Edge of Infinity

by Jonathan Strahan

  For Solomon, it was the perfect test vehicle.

  The yacht had been designed around an engine he knew, and the build code was one he’d helped to write. When he looked at the technical and maintenance history, he could see every control array, every air recycling vent and cover. Before he’d even set foot on it, he knew it as well as he knew anything. Some parts of the exhaust system were things he’d designed himself a decade before. And, since he held the title to it, half a year’s worth of red tape would simply go away if he wanted to use it to test some new refinements to the engines. That idea alone could make him cackle with delight. No more permissions committees. No more hard capital liability reports. Just the boat, its reactor, a couple EVA suits and a set of industrial waldoes he’d had since he was in school. In previous eras, a scientist might have a garage PCR machine or a shed in the back of the house with beehives or disassembled computers or half-built prototypes of inventions that would change the world if they could just be made to work. Solomon had his yacht, and getting it was the most self-indulgent, delightful, important thing he’d done since the day he’d asked Caitlin to marry him.

  And yet, even as the fertile garden of his mind sent up a thousand different green shoots of ideas and projects, tests and tweaks and adjustments, he found himself dreading the part where he told his wife what he’d done. And when the time came, his unease was justified.

  “Oh, Sol. Oh, baby.”

  “I didn’t spend my salary on it,” he said. “It was all bonus money. And it was only mine. I didn’t use ours.”

  Caitlin was sitting on the bench in their multipurpose room, tapping her mouth with the tips of her fingers the way she did when she was thinking hard. The system was playing a gentle ambient music that was all soft percussion and strings loud enough to cover the hiss of the air recyclers but not so much as to overwhelm the conversation. As with almost all the new building on Mars, it was larger, better appointed, and deeper underground.

  “So what I just heard you say is you can spend as much money out of the account as you want without talking to me if the total you pull is less than whatever you’ve made in bonuses. Is that what you meant?”

  “No,” he said, though it was pretty close. “I’m saying that it wasn’t money we were counting on. All our obligations are covered. We’re not going to try to buy food and have the accounts come up empty. We’re not going to have to work extra hours or take on side jobs.”

  “All right.”

  “And this is important work. The design I have for the magnetic coil exhaust acceleration can really increase drive efficiency, if I can get –”

  “All right,” she said.

  He leaned against the door frame. The strings rose in a delicate arpeggio.

  “You’re angry.”

  “No, sweetie. I’m not angry,” she said gently. “Angry is yelling. This is resentful, and it’s because you’re cutting me out from the fun parts. Really, I look at you, and see the happiness and the excitement, and I want to be part of that. I want to jump up and down and wave my arms and talk about how great it all is. But that money was our safety net. You’re ignoring the fact that you spent our safety net, and if we both ignore it, the first time something unexpected comes up, we’re screwed. I love our life, so now I have to be the one who cares and disapproves and doesn’t get to be excited. You’re making me the grown-up. I don’t want to be the grown-up. I want us both to be grown-ups, so that when we do something like this, we both get to be kids.”

  She looked up at him and shrugged. Her face was harder than it was when they met. There are threads of white in the darkness of her hair. When she smiles, he feels the hardness in his chest erode away.

  “I may... have gotten a little carried away. I saw it was there and we could afford it.”

  “And you zoomed ahead without thinking about all of what it would mean. Because you’re Solomon Epstein, and you are the smartest, most rigorous and methodical man who ever made every single important choice in his life by impulse.” If there hadn’t been warmth and laughter in her voice, it would have sounded like a condemnation. Instead it sounded like love.

  “I’m cute, though,” he said.

  “You’re adorable. And I want to hear all about your new whatever it is you’re going to try. Only first tell me that you’ll try to think about the future next time?”

  “I will.”

  They spent the evening with him talking about power and efficiency, ejection mass and velocity multipliers. And when that was done, they talked about building a responsible retirement plan and making sure their wills were up to date. It felt like an apology, and he hoped that they’d be able to do it again when she understood how much maintenance on the yacht was going to cost. It was a fight for another day.

