Showdown At Centerpoint

by Roger MacBride Allen

  walls were covered with dings and scratches, as if the car had seen a lot of

  heavy use moving cargo. There was a meter-wide porthole in the back wall of

  the car, likewise a bit dinged-up, and another like it in the ceiling.

  However, there seemed to be nothing but blackness to see. "Hang on just a

  second," she said. "We have to move the car through an airlock. Pressure

  difference. And. ah-well, something happened to the air where we're going."

  She worked the controls, and the car lurched forward a few meters. They

  heard a hatch seal behind them. There was the whir of air pumps and then,

  through the viewport, they saw another hatch open before them. Sonsen pushed

  another button and the car started to move, not up or down, but sideways.

  Lights on the exterior of the car came on, showing the way forward. The

  tunnel they were in was circular in cross-section, and dark pink in color.

  The tunnel ahead trailed off into what seemed an infinity of darkness. Luke

  felt as if they had been swallowed by some huge creature and were rushing

  down its gullet, toward an appointment with the digestive system. "We might

  as well start out with Hollowtown," Son-sen said. "It's what everyone always

  wants to see first." "Hollowtown?" Lando asked. There was a second's awkward

  pause before Sonsen spoke. "You're not all thai well briefed, are you?" she

  asked. "Things have happened kind of fast," Luke said. "There hasn't been a

  lot of time." "I guess not. Well, let me start from scratch. Hollowtown is

  the open space in the exact center of the central sphere. It's a spherical

  hollow about sixty kilometers across. Where you docked was just about at the

  join between the North Pole-that's what the locals call the cylinders, the

  North and South Poles-and the central sphere. We're now moving parallel to

  the axis of rotation, sideways, in toward Hollowtown. We have to pass

  through about twenty kilometers of decks and shells first. A shell is what

  we call real high-ccihnged deck, anything over about twenty meters or so.

  There are about two thousand levels all told. We're accelerating pretty fast

  right now. faster than you think. We'll come up in Hollowtown in about five

  minutes, and then start moving downslopc, toward the heavy-gravity areas.

  Farther out from the axis you go, the more of a spin, and the higher

  effective gravity, of course." "The spin must get to be an awful nuisance,"

  Kalenda said. "Why haven't you shifted over to standard artificial gravity?"

  "We've thought about it. Cap Con Ops-sorry-the capital construction

  operations office-has done about a dozen studies on de-spinning the station

  and using standard artigrav." Luke managed lo translate that last as

  "artificial gravity" and tried to nod encouragingly. "So what do the studies

  come up with?" "Too expensive, too complicated, too disruptive, and too many

  unknowns. The station's structure might or might not respond well to the

  shifted stresses. But it's your problem now. You can de-spin it all you want

  as far as I'm concerned." "I take it you want out," Luke said. "Do I ever. I

  was into real short-time when the first flare went whump. I was almost down

  to counting the days on one hand-and then, well, you know the rest," "Lousy

  briefing, remember?" Lando said. "Wait a second. You people don't know about

  the ftaresT' "First we've heard of them," Luke said. "We just broke through

  the interdiction field into the system a few days ago." Sonsen let out a low

  whistle. "Broke through the interdiction field? That's something, all right.

  I'll bet whoever is creating that field isn't real happy with you just now."

  Kalenda frowned. "Hold it. You're generating the field." "What? What are you

  talking about?" "The field. The interdiction field is centered on this

  station. Centerpoint Station is generating the interdiction field. And the

  communications jamming, for that matter." "Burning stars. It is?" "You

  didn't know that," Lando said. It was not a question. "Nope. None of us here

  did. Looks like my briefing wasn't so good either." Luke was getting more

  confused by the minute. How could the people running the station not know

  the station was creating the field? And what were these flares Sonsen was

  talking about? It was becoming plainer and plainer that things were not as

  they appeared. But it was also becoming progressively less clear how they

  appeared in the first place. "I think we have a few things to talk about,"

  said Luke. The turbovutor moved smoothly toward Hol-lowtown.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The View From Inside What you've got to understand about this place is that

  no one understands it," Sonsen said. "We just live here. It's here, so are

  we, and that's about it. No one thought much about why things were the way

  they were. We didn't know why Centerpoint did most of the things it did, but

  we knew what most of them were. At least we thought we knew, up until a

  while ago. Up until the terrorists started showing us a few tricks." "We

  just got here," Lando said. "What terrorists?" Sonsen shook her head. "I'd

  love to know the answer to that one. There have been attacks-nasty ones. But

  no one has claimed responsibility or made demands. Not so much as an

  anonymous tip. We have suspects-the TraTaLibbers, the Two Worldcrs, and so

  on, but they all denied having anything to do with it. Besides, if they

  could pull off the stuff that's happened here, they wouldn't waste time

  making threats. They'd just move in and take over. Of course, the station's

  been cut off from everybody since the jamming started up. The investigators

  on the ground could have wrapped up the case, solved it completely, and we

  wouldn't know about it." Luke made a guess that TraTaLibbers meant the

  Tra-lus and lalus Liberation Party, or some such. Two Worlders probably

  meant some crowd that wanted separate governments for each planet. Guesses

  were good enough. He had an idea what Sonsen meant, and he had a hunch the

  groups in question were not worth worrying about. "Tell us about the altacks

  themselves." Sonsen went to the turbovator car's viewport. "You'll be able

  to see for yourself in a minute or two. Hollowtown used to be quite a place.

