Brenna glanced at the readouts again. The train's schedule showed no further stops between here and Pavonis City. They were building up speed, careening along the rim of Valles Marineris. ETA in the capital, twenty minutes, allowing for deceleration.
Derek seemed encouraged by Brenna's teasing words a few moments ago. He risked a joke. "It really isn't a compliment, you know, your fidgeting like that after our idyllic getaway for two. I thought you'd be pleasantly fatigued, at the least."
"My jitters have nothing to do with sex, and you know it." Brenna eyed the readouts again, squirming. "Plus this train ride. Yes, I know, it was my idea. But I just don't like being a mere passenger."
He could have taken that as a term out of space pilots' jargon, a sly reference to the civilians sharing the train car with them. Instead, Derek chose the earthier interpretation. "Oh, you do like to be in control, my love. I've noticed that. Often. Every time we..."
"Put that on standby," Brenna snapped.
"Why? You were the one talking about technique in bed a moment ago." Derek tugged at his beard. "Don't be so damned sensitive. Besides, who's going to object to my lewd and lascivious tongue here? No one heard me. And if they did, they wouldn't care, not with the popular vid comedians telling riper ones than that every hour on the entertainment channels." To prove what he had said, Derek nodded toward the front of the car. As far as the other passengers were concerned, the tall blond man and the slender, pretty redhead in the last seats didn't exist. Nobody paid Derek or Brenna the slightest bit of attention. "You wanted to travel incognito. You've got it."
"They don't recognize you when you're out of your Hiber-Ship uniform," Brenna said. She meant to lead from that into another teasing dig. Then the mini-display on the individual monitor screen zoomed in on the President's gala in the capital. An unseen newscaster was describing the events at the Pavonis City Rotunda while the cameras showed the dignitaries gathered there. Brenna saw important people from Earth, Goddard Colony, Lunar Base, and other communities throughout the Solar System. There were several high-ranking Terran Worlds Council members as well as their rivals from Protectors of Earth. A number of well-known actors and sports figures were present. And the Saunders were very much in evidence, of course. Brenna's father and mother were shown chatting with a powerful politician from the Jovian satellite colonies. The newscaster's voice-over described them as "Todd Saunder, the famous sponsor of Project Search and president of ComLink, and his wife, the eminent xenolinguist, Dr. Dian Foix..."
To Brenna's irritation, her cousin Stuart was also on the scene. Stuart rarely left his palatial mansions on Earth, not even for a celebration as big as this one. Brenna suspected that Stuart's putting in an appearance at Colony Days meant some sort of feud was starting up between him and his mother—again. When it came to choosing sides between Stuart and her aunt Carissa, Brenna wanted out. Both of them were bad news to the rest of the family.
Brenna's other cousin, Morgan McKelvey, towered above most of the other guests at the President's party. Typically, Morgan was posing for the cameras and garnering publicity for Breakthrough Unlimited. Doing my job, Brenna thought with a twinge of remorse. But it wasn't too painful for Morgan. Some of the most beautiful women on Mars were hanging on his arm, competing for his eye.
At the edge of the video frame, President Grieske and Ambassador Quol-Bez of the Vahnaj planets were talking earnestly. The cameras discreetly stayed back, not trying to capture the audio. It was possible the Martian Council President and the alien were discussing top-secret diplomatic matters. The Ambassador's translator and a gaggle of Terran Worlds Council aides were hovering close, though, trying to overhear the conversation.
Suddenly, Stuart Saunder cut in front of the lens, blocking the technicians' view of the President and the Ambassador. Brenna's cousin from Earth acted as if he were unaware he was upstaging everyone. Brenna wasn't fooled. Stuart was working hard on his professional hedonist performance, and attracting an audience. She hoped those at the gala weren't fooled, either, and didn't assume Stuart was an example of what the rest of the Saunders were like.
Derek had noticed Brenna's interest in the vid display. "You overdo this shy-little-rich-girl routine, Bren. For example," Derek waved at the screen, "even if you don't count Stuart— and who does?-~nobody else in your family is hiding from the limelight. Look at Morgan. That showoff! Count 'em. One, two, three women waving around their hormones and doing their best to get him to their beds after the gala. So what if half his playboy act was dreamed up by the media? It works. Morgan treats it as free advertising. He's right." Derek sensed Brenna's growing annoyance and dropped that topic. "No sale? So? What shall we do for the remainder of the journey? Watch the scenery?"
