Analog SFF, July-August 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “Sarah!"

  She laughed again. “I got it from Irene Simmons, who has odd tastes in men. Anyway, Rossov tends to brag after too much vodka. Years ago, he studied voice in Nürnberg then and appeared in a low-budget opera. Our Anna was the only Ried of the right age in the area at the time. Rossov was not a very good basso, but a really clever set designer. Later he got a Ph.D. in physics, but had problems with getting published and ended up in instrumentation. So we have professional jealousy and a sexual connection."

  Hilda pondered this. “We can't let everyone know about the telltales or the bad guys will know, too."

  Sarah nodded. “So we've got to play it like we don't know. With a couple more tests, we'll have enough information to argue convincingly that the anomalous results aren't real. Or, we might catch him tampering again."

  What a tangled web we weave, Hilda thought. But Sarah was right. “Okay. We can go ahead with the Ten-Ten without Rossov being aware that we're onto him, but we need him out of the picture before he can think of anything else to screw it up. Doesn't anyone have the authority to simply remove Rossov, without making explanations?"

  “Tse Wen could, which I think he will, if we have data to convince the personnel review board,” Sarah explained. “With Rossov out of the way, all we have to worry about is physics."

  Hilda bit her lip. The election was less than a week away, and the Senate's control of the vast resources for the project was at stake. “What if Lars Ried becomes president?"

  Sarah shook her head. “That's another worry. One more thing—we can't talk about this to anyone where they can plant microbugs. Rossov is good at this kind of thing. The net here is his, so he can defeat that encryption, too. If we use another encryption, he'll think we're onto him. Nix on the net chat, too. Just in case. But we can bring dates here."

  Hilda groaned. “Sarah, I just want to do physics."

  Sarah grinned. “I'll take care of the dating part. Let's get back."

  * * * *

  Chapter 4

  BHP Solar System experimental station, 1 June 2257

  * * * *

  Hilda, in the holographic simulation room, found herself biting her nails for the first time since she was a teenager. The experiment itself was not the source of her nervousness. Three more runs at the milligram level showed no anomalies, and they got the go-ahead to do the Ten-Ten experiment—only two days before voting began in the senate election. The opposition was certain to do something, and there was no time to recover. She filed a final prediction run, leaned back to stretch, and saw Torsten Ried enter.

  She fought irritation; there were no rules barring media from the work areas, but by a kind of implicit mutual consent, the physicists were allowed to work undisturbed in those areas. “We've got company."

  Sarah sighed softly. “I noticed."

  “Hilda, Sarah,” Torsten said, “sorry for the intrusion, but we've got nineteen-plus hours of virtual dead time to fill until you fire the Ten-Ten experiment, and I wondered if you'd help with a piece out at old Duluth Station—what things were like before the new facility—Captain Sally Duluth slept here and so on."

  “Can we wiggle out of it?” Hilda asked Torsten. “There's still stuff to do."

  “You're not completely ready?” Torsten suddenly seemed very serious.

  Sarah shook her head. “We're more than ready enough, but we can always squeeze a little more out of the shot. Hilda, I have things in hand if you want to go."

  Hilda nodded. Sarah was essential to their plans and having Torsten elsewhere would be a good thing.

  “It won't be long,” Torsten said. “I think we'll need three hours on site at the outside. We'll have her back here watching the MES eight hours before T = 0."

  Hilda noted with a smile that, after a week out here, Torsten was calling the Macrocollider Experiment Station “the mess” and talking about “T = 0” like everyone else. “Tse Wen thinks it's a good idea to be as open with the media as we can and cooperate in every way possible. ‘The silence of many hands not clapping is louder than the sound of few cheers,’ he says."

  Sarah sighed. “They won't applaud what they don't get. You've had practice with Torsten, of course."

  Torsten smiled wryly and spread his hands as if to say that was simply the reality of his business.

  Hilda shook her head. There were, she thought, people all alone in kuiperoid stations a thousand astronomical units from nowhere perfectly happy with research problems that could be done with one mind, a good cybersystem, and no interference. Why, she asked herself, had she chosen something so public? Or had it chosen her?

