Pandora's Star cs-2
Page 15
“God, your luck. I’m as jealous as hell. He looked divine.”
Justine pushed her lips together modestly. “He was.”
“Come on, let’s go find a bottle, we should celebrate your grand victory: longest flight and greatest landing. I expect you need to sit down, too, must be difficult trying to walk properly after all that education you gave him.” She glanced pointedly at the tent that had finished contracting. All the empty packets and bottles now lay around it, ejected by the shrinking walls. “Did you even get to see the outside world?”
“There is one?”
Estella giggled wildly, and started to climb up the short ladder to the Telmar’s cabin. “So is it true, does everything really rise higher in low gravity?”
Justine ignored her, scanning the jungle’s dense wall one last time. There was no sign of him, not even using infrared. She’d taught him that, if nothing else.
“Good-bye, Kazimir,” she whispered.
He would be out there. Watching. Probably feeling a little foolish now. But this was probably the best way. A swift clean break, and a golden memory for both of them. No regrets.
And maybe, just maybe, I taught him something about real life. Maybe he will start to question his idiotic Guardians doctrine.
There was a loud pop of a champagne cork in the cabin. Justine climbed inside and shut the door, enjoying the chill of the air-conditioning as it banished the jungle’s raw heat.
FIVE
From their admittedly elitist point of view, the residents of York5 often claimed that theirs was one of the luckier planets in the Commonwealth’s phase one space. This particular world never experienced pollution or human population pressure, and financial irregularities and corrupt politicians passed it by. A quirk of evolution had produced far fewer than average plant and animal genera. Such conditions made the establishment of nonnative species on its surface an undemanding enterprise. For people who wanted to develop land in their own special ways, it was highly desirable real estate.
When CST announced that the planet was open for settlement in 2138, the consortium of families behind the Big15 planet Los Vada put in an offer, effectively buying the entire planet. CST got an immediate payoff on its exploration costs, but York5 was never opened for general immigration. The families in the consortium were too diversified to qualify as an Intersolar Dynasty, although as they all now lived on a single world the future genealogy dynamics were such that they’d probably wind up as one, defined by the classic model.
York5 had no real capital city; the largest urban area was a small service town that supported the CST gateway and the airport that sprang up beside it. No factories were ever shipped in, denying it any industrial facilities. Everything a person wanted or needed, from cutlery to paving stones, electronics to clothes, had to be imported. There were no roads or railways providing a civil transport infrastructure, only aircraft owned by the resident families. In all of its two-hundred-forty-year history, the population had never risen above ten million, of which almost three million were staff employed by the families. Instead, it was divided up into vast estates, with each family building mansions and lodges and beach homes as they wanted, where they wanted, and planting whatever kind of surrounding flora took their fancy. Consequently, the continents became magnificent quilts of designer landscapes; it was terraforming on a scale not seen even on Far Away, and all for aesthetics sake.
Captain (retired) Wilson Kime had watched his family estate develop over the last two centuries, returning time and again for vacations and long weekends and annual reunions to enjoy the perfect tranquility it offered. The land he’d chosen was hilly with long sweeping valleys, and situated well inside the southern temperate zone. When he’d arrived, the ground was covered in native tuffgrass, a gaunt reddy brown in color, and a few manky scrub trees. Slowly, a tide of verdant, and far more pleasing, terrestrial green had rippled out over hill and vale alike, cooler and more soothing. Spinnys had sprung up, bunches of wildly different trees from dozens of worlds, their foliage varying in color from snow-white to eye-wrenching orange. Valley floors had been forested in oaks and walnuts and willows, while a few special enclaves among the taller hills were now host to giant sequoia.
One day at the height of an exceptional midsummer heat wave, Wilson walked along a long, meandering gravel track on the broad, south-facing slopes a couple of kilometers from the huge mock château that was the family home, inspecting the vines. His only company was two of the senior family’s youngest children, who skipped along with him. Emily, a six-year-old with fawn-colored braids who was his great-great-great-great-granddaughter; and eight-year-old Victor, a quiet inquisitive lad who was a nephew with a connection that was too complicated to memorize. He’d made both of them wear big white hats to protect their young skin from the blue-tinged sun’s powerful UV, even though both of them had received extensive germline modification, which included high resistance to all types of cancer. The way they charged around they’d be exhausted long before lunch, he didn’t want heatstroke added to that.
Every now and then he would stop at the end of another row of the vines, and inspect the clusters of grapes that were just beginning to fill out. It was going to be a high-quality crop this year, possibly good enough to qualify as a classic vintage. Though everybody abused that term dreadfully nowadays. The small light green spheres were wonderfully translucent, with a tinge of color creeping in as they soaked up the sunlight. Their rows stretched all the way down the slope to the broad valley floor, three kilometers away. In total, the vineyards covered nearly a hundred square kilometers now, after flourishing for a hundred twenty years in the slightly chalky soil. Buried irrigation pipes made sure they had enough water in sweltering years like this one, pumped out here from the inland freshwater sea thirty kilometers away. The Kime estate occupied a quarter of the coastline.
