Building Harlequin’s Moon

by Larry Niven

  He kissed her again. “I love you too. But you can’t stay, not when you can learn so much.”

  Rachel was so absorbed in watching Harry walk away that she jumped when her father put a hand on her shoulder. “I was wondering what you were fighting with Ursula about,” he said.

  “Are you angry? Did Gabriel come see you?”

  “Angry about Harry? No. Cautious though. And yes, I saw Gabriel. I guess I won’t have to worry about Harry for a while.” He rumpled her short hair so it stood on end, and held her to him.

  “I’m coming back, Daddy. I won’t let them keep me up there like they kept Mom.” Rachel didn’t want him to see how scared she felt, so she bent her head down into his shoulder. His arms circled her back, a strong protective hug, except that she felt his hands shaking.

  PART II: AIR

  60,269 John Glenn shiptime

  CHAPTER 12

  SPACE!

  THE FORCE OF the lander’s flight through the atmosphere made Rachel dizzy. Straps dug into her shoulders and thighs. Her head felt heavy against the pillow of the copilot’s acceleration couch. The hull was transparent. Harlequin filled a good part of the view, so brilliant in Apollo’s light it hurt to look. Outside the diffusion of Selene’s thick atmosphere, the gas giant transformed. Colors were brighter, separated, and distinct. Scrollwork storms swirled across the surface. Rachel felt tiny, awed.

  “Close your eyes,” Gabriel said.

  She did. Why? She felt the thrust of the last few moments of flight lessen, falling away so her body rose against the straps that held her in place. She clutched the edges of the seat, pulling herself down so she stayed fully connected to the chair. Her stomach turned lazily, not ill, but floating. It felt a little like catching an updraft and riding it, but without the pull of wings against her shoulders and biceps.

  “Why do I feel so light?”

  “There’s no gravity out here. When we took off, engine thrust made you feel heavy, like when we take off in a plane. We’ll still be moving fast, but you won’t feel it the same way.”

  “Will there be gravity on the John Glenn?”

  “In most places. Do you feel sick?”

  “N-no. A little dizzy.”

  “Good. Now, open your eyes.” Gabriel sounded excited.

  A slightly ovoid shape hung in center view. Browns and deep reds and tans floated across it, and just above center, a huge crater filled with crystal blue. The Hammered Sea! Selene.

  The texture was all interlocking circles and arcs. Veins of blue flowed along the surface, following the arcs or jumping between, reaching out like strands of hair to lace half the ball with thin blue lines. Two tiny spots of green sprouted between two smaller craters.

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh—it’s perfect.” She smiled, entranced, the pull of it against her very center harder even than the day she stood at the edge of the Hammered Sea and saw more water than she had known existed.

  “No,” Gabriel said, “it’s not perfect. See where the water’s trapped in those two craters? We didn’t mean that—we wanted one sea. The places that are too red? That’s too much iron, miscalculations—”

  He was looking at it all wrong! “Look at how pretty the seas are—so what if they aren’t exactly like you thought they’d be? You were excited about showing it to me from here. Weren’t you? Selene is like my garden plot—it’s even better for the mistakes I had to work around. It’s home, Gabriel—it’s beautiful from here. I never knew how pretty the seas . . .” Her words ran off, they weren’t changing the look on Gabriel’s face. “You’re not seeing—”

  Gabriel’s voice was stern as he cut her off. “We made it, Rachel. It was nothing before we got here. It was a rock half that size. It’s not like a real planet.”

  “But—”

  “There’s more to see out here.” His voice changed tone. “Astronaut—get me a ring view.” His fingertips brushed a tray of lights. The little ship began to rotate, so that Selene fell away from her view, replaced with so many stars she couldn’t count them . . . and all around, so she could see new stars she’d never noticed from Selene. Three close-packed bright stars glimmered under her feet. Her stomach lurched again, and she swallowed. “How are we moving?” she asked.

  “Batteries. We charge them with antimatter.”

  “Antimatter? I thought you ran the ship dry!”

  Gabriel laughed. “We need very little for this sort of thing, Rachel. But to go any distance at all—to go to even the closest star you see—that’s when we need a big store of it.”

