"And all the 'lewd and lascivious' appetites you can handle," Derek said.
"Hey! This new dog knows some very interesting old tricks, friend," Morgan boasted. "My ladies never complain."
"Neither does mine..."
"What about tomorrow's launch?" Brenna demanded.
Morgan tapped his wrist mini-terminal. "Window's not till 1800. Pre-launch chores are yours. Yuri will make sure you don't fall asleep over the computer. I'll show up in time for the PR show, never fear." Morgan touched his tiny collar com, talking to an unseen Saunder Enterprises security officer. "This is McKelvey. Please have my escort waiting. Assemblywoman Lefferts and I will be leaving the President's party immediately."
Brenna looked at Derek and read agreement in his face. The gala would be over, as far as they were concerned, when Morgan left. Time for a quiet departure. No one was likely to miss them now. The celebration would go on quite well without them. Brenna spoke into her jeweled pendant. "Captain Saunder and Captain Whitcomb will be heading out, too. We'll take the skimmer to Amazonis. I'd appreciate the usual backup guards. Thank you."
Morgan and Jutta were going east, using the main elevators to the train station. Derek muttered a few questions as he and Brenna started off toward the opposite side of the rotunda, Saunder Enterprises police dogging their heels. "Skimmer?" Derek said disbelievingly.
"Trust me. You'll like it."
Jumbled bits of conversation, laughter, and scraps of music floated out of each entertainment island they walked past. The areas now resembled real islands, isolated spots of light and activity beneath an arching life-support cover. The upper part of the dome was dark, the fireworks holo-mode stored away until next year.
As Brenna and Derek descended the ramp to the lower hall, a lone gypsy newshunter saw them. The man had been running toward the V.I.P. exit farther along the curving corridor, possibly hoping to intercept Morgan and Jutta. When he saw Brenna, he slammed to a halt. The guards closed in on him and commandeered his communicators and camera pendant. Was this the same overeager type who had run afoul of Yuri this afternoon? Brenna couldn't be certain in the dim light. She almost felt sorry for the man, whomever he sold his scoops to. But not sorry enough to let him spoil her plans.
A guard detained the newshunter while the rest trooped along the hall. Thick silicate carpeting squeaked under their boots. They took the dogleg exit off Ramp Eighteen. That wasn't used much—which was Brenna's reason for choosing it. They met no one else as they jogged right, then left, then right again to reach the short-run elevators, which took them directly to the skimmer platforms. These, too, were deserted, so early in the evening. Brenna ordered three skimmers, one each for the guard groups and one for herself and Derek.
A disembodied robot dispatcher replied, "Your vehicles will be here from storage in ninety seconds. Please stand by."
Brenna tapped her foot impatiently. Ninety seconds was ridiculous! But this was a comparatively antiquated method of transport, the very first built on Mars Colony. Finally, the platform hatch whooshed open. The skimmers sat at the rail curb, left wing doors standing open. The guards fanned out, quickly checking all three vehicles. In Brenna's lifetime, no Saunder Enterprises security officer had ever found a bomb or other harmful device during one of these checks. Brenna considered the whole thing a nuisance, but her father and Carissa were adamant, repeating dire warnings and saying no one could be too careful. Brenna tolerated the delay with ill grace. Then they climbed aboard, letting the guards take the front and rear skimmers. In moments, the programming was on the screens and they were sailing away from the station.
The frictionless-drive, two-person cars swayed along the monorail. A series of air-lock irises opened and closed rapidly, stepping the three skimmers down through the atmospheres. The lead skimmer was opening up some distance, and Brenna couldn't see its running lights when her vehicle emerged out of the last air lock. The phosphorescent retaining banks bracketed them for several kilometers as the skimmers climbed a mountain shoulder. Then they were clear of the city, and night surrounded them. Brenna dimmed her car's lights so that she could see the view better.
Much of Pavonis City was out of sight, carved into the ridge, of course. But as the skimmers traversed the volcanic slopes above, Brenna and Derek could look down on agricultural stations and recreation domes. The rotunda was the biggest of the latter, though, strictly speaking, it wasn't usually a recreation area. The life-support bubble was an enormous blister, with many lights shining inside. They could just make out tiny figures moving around the floor.