  It grew enough food for the whole station, with a surplus. It had parks, and

  nice homes, and lakes and streams. Green and blue, coo! and lovely. Then

  someone started messing with the Glowpoint." "The Glowpoint being a sort of

  artificial sun?" Luke asked. "Thai's right," said Sonsen. "And someone made

  it go crazy." "Who normally controls the Glowpoint?" Lando asked. "No one.

  of course," Sonsen replied, as if Lando had just asked where she kepi the

  on-off switch for the galaxy's spin. "As I said, it's just there, the way

  the whole station is. We didn't build it. I guess it was here when we got

  here-whenever that was." "The Glowpoint is just there," Lando repeated.

  "Anyone know how it works? How it gives off lighl?" "There arc theories of

  one sort or another. One idea is that the Glowpoint draws its power directly

  from the gravitational interrlux between Talus and Trains. But no one has

  been able to come up with an instrument to test the idea. There's nothing

  conclusive." "You don't know how the power source for half y
our food

  production works?" Gaeriel asked. "No," said Sonsen. "Do you know how the

  hyper-drive motors that got you here work?" Luke had to smile to himself.

  Jenica Sonsen had a point. There was scarcely a human being alive who

  completely understood every bit of technology he or she used. The

  Centerpointers, it seemed, were just a bit more obvious about it. "Anyway,

  we're coming up on Hollow town, if you want to get a look at it." The other

  humans joined her at the viewport, leaving the two droids off by themselves

  in the back of the ear. A spot of light began to gleam through the end of

  the tunnel up ahead. "That's the Glowpoint," Sonsen said. "It's back to

  normal, at least for the moment. That's what it used to be like ail the

  time." The turbovator car moved closer and closer to the tunnel, giving the

  illusion that it was moving faster and faster as it got closer to the light.

  The humans in the group shielded their eyes against trie sudden brightness.

  In a moment that seemed to take forever to arrive and then to happen all at

  once, the turbovator car burst out of the end of the tunnel and, with a

  stomach-dropping lurch, began to move straight downward. But no one in the

  car paid much notice to the violent change of direction. They were too busy

  looking at Hollowtown. Or what was left of it. The Glowpoint was just that,

  a glowing point of light suspended in midair, in the precise center of the

  huge spherical chamber. It looked like a miniature sun, warm, bright,

  comfortable, inviting. But there was nothing comfortable about the landscape

  below. Hollowtown had been burnt to a crisp, charred down to a blackened

  land of ashes. Hazy clouds of dust floated everywhere. Luke could see the

  skeletal remains of burned-out buildings, what had once been neatly planted

  orchards that were now nothing but rows of incinerated tree stumps. A lake

  had boiled dry, and the lake bottom was exposed, the remains of ruined

  pleasure boats lying there like children's toys left behind when the water

  was drained from the tub. It was a terrible place, a nightmare place, made

  all the worse because it had so plainly been lovely, well tended, not so

  very long before. "Normally I'd stop the car at one of the intermediate

  stops and let you get out and look around," Sonsen said. "But there's just

  about no free oxygen left in there. All of it got consumed in the fires. 1

  don't know how we'll ever get breathable air in there again. For that

  matter, it took some doing to get breathable air in this turbovator car. It

  didn't use to have its own air source, just a compressor that pulled air in

  from the outside. The air in the tunnel and near the spin axis was always

  too thin to breathe. After the first flare, the techs installed a full air

  system so I could still use the car. It's the fastest, easiest way from the

  equator to the docking zone and the techsec. where I met you. The engineers

  yanked the compressor and hooked up some air tanks and a carbon dioxide

  scrubber." "What happened, exactly?" Lando asked. "The first flare was about

  thirty or forty standard days ago," Sonsen said, her voice suddenly sad and

  tired. "Up until then, everything you see here now was parkland, or

  farmland, or luxury estates. It was beautiful to see. The Glowpoint would

  shine down constantly. The farmers would use shadow-shields to block the

  light and simulate seasons. From the inside of the shields, it could be as

  light or as dark as you liked, just by twisting a dial. From the outside,

  the shield could look like shadows, or like silver bubbles, or squares of

  gold-however you wanted to set them. People decorated their shields all

  sorts of ways. There was a special feeling, knowing it was always day

  here-but that under every spot of gold was a secret little patch of night.

  All of it gone now. Gone. Gone when the flare hit." "That was before the

  jamming started. I came into the system about that time," Kalenda objected.