  “Hilda?” Torsten asked, and smiled. “You look frustrated."

  “Just working things out.” In spite of everything, the man still attracted her. A challenge? A response to the special attention he paid to her, even if it gave her a headache at times?

  “Okay, I'll do it.” She smiled at Torsten. “I'll meet you at the shuttle port in an hour."

  * * * *

  As they approached Duluth Station airlock, Torsten asked, “I hear your father's back on New Antarctica and Tse Wen wants you to go back to head up the project there."

  Hilda looked at him quickly. “Word travels fast. That wasn't supposed to be announced until we finished up the Ten-Ten. I haven't really decided. There are still some issues between Wotan Kremer and me. That's off the record, though, please."

  Torsten shrugged. “Don't worry. We'd just say you were weighing it."

  Hilda nodded curtly. To give her mind something else to think about, she took manual control of their approach and swooped in on the shuttle's belly thrusters, pinning them to the floor with a gee and a half while the AI squawked helplessly. At the end of it, she kicked in the minus-x jets for a hard two seconds of eyeballs-out to leave them floating dead in space above the docking mechanism.

  “Jesus!” Torsten exclaimed, looking green.

  Hilda laughed. “I learned to drive on a starship's runabout, Torsten. It's what we do for recreation out here."

  Once secured, they made their way to the lock. Hilda was almost into the tube, before turning back for her helmet. There was no net here, but it felt almost like Sarah was sending her a message. At the Station entry lock, stowed their gear and headed for the old command center beneath the port area. Hilda floated over to a console and let microgravity bring her body into the footholds beside it.

  She chuckled. “This is more advanced than it was in Duluth's day, but it seems primitive,” compared to what we use now."

  Torsten looked at a bank of dead gray touch screens, wondering. “Can you explain what's changed in language people can understand?"

  She felt irritated for only a moment. “I can try. This panel controlled a millimeter-wave system; we could punch straight through an atmosphere with that, but the data rate was a millionth of the multiplexed x-ray frequencies we use now. Also, at the higher frequency, we can focus to a spot a million times smaller with the same size aperture at the same distance. That helps with the BHP's interstellar com."

  “That's done from here?"

  “About fifty kilometers away."

  “So right now, even though the project hasn't been approved yet, there are messages going out toward Groombridge 34, Epsilon Eridani, and, uh...” Torsten hesitated.

  “...Lacaille 9352,” Hilda filled in, “and Chandresekhar Station at the BHP's vertex. The power systems being built there will be used for interstellar exploration, commerce and settlements as well as for the Black Hole Project. This project requires a lot of lead time."

  “You seem to have a great deal of confidence. Uh, zero gee is getting to me. Where's the..."

  Hilda smiled. “Door three, then left."

  Alone, she glanced around the room, remembered, then wondered what it would be like to remember it a million years from now, or a billion. The BHP was not the culmination of human history, she realized, but part of the beginning.

  A dark, space-suited figure floated into
the room and raised a spray can, which hissed. Sarah ... There was no net in here. It got very dark as she fell slowly in the minuscule gravity.

  * * * *

  “Mr. Ried, Anna sent me,” a low, slightly Russian-accented voice announced when Torsten emerged. It was Vitaly Rossov, the site engineer. He wondered what the man's relationship was to the family. He held out his hand.

  “Why are you here?"

  Rossov tossed him a duffel bag. “EVA kit. Put it on. I have something to show you. Channel ten."

  Torsten complied and accessed channel ten in the suit's comm system. A star field filled his heads up display. An arrow indicated one of the stars. A dim asteroid was moving toward it.

  “Electing Lars is plan A. This is plan B. Arrow points to New Antarctica from Groombridge 34 antenna five years from now. Asteroid, we have just given a slight push, to cause an occultation."

  Groombridge 34 dimmed and vanished for about thirty seconds as they watched. Then it blinked in again.

  “How does this help anything?"

  “When eclipse happens, we substitute our own message for a couple of milliseconds, in dead time before cut off. Then, fifteen years from now, the Groombridge 34 impactor has a new launch time. Wrong launch time. Clever, yes?"