The suggestion was intended to make her smile. It succeeded. The idea was ridiculous. They had both flown over this terrain countless times in shuttles and ridden these tracks in their private train cars and company vehicles. The view was as familiar as the inside of their homes. Yet it was striking. The train sped on frictionless wings, climbing into the Tharsis Mountains. High speed reduced objects close to the car's sides to a blur of reds, tans, and yellowish brown. But more distant landmarks appeared to move by slowly: craters, hills, ravines— an awesome vista. Mars was a world mankind had barely begun to tame. Compared with some of the settlements, life in Eos Chasma was easy. Precipitous cliffs overhung the kilometers-deep gorge to the south. Valles Marineris was a rip in the planet, a canyon so huge that no one could absorb its dimensions from the surface. Only an aerial view captured the ancient rift, a gouge longer than some continents on Earth were wide.
Today, the view was clear and the train was using the surface route. Sometimes dust storms completely obscured the surface, driving the colonists and their vehicles underground. There were alternate tracks along most of the transport system. Computers controlled the operation, constantly sampling the conditions ahead, picking the quickest and safest course.
Brenna could see for tens of kilometers, to the horizon. Now and then she spotted traces of a prospecting community or a mining town. Always, the towns were close to the transport depots—the pioneers' lifelines to the older and better-supplied cities in the Tharsis Mountains and Syrtis Major, in the eastern hemisphere. Medical emergencies, life-support-system breakdowns, an unexpected economic setback—anything could put those little settlements in deep trouble. They weren't quite as vulnerable to sudden catastrophe as man-made settlements in space, but very nearly so. During the thirty years humans had lived on Mars, there had been plenty of tragedy. The colonists accepted the dangers. You didn't ship out and sign on with the mining expeditions and explorer groups unless you had the spirit to take whatever Mars might hand you. The unbreathable air, the thin, rocky soil, existence bought at a high price—this could be a hostile world. But it was also a starkly beautiful one, offering a challenge the pioneers relished. Brenna's parents and Morgan's had been part of that breed. So had Derek's.
Brenna divided her focus, watching the passing Marscape and the vid monitor. Other guests were joining the President and Ambassador Quol-Bez. Chairman Hong Ling-Kuang of Protectors of Earth, here as a representative of the home planet, elbowed for position against Terran Worlds Councilman Ames, an old friend of Brenna's father. Politics. They both wanted to be seen shaking hands with Quol-Bez, to show their constituents, via the media, that they were on close terms with the alien from beyond Pluto. In spite of his six years in the Solar System, the Vahnaj Ambassador was still an exotic and intriguing figure to humans—the only alien any human had ever met face to face, though mankind had been in contact with his species for more than thirty years by faster-than-light radio signals.
In retrospect, it seemed incredible that humanity had once been terrified by the "threat" of the Vahnaj. They had feared that the extraterrestrials, with their far more advanced galactic civilization, would invade and destroy Earth. Mars hadn't been colonized yet, and Goddard and Lunar Base were barely established. Man ought to have bee
n farther along the road to exploring the Solar System by then. But natural disasters and a series of terrible wars in the early years of the Twenty-first Century had almost made Homo sapiens extinct before humans established the first contact with the Vahnaj stellar empire. Brenna's father had achieved that link when he communicated with a Vahnaj robot messenger in 2040. Brenna's generation thought of that period as a dark age, when people gibbered about "Vahnaj invaders who will enslave us all!" When humanity finally met Ambassador Quol-Bez, more than thirty years later, how foolish those fears seemed!
"Look at them swarming around Quol-Bez," Brenna said scornfully. "As if they think he'll throw future trade contracts their way."
"He may," Derek said. Brenna darted a sharp glance at him as he added, "Quol-Bez has the authority to negotiate with us. He worked out the agreement with Hibernation Stasis Ship Corporation and gave us our choice of trans-Solar System colony worlds."
