by Sam Smith
Realising that the squabble was getting them nowhere, Tulla bent her mind to Happiness and to its missing moon. Munred too controlled his temper. The interview was on record and, aware of Tulla’s low opinion, he saw with painful lucidity what a sorry petulant figure he must be cutting.
“Look,” he sat down. “It’s such a peculiar situation. One that normally never arises. Something can’t have gone wrong with every transmitter on the planet. I’ve checked back. Not a day goes by, but there’s one radio message coming up for relatives in Space.”
“What about the reports?”
“Machine of course. Daily again. Weather conditions, seismic activity, census updates... All on record. Hold on,” he pulled a code book to him, “if the moon was going out of orbit wouldn’t it have affected the tides?”
“If it was, but it wasn’t. The disappearance of the moon and the break in communications needn’t necessarily be connected.”
Munred tapped at keys, was disappointed to find that tidal levels were average for the month preceding the moon’s disappearance.
“The absence of the moon,” Tulla followed her own train of thought, “could have affected the orbit of its radio satellites. I think it unlikely though. One at least would still function.”
“But it could have destroyed all its satellites?”
“As I don’t know what has happened to the moon, yes, anything’s possible. I’ll check the satellites later, let you know. Have they any nuclear devices down there?”
“Why?”
“Nuclear explosions create electromagnetic fields, wipe out all transmissions.”
“I’ll check.”
“About its moon...”
“What about it?” Munred was again busy at his keys.
“The long term consequences of its absence, which is why I came to see you...”
“Look,” Munred interrupted her, “I’ve lost contact with over three million people. What does one small moon matter compared to that?”
“One small moon? You can’t be serious,” Tulla was flabbergasted, “I helped on someone’s thesis for this. One planet had three small moons. We overmined one of those moons. It was a star with only one planet. All three moons went out of orbit, the planet went out of orbit, altered the star’s course. Two outstations were damn near destroyed.”
“No nuclear devices,” Munred sighed, again disappointed by his failure to find an easy credible solution.
“That moon’s absence,” Tulla pressed on with her professional outrage, “will affect the orbit of Happiness. Its change of orbit will affect the orbits of the other planets in that solar system. You’ve got platforms near that sun. Outstations not that far away. The change will be cumulative. Just how do you think even the smallest outstation stays in place? Mathematical wizardry, that’s how. Each station balanced between the masses, between the orbits of all surrounding stellar bodies. All bodies? That includes moons. One mistake, and there’s been a few, and it can affect not one but thousands of outstations. It will affect this station. It might even affect the city. That’s what one small moon matters.”
“So what do you recommend I do?” Munred stiff-faced asked her.
“Report the moon’s absence to whoever is responsible, to whoever has the authority to resite stations. I’ll send you through my preliminary computations; they can take it from there. And the sooner the better. Will you be going down to Happiness?”
“That,” Munred turned from her, “is the police’s job. And I have no police ships. And the Inspector is on Torc.”
Standing, Tulla looked down on him with a mixture of exasperation and contempt.
“I’m going out to Ben,” she said. Ben and Torc are the two stations adjacent to XE2. (Ben, Torc — by such acronyms have most stations become known. XE2 is an abbreviation of its grid co-ordinates.)
“Now?” Munred’s head jerked up in alarm.
“I want to get some cross-bearings. And maybe their scanners picked up something that ours didn’t. I also want to consult their library. They’ve got a better science section than we have here. Now that’s something you could see about while you’re here.” And picking up her case Tulla, not blushing, left.
We now encounter that bugbear of modern chroniclers — contemporaneous events. Many chroniclers dodge this difficulty by confining their narrative to one location, let events come to them. That, unfortunately, is not possible with this tale, where to give a full account one has to take into consideration the confusing element of time, of actions being taken in one place ignorant of events and decisions being made elsewhere.
We all of us know how, because of the distances involved, news can overtake itself. Because, while the speed of electromagnetic waves is constant at about 300,000 kilometres per second, one has to bear in mind that the greater the distance the faster a ship can travel; the greater distance allowing more room for acceleration and deceleration, thus allowing greater speeds to be reached. So, for instance, where it takes 7 days for a radio message to reach XE2 from Happiness, 14 days from the nearest stations like Ben and Torc, and 22 days from this city, it takes a ship only 2 days to travel from Happiness to XE2, 2½ days from the nearest stations, and only 3 days from this city. Which is why radio is so little used, except on infrequently used direct shipping routes, like those between Happiness and XE2.
Such is the problem that our administrators have to cope with, while the chronicler it only confuses. Indeed one could say that the difficulties faced in organising the events in this book into some sort of order is a microcosm of the difficulties faced in the running of our civilisation. So, for the purpose of this narrative, where possible, the chronology of Space Time will also be kept. Where events, however, occur near simultaneously, although several millions of kilometres apart, it will be clearly stated that they are happening simultaneously.
