after the event. You will be in a unique position to observe the solar system, and so we will be relying on you to provide that information.”
“Is that why they sent us out here?” Siegel whispered. “This was pre-recorded. He knew this was going to happen before we launched. Why didn’t he stop us?”
“We always knew this was a one-way ticket,” Rankin replied quietly. “Maybe it was better this way. Like he said, there wasn’t much time to prepare.”
“But I could have said goodbye to my sisters…”
“Didn’t you say goodbye?”
“But not like that.”
Rankin and Siegel both turned back on the main screen.
“It is possible you will be contacted by others,” Ufuk’s voice boomed. “We have tried to prevent access to your systems, but they may find a way. The event has caused considerable division among governments, even within governments. Speak only to me now, only to my representatives. The world is not what it was.”
“Mein Gott,” Siegel said, lapsing into her native tongue.
Tears ran down Peng Shouang’s face. Cuijpers just stared in disbelief.
As Ufuk was speaking, a tiny light had pulsed on in the control room. A tiny orb of brilliant blue, a small light that signaled the awakening the synthetic intellect that regained control of the spacecraft known as Mars First.
This synthetic intellect embodied Mars First.
As the crew processed Ufuk’s words, Mars First absorbed and observed and monitored inside the spacecraft and out, collating and analyzing data. The first analysis: Earth’s atmosphere and surface were devastated by the Nomad event, even past the worst predicted ranges. Orbital parameters for the Earth and planets, and Mars First itself, were all within planned operational limits. And most lines of communication had ceased with its Earth-based networks.
Most, but not all.
The second analysis: the crew’s emotional metrics were all over the place.
Mars First experienced no sensation of emotion itself; of course, such things were beyond its design. It couldn’t therefore empirically say what experiencing the emotions the crew was undergoing right now might actually feel like—but it understood emotion in a diagnostic context and was able to navigate the web of physiological symptoms in order to recognize human emotional response. It could diagnose extreme emotional response and take appropriate measures to advise, assist, and alleviate where necessary.
The third analysis: one of the crew was dead.
Final analysis: the dead crewmember was no accident.
“Hey, everyone!” Cuijpers banged her hand on the terminal in front of her. “Mars First is back online.”
A stream of diagnostics replaced Ufuk’s face on the main display.
Siegel ran back to her console. “And I just got a new trajectory report.” Her face contorted. “And Ufuk wasn’t lying. We’re not going to Mars.”
That got everyone’s attention.
“So where are we going?” Rankin had to ask as Siegel stared with rapt attention at her display. “Back to Earth somehow?”
Ufuk knew this was going to happen, Rankin realized, before they launched. Maybe he'd planned some clever contingency? A dangerous ray of hope bloomed inside Rankin’s chest. Maybe his entire crew wasn’t doomed to a pointless and painful death. “I thought you said our trajectory only led into empty space?” he said.
Siegel wiped her face with a shaking hand. “Saturn,” she said quietly.
“Excuse
me?”
“We’re going to Saturn.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
Rankin knew enough of orbital dynamics to know where the planets were. The distance from Earth to Mars at closest approach was about seventy-five million kilometers, and that journey had been planned to take them over three hundred days. Saturn was almost one and a half billion kilometers from the sun, in the outer solar system, way beyond the Asteroid Belt and even Jupiter. Almost twenty times further from the Earth than Mars. And it wasn’t just the distance. Saturn wasn’t even solid—it was a gas giant, a thousand times the size of the Earth. An unimaginable monster they couldn’t even touch down on, even if they weren’t fried by its massive magnetic fields.
“You’re serious,” Rankin said, seeing that Siegel didn’t crack a smile. “But even getting out to Saturn would take us a decade, probably even—”
“Nine months.”
“Excuse me?” Had she lost her mind?
Getting to Saturn in nine months would require a velocity ten times what they were doing now. Rankin decided he needed to get her medicated, and fast. The shock had obviously been too much. He took a step toward her, but she shook her head.
