Second Star (Star Svensdotter #1)

by Dana Stabenow

  The Hewies had been launched into solar orbit and brought on line even before the zero-gravity industries module, at my personal and, I may as well say right here, implacable insistence. I think I even threatened to quit over them. Four years into construction and before we had the time or materials to fix up secure radiation shielding accessible to everyone, Sol had erupted with several Class One flares, one of which flung itself into space on a direct course for Luna, with leftovers to spare for Ellfive. Those of us within the structure were safe enough behind passive shielding, but a lot of riggers and mechanics working outside in vacuum were as good as naked. REM exposure is a very messy, very painful way to die.

  On the whole, I’d rather have been in Philadelphia, too.

  There was a little bump in our backward slide. I tensed, waiting. The capsule settled into the launch bay with a bump that banged our suits together in spite of being jammed in like Spam. I waited some more.

  With a twenty-nine gravity jolt that made me feel like I’d left my teeth behind on Luna we were spaceborne. Jorge had topped off the O2 in our tanks, stuffed us inside the capsule, and flooded the remaining space with liquefied H2O to cushion us from the four tons of force employed in bringing us to an escape velocity of twenty-four hundred meters per second. Naked, we would have been pulp during the first eight seconds. In p-suits, we had a chance.

  It didn’t feel like it. It felt as if all my organs, brains, heart, and bowels were draining out of my head into my feet. It hurt. The pressure increased from uncomfortable to unbearable, from unbearable to agonizing. When the black wave of unconsciousness rolled over me I was grateful and went down for the third time without struggle.

  · · ·

  I was roused by a series of loud pops that sounded like firecrackers on the Fourth of July. My fuzzy consciousness cleared a bit to recognize the pops for the sound of the explosive bolts Jorge had installed on the capsule’s jury-rigged hatch. The hatch blew and our cushion of water, by now frozen solid, broke into chunks and drifted outside. When we recovered enough to see where we were going neither Caleb nor I nor Elizabeth would have won any awards for good manners. After you, my dear Alphonse. We spilled out of the capsule into the concave curve of the mass catcher, in warehouse orbit, sixteen klicks from Ellfive. I had a raging headache, my waste systems were fouled, and I was seconds away from drowning in the vomit floating around in my helmet. Life was good. “Caleb?”

  He didn’t answer at once.

  “Caleb!”

  His voice sounded garbled but blessedly alive. “Stop that yowling, I’m all right. How’s Elizabeth?”

  Elizabeth heard him and gave a weak wave. “She’s okay.”

  “We took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference,” Caleb said, and spit. “Those pancakes tasted better going down than they did coming up. What now?”

  “Head for the catcher’s control room and steal the operator’s scooter.”

  “What if someone else is there?”

  “We’re not wearing jetpacks,” I said, “so we don’t have a whole lot of choices. Elizabeth, latch your safety line to my belt, and, Caleb, you latch yours to Elizabeth’s. Okay? Here we go.”

  The vacuum was more hindrance than help to our hand-over-hand speed, and Sol’s rays hurt even through our helmet polarizers. It would be nice someday if the genetechs came up with a way for human beings to grow a third hand or a prehensile tail for moving over long distances in zero gravity. We lumbered like elephants in our clumsy pressure suits. I felt like an elephant, caught in the sights of a Great White Hunter’s rifle. It was a miracle we weren’t seen from the mass catcher’s control room or from Mitchell Observatory.

  We toppled over the edge of the catcher finally, sweat diluting the vomit inside our p-suits, and hooked into the pullbelt that ran to the control room. When we stepped out of the airlock I heard a soft Irish brogue over my commlink, coming from a small, p-suited figure standing over the control board. “Sure, and wasn’t I one for knowing that you wouldn’t be smart enough to go the long way round?”

  It was Paddy. “I was working in the zerogee corridor when Lodge showed up,” she explained. “I knew you’d get back the fastest way and I figured this was it, so I stole a scooter and came out to wait. Simple.”

  “I hope Lodge doesn’t think so.” I felt almost lightheaded. With Paddy and Caleb at my side, Lodge and I were starting out a lot closer to even. “What about the people at Mitchell?”