In the meantime, returning to the story, Tulla Yorke leaves XE2 for Ben, the police ship for Happiness, Munred Danporr remains in his office nervously tapping at his console, Petre Fanne performs her daily contortions and, on Happiness, there has been another Extraordinary Convention of the Senate.
Chapter Seven
The very brevity of the Happiness Senate meeting gives some indication of its Members increasing anxiety.
The Meeting had been called by the Spokesman when the son of the Member for North Three, Halk Fint, had failed to return from XE2 within the anticipated five days. By the time the Senate convened, the three mandatory days later, Halk Fint had still not returned, nor had any other communication been received from XE2.
At the Senate Meeting the Members decided, soberly and logically, that whoever had removed their moon had also been responsible for preventing Halk Fint’s ship from reaching XE2. Because, had Halk Fint’s ship reached XE2, then it, or another ship, would by now have been dispatched to Happiness.
They had eight spaceworthy ships left on the planet. The Senate decided to keep three ships in reserve and, in an attempt to outwit and outmanoeuvre whatever malign forces had stolen their moon and had abducted one of their sons, to send the remaining five ships into space at exactly the same time.
So it was, on the morning following Tulla Yorke’s interview with Munred Danporr, although it was night on that hemisphere of Happiness, that sixteen year old Belid Keal was sitting in her ship watching the countdown of the orange numerals on the screen before her.
Belid Keal was the kind of girl most easily described as cute. She had crinkly black hair, large round brown eyes, an upturned nose; and she smiled sweetly, was prone to tears.
Neither of Belid Keal’s parents being a Senate Member, Belid Keal did not know why she was going to XE2 nor the reason for the urgency. Indeed, at that moment, Belid Keal was sure of only one thing — that she would rather have been riding one of her horses than piloting a ship. Because, unlike Halk Fint, Belid Keal had no desire to leave the planet.
Belid Keal had but recently returned to Happiness, her home. To Belid Keal Space meant only b
eing away from her parents and from her pets. Whether it had been the thought of her parents or her pets which had most contributed to her schoolgirl homesickness is open to question. Of one thing we can be certain — Belid had to be coerced into returning once more Out There.
For farmers hers was an unusually demonstrative family, emotional verging on the melodramatic.
“All I’ve been told,” her father solemnly laid both his hands on her thin shoulders, looked long into her tear-brimmed eyes, “is that all our lives may depend on your going.”
The family ship had originally been bought for her travel-hungry elder brother. He had long since left for Space. Belid’s mother and father hadn’t been in Space for over twenty five years. Belid was the only one on the farm with recent experience of piloting a ship; and there had been neither time enough nor opportunity to find another pilot.
Belid glanced nervously over to the lighted farm buildings. Her parents were watching her from the balcony that ran around the house. Their blue shadows loomed large on the white walls. Those gigantic shadows made her parents seem pathetically small.
Behind the house were the corrals for her horses. Belid knew that her horses were safe in their stalls: she had put them there herself, had given them fresh fodder. Nevertheless she worried that she may have left a door unlatched, that they would be frightened by the noise of her take off.
Those animals were not in fact horses. Like the crops on every planet which have to be bred from indigenous varieties — in order not to interfere, by adding an alien factor, to the natural evolution of the planet’s life forms — so there also exists an embargo on the importing of alien animals. For their domestic requirements, for sport and for pets, the inhabitants of each planet have to adapt the animals indigenous to that planet. The plants and animals thus bred from the planet’s existing native stock are given names approximate to Space vocabulary — figs, horses, etcetera — though the scientific genus of the actual plants and animals is often a far remove from the original specimens so named, thus accounting for the variety of fruit in Space masquerading under the same name. The only interloper allowed by humankind to break this planetary quarantine is humankind itself.
Belid, however, was leaving the planet. Her father had told her what course she should take. That course took her straight up and out of the atmosphere. Five and a half thousand kilometres out she was to turn and head directly for XE2.
Those instructions didn’t make sense to Belid. Her father had phoned their Senate Member. All five ships, her father had been told, had been given similar instructions. Each ship would take an initial course vertical from their place of departure, then 5,500 kilometres out turn and head for XE2. Belid, tugging at her father’s sleeve, still didn’t understand why they should all leave at exactly the same time and yet follow such different trajectories. There were reasons, the Senate Member blandly assured her; and to assuage her fears he told Belid and her distraught father the names of the four people who were taking out the other ships.
Belid did not want to be alone Out There. So, immediately on entering the ship, she amended course and speed to take her around the planet within the stratosphere so that she would exit on the tail of a friend.
They had been to school together on XE2. Belid knew that he would be only too glad of the chance to get into Space. Nor was he truly a friend. In fact he had cheerfully disassociated himself from her tears on XE2. But she did know him, and she wouldn’t be alone.
