The Shattered Sphere the-2

by Roger MacBride Allen

  “You know your stuff, Autocrat. Except these gravity waves did not come from anywhere in the Solar System. They were from an external source.”

  “But that’s impossible,” the Autocrat protested.

  “Except for the fact that it’s happening, I’d agree with you. Dr. Chao thinks he knows what is happening, and I am inclined to agree with him.”

  “And what does he think is happening?”

  Sondra hesitated a moment. “He thinks something—actually a whole series of large somethings—are moving through a wormhole link with a resonance frequency almost precisely the same as the Lunar Wheel’s natural tuning frequency. The pulse is coming, not through normal space, but through the contiguous planar space adjacent to the Wheel in a wormhole stack.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’m sorry. Let me try that again. Somewhere out there, something big is going from one point in normal space to another by way of a wormhole. That passage is setting up gravitic-wave vibrations, and the Lunar Wheel’s basal, default tuning is so close to the frequency of those vibrations that it is reacting. The automatic sensor part of the Wheel is trying to wake the Wheel up again, get it to respond to the pulse—but it can’t, because the Wheel is dead.”

  “And the Ring of Charon?”

  “Is a gravity-wave sensor. It would be pretty remarkable if it failed to pick up a wave pulse this powerful.”

  “This is all most interesting. But why is it as important as you say?”

  “Because the pulse frequency is so powerful, and so close to the Lunar Wheel’s default tuning.”

  “So you think this all has something to do with where Earth is.”

  “Yes. Yes I do. I think the Charonians are using the wormhole to send something into or out of the system where they have Earth— and I’d bet big money they’re using the same singularity that Earth came through. The tuning is that close.”

  “But why? How?”

  Sondra shook her head. “I don’t know. But I don’t think it is likely to be good news. It never is, with the Charonians.”

  Dreyfuss Memorial Research Station

  North Pole

  The Moon

  THE SOLAR SYSTEM

  Tyrone Vespasian watched the last of the personnel come up out of the transit car, up from Wheel level to the lunar surface. Two dead, twelve injured. It could have been, should have been, a lot worse. “Everyone accounted for?” he asked the technician in charge, without moving his gaze off the transit car.

  “Yes sir. Full roll call completed and confirmed.”

  “All right then,” he said, though damn little was all right. “Seal it off,” he told the transit technician. “No one goes down without my specific written authorization until further notice. Until we know what the hell those pulses are, and until they stop, the Wheelway is off-limits. Period. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir. Understood.” The tech turned and hurried back to his post, though he might as well have taken his time. The Lucian Dreyfuss Memorial Station was quite suddenly out of business.

  And what of Lucian Dreyfuss himself? Alone in the dark again, down in the Wheelway, still entombed by the Charonians, still hooked up to the simulator system, lost to them once again. Did Lucian understand what was happening? Had he even survived this latest disaster? Damnation, they should have set up the control system on the surface, rather than down in the caverns. Then they could have tried to wake Lucian again, ask him what it meant.

  But as it was… Lucian was gone again, lost to them once more. Sleeping still, or killed outright by the tremors, no one could say.

  And yet Vespasian could not believe that Lucian was gone altogether. Not after coming so close to death, and yet returning, at least part of the way. No. Some part of what had been Lucian Dreyfuss was still down there, somewhere. He was lost to them for now, but not forever.

  Unless, of course, everyone up here managed to get themselves killed by whatever the Charonians were trying now. Which thought brought Vespasian’s thoughts to Larry Chao.

  Larry Chao. He claimed to understand what it was all about. Tyrone had had just about enough of that fellow’s ravings. Maybe everything he said was true, but somehow Vespasian could not quite believe any of it. Except. Except, here they were, with the Lunar Wheel bucking and heaving and word back from the Ring of Charon that it had something to do with wormholes and gravity waves. And gravity waves were what Chao did.

  Tyrone turned his back on the Vertical Transit Center and went to find Chao.

