by Ben Bova
"You are in pattern, Bright Cay, and we have you in approach mode. You may proceed at your convenience."
"Roger, approach mode. Stand by, please." The pilot turned in her chair to face the uniformed man seated in the log officer's station behind her.
Supreme Commander Fain stirred uneasily in the chair, feeling useless and unnecessary on the deceptively small control bridge of the shuttle. Indeed, the log officer had to be reassigned to an auxiliary position on the bridge afterdeck just to make room for him behind the pilot.
Protocol.
There was no real need for him to even be here. He knew the five-person crew could handle this or any other landing in their sleep—Fain had, in fact, personally selected them from among his own officers on the flagship now orbiting the Moon—but protocol demanded his presence all the same.
"Commander?" The pilot was still looking at him expectantly. The copilot had also turned to face him, and Fain wondered how long he'd hesitated.
"You may proceed with final approach," he said firmly, then sat straighter in his chair to see over the pilot's shoulder and watch the landscape below as it began to slide past the shuttle once more.
The new landing facility was clearly visible on the southern tip of the settlement, where all major traffic in and out of Armelin City was handled. There were numerous landing domes of various sizes located here, but the largest of them, built especially to handle Imperial traffic, was separated from the rest and appeared to be a miniature city in its own right. Smaller domes and external, unenclosed pads surrounded it. An irregularly shaped structure Fain recognized as an independent power facility stood out bright orange against the dull gray of the regolith.
"Now at one and one," the pilot said, indicating the ship was at a distance and height of one kilometer.
"One and one confirmed. Come to five hundred meters for final lock-in."
"Coming to five hundred."
Fain felt a twinge of envy. How long had it been since he'd actually piloted a ship like this with his own hands? The personnel of the port authority were controlling a good portion of the landing now, but the final hand-off was yet to come. Fain sighed and leaned back in the chair; as they neared the dome and the vertical angle increased, there was not much to be seen through the front viewport anyway. He could watch the rest of the approach on the small viewscreen set into the log officer's station.
"Commander Fain?" said the communications officer to his left. "I'm receiving an automated ground-based message for you."
Now? "Put it through, then."
"It's coded private, sir; audio-only."
Fain exhaled heavily and thumbed a switch on the armrest of his chair, putting his headset into private mode. "This is Fain," he said, then waited for confirmation that his voice-print ID had been verified.
"Stand by for a transmission from Prince Javas," said a synthesized voice. Fain's brow knitted in concern: The call was automated through the Prince's personal system, and not being handled by Luna. "Ready to receive?"
"Yes." There was a one-second delay before the transmission started, but it seemed much longer.
"Commander, I hope you are in good health?"
"I am, Sire. But I must admit to being somewhat puzzled by your call."
The Prince's chuckle buzzed in the headset.
"I'm sorry if I alarmed you. You'll be landing in a few moments and I'll see you personally then on the receiving platform, but there's something I wanted to say to you now.
"When you bring the ship down, you'll also be bringing to an end the long and hard transfer of the Imperial Court to Earth. I'm sure I don't need to remind you of the scope of this undertaking, nor of its ultimate importance to my father's project. But—" He paused, and for a moment Fain thought the young man might be at a loss for words, perhaps for the first time since he'd known him.
"I've relied on you these last fifteen years more than you know," he continued. "My father's health is not good. You know that, have known it, for many years now. But you may not realize just how close you are to my father's favor."
"Sire, I—"
"Let me finish, Commander. You've served my father well, as both Commander of the Imperial fleet… and as a friend. He's depended on you for personal advice as much as for professional competence, and I'm convinced he would not have survived the trip without you. Thank you, Fain."
Fain sat, stunned, and could think of no response. His jaw moved soundlessly, but the Prince, apparently aware of his discomfort, spared him further embarrassment by quickly adding in an upbeat voice, "I'll see you soon, Commander." There was an almost imperceptible click in the headset, indicating that the signal had disconnected.
"We're at five hundred meters, Commander, and holding," the pilot said over her shoulder. Fain quickly recovered and thumbed the headset off private.
"Give me an underside view, please." His viewscreen switched immediately to show the landing dome below them. Concentric targeting rings glowed brightly around the perimeter of the dome in a bull's-eye pattern. A dark circular portion in the center of the rings, the massive landing bay doors, was easily discernible even in the tiny screen.
"I have the Port Director now, sir; would you care to give the hand-off?"
Fain looked at her, and caught the slight smile before she turned back to her control panel. "Thank you." He thumbed the armrest. "Director Kaselin, what is your status?"
"We're now in full lock-in, and are ready for pad-down."
"The Bright Cay is ready. Bring us in."
"Yes, sir." She disconnected immediately. A quick shuddering grasped the ship as the gravity harness engaged. The sensation ended almost at once, and the ship started moving smoothly toward the dome, completely under ground control now. Fain watched in satisfaction as the well-trained crew began the shutdown procedures. All thrust was reduced to standby levels and the background noise and vibration of the engines—so ever-present during their entire flight—decreased, leaving the control bridge in relative silence.