Her amended course and speeds had been given the ship, all was ready to go on completion of the countdown. The ten second buzzer sounded. She saw her father glance at his watch. From the stoop of her shoulders her mother, she knew, was containing her tears. At a word from her father both drew themselves bravely up and began waving. Belid lifted a feeble hand in response; and biting her lips she lay back in her seat. On the walls of the house her mother’s and father’s joined shadows waved huge arms. The ship lifted off.
So that she would catch up with her friend’s ship Belid’s amended speed was faster than that recommended by all Transport bodies. Breaking both safety regulations and civil laws she went thundering up through the atmosphere in a parabolic flight path that took her rapidly to the stratosphere. There she howled around the planet, overtaking the sunset.
The weight and abruptness of her departure scared her, the heat of the speed she was travelling at worried her. Her console told her that she had fifteen seconds to her exit point. She strained ahead for signs of the other ship, saw a pink vapour trail directly before her.
Belid’s ship began altering its course, took the sun from her screens, and there, in front of her, heading out through the ionosphere into the black of space, were the red exhausts of two ships. Somebody else had come looking for company.
She calculated that the two ships were about four seconds ahead of her, wondered if she should risk increasing her speed yet, or if she should wait until she was completely free of orbital drag to bring herself level with them. Or wouldn’t she then be able to match their acceleration?
She frowned. The few stars to either side of the red exhausts were being blocked out. Being on the periphery of its galaxy the planet’s night sky contained, comparatively, but a faint scattering of visible stars.
Something hit the two ships. Their courses converged, almost touched, and then they span apart. Both ships exploded.
“Manual!” Belid Keal screamed, grabbed the control column and in a tight curve headed back towards the planet.
The image of the two explosions was imprinted on Belid’s retinas. Momentarily blinded, she re-entered the atmosphere, was trembling so much that she had difficulty holding the control column. However, slowing the ship, she did manage to maintain a course approximately horizontal to the planet’s surface and, her teeth chattering, she told the ship to fix onto the nearest beacon. The ship almost instantly found a fix. That beacon took her safely down to the surface, deposited her in a lumber yard.
Twenty six minutes forty three seconds after she had taken off Belid Keal landed on the other side of Happiness. The ship’s door opened automatically. A bemused technician entered the ship to find Belid Keal gibbering through her tears.
Chapter Eight
Sergeant Alger Deaver’s previous partner had been with him for twelve years. His new partner was Constable Drin Ligure.
Sergeant Alger Deaver and Constable Drin Ligure had now been together in the same ship for eleven days. For those eleven days, sceptical of his new partner’s abilities, Sergeant Alger Deaver had been relentlessly testing him.
Not until their fourth day together had Drin been allowed to lay in courses. On their eighth day they had come to first name terms. The question and answer instruction, though, had continued. “What do you know of..?” Alger had asked Drin, and Drin had obligingly regurgitated what he had been told at police college. Alger had then scathingly amended that knowledge in light of his practical experience, had enlightened Drin with an apt anecdote or two, had reinforced the superiority of his rank.
After nine days of that, Drin had been wondering if he had been wise in opting for outstation patrol, rather than for the station police. Sergeant Alger Deaver claimed that his own original motive, in electing for outstation patrol, had simply been the extra pay. Drin Ligure, against his mother’s wishes, had volunteered for the unpopular outstation patrol because, from what he had seen, all that the station police had seemed to do was mediate in domestic squabbles But, according now to Alger, that was all that the outstation patrol did as well, only they went further to do it.
Neither Drin Ligure nor Alger Deaver were the kind or policemen who courted promotion. Both, on first joining the police force, had stated that they wished to remain close to their home stations. Alger Deaver had his drinking companions, Drin Ligure his mother on Torc. Thus, by staying in one place, it had taken Alger Deaver sixteen years to make Sergeant. While in five years Drin Ligure would start to be outranked by transient younger policemen and policewom
en on their way back in to the city.
In career terms policemen and policewomen who do not wish to pursue their ambitions to the ends of the universe, but prefer to remain in one place, are called drones. Such is marked on their records. The same is marked on the records of Service types who settle on the one station.
After his first nine days patrol, somewhat disillusioned and with many a reservation about his grumpy partner, drone Drin Ligure had been relieved when at last they had returned to XE2. Only to be told, the moment they had docked, that they had to proceed post haste to the planet Happiness.
Alger’s grumbles hadn’t ceased since they had left XE2. The prospect, the mystery of a missing moon did not excite Alger in the least. His sole expressed concern was that, if they had taken another day on their regular patrol, then their ten day shift would have been completed, the other crew would have taken over and they would not have had the dubious pleasure of going to Happiness.
Alger was still grumbling when they began to decelerate.
“I don’t see why,” he said, “we put up with these dirt diggers.” Which is a common, if derogatory term, among station inhabitants for planetary dwellers. “Nothing but trouble.”
“They’ve got their uses,” Drin quietly demurred.
“Such as?” Alger aggressively asked.
“Timber for paper. Can’t grow that in Space.” Space has an insatiable appetite for wood pulp.