  "I never heard anything about this. It should have been big news. The

  biggest." "We tried to keep it as quiet as we could," Sonsen said. "The

  Fed-Dub government was weak enough as it was. and what terrorists want most

  is publicity. The Feds were afraid that if this got out, it could spark a

  panic or even a rebellion here. And I guess they were right. We could keep

  news of this"-she gestured toward the devastation out the window-"from

  getting to the other worlds, but the refugees all had to go to Talus and

  Tralus. The word spread, and we got our rebellions, all right. One on Talus,

  two on Tralus. One group or the other-I don't even know which-landed a bunch

  of fighters somewhere on the South Pole a while back, claimed the station

  for themselves." Son-sen shrugged. "What was I going to do? Fight them off

  by myself? I left them alone, and they did the same to me-until you chased

  them off." "What do you mean, by yourself?" Gaeriel asked. "Are you the only

  one still on the station?" Sonsen shook her head. "Probably not. It's a big

  place. We tried to evac everyone, but my guess is someone got left behind. 1

  haven't seen anybody, but that doesn't mean anything." "You keep talking

  about the first flare," Lando asked, "'How many more were there?" "Just one

  more. Two in all. The second happened just about a day or so before the

  interdiction field and the communications jamming carne on. And don't ask me

  what the point of a terrorist attack is when there's no one left to

  terrorize, and there's nothing left to burn." "Uh-huh," Lando said, a bit

  distractedly. "This station is exactly at the centerpoint, the barycenter

  between Talus and Tralus, right?" "Right," Sonsen said, giving Lando another

  strange look. "Were you people briefed at all'?" "I knew that much," Lando

  said. "I just wanted to confirm it. The Glowpoint. It's at the exact center

  of Holiowtown? And Hollowtown is at the exact center of the station?" "It

  might be off by a centimeter or two. Feel free to get a measuring stick and

  cheek if you want." Lando ignored Sonsen's sarcasm. He pointed out across

  the huge spherical space, toward the far side of the rotation axis, and then

  tilted his head back to look through the overhead viewport. "Those conical

  structures coming up out of the North and South Poles, right on the rotation

  axis. What can you tell me about them?" Luke looked through the overhead

  viewport, and then through the forward view. Up until just a moment ago,

  they had been too close to one cluster of cones to see it clearly, and the

  other had been lost in the glare of the Glowpoint. But Lando seemed to have

  spotted them in the moment they became visible. Almost as if he had expected

  to see them. The two clusters seemed to be identical a larger central cone

  surrounded by wha t looked to be six smaller cones, all with similar

  proportions of height to width. Sonsen shrugged, a bit theatrically. "I can

  tell you that one set is called the South Conical Mountains, and the other

  is called the North Conicals. I'll let you figure out which is which. People

  try to climb them once in a while, but even in the near zero-gee zone at the

  spin axis, it isn't easy. Anything else of vital interest you need to know?

  Like the names
of the boats in the bottom of the lake bed?" "No," said

  Lando, his mind clearly somewhere else. "I think that's all I need to know."

  "Great," said Sonsen. ''Sometime I'll have to spend five minutes learning

  everything important about your homeworld." "Hmmm? What? No, no. I'm sorry.

  I didn't mean it that way. I mean, I think I know enough to understand

  what's going on." "After five minutes? No offense, but our ITA people have

  been trying for just a bit longer, and we haven't worked it out yet." "ITA?"

  Luke asked. "I believe in this context, the reference is to Intclli- gence

  and Technical Assessment," Threepio said in a helpful tone of voice. "I'm

  sure you've got good people," Lando said, "and I didn't mean to sound rude

  or condescending. It's just a question of viewpoint. You've been seeing this

  thing from the inside out your whole life. I happen to be in a position to

  see it from the outside and-" Just at that moment, Artoo let off a low,

  unsettled-sounding whistle. His view lens swiveled up to take in an overhead

  view, and then he turned to Threepio and let off a series of beeps and

  whistles that were too fast for Luke to follow. "Very well, Artoo, I will

  inquire, ihough it is very rude of you to interrupt." Threepio turned toward

  Jen-ica Sonsen. "Pardon the intrusion, Administrator Son-sen, but my

  counterpart wishes to know, rather urgently, if the two previous Glowpoint

  flare events started suddenly, or if there was a gradual increase in the

  Sight source's brightness." It was plain that Sonsen was less and less sure

  of this crowd of visitors with every moment that passed. "Interesting droids

  you've got," she said to no one in particular. "As best we're able to tell,

  the brightness came up gradually, over the course of about half an hour. We

  don't know for sure because no one who was in here to see it got out

  alive-and of course all the recording instruments were destroyed as well."

  Artoo rocked back and forth on his roller legs and whistled urgently, his

  head whirling back and forth. "Oh, dear!" Threepio said. "I quite agree. We

  must depart at once." "What?" Lando asked. "Why? What's going on?" Threepio

  turned stiffly toward Luke and stared at him in surprise. "You have not

  noticed? Oh! Of course. My apologies. Your eyes compensate so automatically