  The days, he spent working as usual with the team at the propulsion group. The nights, he sat on the monitors back at their hole and designed his own things. Caitlin started a program over the network with a group in Londres Nova discussing how companies like Kwikowski could intervene in the destabilising spiral of threat and avoidance that Earth and Mars seemed locked in. Whenever he heard her talking to the others – about propaganda and divergent moral codes and any number of other plausible-sounding vaguenesses – she brought up lithium, molybdenum. Now tungsten, too. All the other things were interesting, important, informative, and profound. But unless they could figure out the ore rights issues, they could address everything else and still not solve the problem. He was always proud of her when she said that. A liberal arts background was a hard thing to overcome, but she was doing great.

  Eventually, the time came to test his idea and plans. He made the long journey to the shipyards on the new public transport system: evacuated tubes drilled through the rock and lined with electromagnetic rails like a slow, underpowered gauss gun. It was cramped and uncomfortable, but it was fast. He got to his yacht an hour before the sun set at the nearby Martian horizon. He finished the last minute tweaks to the prototype he’d fabricated, ran the diagnostic sequences twice, and took the ship up beyond the thin atmosphere. Once he reached high orbit, he floated for a while, enjoying the novelty of null g. He brewed himself a bulb of fresh tea, strapped himself into the captain’s chair, and ran his fingertip across the old touchscreen monitor.

  If he was right, the additions he’d made would increase efficiency by almost sixteen per cent above baseline. When the numbers came back, he hadn’t been right. Efficiency had dropped by four and a half. He landed back at the shipyards and rode the transit tube home, muttering darkly to himself the whole way.

  The United Nations issued a statement that all future Martian ships would be contracted through the Bush shipyards orbiting Earth. The local government didn’t even comment on it; they just kept on with the scheduled builds and negotiated for new ones after that. The United Nations ordered that all shipyards on Mars shut down until an inspection team could be sent out there. Seven months to get the team together, and almost six months in transit because of the relative distances of the two planets in their orbits around the sun. Sol was a little nervous when he heard that. If they closed the shipyards, it might mean grounding his test yacht. He didn’t need to concern himself. The shipyards all stayed open. The rumours of war started up again, and Solomon tried to ignore them. Tried to tell himself that this time would be no different than the one before or the one before that.

  Raj, to everyone’s surprise, resigned from development, rented a cheap hole up near the surface, and started selling hand-made ceramic art. He said he’d never been happier. Voltaire got a divorce and wanted all the old crew to come out to the bars with her. There were eight of them now, but pretty much nobody went. Julio and Carl had a baby together and stopped socialising with anyone. Tori went in on a little chemical safety consultancy that pretended to serve any business with a Martian charter, but actually got all their business from the terraforming projects. Malik died from an unresponsive spinal cancer. Life struggled on, winning and failing.
Solomon’s experimental drives got to where they were almost as good as the unmodified ship. Then a little bit better.

  A year almost to the day after he’d bought it, Solomon rode out to the yacht with a new design. If he was right, it would increase efficiency by almost four and a half per cent above baseline. He was in the engine room installing it when his hand terminal chimed. It was Caitlin. He accepted the request.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Did we decide to take that long weekend next month?” she asked. “I know we talked about it, but I don’t think we made a decision.”

  “We didn’t, but I’d better not. The team’s a little behind.”

  “Overtime behind?”

  “No. Just keep-showing-up behind.”

  “All right. Then I may plan something with Maggie Chu.”

  “You have my blessing. I’ll be home as soon as this is done.”

  “All right,” she said, and dropped the connection. He tested the housings, did an extra weld where the coil would suffer the most stress, and headed back up for the captain’s chair. The yacht rose through the thin atmosphere and into high orbit. Solomon ran the diagnostics again, making sure before he started that everything looked good. For almost half an hour he floated in his chair, held in place by his straps.

