The Aftermath gt-16

by Ben Bova

  No word yet on how intense it’ll be when it reaches the Belt, he saw. The cloud of hard radiation belched out by a solar flare was guided through the solar system by the twists and kinks of the interplanetary magnetic field. A cloud that wreaks havoc on Earth’s telecommunications might not come within a hundred million klicks of Mars even when the two planets were at their closest.

  Plenty of time to get into the storm cellar, Victor thought as he switched back to the pornography. I just hope the storm doesn’t foul up the signal from Earth.

  * * *

  Without any working antennas Syracuse was cut off from the storm warning. But the ship’s radiation sensors pinged while the family was eating its meager breakfast. They were down to two meals per day: a breakfast of juices and protein bars, and a dinner that Pauline tried to make attractive and nourishing.

  “Radiation alarm,” Theo said, his mouth half filled with the last of his morning’s protein bar.

  “Solar storm?” Angela asked.

  Theo nodded. “Prob’ly. Might be the precursor wave of high-energy protons and heavier stuff.”

  Pauline said, “We’d better get to the storm cellar, then.”

  “Right,” said Theo. “I’ll go up to the control pod, see what the instruments show, and check out everything. We might have to fly-on remote for a few days.”

  Looking at Angela, Pauline said, “You help Theo into his suit.”

  “I won’t need a suit,” Theo protested.

  “It’s extra protection and you’d be foolish not to take advantage of it,” Pauline said firmly. “I’ll check the food stores in the storm cellar. If I recall from the last one we were almost out of juices there.”

  “I restocked the juices,” Angela said, getting up from the galley table.

  “Good.”

  Theo got to his feet and followed Angela out to the airlock area, where the space suits were stored.

  “I really don’t need this,” he grumbled to his sister once they were out of Pauline’s hearing. “Mom’s being a tight-ass.”

  “Don’t let her hear you say that.”

  “Tight-butt. Okay?”

  Angela grinned as Theo sat on the bench in front of the lockers and began tugging on his suit’s leggings.

  “The suit gives you an extra layer of protection against radiation,” Angela recited from memory. “It could be the difference between life and death.”

  “If we get so much radiation that the spittin’ suit saves my life, half the equipment still running on this bucket will barf out,” Theo said sharply.

  “You’re always such an optimist, Thee.”

  * * *

  It’ll be two days before the storm hits, Victor saw on the wall screen’s display. He was exercising on the treadmill in Pleiades’s gym, a small, almost claustrophobic metal-walled chamber jammed with equipment that Victor thought of as implements of torture. Necessary torture, though. It would be all too easy to bloat into a boneless slug aboard ship. Exercise was necessary, vitally so.

  Two days before the cloud of high-energy protons and electrons smothers this region of space. There’s lots of heavier ions in the cloud, too, he saw as he studied the latest IAA bulletin. The ship’s magnetic field will deflect most of the crud, but rad levels will still go up in here. I’ll have to spend a couple of days in the storm cellar.

  Communications from Earth had fizzled out once the storm cloud reached the Earth/Moon region. For entertainment, Theo had to fall back on the chips that Cheena Madagascar had stocked in the captain’s compartment. The woman had interesting tastes, Victor discovered. He knew from his own experience that Cheena was a vigorous heterosexual, but her assortment of entertainment vids was much, much broader.

  I’d better bring some of the better ones to the storm cellar with me, he told himself. Not much else to do in there while I’m riding out the storm.

  Then he remembered that Pauline and the kids would probably be hit by the same cloud of deadly radiation. Syracuse has a storm cellar, he thought. Pauline will make sure they’re safe.

  But how many storms has battered old Syracuse gone through? How many more can the ship take before its vital systems break down?

  * * *

  Like most deep-space ships, Syracuse’s storm cellar was a tight little compartment lined with thick metal walls that held a heavy liquid mixture that absorbed incoming subatomic particles. After a, storm, once it was safe to leave the cellar, the liquid was flushed into the propellant tank for the fusion torch engine; eventually the absorbed particles were fired out the engine’s thruster.