As the crew finished the procedures, there was little left for them to do except monitor the systems on standby and enjoy the remainder of the ride. All video monitors in the small room showed the landing dome, now only a hundred meters directly below them.
Fain relaxed for the first time since the shuttle left the flagship and joined the others in watching the landing. He returned his attention to the screen just as an opening appeared at the crown of the dome.
The landing bay of the Imperial dome was the largest single enclosed space Adela de Montgarde had ever seen. The port facilities on Gris were tiny by comparison. Even the starport on the Imperial planet, certainly the largest on any of the Hundred Worlds, had nothing like this.
She sat in the fifth row of a special section reserved for those personally invited by the Imperial Court, accompanied on either side by members of her scientific staff. She recognized many of the other invitees despite their formal attire, but realized that there were even more that she had never seen before. She quickly surveyed the section and noted that, with the exception of the row directly in front of hers, nearly every seat was filled. Adela wondered inwardly, looking along the empty row, why that obnoxious Bomeer and his group of sycophants had not yet arrived. Surely he had been informed of the change in arrival time. Probably wants to make an entrance, she thought.
Her eyes scanned the vast chamber, trying to take it all in. The ceiling was fully four hundred meters above her, and it was necessary to look closely to make out the separation lines between the movable doors at the top of the dome and the gently curving walls that rose to meet them. There were several catwalks regularly spaced on the walls, and the lighted windows of numerous workstations, viewing rooms and technical facilities glowed brightly on the various levels.
Below the lowest of the catwalks were the spectator galleries which, like the dome itself, had been constructed especially for this momentous occasion and nearly sparkled in their newness. Arranged irregularly around the
perimeter of the landing bay, the galleries gave the facility the appearance of a sporting arena, although the odd layout of sections throughout the dome reminded Adela of no athletic event she could imagine.
Each section was packed, with few empty seats visible. The dome had begun filling many hours ago: The spectators had been waiting patiently for the Emperor's arrival through most of the afternoon. The gallery level was well separated from the upper, technical reaches of the dome, and each section was widely spaced from the next. Adela noted the hundreds of lightly armed security personnel, each in formal dress uniform, who strolled the lower catwalk as well as the wide areas between the sections themselves.
The entire area was dominated—or perhaps dwarfed would be a better word—by the enormous landing platform below, criss-crossed with a glowing grid pattern. It was the grid markings themselves that gave astute observers a clue to the true size of the place: Adela knew the grid lines were spaced twenty meters apart, but from this distance they looked as close together as lines on graph paper.
A heightened buzz swept through the crowd and she turned in her seat to see the source of the excitement. Immediately above them a viewing room had opened, and the Prince himself sat ready to witness his father's arrival. He stood, raising a hand in salute to the crowd, and the room swelled with the sounds of cheering, applause, whistles and shouts.
The joyful noise continued unabated until the Prince rose and moved to the rear of the room, out of Adela's line of sight. He returned minutes later and she assumed by his unhurried manner that he'd merely taken care of some routine business or had been called away momentarily by an aide. Javas remained standing at the edge of the room, hands clasped behind his back, and scanned the Imperial section, picking her out. When their eyes met, a smile came to his face and he nodded in greeting. His eyes lingered a few moments longer before sweeping out across the crowded chamber. He waved again to the crowd and took his seat.
A faint humming sound, more felt than heard, and a sudden brightness in the air took her by surprise. She looked up and watched as an air shield snapped into place around her entire section. Elsewhere around the massive landing bay, shielding was coming on section by section, and the surprised gasps of scattered spectators not familiar with the security precaution reached her ears. Gasps invariably gave way to nervous laughter, however, when those more used to the technology explained to their neighbors what was happening.
The air filled with three sharp blasts of a warning horn that immediately silenced the crowd. Dozens of rotating lights ringing the topmost catwalk drew all eyes upward. Another shield was forming at the top of the dome. It brightened as it formed, gradually expanding until the entrance doors in the ceiling were completely covered.
The crowd stared in silent awe as a soft hissing sound filled the chamber. The spectators did not seem as startled by the sound as Adela might have expected, and she had assumed that the uninitiated had been forewarned that the evacuation of air from the space between the air shield and the doors themselves was normal procedure.
The hissing faded away, punctuated by a single, steady blast of the horn, and the doors parted in the center with a rumbling that sent vibrations through the entire dome. Although the landing bay was brightly illuminated, even Adela was not prepared for the brilliance of the shaft of light that burst through the opening. Many in the crowd looked quickly away, eyes stinging from the sudden brightness, and watched the path of light as it rapidly widened on the landing platform below until they grew accustomed to the intensity and returned their gaze to the opening above just in time to see the doors clank into place at their widest point.
Nothing happened for what seemed a long time, then a sudden chattering and a collective gasp spread through the crowd. It started at the lowest rows, where spectators nearer the center saw it first, then spread quickly up through the galleries.