  “The Atlantis stopped there on the way in and cleared them out, as well as the on-duty transportation tech here. Star?”

  “Yes?”

  “The zerogee corridor is ready to open,” Paddy said. “Archy was put out of commission before I could log it.”

  It took a moment for it to sink in. “Lodge’s people don’t know about it, then?”

  Paddy’s voice was serene. “Sure, and would I be telling the Archbishop of Canterbury the secrets of the Holy Father himself, now?”

  I grinned inside my helmet. “Paddy, remind me to give you a raise.”

  “Raise, my sainted aunt Brigid. You’ll keep your hands from my vacuum still.”

  That was easy. “It’s a deal. Can your scooter take all four of us down to the South Cap?”

  “If we don’t mind being real friendly. ‘Tis a two-seater, you see.”

  “We’ll force ourselves,” Caleb said.

  What about the flare alert? Elizabeth said.

  “Petra says it was a false alarm,” Paddy said.

  “False alarm?”

  “That’s what she said. No flare. Come on.”

  I wanted to pursue the subject but there just wasn’t time. We went back out the airlock and strapped into Paddy’s solarscooter, hoping we’d be gone before someone saw us and came over to investigate. I hadn’t forgotten those four fighters—five, damn the commodore’s eyes. We were going to be extremely lucky if we made it down to Ellfive without being seen.

  Luck, in the shape of a reaction tug, the driver either oblivious or indifferent to the changing of Ellfive’s guard, departed the Warehouse Ring with a load of silicon ore for the Frisbee. Paddy put our scooter in his shadow all the way down. In half an hour we were outside a lock on the zerogee corridor, and in minutes we were on the inside stripping out of our p-suits. I checked my O2 gauge and was unsurprised to see it red-lined.

  Paddy’s nose twitched. “Sure, and I didn’t know Revlon was working on a new perfume.”

  “Yeah, eau de barf,” I said, washing myself as clean as I could with a handful of wetwipes from the wall dispenser. Paddy offered me her ubiquitous squeebee and we passed it around without comment. I hated to admit it, but the mountain tay felt good going down.

  “Okay, people, listen up,” I said, capping the squeebee and handing it back. “We have to get to Airlock OC-3, the one closest to my office in O’Neill Central.”

  “What’s in Airlock OC-3?” Caleb wanted to know.

  “A cache of sonic rifles.”

  He stopped. He looked at me. In a very, very gentle voice he said, “I thought you said no weapons were allowed on Ellfive.”

  I tried not to squirm. “I lied.”

  “You should have told me.”

  “A secret is only a secret until two people know it. Paddy, are your wings still stored on Orville Point?” She nodded. “Good. Elizabeth and I left ours there Wednesday. Do you think we can find a pair of wings to fit Caleb?”

  “I was fitted on Thursday and I took them up to Wilbur—”

  “Great!” I said, brightening.

  “—but I haven’t flown yet.”

  Paddy waved one hand and said airily, “Sure and you’ll be learning soon enough.”

  The corners of Caleb’s mouth twitched. “Do I have a choice?”

  “No,” Paddy said, shaking her head sadly, “that you don’t, boyo.”

  Shouldn’t we try to call Archy? Elizabeth said.

  “No. Lodge yanked his plug, God knows what he’s got wandering around
in Archy’s hardware. Time enough to ask Archy for help when we find Simon and can be sure Archy’s integrity cards haven’t been tampered with.” I nodded at everyone to follow and without further discussion we pulled ourselves through the zero-gravity corridor. The air was acrid with the smells of fresh paint and solder, and we had to dodge brushes and drivers and their power cords left dangling in free-fall where their operators had abandoned them, but at least there was air that we could breathe. The circular entrance to Ellfive proper was still sealed but Paddy led the way to a drum hatch located at the rim. I climbed in with Elizabeth while Caleb worked the lever.

  The drum rotated and we rolled out the other side, grabbing hold of a crag of the Rock Candy Mountains before we floated away in the zero gravity. I strained my eyes to see through the clouds down the length of Ellfive to O’Neill Central. The distance was too great for anything out of the ordinary to make an impression, such as Space Patrolmen mounting an armed guard in front of the main doors. I quit thinking about it. First things first. I turned back to the hatch.