  Theo stared worriedly at the wall screen as he sat on the padded bench that ran along the cellar’s oval interior. The screen showed the level of absorbent remaining in the supply tank.

  “How does it look?” his mother asked. She was sitting beside him. Angela sat across the minicompartment, where the food locker stood.

  Theo thought for a moment before answering, “Depends on how intense the storm is, Mom, and how long it lasts.” He didn’t voice the rest of it: we might get through this storm, but we’ll be out of luck if another one hits us.

  Angela looked concerned, almost frightened. “We’ll be all right, won’t we, Thee?”

  He made himself smile at her. “Sure, Angie. We’ll be okay.” He wished he actually felt that way.

  * * *

  Valker worked hard to keep smiling. Cooped up with the rest of the crew in Vogeltod’s minuscule storm cellar was a strain, by any measure.

  And just before the storm’s radiation blanked out the ship’s communications there had been that tantalizing blip on the radar screen. A ship, Valker was convinced. It had to be a ship, not a rock. No asteroid gives a profile like that.

  It wasn’t Hunter, the ship they’d been seeking all these past months. But it was a ship. Valker was certain of it. It was running silent for some reason. No tracking beacon, no telemetry coming out of her. All the better. A derelict, most likely. But she was intact, as far as the radar profile could show. All in one piece, not busted up. It’s a ship that we can take and sell back at Ceres for a pretty dollar.

  Valker couldn’t wait for the storm to subside. The smell of the other men crowded into the cellar gave him even more incentive to get out and take that ship, no matter who it belonged to or who might be aboard her.

  SELENE: HUMPHRIES SPACE

  SYSTEMS HEADQUARTERS

  As the flunky in the conservatively dark suit led them through the warren of cubicles filled with quietly busy HSS employees, Yuan thought that Tamara seemed strangely cool, confident. She looked quite calm, almost serene, as if she were looking forward to this meeting with Martin Humphries. Yuan tried to picture how Humphries would react when he admitted that he had let Dorik Harbin and the old woman go free. Humphries doesn’t like to be disobeyed. This isn’t going to be easy, he told himself.

  Yet Tamara seemed unconcerned, almost at ease. He wondered if she really was that relaxed or whether it was all an act, a front of bravura that she really didn’t feel.

  There’s nothing for me to worry about, Yuan told himself. He thought back to the vision that the artifact had shown him. You’re going to live a long and fruitful life, he repeated in his mind over and again. Yeah, he replied silently. Maybe. But the instant they had presented themselves at the corporate headquarters’ reception desk, the bountiful young redheaded receptionist’s smile had evaporated.

  “Mr. Humphries wants to see you both,” she’d said ominously. “Himself.”

  Himself. Martin Humphries himself wants to see us, Yuan thought as the flunky in the dark tunic and slacks led them through the maze of cubicles. Report to him personally. Tell the most powerful man in the solar system that you not only failed to carry out his orders, you turned his intended victims loose, sent them on their way to wander through the Belt, free and unharmed. He’s not going to like that.

  Humphries Space Systems headquarters occupied one entire tower of the two that supported Selene’s Main Plaza. Fift
een stories of offices and god knows what else. Yuan had heard that Martin Humphries once lived in a grandiose mansion built at the lowermost level of Selene, as deep as he could get, safe from the radiation and meteoroids that peppered the Moon’s airless surface. But that mansion had been burned to ashes by Lars Fuchs, and Humphries nearly killed. Now the man lived over in Hell Crater, surrounded by the casinos and shopping arcades, the hotels and brothels of that resort facility.

  But he’s here in his office today, Yuan thought. To see us. And deal with us.

  Yuan told himself there was nothing to fear. He tried to concentrate on the vision he’d seen at the artifact. I’m going to live to be an old, old man. I’m going to enjoy my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A distant voice in his mind tried to warn him that he could experience much pain and sorrow during such a long life, but Yuan tried to dismiss that from his thoughts. Nothing Humphries can do will prevent the outcome the artifact showed me, he insisted to himself.