“I said we are going to Saturn, but we are not going to Saturn,” Siegel said, placing a very heavy emphasis on the second ‘we.’
She brought a graphic up on the main display. It was a top-down animation of the solar system, but the new solar system. The post-Nomad solar system. A bright red line plotted Mars First’s trajectory, and as the animation progressed, a dotted line dropped in from the outer solar system, a planet dragged into a retrograde orbit.
“Because Saturn…” Siegel’s voice was somewhere between a giggle and a sob as she pointed at the graphic on the screen. “…is coming to us.”
Chapter 1
Northern Libya
It was Hector who saw the Bedouin first as he scampered up a dune ahead of them. They’d been walking south on foot for at least ten hours, stopping every now and then, along a dusty tracked road. Giovanni and Raffa took turns carrying Hector, but the boy toughed it out and walked most of it. They had seen no one, heard no noise beyond the whine of the wind. Jess felt tiny in the bleak landscape that undulated in formations carved by the constant sirocco wind. A wilderness of waves replaced by one of sand.
Hector ran back shouting and pointing.
They appeared as though from nowhere. Four spectral figures in the hazy light. Ghosts feathering the surface of the ash-ridden desert. Wrapped in heavy wool layers, each sat astride a camel. The wind whipped across the dunes, casting ash and sand across their faces. Beyond them, some way off, a clutch of tethered shelters.
Jess spoke quietly: “They’ve been here a while, Massarra, probably watching us.”
The Israeli nodded in agreement.
“These are Ufuk’s contacts?” Jess asked. “They’re here to meet us?”
This time Massarra seemed to nod and shrug at the same time.
“You trust them?”
“In this place, loyalties change overnight. The desert sets survival above everything else. Whatever agreements might have been made in the past, we can make no assumptions. If we have something to offer them, then we are valuable. If not, we have equipment and supplies they could take from us by force.”
“Anything positive you could tell me?”
“Just be watchful and remain unthreatening. The Sanusi Bedouin have lived in this region for centuries, in the Wahat al-Kufra. They will be wary of strangers. In any event, Jess, we need whatever food they can spare us.”
Jess couldn’t argue with that. They were hungry after eating almost their last half-rations of MREs on the boat. “Can you speak to them?”
“Their Arabic is a nomadic variety called Bedawi. It is different to the sedentary Arabic spoken in cities, but we will be able to understand each other.”
“Then we’d better get this going. It’s late and the temperature will drop. We could do with being under shelter.”
One of the figures dropped from his camel. He shuffled toward them, hunched against the wind. In his hands was a rifle. The rest remained still, the only movement their clothes flapping in the wind.
Massarra turned to Jess and the rest of the group. “Wait here. Whatever happens, keep control of yourselves. We must convince these people that we are of value to them alive. Mr. Erdogmus, I suggest you accompany me.”
Ufuk and Massarra walked toward the advancing man. In Jess’s hand, hidden in the pocket of her jacket, she held the pistol. It felt heavy, the metal cold. The man halted ten feet from Massarra and gestured for her to stop. Jess couldn’t see his face, hidden behind a thick shemagh scarf and black keffiyeh wrapped around his head. He still held the rifle, although he kept it low and away.
Their words whispered over the wind. She knew tiny bits of Arabic, but not enough to understand a conversation. She was desperate to know what they were saying, to have some time to react should the situation deteriorate. There had been incidents in Afghanistan, where interpreters had been slow to translate and precious seconds had been lost. The ability to read the situation had been hampered by misunderstanding and delay.
She tried to ignore the dryness in her throat.
Every word they spoke seemed to take an age, long pauses between each as the man studied them before he responded. She caught a glimpse of the Bedouin behind him shifting, the camels moving slightly. One man took up his rifle and laid it slightly forward.
“You see that?” Jess said to Giovanni.