  Torsten nodded dumbly. Somehow it didn't seem fair. What possible good it could do Lars here in the Solar System? Well, he thought. Maybe it wouldn't work.

  Rossov powered down the console to standby condition, then handed him a data stick.

  “Codes. In case I am incapacitated, and the backup is not needed. It could give us away, so it shouldn't be used unless nothing else works. The AI inside knows what to do."

  Torsten grimaced, wishing someone else had that mission.

  Rossov put his helmet on and turned up the visor reflectivity. “You wait here."

  “But Dr. Kremer..."

  “She will join us shortly. You wait here."

  * * * *

  The first thing Hilda noticed as awareness slowly returned was that her head ached. She groaned and stretched. Then she remembered where she was—someone had done this to her. You should pretend you're still out until you get your bearings, she thought.

  Too late. The figure with the spray can was in the room and headed for her. It had been six decades since she'd done any zero-g wrestling—but the fact that she'd done it at all might be an advantage. She took a deep breath, moved her legs against a nearby wall panel and with a quick movement, shoved off from the panel and lunged at him. He reached for her, but she caught his arm, pulled it by her, and wrapped herself over his back, starfish-like. The two tangled bodies cartwheeled toward the door while the spray can went flying across the room.

  Hilda pulled on the release lock on his helmet and tried to twist it off.

  “Who are you and what do you want? What did you do with Torsten?” she screamed.

  The man grabbed the door jam to stop them, then tried to pull her arms away from his helmet.

  With one foot planted, she stomped on the door jam, the sudden acceleration slamming his helmet into the door jam and his head into the top of the helmet. He let go of her hands, then slammed his helmet back into her head, stunning her. Then he kicked himself free and went after the spray.

  Hilda launched himself after him, but he remembered to avoid her “starfish maneuver.” They collided, grappled, and she went for his helmet. The clumsiness of his full vacuum gear and lack of purchase or leverage canceled any strength and size advantage he might have had, and the helmet began to turn. But he got his hands between them pushed her away and smashed a fist directly into her stomach.

  She gasped and loosened her grip on his helmet and he kicked himself away. He reached the spray can before she could get to him again, and got her full in the face.

  “Damn you!” she gasped, pushed him away, and tried to jump for the door but lost consciousness before she got there.

  * * * *

  Torsten heard thuds, clangs, and what might have been a woman screaming. What the hell? He started to pull himself down the corridor back to the control room; but Rossov met him halfway, going the other direction.

  “Okay.” Rossov said. “We go."

  “But Dr. Kremer..."

  Rossov smiled. “She will not be around to interfere with our plans, now."

  As the men left the old station's airlock for Hilda's shuttle, Rossov commanded the station into hibernation mode

  “Rossov, that's Hilda's air supply!"

  Rossov snickered. “Da."

  Torsten grabbed Rossov's arm. Guilt feelings for hitting her riddled him. “You only need her out of the way for a few hours."

  Rossov pulled him aside. “We are going to alter the data to make the experiment look like failure. She could catch the phony data and blow whole thing. She probably cannot escape, but dead is safer."

  Torsten reached out and touched Rossov. “I say no killing. It would ruin Lars if it got out."

  “Calm down. Okay, I disable communications but leave life support system on.” Rossov waved Torsten away.

  Torsten pulled himself back through the connecting tube and into the runabout. Guilt picked at his mind. He wished for an end to this nightmare.

  But it came back with a vengeance.

  “Going somewhere, Torsten?"

  Torsten turned to see Hilda, smiling as if nothing had happened. His stomach knotted.

  “J-just waiting for you."

  She laughed. “I see I fooled you! I only need to fool a few others for a few hours.” She mimed a kiss towards his cheek just the way Hilda had.

  “Anna!” Torsten could not believe her impersonation was so good.

  “We're late, let's go,” Anna said. “Vitaly will take the other spacecraft."

  In Hilda's voice, she told the spacecraft to return. Torsten wondered, uncomfortably, what Lars really would have thought about this. How much had Anna taken on herself? Until now he'd never felt the psychological price of doing favors for his brother so heavily.