  Down a long corridor flanked with closed doors on either side. Discreet little brass nameplates on each door. Yuan could see a trickle of perspiration sliding down the side of Tamara’s face. She’s not as cool as she’s pretending to be, he realized. She was wearing a sleek pearl-gray jumpsuit that clung to her coltish figure like plastic wrap. Trying to look her best for Martin Humphries. I wonder if that will help her?

  “In here, please,” said the flunky as he opened an unmarked door at the end of the corridor.

  They stepped through and the flunky closed the door behind them. The room was the size of a spaceport departure gate, thickly carpeted, its walls covered with smart screens that displayed art treasures. Yuan recognized the Mona Lisa, a painting of royal children by Velazquez, some others. His eye was caught by a painting of a fallen banyan tree, its magnificently intertwined trunk ripped out of the ground by some overpowering force.

  “Captain Yuan and Ms. Vishinsky,” said the young woman sitting behind the desk at the far end of the anteroom, her voice flat, toneless. “Mr. Humphries will see you immediately.”

  She pressed a key of her desk pad and another unmarked door swung open.

  Yuan found himself smiling. He bowed slightly to Tamara and whispered, “After you.”

  She gave him a swift glance, fiddled nervously with the buttons on the bodice of her coveralls, and strode to the open doorway. Yuan followed closely behind her, thinking, She’s scared now. Her confidence is melting away.

  The office was smaller than the anteroom, but still big enough to land a shuttlecraft. A man got up from behind a broad, immaculately clear desk and stonily gestured toward the two low-slung sculptured chairs in front of his desk.

  Tamara said, “You’re not Martin Humphries.”

  “No,” the young man replied curtly. “I’m his son, Alex.”

  Alex Humphries resembled the holos of his father so closely that Yuan wondered if he was a clone. His hair was dark, his face firm, slightly round, but with a strong jaw. He was taller than Yuan had expected, and wearing a casual open-necked royal blue shirt over tan denim jeans. His eyes were hard and gray as lunar rock.

  “I thought we were to see Martin Humphries,” Yuan said as he lowered himself into the slingback chair.

  “My father seldom leaves his home over in Hell Crater,” said Alex Humphries.

  Tamara asked, “Then you’re running the corporation?”

  Alex smiled coldly. “That depends on who you ask. My father thinks he still runs it, but I have the day-to-day responsibility. I do his dirty work and he stays over at Hell Crater and amuses himself.”

  “It never even occurred to me that Mr. Humphries had a son,” Yuan said.

  “He has two of them. My baby brother Van lives on Earth.”

  “I see.” Yuan nodded.

  “I also thought we’d been summoned here by your father,” said Tamara.

  Alex leaned back in his swivel chair. “My father is very disappointed in you. Angry, you know. So furious that he almost came over here today to deal with you personally.”

  “But you’re going to deal with us, instead,” Tamara replied.

  “He expected you to carry out his orders.”

  “He expected us,” Yuan said, “to murder an old woman and a cyborg who fancies himself a priest on some sort of a holy mission.”

  “But you didn’t do it.”

  “No, we didn’t,” Yuan said. Then, glancing at Tamara, he added, “To be specific, I didn’t do it. I was in command, it was my responsibility, my decision, not hers.”

  “What happened?” Alex Humphries asked, his voice suddenly cold, his eyes hard, demanding.

  Tamara was staring at Alex, Yuan saw. Trying to figure him out, he thought; trying to gauge what lay behind those steel gray eyes.

  Yuan began to explain, “The cyborg and the old woman are no threat to your father—”

  “That’s not your decision to make.”

  “They’ll never return to the Earth/Moon sector. They’ll die out there in the Belt, searching for the bodies of the dead.”

  Alex’s brows rose. “Is that really what they’re doing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Searching for bodies?”

  “Mercenaries killed in the wars and left to drift in space.”

  “But why?”

  “The cyborg was a mercenary. He’s the one who wiped out the Chrysalis habitat.”