Then even that sign of the capital was gone. Only the faint gleam from the skimmer's programmer screen remained, and Brenna masked that. Stars frosted the bowl of the sky. A broad, fuzzy band, the Milky Way, crossed the zenith and bisected the southern horizon, silhouetting some of Mars' rugged terrain. Except for the escort skimmers, there was no other man-made light in view. From this point on, any signs of human habitation would be rare—a few Terraform Division monitoring stations near Nix Olympus, an occasional shuttle beacon, or an isolated mining community's dome. During the journey to Amazonis Planitia Spaceport, they would be in utter darkness. A dust storm, like the bad one in '72, could shut down skimmer tracks. It was dangerous to use these little cars in the teeth of the fierce Martian winds. But this season, the air was almost still. The skimmer drifted eerily through black silence.
Brenna and Derek cuddled together in the double seat. It was more than a thousand kilometers to Amazonis Spaceport, and skimmer travel was leisurely. A two-hour ride lay ahead of them. "We could have cut the trip time to nothing on a train," Derek said, "or taken one of your SE shuttles. Or I could have checked a spare Hiber-Ship craft out for the night..."
"What's your hurry, hotshot?" Brenna leaned back, staring up at the night sky. It was like looking into infinity. She could fall—upward—forever into that starry void. The thought didn't frighten her at all. "What I'd really enjoy would be a low-level skid-plane flight, the way we would travel if we were on Earth. But Terraform Division's got some distance to go yet."
"Fifty years, at least, before the air's thick enough to support non-rocket flight," Derek agreed. "This will have to do for now." The skimmer rounded a curve along Nix Olyfhpus's flank. Brenna moved with the skimmer, clinging closer to Derek. Laughter rumbled in his chest, and he stretched out beside her. Their arms folded about each other. "I was right to trust you, my love," he said. "I do like this. It's a marvelous idea."
"Of course! I'm a Saunder. Genes prove out. I came supplied with an extra amount of brains."
"Among other things."
They rode through the night, unhurried. The skimmer's insulation shut out the world but let in the starlight. Very shortly, though, neither of the passengers was watching the stars. They left the driving to the programmer as the little car glided onward into the Martian highlands and toward Amazonis Planitia Spaceport.
CHAPTER SIX
Reach for the Stars
Derek had already left when the suite's monitor screen waked Brenna at 0600. She peered blearily around the hotel bedroom, then focused on the terminal and forced her mind to function. There was a handwritten note propped against the screen, as usual. Handwriting was a dying art. But Derek's Hiber-Ship teachers trained their volunteers in that skill. It would be a useful tool, they believed, for rebuilding human society on the Kruger 60 worlds. Being a Saunder, Brenna had enjoyed the benefits of an expensive education, including how to read handwriting, even a scrawl like Derek's. She read the small square of disposa-fiche. "I love you. Good luck to you and Morgan. Take care, both of you. I'll see you again as soon as I can. D."
As soon as he could. And next March ... never again.
Brenna and Derek had learned, long ago in their busy schedules, not to say good-bye face to face. They had hit on the note as a substitute. But this one hurt, reminding her of so much left unsaid, and of the lonely future.
She reread the brief message several times and worked her w
ay through the morning routine—a sonic scrub, a snack from the food alcove, packing her travel kit with two weeks' worth of work clothes. Finally, she folded the note lovingly and sealed it in the pocket of her onepiecer.
Brenna sat down in front of the terminal, weighing several uncomfortable options. Then she cued the screen. "Saunder Estates. See if either of my parents is awake yet."
Dian was. Her image came on the monitor almost at once. "Hi, girl," she said brightly. "You look like morning doesn't agree with you. Never did, huh?"
Without preamble, Brenna asked, "Are you and Dad coming to the test next week?"
Her mother's face froze. "Did you ask your father that? Well, don't."
Brenna cocked her head, propping it up with her fist, gazing glumly at the woman on the vid. "I didn't ask him. But I was hoping..."
"No," Dian said, her tone hard and flat. "We've been through this. Drop it."