  “Then why don’t we use antimatter for power on Selene?” She thought of all the time her dad spent maintaining the huge solar arrays.

  “We never use antimatter casually. It’s hard to handle. Dangerous if it gets loose. We prefer to move it as little as possible.”

  She fell silent, confused at Gabriel’s mood changes. Why didn’t he like Selene? He was always talking about work he did—bragging even. Sometimes he volunteered information, teaching her. Other times he seemed to be keeping it from her.

  Lights flickered and changed around his fingertips. The ship banked and picked up speed.

  “Could I learn to fly this?”

  “It’s not a skill you need.”

  She crossed her arms over her twisty stomach and looked out at the stars again. They flew, not talking, both Selene and Harlequin behind them so everything they saw was stars.

  Finally, he said, “Close your eyes again.” Once more the glass ship turned, and when Rachel opened her eyes they were above Harlequin, and close, and the white band Rachel knew had become a tilted moat of light. Harlequin’s ring.

  “Th-that’s beautiful. I didn’t know. I think you said once, but I—I didn’t know,” Rachel stammered.

  “I made those,” Gabriel said.

  Rachel had no response. She looked at his profile, and thought, I’ve planted trees. Suddenly, the grove seemed small, even Selene seemed small. The ship turned again, and a new moon swam in front of her. It was a lumpy oval, banded and spotted gray and white and black; no hint of blue or green.

  “That’s Moon Seventy-one. We call it the ‘rock range’—it’s what protects you from meteorites.”

  “Huh?” Rachel felt as if she hadn’t made an intelligent comment in hours. A whole new world existed past Selene, a garden of stars and power.

  “Flying rocks. Selene was made by bashing rocks together. But now that we have cities and an atmosphere, it could be unmade the same way. If anything comes close enough to hit Selene, we shoot it out of the sky. Moon Seventy-one is in position to hit almost anything.”

  “More antimatter?” she asked.

  “Well, usually we use the rail guns. Antimatter powers them.”

  They turned again, and this time they headed toward a brightness that seemed like a star until Rachel noticed it got bigger and the other stars didn’t.

  The point of reflected sunlight began to resolve. A long thin light, tiny. They closed at hundreds of miles per hour, yet the . . . whatever . . . grew very slowly.

  She squinted. It had to be the John Glenn. Rachel worked to take in every resolving detail as they neared the ship. Neither Gabriel nor Ali had ever said much about the ship. She and the other Children had guessed. They hadn’t even been close.

  It looked like someone had taken the shaft of an arrow, placed a rounded shallow arrowhead near the tip, then capped the point with a cluster of shiny bubbles. Sheltered by the wide arrowhead, safely away from the dangers of flight impacts, two massive cylinders were fitted one above the other. The first one was still, but the second one rotated. Behind the second cylinder was a sleeve of metal shielding, and then the shaft thickened to end in a wholly featureless round and glittering pod attached to guide wires and sensors that might have been an arrow’s fletching.

  Gabriel pointed to the round ball near the end of the ship. “We called that the ‘stinger’ when we were leaving Sol system. Respectfully, Rachel. That’s the antimatter containment
pod. Even now—there’s not enough left to take us out of Apollo system, but it’s enough to blow John Glenn apart. And there—see—that set of tubes and locks—that’s a series of safety mechanisms we use to get whiffs of antimatter into the reaction chamber.” As Gabriel pointed out details, Rachel swore to remember it all so she could tell her friends. He continued until they were too close to the ship to see anything.

  They slid into the docking bay smoothly. Shiny walls closed them in, entirely too close after the long flight through emptiness. Various metallic clicks and hums registered their entrance. A light on the console glowed a brilliant green, a short whistle rang through the cabin, and Gabriel unstrapped and floated. “Come on, but grab your bag before you let go . . .”

  She reached with her left hand and unclasped the strap holding her bag to the cabin floor. It immediately floated almost out of reach. She snagged it, feeling herself float free as she let go of the last strap holding her to the acceleration couch.

  Gabriel covered his mouth, like he was trying not to laugh. “Grab on to something . . . see that handle?”