Red-painted viniculture bots, each the size of a motorbike, trundled up and down the rows with their electromuscle arms flashing in and out as they carefully thinned out the clusters, and forked over the soil. There couldn’t have been more than five human supervisors covering the entire vineyard. Not that any of the wine would ever be sold, this wasn’t a commercial venture, it was for the family, with a small number of bottles made available to other Farndale board members.
Wilson stopped and picked a couple more grapes. They were immature and sour, but that taste was right for this moment in their development. He spat them out after he’d chewed them thoroughly.
“Urrgh!” little Emily said, wrinkling her nose up. “That’s gross, Grandpa.”
“No it’s not,” he assured her. He tipped his own straw hat back and smiled. “They decay straight back into the soil as fertilizer. That’s good for the plants. Query your e-butler when we get back home if you don’t believe me.”
“Wilson’s right,” Victor said, using a lofty tone. “We did environmental cycles in biology.”
“You mean the vines drink your spit?” Emily was even more appalled.
Wilson put his arms around her and gave a swift hug. “No, no, it doesn’t work like that. It’s all to do with organic chemistry. Very complicated when you get down to details. But trust me, the vines don’t drink spit, okay?”
“Okay,” she said dubiously.
Victor’s look was condescending, so she scowled at him. Then the two of them were suddenly racing off down one of the rows, chasing a Forlien delong, similar to a porcupine but with a silly collar wing that flapped green and yellow when it was excited.
“Don’t touch it,” he called after them. “You’re frightening it.”
“All right.” Victor’s voice was faint from behind the vines.
Wilson carried on down the gravel. He didn’t hurry, he was enjoying the day too much. He’d come out of his latest rejuvenation three years ago, and this was a time-out life, intended as a complete sabbatical from all corporate activity. Everybody needed one now and again, especially at the kind of executive level he lived his normal lives.
A lot of the old NASA teams left to join the burgeoning CST when the agency folded not six months after Kime’s ignoble return. But they all had to start from scratch again, retraining, acquiring different skills. It wasn’t the same; they weren’t special anymore, it was just another company job—albeit a spectacular one. The change affected some people more than others. The last Wilson heard of poor old Dylan Lewis, the ex-Commander had taken over a bar in Hawaii, and was steadily and relentlessly drinking his way to full liver failure, while making an ass of himself with any passing woman who paused to hear his “old space hero” story.
Wilson escaped the whole scene altogether. He was smart enough to see the kind of requirements that the new planets would make upon the old, the desperate need for infrastructure and development. People weren’t going to live in their new promised lands without some basic civil services in place; and as local economies took off, so they’d be wanting upgrades—fast. The manufacturing of both heavy and medium engineering products was the new growth industry. With his superintensive NASA technological training and his military background, Wilson had no trouble getting himself a divisional manager slot in a company called KAD Components, which produced a range of parts for larger companies. Three years later he was on the board with a decent share option scheme when they were bought out. By 2103, seven mergers and acquisitions later, he was secure as an executive director on the board of Farndale Engineering, one of the new multiplanet colossi that had prospered and expanded in parallel with phase one space. He now had enough new share options to buy a small nation, and Farndale was just moving into the consortium partnership that would ultimately fund Los Vada. After that it was a simple linear progress as the centuries went by, his own fortunes and influence rising with the company until his own extensive family’s private wealth moved into the realm enjoyed by Earth’s Grand Families.
Twice in the last eighty years he’d been chairman of Farndale. It was a position that took up twenty-five hours in the day, leaving no time for anything other than dealmaking and politicking. His old traits of discipline and ease of command served as excellent foundations for his tenures, enabling him to score several notable victories against rival companies during those heady decades. Shareholders and fellow board members alike were satisfied with his performance; and everyone knew that within a century he’d be rotated into Los Vada’s chief executive chair. But board leadership came with a cost, the constant stress acted like an accelerated aging mechanism. Both times, he had to seek rejuvenation years earlier than he normally would, due to the strain that running the company placed on his body.
That was one of the reasons he’d decided to take a sabbatical this time around. For once he was going to sit back and enjoy the worlds and wealth he’d created. So far it had been a success. He’d even surprised himself with the enthusiasm he’d shown for the vineyards and general estate management. The current batch of children produced by his huge extended family loved having him around. It was details again, he concentrated on details, using his abilities to solve every problem the family threw up; only the scale was different from before. He had plans to extend and refurbish the château. There were lots of places he would like to visit just as a tourist, cities with their unique festivals and carnivals to experience, different landscapes, exotic species. He was also open-minded about marrying again, perhaps this time finding a wife in a way that didn’t seem too much like negotiating a company deal. All these events were out there waiting for him, a swift taxi ride from any CST station. He’d even started drawing up an itinerary, a grand tour that would take over eight years to complete. Not even Bose’s discovery of Dyson Alpha’s envelopment event had distracted him; he had faith that Farndale’s current board was capable of dealing with any problems and opportunities it created. Although the news that a starship was to be constructed had given him a momentary twinge of nostalgia.