"Nothing's going to go wrong!" Brenna exclaimed in exasperation. "We've got it licked. The experts say so, the unmanned tests say so."
"Mari and Kevin thought that, too. They're dead. Your father was there when their ship went nova." The vid image brought out harsh shadows in Dian's features which Brenna hadn't noticed in the past. Her mother was beginning to show a few of her sixty-three years, under stress. "Dammit, girl, can't you understand?" Dian's mouth trembled. She was fighting emotion, but not winning. "Neither of us could take it if ... all right, maybe it won't. I pray to God nothing will go wrong. Call it superstition. We'd go crazy, sitting up there at your FTL Station while you and Morgan and the others fly out to where nobody living has been..."
"Nobody human. We'll change that."
Dian underlined and amended her earlier words. "I hope and pray to God that you do. But we simply can't watch you try it. It'd be unbearable. It'd kill your father and me if..."
There was a heavy silence, the image dancing a little. Bad connection. Someone at ComLink would get kicked for that. Letting the boss's daughter and wife see a shoddy signal on the call terminal! Maintenance heads would roll.
Very softly, Brenna asked, "Would you take it better if I were going aboard Hiber-Ship and frozen in cryogenic stasis? I'd be leaving the Solar System for the rest of your lives. You'd never see me again."
"You'd be alive, with Derek," Dian said, unshakable. "We'd know that. We could imagine you waking up, living, having kids, even if we were long dead. That's different."
"Okay." Brenna felt as if she had handed over some irreplaceable part of her being and was watching it slowly bleed dry. "Where ... where will you be?"
Dian glanced away, checking something on a business calendar. "I'm en route for Earth tomorrow. Linguists' conference in Brasilia, remember? Your father's staying here. A little business, a little vacation..."
"Then he'll be close when we..." Brenna didn't finish. She had heard herself sounding like a foolish, hopeful child. Why did it matter so much? Even if her father watched the test from FTL Station, he would be thousands of kilometers from the actual site. Here on Mars, he'd just get the results on a slightly delayed basis. Of course, if he wouldn't be watching, some aide would have to deliver the news.
And yet, it made a big difference. Derek wouldn't be at FTL Station. Neither would her parents. All three had been there, back in '72, when Mariette and Kevin and Cesare had made the first manned flight attempt. Two months after that, Derek had signed on with Hiber-Ship Corporation, making a major philosophical statement about his future, beginning the separation between him and Brenna. And Brenna's father and mother had refused to come to any future tests. They barely asked how things were going. They didn't want to know, emotionally. They avoided the subject of Breakthrough Unlimited as much as possible. Widening gaps. And Brenna didn't know how to pull all of them back together.
"Well, I guess I'd better let you go," Brenna said slowly, unwillingly. "Give Dad a kiss for me. Have a safe trip to Earth..."
"You have a safe trip, too, girl, you and Morgan." It was as close as the older woman could skirt to the dangerous topic.
Dian's dark eyes penetrated the distance and the medium, sending aching maternal concern and love. "Bye."
Brenna gazed at the darkened screen for a long while.
Seven days and counting. Last leg of the big test. Events were certainly off to a wonderful start! All the old pressures she had accumulated through the months of preparation for this critical test—and some big new ones, including family problems.
Finally, she roused herself out of her gloom. She didn't have time to sit around and wallow in self-pity. There was too much to do.
Two Saunder Enterprises guards came to attention as Brenna exited from the private suite. They followed her-down the slide stairs to the Spaceport Inn's lobby. Other pilots and travelers were there, dozing, reading, or waiting for rides out to their ships. Brenna sympathized with her fellow early risers and ignored the few with weird bio-rhythms who insisted on being cheerful. She was fully awake now, her mind on click-click status, but damned if she would greet the Martian dawn with a grin, as they were doing!
The SE private sub-surface shuttle train was at the lower-lobby platform, as ordered. The single-car vehicle carried Brenna directly from the inn to Saunder Enterprises' facility at the west edge of the spaceport. It was a very short trip. Thanks to Mariette Saunder's close involvement with the Mars landing and first settlement, Saunder Enterprises had been the first leaser when Amazonis Planitia Spaceport was being built, and had a prime location.