  As he started the burn sequence, he remembered that the team was going to be in Londres Nova the weekend he’d been thinking about taking off with Caitlin. He wondered whether she’d put her plans with Maggie Chu in place, or if there was still time to change things. He started the burn.

  Acceleration threw Solomon back into the captain’s chair, then pressed his chest like a weight. His right hand landed on his belly, his left fell onto the upholstery beside his ear. His ankles pressed back against the leg rests.

  THE SHIP SINGS a low dirge, throaty and passionate and sad like the songs his father used to sing at temple. He understands now that he’s going to die here. He’s going too fast and too far for help to reach him. For a while – maybe forever – his little yacht will mark the farthest out of Earth’s gravity well a manned ship has ever gone. They’ll find the design specs at the hole. Caitlin is smart. She’ll know to sell the design. She’ll have enough money to live like a queen for the rest of her life. He’s taken good care of her, anyway, if not himself.

  If he had control, he could reach the asteroid belt. He could go to the Jovian system and be the first person to walk on Europa and Ganymede. He isn’t going to, though. That’s going to be someone else. But when they get there, they will be carried by his drive.

  And the war! If distance is measured in time, Mars just got very, very close to Earth while Earth is still very distant from Mars. That kind of asymmetry changes everything. He wonders how they’ll negotiate that. What they’ll do. All the lithium and molybdenum and tungsten anyone could want is within reach of mining companies now. They can go to the asteroid belt and the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. The thing that kept Earth and Mars from ever reaching a lasting peace isn’t going to matter anymore.

  The pain in his head and his spine are getting worse. It’s hard to remember to tense his legs and arms, to help his failing heart move the blood. He almost blacks out again, but he’s not sure if it’s the stroke or the thrust gravity. He’s pretty sure driving blood pressure higher while having a stroke is considered poor form.

  The ship’s dirge shifts a little, and now it’s literally singing in his father’s voice, Hebrew syllables whose meaning Solomon has forgotten, if he ever knew. Aural hallucinations, then. That’s interesting.

  He’s sorry that he won’t be able to see Caitlin one more time. To tell her goodbye and that he loves her. He’s sorry he won’t get to see the consequences of his drive. Even through the screaming pain, a calmness and euphoria start to wash over him. It’s always been like this, he thinks. From when Moses saw the promised land that he could never enter, people have been on their deathbeds just wanting to see what happens next. He wonders if that’s what makes the promised land holy: that you can see it but you can’t quite reach it. The grass is always greener on the other side of personal extinction. It sounds like something Malik would have said. Something Caitlin would laugh at.

  The next few years – decades even – are going to be fascinating, and it will be because of him. He closes his eyes. He wishes he could be there to see it all happen.

  Solomon relaxes, and the expanse folds itself around him like a lover.

  THE ROAD TO NPS

  Sandra McDonald and Stephen D. Covey

  NOT THAT HE was paranoid, but in the forty-eight hours prior to departure, Rahiti Ochoa ate and drank only from the supplies he’d been stockpiling under his bunk. He compulsively checked the oxygen levels in his tiny quarters. He didn’t go near the crew bar on level four (someone might drug his beer), skipped working out in the gym (someone might rig the treadmill), and kept to himself on shift, glaring at anyone who got within ten or fifteen feet (because someone might just try the direct approach, a crowbar to the head). He warned Will Danton to keep the same precautions.

  “Crazy Samoan,” Will muttered. “Relax, will you? You won the contract. Orbital’s not going to try and sabotage you.”

  Better crazy than dead, Jovinta might say, if she were talking to him.

  Maybe Will didn’t take the threat seriously enough, or maybe he was distracted by someone on purpose, or maybe (just maybe) it was really an accident, but when the silver crate toppled over, smashing Will against a sled – when he began to scream, wild and raw, accompanied by the wail of the emergency siren – when all that happened, Rahiti’s first thought was: Son of bitches found a way to stop me.