  “Dorik Harbin.”

  “He calls himself Dorn now,” Tamara interjected. “He claims that the alien artifact changed him, turned him into a priest.”

  “The artifact,” Alex said, edging forward in his chair. “That’s what I want to ask you about. My father had a bad experience with it.”

  Tamara relaxed visibly. She even smiled at Alex Humphries.

  Looking at Yuan, though, Alex asked, “Harbin claims the artifact changed him?”

  Yuan nodded.

  “And the woman? Elverda Apacheta? It changed her, too?”

  With a slight shrug, Yuan answered, “It must have. She’s willing to spend what’s left of her life roaming through the Belt with Harbin to find the corpses from the war.”

  Alex appeared to relax slightly. “You’ve both seen the artifact?”

  “Yes,” said Tamara.

  “My father’s forbidden me to go to it. He doesn’t want anyone to see it.

  “But you want to see it, don’t you?” Tamara asked.

  “Of course! An alien artifact. Who wouldn’t want to see it? Why do you think my father had that asteroid moved out of its original orbit? Why do you think he’s placed guards around it?”

  “It’s a powerful experience,” Yuan said. “Truly life-changing.”

  “What did you see?” Alex asked eagerly. “How did the artifact affect you?”

  Yuan hesitated. How to talk about it without sounding foolish? he wondered.

  Misunderstanding their silence, Alex explained, “You see, I want to understand that artifact. It couldn’t have been made by human beings; it’s got to be an alien creation. Intelligent extraterrestrials left it there for us to find. Why? When? How does it work?”

  “I don’t know if human minds will ever be able to understand it,” Yuan admitted.

  “I can’t believe that,” Alex Humphries said, with some heat. “I won’t believe that.”

  “You haven’t seen it,” said Yuan.

  “How did it affect you?” Humphries asked again. “How did it change you?”

  Haltingly, almost embarrassed by his experience, Yuan described his encounter with the artifact as accurately as he could remember it. Alex listened and nodded, his hands resting on the desktop, fingertips to fingertips.

  When Yuan was finished, Alex turned to Tamara. “And you?”

  “Nothing so dramatic,” she lied. “I sort of relived my childhood, that’s all.”

  “You don’t feel different? Changed?”

  “Not really.”

  “Strange,” Alex muttered.

  For long moments he
was silent, while Yuan wondered what was going on in his head. Whatever it is, Yuan told himself, remember that you’re dealing with one of the most powerful men in the solar system here. He could snuff you out like clicking off a light switch. He wants to run Humphries Space Systems and keep his father off the throne.

  “Here’s what I think,” Alex said at last. “That artifact somehow influences the pattern of your thoughts. You know, we have brain scanning devices that can show the neurons in your brain flashing on and off. Our own neuroscientists can map out a person’s patterns of thinking. Right?”

  Yuan bobbed his head up and down. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Tamara leaning forward temptingly. She had undone several buttons of her bodice.

  “Well, this artifact goes a step or two farther,” Humphries continued. “It allows your deep unconscious thoughts to come up to the surface, where you can see them clearly. It allows you to see who you really are, who you really want to be.”

  “Like a mirror,” Tamara breathed.

  “Right! Like a mirror of your own soul.”

  Yuan considered for a moment, then said, “Then it’s not showing you what will be. It’s showing what could be.”

  “Like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come,” said Alex.

  Yuan felt disappointed. Nothing is certain, he realized. That beautiful vision… Then he realized the truth of it. That beautiful vision is something to aim for, a goal to guide my life, a star to steer by.

  “It can be a tremendously powerful force, that artifact. I’ve got to find out how to control it, how to use it.” Humphries’s hands clenched into fists.

  He turned to Tamara. She seemed completely relaxed now, in charge of herself.

  “It could be enormously powerful, couldn’t it?” she suggested.

  “Enormously,” said Alex Humphries. “Whoever understands how to use it has a tremendous edge over everyone else.”

  Yuan saw vast dreams glittering in those steel gray eyes.