  Larry Chao was in his quarters in the temp worker section, working his main computer and a half-dozen interlinked notepacks all at once. Tyrone didn’t want to interrupt him, but then Larry looked up and saw him standing in the doorway. Larry’s eyes were bright, over-alert, and he seemed agitated, twitchy.

  “So,” Tyrone asked, not quite sure where to start. “What’s going on? What’s with the quakes?”

  “They’re not quakes,” Larry said. “They’re the Lunar Wheel reacting to large masses passing through a wormhole almost on its tuning frequency. If the Adversary can sense a pulse moving through the wormhole net, then why not the Lunar Wheel? But that’s not the important part.”

  “So what is?” Tyrone asked.

  “What it means,” Larry said. “I think I know what it means.”

  “And that would be?”

  Larry held his hands out, palms toward Tyrone, a small, cautionary gesture. “There’s a lot we don’t know,” he said. “A lot. But we’ve got all the data on the Adversary—plus a lot of what Lucian fed to me directly that I haven’t worked out all the way yet. But if the Adversary were going to move on the Multisystem, the Earth-Sphere system, it would head for the wormhole that it sensed in the first place. And if it sensed the arrival of Earth in the Multisystem, then it would be the wormhole Earth came through that it would have detected. And if the Charonians knew their cover was blown anyway, and if they knew which hole the Adversary was going to come through, maybe they’d decide to set up some kind of forward defense on the other side of the hole.”

  “That’s a lot of ifs and maybes.”

  “I know. I know. But I think it hangs together. And if it’s right, then the Charonians are getting ready to defend against an attack. And if the first line of defense fails—”

  “Then the Charonians throw Earth at the Adversary,” Vespasian said. “I still can’t quite believe that. How could someone throw a planet?”

  Larry smiled thinly. “How could someone steal a planet?”

  Vespasian nodded. There wasn’t much of an answer to that.

  “I don’t know if I’m right,” Larry said. “But I might be. I might be. And if I am, then we have to get word to Earth.”

  “How?”

  “Somehow,” Larry snapped. “Somehow fast. Before Earth isn’t there anymore. And I have an idea how.”

  NaPurHab

  Orbiting the Moonpoint Singularity

  THE MULTISYSTEM

  Sianna Colette moaned, shifted in her sleep, and then woke up, her eyelids fluttering open most unwillingly. She tried to prop herself up on her elbows, but even that effort was too much. She slumped back onto the bed, and suddenly realized that she was in a bed, and not a coffin-shaped tin can.

  She rubbed her eyes, realizing in the process just how stiff and sore her arms were. On the second try, she managed to prop her herself on her elbows, and from there to sit full up in bed.

  She seemed to be in some sort of hospital room or infirmary, clean enough if a bit chaotic in the decorating department. The walls were covered with graffiti, most of it cryptic—and occasionally rather cheerfully obscene—get-well messages for past occupants of her bed. The furnishings were all rather tatty and run-down looking, but warm and safe and bright for all of that.

  Wally was sitting at the foot of the bed, looking a bit thinner and paler, and dressed in an odd-looking outfit that seemed to be a cross between overalls and a bathrobe. He was staring at the screen of a datapack, and
hadn’t noticed her waking up.

  “Wally?” she asked—or at least tried to ask. It came out sounding more like a grunt than a word, and Sianna found herself taken by a fit of coughing. Wally got up suddenly, got her a glass of water from the side table, and gave it to her, putting a hand on her back to support her. She took a big gulp of it, and grimaced just a trifle at the taste. Now she knew they were definitely on NaPurHab. Only a habitat would recycle water that many times.

  “Wally,” she said again, and this time her voice worked. “We made it.”

  Wally nodded and smiled, but there was something sad, something worried behind the smile. “Yes,” he said. “We made it. They got you out of your permod about sixteen hours ago.”

  “My God! That long. I don’t remember anything at all about the second half of the permod flight. Have I been unconscious that whole time?”

  Wally shrugged. “I suppose,” he said. “The doc says it looks like you were running a pretty high fever for a while there.”

  Sianna lay back down onto the pillow, and Wally let her down easy before sliding his hand out. “So,” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm and casual. “Have I missed anything?”