The children emerged from the vine rows to race along the gravel road again. Wilson didn’t try to stop them. They were happy. He would have given a lot to have had a childhood like theirs. His main concern was that they grew up with some sense of dignity and responsibility. An environment like the château could give any kid a very messed up sense of his or her own importance. Rich kids were notorious brats at the best of time, a situation not helped by York5, where they were all heirs to the throne. At the same time, he didn’t want to send them away to school.
Above the western mountains, a lone contrail streaked across the open sky. He stood to watch it go, impressed as ever by the speed and the lack of any sonic boom. Everybody used hypersonics to reach their estates from the CST gateway. But the velocity that the modern planes could reach in the atmosphere was imposing, even to him. To go any faster you’d have to use a semiballistic hop, actually skimming above the upper atmosphere. The designs for such craft had been around for a long time, it was just a question of development funding. After all, the demand was very small. Planes were used on standard Commonwealth worlds, but normal commercial passenger jets flew at around Mach three, which was good enough for airlines. It was only the residents of worlds like York5 who were impatient with that speed.
Wilson heard a low whoosh of air behind him as if a phantom had just rushed by. Leaves on the nearest vines fluttered. He frowned, and turned. The sight that greeted him sent a cold shock running down his nerves. A wormhole had opened not five meters away, perfectly circular, four meters in diameter, its base holding steady a few centimeters above the gravel. A man in an expensive lavender business suit stepped out. He gave Wilson a tenuous, apologetic smile and then said, “Yo, dude, how’s it hanging?”
Wilson took three quick steps, bringing him right up to the interloper, and swung a fist. His knuckles connected with a satisfactory crunch and a burst of pain.
“Fuck!” Nigel Sheldon tumbled backward, landing on his ass in the dry grass. Two CST security personnel stepped smartly out of the wormhole, arms pointing at Wilson. Their suit sleeves rippled slightly. An annoyed Nigel Sheldon waved them back. “It’s okay,” he said, then grimaced and brought a hand up to his jaw. “Damn, that hurt.”
Wilson glowered down. “It was supposed to, you little shit.” The children came running up, stopping in confusion at the tableaux.
“Wilson!” Victor yelled. “That’s…”
“I know who it is,” Wilson said sharply.
“Oh, this is great,” Nigel grunted indignantly as he struggled to his feet. “Three hundred and thirty goddamn years, and you’re still pissed at me?”
“Three hundred. Three thousand. Nothing changes what you did.”
Nigel was poking a forefinger into his mouth. “Ouch. I think you loosened a tooth.”
“You hurt my knuckles.” Wilson shook his hand; the damn thing was, it really did hurt. He hadn’t been in a brawl since his Air Force Academy days; the streetwise how-to had evaporated over the intervening centuries.
“Are you going to do that again?” Nigel asked.
“Are you?”
“Okay, okay, so this entrance isn’t supremely tactful of me.” Nigel eyed Wilson’s grazed hand warily. “But I wanted to make an impression.”
“You did that back at Schiaparelli.”
“This is important, damnit.”
“What is?” Wilson was having to work hard at not being impressed. The fact was, he hadn’t heard of a wormhole being used like this before, not to touch base with an i
ndividual—unless you counted the rumors about Ozzie. Gateways were hugely expensive links between worlds with a very long payback time, not personal transport machines, even if that person was Nigel Sheldon. Wilson supposed he was using the CST exploratory division gateway back on Augusta to open this tunnel across interstellar space. He didn’t like to think of the cost. “I do have an e-butler address code if there’s anything urgent, you know. You could use the unisphere like the rest of the human race.”
“We both know I’m not on your e-butler acceptance list, and I needed to talk to you urgently.”
“Why? What the hell is all this about?”
“I need a favor.”
Wilson started laughing.
“Yeah, all right,” Nigel said sourly. “Very funny. Now try this on for size. We’re building a starship to go to Dyson Alpha.”
“I heard. There’s been nothing else in the unisphere news for over a month.”
“So, but you didn’t join the dots too well, did you? We can build a ship, but the kind of experienced astronauts we need to crew it, and especially captain it, are kind of in short supply in this era.”
Wilson abruptly stopped laughing. “Son of a bitch.”
“Oh. Do I have your attention now?”
“Why me?” Wilson was surprised by how weak his voice had become.
“There’s no one else left, Captain Kime. You’re the last space cadet left in the galaxy. We need you.”
“This is bullshit. You’ve got tens of thousands of people in your exploratory division.”
“We do indeed. Good kids; great, even. Not one of which has ever been out of contact with the unisphere in their first, second, or even sixth life. You, on the other hand, you know what it’s like to be shut up in a metal bubble for months on end, you can handle the isolation, the stress; you can keep command of people under those circumstances. It’s a lot different from issuing orders down the corporate chain, and having some middle management jerk leap to it. Experience is always valuable, you know that. No false modesty, Wilson, we both know how successful you’ve been. I mean, look where we’re standing right now. There aren’t many of us even today who can re-create an eight-thousand-square-kilometer chunk of a France that never really existed outside romantic literature. You’ve got that, what did you used to call it: the Right Stuff?”