  Paddy popped out of the wall, followed by Caleb as she worked the hatch from our side. We set about pulling ourselves down the Rock Candy Mountains. In my haste I tore the skin of my palms on the rocks before we had enough gravity to put our feet down. After that I began jumping, long jumps of thirty and forty feet, to land softly in the low gee, to jump again.

  Orville Point was one of two triangular, side-by-side grassy ledges that jutted out of the escarpment, which then dropped down toward my house. A wall of lockers lined the cliff behind the point. We yanked them open and began assembling our wings. Elizabeth’s were red and mine were white with a Raven totem motif. Mother’s totem. I closed my eyes briefly and sent up a prayer, to Mother, to the Raven, I don’t know.

  Paddy’s wings were green, naturally. Caleb fetched his from a locker at Wilbur; they were striped in navy blue and fluorescent orange. He caught my look and said defensively, “It was all they had in my size.”

  I ran my hands over his harness. It was new and would probably chafe but it fit well enough. I sat back on my heels and said earnestly, “You don’t have to do this, Caleb. Thirty-two kilometers is a long way, especially when you’ve never flown before.” His green eyes met mine as I said, “I could send Paddy back for you in an aircar.”

  “I used to hang glide on Terra.”

  “It’s not the same, Caleb. Hang gliding is fixed wing.”

  The danger was very real. I’d seen more than one experienced, capable flier plow up a furrow with her nose through underestimating the extent of her fatigue, and Caleb was not experienced. “Look, follow me. We’ll beat up to the axis and head down to the North Cap in a series of glides, using the increasing gravity as we descend to keep up speed. Be careful of stalling when you begin a new climb, and as you get closer to the axis don’t panic and beat yourself to death. There are still atmosphere and thermal layers, even if there isn’t any gravity to pull against.”

  “You worry too much. I’ll make it.”

  He had to make it or be left behind, and he was one third of my invading force. “Damn right you will. Together is better,” I said, and leaned forward to give him a swift, hard kiss. Paddy raised her eyebrows. I stepped to the edge.

  Let me go first, Elizabeth said. Her eyes were bright with excitement, without any fear that I could detect. I’ll race you to O’Neill, Auntie.

  “No,” I said sharply. “I want you to go home to Loch Ness.” She made as if to protest and I said, “Elizabeth, please. Where we’re going now people might be shooting at us. I don’t want you hurt.”

  I could have been killed in the capsule and I wasn’t.

  “Listen to me, you little blackmailer,” I said hotly, “if I didn’t know you meant it when you said that if we left you behind on Luna you’d steal a StarCat and drive it home yourself—and if I didn’t know you could do it—you wouldn’t have been on board that capsule at all.”

  She looked at me. What if I get hurt anyway and you’re not there?

  She was right, which was why she was the genius and I wasn’t. I would worry if she weren’t directly beneath my eye, and I didn’t need the added aggravation. And chances were Simon and probably Charlie were both at O’Neill Central by now. I nodded once, reluctantly. “All right. But you must do exactly as I say, when I say it, and no argument. You go first.”

  “It’s wishing I am that we had Elizabeth on our side at Derry in ‘99,” Paddy said pensively.

  Darn right. You would have won. Elizabeth slid her fingers into the grips and ran past me to jump off Orville. She displayed not the slightest hesitation or fear. Elizabeth loved flying. She owned the smallest pair of wings on Ellfive and learned to snap roll before I did. I waited until we heard the jingle of her harness, the little huff of breath she gave when she leaped off the edge of the cliff, the muffled report as her wings filled with air. The tiny red wings fanned out and soared, and her hair spread out behind her like an ebony banner.

  I toed the edge, raised my arms, and fell forward. I heard a grunt as Caleb followed, and looking back under my arm I saw Paddy fall in behind him like a chase plane. I watched so long I started to stall and quickly straightened my wings, tucked my feet into the tail controls, and grabbed for lift.