  Twenty-five

  The Way Out

  “One of our most cherished illusions is that we always have a choice, that there are always options. We seem to feel there is something unnatural about the inevitable. We like choices, even if they are meaningless. Most people are more willing to accept an unpleasant reality once they are convinced that there is an alternative—even if that alternative is nothing more or less than death.”

  —Dr. Wolf Bernhardt, Director-General, U.N. Directorate for Spatial Investigation, Address on the occasion of dedicating the Hijacker Memorial

  Multisystem Research Institute

  New York City

  Earth

  THE MULTISYSTEM

  Ursula Gruberdid not like the ideas he was getting. They were dangerous, grandiose—and yet, they smacked of surrender, somehow.

  The Lone World monitors were coming into their own, pulling down all sorts of data, and were listening in on nearly every command the Lone World sent to the Ghoul Modules controlling the Moonpoint Ring. By now the data teams were confident they had correctly interpreted all the basic commands.

  And they were at least fairly certain they could duplicate at least a few of them.

  Well, maybe that was the way they would have to go. She was not sure she saw any other way out.

  If “out” was the right word to use, all things considered. Ursula checked the time and sighed. Time for her call to NaPurHab, a chore she did not look forward to. She did not like dealing with those people. In a better world, she would not have to do so.

  Of course, in a better world, aliens would not have kidnapped the Earth, either.

  NaPurHab

  Sianna Colette, still in her hospital overalls, slipped into the back of the MainBrainMeet Room. Wally was there, listening to the call from Earth with rapt attention. Sianna felt she ought to be in on the conference, even if she was too much in shock to pay much attention. After all the effort made to get her here, she felt something close to honor-bound to attend.

  But effort expended was the least of it. Sakalov had died. Died to no purpose whatsoever, pummeled to death by an intelligent rock.

  And there was something else she could not help realizing: they were stranded here, she and Wally. NaPurHab was supposed to be a way station for them, a place to wait until the Terra Nova came and collected them. But that was not going to happen anytime soon. Not with a sky full of COREs and SCOREs making everyone’s life interesting. Maybe it would never happen.

  But Dr. Sakalov. Would he still be alive, now, if she hadn’t run into Wally that morning a few days and a hundred years ago? If she and Wally had not guessed at the nature of the Charonian command center and inspired Bernhardt to send them off to take a look at it? As best she could see, the only concrete result of that guess was Sakalov’s death.

  But no. At least try to listen. Ursula Gruber was on the screen, giving Eyeball an update. Gruber. Strange that the first thing Wally did upon arrival here was to phone in to her.

  “Half of the SCOREs are heading through the revived Moonpoint Wormhole,” Gruber was saying. “The other half are taking up positions around the hole. They are going into a layered spherical envelopment outside the perimeter of the Moonpoint Ring.”

  “And we be insideward too,” Eyeballer Maximus muttered, too low for the mikes to pick it up. “Not likeworthy.” Sianna had yet to make sense of the Purps in general, and Eyeball in particular. Eyeball was a smart, tough, clear-thinking woman. She could talk normally if she wanted to. Except, most times, she didn’t. Sianna had met her when she breezed through Sianna’s docshop room—in order to ask Wally something. Wally seemed to be fitting in awfully well around here.

  “…From what we are able to tell,” Gruber was saying, “the SCOREs are directing their radar toward the hole. They appear to be watching for something coming out of the volume of space they are protecting, rather than trying to keep anything from going into it.”

  “Agree there,” Eyeball said. “SCOREs notlooking at incoming cargo cans. And just had malf that told more, too. One cargo can missed NaPurHab, did a flyby instead of latching here. Flew on past, heading out of SCOREguard zone. SCOREs beat hellout uvvit. Can no more.”

  Gruber image’s on the screen listened carefully, and seemed to take a bit longer to reply than could be accounted for by just the speed-of-light delay. “Ah, yes. We saw that. A cargo vehicle that missed its docking pass was destroyed by the SCOREs as it moved out of the volume of space the SCOREs are watching.”