He stood ramrod straight beside her, sweat on his face. “It’s taking too long.”
“Did you notice there are no women and children?”
Giovanni didn’t reply.
“Where are their families? Are they raiders? Smugglers?” She shifted her shoulders, loosened herself up. “If we need to engage, make each shot count.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, Jess.”
Ufuk stepped backward, away from the Bedouin. The camels stamped in the cold. The hair on the back of Jess’s neck bristled. All this way, for it to go wrong now. She began to take the pistol out of her coat.
The man shouted something to those behind him. Ufuk turned and waved, clearly relieved. Massarra remained where she was, her stance relaxed. A boxer before the bell. She walked backward, Jess noted, still watching the men.
Only when she reached them did she turn.
“You don’t look happy about whatever just happened,” Jess said to Massarra. She glanced back over her shoulder and watched the men disappear into their camp.
“I do not really trust anyone.”
They gathered their gear and headed over to the camp where the man waited. He unwrapped his shemagh, then threw more blankets over the camels and stroked each of their faces, softly whispering to them. He then rose and ushered all of them inside the tent.
“His name is Ahmad ibn Sahail ibn Hawaa al-Bakhit,” Ufuk said.
“Can I just call him Ahmad?” Jess asked as she attempted to process the name. She kept them huddled to one side of the tent, out of easy earshot. “Where’s his family?”
“These men are scavengers,” Ufuk said. “They leave the families at another camp some distance away, protected against raiders. They’re gone for several days at a time, but on this occasion, they were also waiting for us. They have been following us since we arrived.”
“Why didn’t they make themselves known to us?” Giovanni said.
“They were assessing, trying to decide if we were who they understood us to be.”
“How did they know we were coming?” Jess said.
Ufuk hesitated, then said: “I contacted the Levantine Council. They have contacts among the Sanusi Bedouin. They knew we would come and they contacted the Sanusi to tell them.”
“How did they know where we were?”
“The desert people have their ways.”
On the other side of the large tent, Ahmad leaned forward and said something as he lit a small
brazier-like stove. He placed a bowl on it and, from within the folds of a blanket, he took out a canister. Into the bowl he poured some kind of liquid as the flames warmed the shelter.
A sweet cardamom smell filled the air.
“What is he doing?” Giovanni asked.
“Preparing a welcome for us,” Ufuk said.
“That’s not necessary,” Jess said.
“It is absolutely necessary for him. Poverty does not absolve him of his duty. His is a code of honor to be scrupulously obeyed and the diyafa is as important as any other. If required, even an enemy must be given shelter and fed, sometimes for days.”
Ahmad waved them over, then handed a small, egg-shaped cup to Jess. She took it and nodded.
“Bismillah,” he said.
She repeated the word and drank, enjoying its warmth, if not its bittersweet taste.
“What about survivors?” Jess asked. “Are there any? Other nomadic people, or the people from the cities in Libya?”
Massarra nodded and spoke to Ahmad. He gestured dismissively and responded briefly.
“Most of the major cities were close to the sea,” she translated. “They were flooded and many died. Those who didn’t die fled into the desert. They were unprepared and didn’t survive.”
“What happened?”
“The cold caught many by surprise.” Massarra drank and watched the brazier as its flames wavered. “There is a Bedouin saying: When you sleep in a house, your thoughts are as high as the ceiling; when you sleep outside, they’re as high as the stars. His kind are farmers, and less nomadic than other Bedouin, but they still understand how to live from the land.”
“Al-Jawf is well known for its circular, irrigated agricultural fields,” Ufuk said. “I’m sure some of this survived. Ancient water is pumped from aquifers underground and irrigates dozens of plots that measure nearly a kilometer in diameter. Rather than destroying the crops, the ash might actually be protecting them against frost.”
“He also says there are fewer people to concern themselves with. At the narrow passage, say the Bedouin, there is no brother and no friend.”
Resistance (Nomad Book 3) Page 13