  There is such a feeling of power in individual flight. Your own life is literally at the tips of your fingers and toes. Bend your foot one way and you go into a forty-five-degree bank, tilt your hand another and you dive a hundred meters. The air roars by your face and pulls at your hair and tears at your clothes. It is like nothing on Terra and nothing else on Ellfive, stimulating, sensual, and oh so free. You feel sovereign and invincible, even godlike, and for a few brief moments I forgot Lodge, I forgot the flare alert, I forgot Plan A, I even forgot Caleb. I could fly, I could fly, I could fly!

  So it was a good thing my fears for Caleb’s safety proved unnecessary. Beyond and about three meters below my tail feathers Caleb was sweating freely but was able to reply to my shouted inquiries with a tight grin of reassurance. After we passed Heinlein Park I stopped worrying. It was scheduled to rain that evening in the park and we had to hustle to keep ahead of it, but we did, to arrive dry and safe at the North Cap.

  We didn’t land immediately. We circled a thousand meters above O’Neill Central, gauging the strength of the opposition, which did not seem to be greatly in evidence. Most of the Patrol’s forces must have been busy subduing the Doughnuts and the Frisbee, and I would have bet my last dime that the Frisbee would take some subduing. It is never wise to attempt to separate a capitalist from the source of his revenue by force of arms, when force of dollars is all he truly respects. There were a few guards in the familiar black-and-silver uniforms of the Space Patrol standing around the courtyard, none of whom bothered to look up. Their arrogance relieved and enraged me at the same time. They were so certain of the infallibility of their superior force that they held their weapons slung. I felt a cleansing, joyous rage. I’d have to see what I could do about that.

  I signaled to the others and went into a steep, circling descent. I sideslipped down to a square patch of roof to the right and below my office. There were few windows overlooking it, and there was also a set of stairs leading down one side. I came in hot and almost ran myself off the opposite edge. I had shucked out of my harness before Caleb touched down and went to help him. “And like a thunderbolt he falls,” I said. His shoulders were raw and his toes were bleeding. “Can you walk?”

  “I can run if I have to.” He was breathing heavily and he looked tired but alert and ready for action for all that.

  I stood and looked around. Elizabeth and Paddy had shrugged out of their harnesses and were waiting. “Everybody else okay? All right. Down the stairs, then, and quiet.”

  I eased the door into the corridor open. Silent still, silent all. Airlock OC-3 was across the hallway and down about a hundred yards and we made the distance in five seconds flat without seeing another soul. I was beginning to appreciat
e Commodore Lodge’s overconfidence more and more.

  Inside, I placed my back against the lock and paced off five strides into the center of the room, turned ninety degrees to my right, and walked until my nose was mashed up against the wall. Raising my left hand as high as I could I pressed my open palm against the bulkhead. There was a low hum as my palm was read and identified, then a sharp click, followed by a dull thud. I dodged back out of the way as a one meter section of the wall folded out. Cradled inside it were half a dozen sonic rifles and twice that number of charge belts.

  My weapon of choice is a Louisville Slugger, but failing that an S&W 250KDB Laserscope Sonic Rifle, a hundred rounds per chargepack, is not to be despised. It was a neat weapon, quick, clean, and above all quiet. Caleb unwrapped one from its protective covering and broke it open to scrutinize its innards. “All right, Star. It’s a short-range weapon, but it should do. We could get into p-suits,” he added, nodding toward the racks and hardly looking as he reassembled the rifle with efficient, automatic movements. “That would stop most of what they’ve got.”

  I shook my head. “We’ll never find anything to fit you or me and, anyway, they’d slow us down. Right now we’ve got surprise on our side and we have to use it, quick, before they have time to react.” I winked at him. “Besides, Caleb, you’re the only man I know who looks fully armed stark naked.”

  “And how would she be knowing that, I’m wondering,” Paddy inquired of the room at large. Elizabeth was grinning and I think Caleb might have been blushing.

  “The idea is to get to my office, hold Lodge hostage if he’s there or get him on the viewscreen if he’s not, and call Jorge to set Plan A in motion. I’ve got all the override and backup communications equipment we need there, independent of Archy. It’s hidden in a locker similar to this one.” I gestured at the rifle cache in the bulkhead. “If we don’t make it that far… ” My voice trailed away. “Well, I can stop spin if I have to, which will buy whoever is left enough time to figure out a Plan B.”