  Anna seemed tense, too, but it might be more the anticipation of an actor ready to take the stage than worry about what might go wrong with her impersonation.

  “Time to see if this works,” she said. “Central Control, Central Control, this is Shuttle Two."

  “Shuttle Two, Central. Dr. Kremer, has there been a problem? No one has been able to reach you. Dr. Levine is quite concerned. The experiment is on hold."

  Torsten stifled a sigh of relief. Rossov must have added Anna's vocal database to Hilda's. The fact that Central Control's computer had accepted Anna as Hilda got them over the first big hurdle.

  “Roger, Central,” Anna replied. “I misjudged a zero gravity turn and hit my head pretty hard. I haven't been able to access the net; but they say a slight concussion can do that. I've taken some neurogen and it should clear in a few hours. It's a nuisance to be off-line, but I can make do with this:” She touched the headset. “And aside from that, I seem to be fine. Tell Dr. Levine not to worry. I assume all the preparations are in order for the experiment? I haven't been able to reach Dr. Rossov."

  “There are no problems with experiment preparations. Dr. Rossov is inbound to the MES. He is concentrating on some last-minute equipment items at the vertex and is not available for conversation now. Do you wish to speak with Dr. Levine?” Central continued.

  “I'm sure Sarah's very busy, too,” Anna answered. “Just tell her not to worry. I've been invited to do commentary on the media ship, so I'll be there if she needs me. Shuttle Two out."

  Anna turned to Torsten. Flushed with the success of her impersonation, she grinned like a hungry tigress, floated over to him and ran a fingernail across his lower lip as she purred into his ear. “You don't seem to be in the spirit of things."

  Torsten smiled apologetically. “Anna, I can't.” He pulled her hand away from his face. “I'm worried about Kremer."

  Anna laughed. “No worries there."

  A chill went down Torsten's back. Had Rossov broken
his promise?

  “I'm not sure, Anna. This could all go wrong on us so fast."

  She shrugged. “So it goes wrong? Even in the worst-case scenario, if I am discovered, I am on the press ship, vanish, and become Anna again. My skin now has both DNAs, and DNA is so reliable that nobody checks fingerprints anymore. You can deny knowing anything.” She laughed. “If the Ten-Ten experiment is successful and the project is authorized anyway, we have a backup. If Lars loses, he can easily find his way back to the top again in twenty years or so. So whatever happens, we can still win. If you want power you have to take chances. Maybe you win, maybe not. But you never get anywhere by not trying. Immortality means never having to give up."

  “But Dr. Kremer..."

  Anna nibbled on his ear lobe, whispering, “You really don't want to know."

  * * * *

  Hilda awoke to a dry sensation in her throat. Then she felt a strong ache in her stomach and remembered the fight. Where was Torsten? She looked around. It was pitch black. Not a glimmer of light. She gingerly moved her arms and legs. Nothing broken. She pushed herself very gently up from the floor—all she had to orient herself was a thousandth of a gravity, and she didn't want to lose it. Where the hell was Torsten? What did they want with him?

  Silence answered. Complete dead silence. That was wrong. Creepy.

  “Override 10-A-T-7.” That was twenty-five years old, but why change it?

  Still nothing. Whoever had shut this down had known what they were doing. Damn, she was a physicist, not a tech.

  She felt herself gasp for a breath, and then another breath. Life support was down, and she'd probably used up all the oxygen in the immediate area. The silence—no fans, no circulation. Willing herself to be calm, she pushed herself away, down the hall, and was able to breath more easily. You have to be like a shark, she told herself, and keep moving to breathe. But where? The airlock. She needed to find her helmet and an emergency suit. Back to the airlock. She felt her way along, blind, half afraid to stumble across Torsten's body, but the floor was bare.

  She reached the airlock, but couldn't find the emergency suit lock by feel.

  How much time was left? She pressed the face of her wrist comp. Less than an hour, the numbers glowed at her. Glowed! She pressed the face again—her eyes were so well night-adapted that she could see the wall clearly.