  “Just said that,” Eyeball said. “No echo need.”

  “Ah, yes,” Gruber said. Sianna suppressed a small smile. No one had taken the Purps seriously for generations. Now they had no choice: the Purps were the front-line troops, as it were. Five years ago Ursula Gruber would not have deigned to speak to someone named Eyeballer Maximus Lock-On. Now she was being as polite as she could, no doubt for fear Eyeballer would cut the connection and doom the Earth, or something.

  There was the ghost of a smile in Eyeball’s expression. Clearly she knew all that too, and was having a bit of fun with it. “Anyhow, can got creamed. Likewise, empty cargo cans get smashed by SCOREs. What uvvit? No noseskin of ours peeled off.”

  “On the contrary,” Gruber replied. “I think there’s a lot of skin off your nose.”

  “Say what?” Eyeball said.

  “You’ve got your maneuvering tanks just about filled now. What are your plans?”

  “Kick orbit upward a bit, get away from black hole.”

  “I don’t think that would be wise,” Gruber said. “In fact I think it would be extremely dangerous.”

  “How so?”

  “The malfunctioning cargo craft and the jettisoned cargo cans were not destroyed when they crossed out of the spherical volume protected by the SCOREs. They were attacked at the first moment they showed any movement out from the centerpoint of that volume of space. Anything that moves outward from the center of the protected area dies.”

  “No how,” Eyeball said, her disbelief plain. “We boost the orbit just a tad, stay away from SCOREs, we okay.”

  “I wish you were right. Check your own data. See when the SCOREs attacked.”

  Wally already had a datapack out. Sianna looked over his shoulder as he pulled up the orbital tracks and attack playbacks. “She’s right,” Wally said. Sianna took the pack from Wally and worked the data herself.

  “Tricks!” Eyeball said. “Groundhog tricks to keep Purps down.”

  “No,” Sianna said. “Why would they want to do that? They just jumped through hoops resupplying you. The actual impacts happen when the targets are near the periphery of the protected zone, but the SCOREs begin their attack runs the moment the targets start moving out from the center.”

  Eyeball grabbed at the datapack and checked the numbers.
“Damn all,” she half-whispered to herself.

  “It’s no trick,” Gruber went on. “You must not raise your orbit around the black hole—at all. Any raising of your orbit, by however slight an amount, would almost certainly cause the SCOREs to respond and attack.”

  “But hafta fix orbit,” Eyeball protested. “Charos destabbing us something fierce. We do a spiral-down onto black hole less we goose the orbit.”

  Ursula Gruber nodded awkwardly. “Yes, yes. We know that. But there is another way.”

  “What? Stabilize at current radius? Nohow. Unstab. Can’t hold here for long.”

  “We know. With all the perturbations your orbit has experienced, it’s a wonder you’re still there at all.”

  “Good at job,” Eyeball said, a bit aggressively. “No damn miracle needed.”

  “You’ll need one soon,” Sianna said. “You can’t hold out here forever.”

  “She’s right, Eyeball,” Wally said. “You’ve managed with repeated microburst corrections. You’re inducing as much instability as you’re correcting. Even without any more perturbations, tidal effects alone are going to get you into trouble.”

  “Hey, boyo, don’t yap at me on tidal effects. Been fighting to keep hab out of tumble for days now.”

  “And you don’t think that’s going to get worse?” Sianna asked. Eyeball turned and glared at her.

  “You’re out of options,” Gruber said, her voice gentle, her words tripping over Sianna’s just a bit, thanks to the speed-of-light delay.

  “Not go lower,” Eyeball said. “You’re not telling me to drop to lower orbit, are you?”

  “No, not exactly, ah, Eyeball,” Gruber said. “I’m not on that habitat. I can’t tell you what chances to take. But we’ve been learning fast down here. We’ve learned the Lone World’s command set, and now we know how to send its form of commands ourselves. If we have to, if we want to, we can link direct to the Ghoul Modules and control the Moonpoint Wormhole. Open and shut it whenever we want.”