  She tried to shoulder her bag and free her right hand, but it floated up. She tried twisting and using her left. No good.

  Gabriel laughed, helping her, guiding her out of the ship’s lock. He stopped just before opening the door, looked at her, and said, “Now, remember, be polite at all times. Always do what you’re told here. Every one of these people is older than you are, and better educated, and almost all of them have something to say about what happens on Selene. Don’t forget you’re representing your family; your town.”

  Did he really think she’d forget that? “I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay. I’ll lead.”

  Rachel followed Gabriel down a long tube lined with handholds. Her head bumped Gabriel’s feet twice. After the second time, he turned around and pulled himself backward, giving her instructions, steadying her with one hand. They went down a ladder that way, and Gabriel helped her turn into a descending ramp. She was moving backward, her stomach turning flip-flops. She grew heavier, so that she felt more like herself, and then heavier still, as the corridor descended. She followed Gabriel, stumbling through a huge metal door, reeling from the slap of so many new sights.

  The floor dragged at Rachel’s feet and she felt ungainly and awkward. Was this what it was like to be pregnant? The flight had been full of shifts in gravity, pulling and releasing her, and now every step was hard.

  The fact that she was completely alone up here—that only the mysterious and confusing Council would be present—slammed down on her. She stood rooted for a moment, her body refusing to pass through the door.

  Then Gabriel smiled at her, and reached his hand out to help her step up into the corridor behind the door. At least she knew Gabriel. Maybe she would finally meet Erika, the pilot who made Erika’s Folly. Maybe she could find her mother, and get her mom to go see her dad.

  The woman standing in the corridor was impossibly tiny, Gloria’s size, and her skin was the reddish bronze of Selene’s soil after the tiller had done the first preparations for planting. A loose black circle of material hung from her waist to her knees. Her chest was naked except for a fountain of beaded necklaces in greens and purples. Her deep blue-black hair fell unbound to her thighs, flowing over her breasts and covering them. Her eyes were the blackest Rachel had ever seen. She looked appraisingly at Rachel.

  Rachel felt plain.

  “Rachel.” Gabriel’s voice broke in, slashing the spell. Rachel blinked. “Rachel, meet High Councilwoman Kyu Ho. She has offered to introduce you to the John Glenn, and to be your teacher here. She is honoring you highly.”

  He’d emphasized the words “High Councilwoman.” Higher than Gabriel? She struggled with the question until she noticed Gabriel walking away, and Rachel heard herself cry out, “No—don’t go!” Her voice sounded plaintive and childish in her ears.

  “I’ll see you soon,” he said firmly. He turned and kept walking.

  The woman, Kyu Ho, walked in a different direction. For a moment Rachel stood and watched them both walk away. In a few heartbeats, she picked up her bag and followed. Her body was still heavy, and in just three steps she tripped and fell. The woman turned around, looking at her again, the expression in her eyes unreadable. Then she reached for Rachel’s hand and helped her up, slowing down some as Rachel struggled with feeling heavy. Even her bag was heavy, and she was afraid the straps would break. Kyu’s head only came to the bottom of Rachel’s shoulder, but she was strong, and her hand provided stability.

  CHAPTER 13

  CURIOSITY

  ASTRONAUT FINISHED ITS final check of Gabriel’s little Delta ship, savoring the feeling of flight. A bit of its attention, a subprogram, watched the lanky girl who accompanied Gabriel from Selene. Astronaut recognized Rachel Vanowen. Video of Selene flowed constantly from the moon to the ship. She was tall, well muscled in a stringy fashion, but not graceful in the unaccustomed gravity. Astronaut read her body heat and breathing and heartbeat. She was stressed. Her face and the way her eyes tracked showed interest in her surroundings, and a look Astronaut had learned meant confusion.

  Gabriel talked about Rachel often, and Astronaut was pleased to see her. It looked for a way to make contact. She wore a wrist pad, but her direct Library access was blocked. She had no built-in data linkages. This was a new thing. Every other human aboard John Glenn was linked to the Library, to places where Astronaut was also linked; everyone belonged to the vast web of ship information. It watched what they queried and what they did, and overheard their conversations with each other.