Brenna's smoldering anger flared. "You mean he put in a call to his government back home, and they picked out a bunch of rocks they weren't interested in, anyway, and told Hiber-Ship Corporation it could colonize them."
Derek took a deep breath. He didn't back away from the subject. "Any race with their capabilities in interstellar travel and communications can give and take at will, Bren, and you know it. I think it was generous of them to select those planet-falls for our ship and guarantee that neither they nor any other species out there will claim them before New Earth Seeker arrives."
New Earth Seeker would arrive—at the world the Vahnaj had deigned to reserve for them—after a human lifetime. And Derek would be aboard her. Brenna couldn't accept that fact, even yet. A knife was twisting and cutting her emotions, and she couldn't defend herself from the pain.
The Vahnaj. Instant communications across the light-years. When her father had examined the Vahnaj robot messenger vehicle, he had learned it contained an FTL com system. Any tampering would have disintegrated the unit, but Todd Saunder had taken control and prevented Earth's governments and the military from trying to get into the communicator's guts. As a result, for thirty-four years humans and Vahnaj had been in regular contact, up to and including the time Ambassador Quol-Bez's ship had entered the Solar System. A faster-than-light ship. FTL radio. All the wonderful devices Brenna and her team so desperately yearned for! But the Vahnaj wouldn't share those devices with Homo sapiens. They had cooperated with Hiber-Ship Corporation, though. Ambassador Quol-Bez had patiently explained that cryogenic stasis and the Isakson photon ramjet starcraft that would carry Derek and the other sleeping colonists to the Kruger 60 star system were human inventions. Fine! That meant the Vahnaj would be delighted to encourage them, to map out near-star neighborhoods for Hiber-Ship's convenience, "reservations" for the primitive humans to crawl out to.
But they wouldn't lift a finger to help Breakthrough Unlimited acquire faster-than-light speeds. Aliens in the manger. Vahnaj logic decreed that mankind must "invent" FTL drive for itself. No helping hands from outside.
Brenna liked Quol-Bez. She saw the alien Ambassador frequently, because he moved in the same lofty social circles as her parents. The Vahnaj regarded Todd Saunder as an all-important human, the man who had found their robot messenger. Quol-Bez and Brenna's father were fast friends.
But Brenna also resented the alien. Hiber-Ship Corporation's New Earth Seeker was nearing completion. Departure date set. Maps on board—thanks to the Vahnaj! Crew list filling up fast with those willing to ride at sub-light speeds to a barren world an alien race had chosen for them. Meanwhile, Breakthrough Unlimited dealt with unknowns, its people dying in the explosion of the first Prototype, the terrible risks of the upcoming test creating tensions that were battering Brenna and the others. FTL travel. The key to reaching the stars in weeks, not in decades or centuries. And likable, smiling Ambassador Quol-Bez rubbed elbows with politicians, bowed, and spoke with sweet reasonableness. But he wouldn't help Todd Saunder's daughter and nephew find that key to the universe.
Don't let the primitives escape from the reservation too fast?
"We just left the Ophir region," Derek was saying. "On the Trithonium curve now. The last leg. There's Saunder Estates, coming up." A kilometer away, down an arm of the canyon rim, Brenna saw her home. Three secluded mansions—her parents', Morgan's, and hers—protected by Saunder Enterprises security forces. Close to Pavonis City, yet far enough away to offer privacy and a magnificent view of Valles Marineris from the terraces and windows of the Estates. Luxurious dwellings, for Mars. "Wishing we'd spent the last few days there?" Derek asked gently.
Brenna's mood softened. He understood. He could be so damned infuriating. Then he would probe her emotions and touch just the right note. How could they be so far apart on so many things, yet share this rapport? "No. I'm glad we were alone," Brenna said.
Despite what you told me. Despite the new fears you dumped on top of the unbearable load I'm already carrying. Being with you is vital. All the more so because you're going to leave me ... maybe forever.
His hand stole across the divider between their seats. Brenna hesitated for a fraction of a second, then reached out, their fingers interlacing. Breakthrough Unlimited and Hiber-Ship Corporation. Brenna Saunder and Derek Whitcomb. Enemies. Rivals. Philosophical opposites. And lovers.