  “Ra!” Will screamed.” Get it off me!”

  The Orbital arena supervisor, Hal Carpenter, shouted over Rahiti’s headset.”I’m on it! Someone shut him up!”

  Rahiti leaped twenty metres forward in two slow bounds. The arena was well lit, as always, the Europa sky dark and glittering far above. No sign yet of the sun breaking over the horizon, but already a sliver of Jupiter was sunlit and their scheduled departure was imminent. He could see how Will was pinned and could tell instantly there was no way to get him loose without a loader. The nearest driver, a new kid, was spinning his treads back and forth on the ice, panicking.

  “Don’t cut off my arm,” Will wailed. “Ra! I need my arm.”

  “No one’s cutting off anything,” Rahiti promised. Although it was useless, he threw himself against one of the hundred-ton crates.”Hold on, okay?”

  A more experienced driver took over from the newbie and with a few deft manoeuvres got the crate shifted away. Will went limp. Rahiti pulled him free, ignored the twisted and flattened look of the arm, and wrapped his arm around Will’s waist. He jumped them toward the nearest hatch.

  “Emergency crew’s on its way,” Carpenter said over the headset, the useless bastard.

  “I’ve got him,” Rahiti bit out. “Open airlock six.”

  By the time Rahiti got them both into the lock, Will was beginning to stir back to consciousness. His face was glassy under his mask. The skinsuit had sealed over any tears or breaches, but his arm was still hanging so gruesomely that Rahiti couldn’t look at it.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Will mumbled as he came around. “Didn’t see it. Don’t cut it off.”

  The airlock cycled up. Rahiti got his helmet off, then slid Will’s off too. “It’s okay. Not your fault.”

  Will’s skin was sweaty-clammy, a ghastly shade of grey. “Messed up the plan.”

  “I built in an extension,” Rahiti said. “We’re good.”

  The inner hatch rolled open. A young med tech with bright red hair poked her head in. “How is he?”

  “How would you be?” Rahiti snapped. “Where’s the stretcher?”

  She blinked at Will. “They said minor accident.”

  “Minor, my ass.” Rahiti hopped and pulled, using the handholds, and got Will into the passage. He’d never seen the tech before. Asterius Outpost wasn�
��t a huge place, three hundred people maybe, but it was the pass-through for any personnel heading up or back from North Pole Station and Conamara. “He’s in shock, his arm is crushed, you didn’t check the feeds?”

  “My arm’s fine,” Will said, his voice slurring. He gave the tech a lopsided smile. “What’s your name?”

  She was young and new, but at least trained enough to ignore his flirting and plant a round disk to Will’s neck. “Telemetry’s on, we’re on our way,” she said briskly into her own set, and only then did she answer. “I’m Anu.”

  “Anu,” Will said. “Watcha doing later, Anu?”

  Rahiti pulled him into the lift and said, “Shut up, Will.”

  The infirmary waiting room was half-full, but the doctor on duty hustled them immediately into a cubicle. Rahiti didn’t think much of Dr. Desai – in his experience, she was as snooty as the rest of them – but she was both concerned and efficient as she slipped Will a painkiller.

  “Mr. Ochoa, you can wait outside,” she said.

  Will’s good hand came up and snagged Rahiti’s arm. “No. Stay with me.”

  Desai said, “Only family or next of kin.”

  “Who the fuck can afford to bring family here?” Rahiti asked hotly.

  “Language, please,” she said. “Are you registered partners?”

  Will’s grip grew only tighter. “Don’t let them cut off my arm.”

  “I’m married. My wife’s in Hawaii,” Rahiti said. Half a billion miles away, maybe on a beach somewhere. Javinta liked beaches, but hated to swim; who wanted to bathe in tiny bits of seaweed and dead fish and ocean pollution? Maybe even now she was sitting in the sand, watching the waves, thinking about breaking the six months of silence that stretched all the way to Europa.