My God, it's huge, Adela thought as the landing gear and the underside of the shuttle appeared over the opening. The sunlight reflecting off the spacecraft's gleaming, white surface brought tears to her eyes and she squinted, rubbing them occasionally on the backs of her knuckles. Above the air shield dust and smoke swirled violently in incongruous silence in the narrow open space just inside the doors, but the swirling abated immediately when the standby thrusters were shut down. Caught securely in the landing bay's gravity harness, the ship lowered smoothly and steadily through the opening.
The landing feet touched the air shield first, causing the entire glowing surface to shimmer momentarily. The air sparkled around the gear as the craft lowered through the shield, and glowing ripples spread across the width of it as on the surface of a pond. As the shuttle came through the shield, Adela became aware of the increasing sound level. Mechanical hums and the descending whine of the thrusters as they continued through their shutdown cycle came from within the craft itself, while sections of the gleaming metal skin popped and creaked as it began to equalize to the internal dome air temperature.
The shuttle had just barely cleared the shield when the doors started slowly closing again. As it happened, the doors thunked shut at nearly the exact instant the shuttle came to rest dead center on the landing platform. The full weight of the craft settled suddenly on its gear as the gravity harness was released. Adela looked at the massive lander, her eyes sweeping along the front where the smoothness of its surface was marred only by the bulge of the control bridge halfway to the top. She could see the crew moving inside the cramped space, going through their postlanding checks.
She'd never seen anything like it, and neither had the thousands of people who had turned out for the event. A mighty roar went up from the galleries, virtually drowning out the sound of the bay's recirculating fans as they eliminated the last of the thruster exhaust from the chamber.
Adela turned once more to the Prince's viewing room behind their section. He was nodding, the relief evident on his features. After a moment, he stood and joined in the general applause.
She looked back to the ship and, unable to contain herself, rose with the crowd and began to clap her hands.
Only moments before, the occupants of Bright Cay not involved in the actual landing process itself were unaware of the magnificence of the huge doors about to open as the shuttle approached. The Emperor of the Hundred Worlds sat comfortably in his powerchair, in spite of the stiffly formal uniform he wore, and enjoyed the natural pull of the world below him, the first natural gravity he'd felt in years. The closest of his personal physicians back on Corinth, the former Imperial capital, used to chide him about being able to tell the difference between the artificial light gravity they'd prescribed for his personal quarters there and natural gravity. But, like the bio-implants he'd more than grown accustomed to, he knew, sensed somehow, the subtle differences that lesser men missed.
"How long till we land?" he asked Brendan, the full-time aide assigned to him for the duration of the long voyage. He refused to think of Brendan as anything but his aide, even though common sense and practicality constantly reminded him that he was an aide in name only; that he was, in reality, a twenty-four-hour nurse. His lips drew together in a tight line of disgust every time the word "nurse" flashed in his mind, but despite the unwelcome feeling, the Emperor liked the young man and enjoyed his company.
It was a sign of either good training or insight that Brendan refrained from jumping to the Emperor's side at the question in an overbearing attempt to reassure him of the safe progress of the vessel—certainly the Emperor had had enough of those kinds of aides—and he appreciated, not for the first time, Brendan's candor and approach to his position. As it was, the younger man only turned slightly in his seat and, glancing at the timepiece on his wrist, replied simply, "About five minutes, Sire." He was watching the progress of the landing on the large viewscreen set into the opposite wall.
As if an afterthought had occurred to him, he added casually, "There's still time to ride out the landing in your stateroom, Sire, should you prefer."
&n
bsp; The Emperor studied the young man. Even though his medical condition was constantly being relayed to the Imperial computer and then to the medical staff, his aide had his own implants and constantly monitored his medical readouts. Even now, he knew, Brendan was comparing respiration, heart rate, blood pressure and other biolevels with those found to be acceptable for the Emperor in a variety of conditions. My pulse must be up slightly, thought the Emperor, or he would not have suggested a move designed to get me back into bed. He made a conscious effort to relax, breathing slowly and easily to calm his excitement at the imminent conclusion of the lengthy trip.
Brendan turned to him once more, right eyebrow arched slightly at an angle nearly matching the half-smile appearing on his face. "I guess not, then."
The Emperor knew his efforts at subterfuge had been read and interpreted correctly, and returned a knowing smile. I can't keep much from you, can I? he added silently.
There was a brief shuddering, followed by a decrease in the slight, almost imperceptible background noise of the cabin. The progress of the shuttle smoothed then, as they resumed their forward-and-down movement toward the landing dome.
The Emperor had been kept advised of Javas' progress as his son set up the seat of Empire on the Moon. He'd even approved personally the plans for the facility they now approached. All the same, he was impressed with what he saw on the viewscreen.
He watched in silence as the viewscreen feed reoriented to an underside view, allowing a perfect angle for observing the doors—now directly below them—and their final descent.
The landing itself proceeded more rapidly than he might have expected, and it seemed as if only moments had passed when the contact warning horn sounded softly over the room system. There was a slight jar as the landing gear touched the pad, then another as the gravity harness released. The Emperor accessed the shuttle computer through his integrator and quickly verified that the landing had been perfect in every way, although he expected no less from Fain's handpicked crew. He issued a silent command, giving commendations to each member of the shuttle crew.