Deceleration mode was beginning, that heavy, seat-of-the-pants sensation every pilot recognized. Outside the windows, the scene changed. Saunder Estates was special, but there were other expensive dwellings near Mars' administrative capital. The closer they came to Pavonis City, the more an imitation-Earth life style was evident. More life-support domes covering entire areas. Lots of surface and subterranean transport depots. Outlying suburbs of Pavonis City were tied to the capital by train and skimmer monorail. There were only a few mines in this area. Pavonis City was a pulse point, a computer center for the planet. Her citizens followed the same safety rules colonists in the isolated regions of Mars did, but they could do so in comparative comfort. In another fifty years, Pavonis City might be indistinguishable from most middle-sized nerve centers back on the home world.
Brenna took her travel kit out of the luggage holder. Derek had already slung his over one shoulder. When the car stopped, they moved down the aisle toward the forward doors. The other passengers had stampeded out before the P.A.'s debark message began. "We are arriving at Pavonis City Station West One-Ten, Gate Twelve. Please exit by the forward access..." When Brenna and Derek reached the door, most of the Terraform Division workers were on the platform beyond. A noisy holiday crowd thronged the station as the on-going Colony Days celebration spilled over from the upper levels of the city.
"... thank you for traveling with Saunder Enterprises Transport Company," the computerized P.A. crooned. Absently, Brenna cataloged the recorded voice as translator-splitter model eighteen. Brenna owned considerable stock in that family industry, as well as in SE Transport Co. Funds flowed into the coffers every time someone rode this train. She appreciated the revenue more than she ever had. Money. A lot of it. Breakthrough Unlimited's payroll and experimental spacecraft gobbled up enormous sums.
"... station temperature is twenty-five. The time is 2135 hours, West Central Martian Time..."
As Brenna and Derek walked down the exit ramp, two Terraform workers whispered excitedly, "Do you know who they are?"
"Brenna Saunder! The real Brenna Saunder, right there in the car with us all the way! I'd heard they were at Eos Town, but I didn't see them get on board. She's taller than I expected, and younger."
"Did you see that feature about them on Ife Enegu's program last week? Derek Whitcomb. Ooh, isn't he a satisfier?"
"Sure is! I'd sign up to sleep on his ship any time!"
Brenna plowed into the mob, fighting her way through. Derek struggled to keep up with her. His long arms and legs were a handicap in congestion like this. "Stop it!" he yelled, grabbing Brenna's arm. "You'll knock someone down!"
"They identified us, dammit. You said nobody would blab." Br
enna looked around anxiously, expecting to see a gypsy media crew closing in on them. But no one seemed to have picked up on the two women's comments. Brenna continued to worm her way through the crush, heading for the outer platform. Once they were in the clear, Derek made up for lost time, matching her gait.
Brenna grimaced, pointing at the station's wall. Holo-mode pictures three meters tall advertised "Mankind's Greatest Adventure!" In a heroic pose, Derek Whitcomb and several other attractive Hiber-Ship volunteers loomed above the platform. The ad copy screamed, "It's Not Too Late! You Too Can Join Hiber-Ship Corporation! Ride New Earth Seeker To The Stars! Cryogenic Stasis Is Proven! Tame New Worlds! The Future Can Be Yours! Contact Hiber-Ship Corporation in Pavonis City or Syrtis Major Base for Details!"
"Glamour boy," Brenna said with bitterness. "I'm surprised they didn't tear your clothes off the moment they saw you, you sexy satisfier, you..."
"Don't be a burned-out circuit, Bren. Nothing like that happens."
"But Hiber-Ship sure does display you like a prize stud," Brenna retorted.
"They could have pounced on you just as fast. You're a celebrity, too," he said in his own defense. "The reigning Saunder princess."
"Don't call me that!"
The original "Saunder princess" had been Brenna's aunt Mariette. She and Morgan's father had founded Breakthrough Unlimited, and died in Prototype I. Mari Saunder—Brenna remembered her as a middle-aged but still lovely woman with raven hair and pale blue eyes. But the Saunder princess was dead. Long live the new princess, Brenna Foix Saunder—if she didn't make the same fatal mistakes her predecessor had.
Outward Bound Page 3