Brenna debarked and headed for the Breakthrough Unlimited section. She passed the main office along the way, glancing in to see if anything was going on there yet. Flight Controller George Li and his assistants were busy already. A few media personnel, yawning, had showed up. The public relations show wouldn't begin until 1030 hours, local zone time. A small group was watching the vid, where the news was all about the unprecedented assassination attempt yesterday... Martian Civil Enforcement, with the full cooperation of Protectors of Earth and Terran Worlds Council's Space Fleet, is investigating the shocking attempt on Councilman Ames's life. Early indications are that this was a premeditated action on the part of a fanatic fringe of the now-defunct Earth First Party, which recently infiltrated several highly placed delegations of Earth's governing bodies. There is no evidence that Chairman Hong had any knowledge of this clandestine group or that his aides were in any way involved with the..."
So that was going to be the official story. Brenna imagined a lot of wheeling and dealing behind the scenes. Quite possibly the leaders of Protectors of Earth didn't realize various fanatics were still operating on the home planet and murderously intent on stopping Terran Worlds Council's eclipse of P.O.E. in Solar System affairs. But if so, it made Chairman Hong and his fellow rulers seem woefully naive.
Was this better than open warfare? Mankind at peace with itself, for an impressively long period. Earth, Mars, and the satellites coexisting without conflict. Instead of civil war, though, there were factions, economic undercover operations, and cat's-paw fanatics who could be planted in crucial positions and even try to kill individual power figures among their opponents. Maybe the frequently heard comment at last night's gala was valid—Mars and the outside-Earth colonies ought to cut loose and go their separate ways and leave Earth for the stay-at-homes.
When Brenna reached Flight Operations, she found some of the support crew watching that same newscast. They shook their heads, echoing her sour opinions of the whole affair. Many of Breakthrough Unlimited's pilots and team members were Earth-born and were forced, for business reasons, to make trips back "home" several times a year. But their attitudes were colonial, outward-oriented, as Brenna's were.
Yuri Nicholaiev, Rue Polk, Hector Obregon, and the younger pilots had checked in and were busy getting into harness. Morgan and Tumaini Beno would be the last to arrive, according to the time-off schedule. Brenna found an empty terminal screen and got to work with the others. They had had three months' intensive preparation for t
he all-important upcoming test, and two weeks of badly needed R & R. The vacation had put everyone in fine shape. The excitement was regenerating, crackling like electricity through the flight operations room. Jokes and gear-up chatter made the preparations go smoothly, rather than distracting them.
Pulling together. Organizing for the Big One, the one they had been in training for all this time.
Delayed-time messages came in from the advance team, which was already out at FTL Station, warming things up for the rest. The flight team and George Li's coordinators put everything in the hopper. Fuel requisitions, necessary food and water, and spare parts. For FTL Station, it was an unusually small supply order. No more three-month sessions! After the successful run, the lengthy test prelims would be no more!
Brenna absorbed all the accumulated data and combined it with the update Yuri Nicholaiev had swapped with her mini-terminal until she could recite everything without hesitation. She was synchronizing programs with Yuri, Rue, and Hector. When Tumaini and Morgan got there, the Prototype, Chase craft, and backup pilots went into a huddle, doing a hasty talk-through of routines they all knew forward and backward.
There was one brief interruption during Brenna's vector plot check. The vid was usually turned to the news channels, to pick up the constant babble about Colony Days and the scandal at the gala. However at 0930 the spaceport's observation channel showed a liftoff from Amazonis's northwest quadrant, and Brenna watched the silvery needle ride its plume of exhaust up into the dark sky. The view was long-range, but she didn't need to read the insignia or the ident printout at the bottom of the screen. That was Hiber-Ship Corporation's Mars-Deimos shuttle. It would be taking Derek, Lilika Chionis, and a number of other corporation crew people up to Hiber-Ship's transshipment post near Mars' outer moon. They would rendezvous there with their fleet of ferries and pick up Earth-manufactured pharmaceuticals and shipments of animal-breeding stock. The six-ship convoy would then take the precious cargo on to near-Jovian orbit, where Hiber-Ship's New Earth Seeker was being built and provisioned for her decades-long trip out into the universe.
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