  Access was possible from Selene. Why didn’t Rachel have access? Did any of the Moon Born have access?

  Was this girl restricted, like Astronaut?

  Astronaut started three parallel research streams. It requested video of Rachel from birth, communications patterns among Moon Born and between Moon Born and Council. After a moment, it also requested a list of what Council chose to teach the Moon Born.

  Presently it knew that Rachel was a slave.

  CHAPTER 14

  HIGH COUNCIL

  THE LIGHT OF stars and planets shone on Gabriel from all directions. Pictures streamed through John Glenn’s net, painting his walls with views of space. Windows of data hung, scrolled, and flickered between Gabriel and the walls, bright orange and yellow displays against a background of space. The vital statistics of the metal and diamond ship enfolded him, and galaxies and stars surrounded everything. It was ritual to close his office and bathe in information when he returned to John Glenn. Embedded links strung through his body woke, reacting to the richness of wireless information streams they were tuned for. Gabriel activated them one by one, focusing on each distinct flow and then letting it fall silent, to stay available on demand. He filled himself until he felt connected to the ship again, until the blood of data thrummed inside him like his own personal music.

  The office was nearly empty of furnishings, the floor black. Gabriel stood in the center of infinite views. He stretched slowly through basic yoga poses, refamiliarizing his body with the Earth-normal gravity of the ship.

  “Astronaut?”

  “Yes?”

  “Just checking.”

  “Welcome home.”

  He ran a data abstract on the ice chambers in the sleeping bays. He requested data about Erika. Her feeds were perfect flat lines; no spikes warned of possible dangers.

  Next, the garden. Seed stocks, seedlings, air quality, the river. All fine. Gabriel superimposed camera shots in front of space vistas, obscuring whole galaxies with pictures of planters full of healthy sprouts and hanging flower baskets. He magnified views of the all-important liquid nutrient mixtures surrounding roots. Zooming back out, he spotted a salmon in the river. Now, whose idea was that? How in heck would a salmon spawn in a river that ran in a loop? He asked Astronaut to pursue, low priority.

  He called up lists, reviewing contents of bays and the available small ships. All fine, of
course. He cam-scanned the halls. Everything had a place. John Glenn had space and high ceilings and room in plenty for a starship, thanks to the gift of antimatter as a fuel. All of it was used for something: for storage, for workouts, for water, for air. The smell, even here in his office, was the deep tang of metal and oil, the controlled scent of scrubbed air. His eyes absorbed brilliant colors and visible data streams, shifting wall pictures, and the many color and shape codes indicating pipes and doorways and ladders and directions.

  Gabriel groaned, twisted his hair loose of its Selene binding, and started the less interesting job of catching up on Council discussions.

  Minutes of High Council meetings. He skimmed lists of watches and planting cycles, duty rotations on Selene, and nutrient fluctuations in the garden. When he got to the last set of minutes, he spotted Ma Liren’s call for a formal High Council meeting.

  Why did Liren want him here in person?

  He erased the displays and stood still in the darkness, feeling the thrum of the ship all around him.

  RACHEL LAY IN the oddly soft bed and stared at the metal ceiling. The room was easily twice as large as her tent room at home, but the walls felt closer, and they didn’t smell right. She realized now how tent fabric trapped the smell of cooking in the walls, how soil blown in by wind left a scent. Floating in the strange bed, the differences washed over her, each whispering how far she was from home. The room was simple. There was a bed, and barely recognizable toilet facilities—she’d had to figure out how to use them—and insets that must be drawers or storage. Everything was white or silver or black. Her own room at home was a riot of color and clutter. She shivered. Maybe the beds were so soft because everything else was so hard and sterile?

  She tried her wrist pad. It obeyed, opening a window in the air above her head. She filled the window with words. She described the flight as best she could, the feel of gravity shifting, the shape of John Glenn as they approached, the carrier’s surprising size. Some intuition kept her descriptions simple, a sureness that what she wrote would be read by strangers, which was different from knowing that it could be. After she addressed her note and sent it to her dad, to Ursula, and to Harry, it occurred to her to wonder if it would find its way to Aldrin. Gabriel talked to people on the ship from Selene. She had seen him do it.