The Heart of the Comet

by David Brin

But rank hath its privileges. Akio had been bored, lately. Accidents that weren’t instantly fatal had been rare. With this infernally healthy crew, there wasn’t much for a physician to do except oversee the sleep slots, and occasionally release challenge parasites to keep everyone’s immune systems up to par.

  Physician, heal thyself, Saul thought. He had made up a special batch of dexbrompheniramine maleate, a long-obsolete antihistamine but one easy to synthesize, so that he wouldn’t have to prescribe for himself out of the expedition pharmacy and leave an inventory record.

  He knew he was being a tad unethical, hiding this from Matsudo. But Saul had no intention of being sleep slotted over yet another blasted head cold. Not at one of the most exciting moments in the history of science.

  More than a hundred people gathered on the shallowly curved floor of the chamber. Except for a score or so on watch duty elsewhere, all of Edmund’s crew were present—along with about thirty temporarily awakened slot sleepers, identifiable by their pale complexions and still slightly jerky movements.

  A few people sat down out of habit, but most simply rested on their toes, knees bent and arms hanging before them in the almost fetal spacer’s crouch.

  Captain Cruz and Dr. Oakes stepped up onto a platform set on the girders of the gutted slot tug. Cruz raised his hands and the low murmuring of conversation died away.

  “Well!” The tall astronaut rubbed his hands together. “Anyone for a snowcone?”

  The assembled spacers and scientists chuckled. In spite of all the diverse cultures and beliefs represented here, it was clear that nearly everyone liked and admired their commander.

  Cruz warmed them up a little more.

  “I’d like to thank you all for coming all these millions of miles to attend this meeting. I’ve called you up here from Earth to tell you that, alas, the mission has been canceled. We’re all to pack up and head for home tonight.”

  That got them. The hall erupted in laughter and applause. Saul grinned and clapped as well. Cruz was a genius at the subtle art of morale—of drawing the best out of a group.

  Of course, there was no way any of them were returning to Earth…not before the appointed seventy-odd years had passed. They were riding Halley out of the planetary system at thirty kilometers per second right now, swooping up and out of the sun’s deep gravity well. That streaking velocity had to ebb and die—and the great comet begin to fall again—before anyone here was, going home.

  Caught up in his thoughts, Saul missed the next jest. But the reaction was the same. Laughing together, they seemed a happy crew. Cruz was being deliberately folksy, loosening the crowd while at the same time maintaining his aura of complete, relaxed control.

  And yet even now Saul could see the divisions. The really experienced spacers, for instance, were mostly gathered over to the left. The scientific specialists in Oakes’s division tended toward the front. Behind them were spread out technicians and engineers from more than two dozen nations.

  There were many small clusterings according to geography or native tongue. And nearly everywhere was the subtle but clear separation between the “Ortho” majority and the tall. handsome young Percells.

  Of course there was some mixing, especially among the professional spacers. Saul saw Carl Osborn lean over and whisper something to the Ortho girl, Lani Nguyen. She laughed in a single high chirp and hurriedly covered her mouth, blushing. Lani looked up at Carl with shining eyes, but Carl had turned away again, his attention once more on his captain.

  “Why have we come here?” Cruz asked, his fists on his hips, legs apart. Now that he had warmed them, he was gliding into a higher tone. “There are many reasons given. Philosophers speak of pure scientific research, of the great questions of the origin of the solar system which might be solved by understanding the most primordial matter in space.

  “Others believe we are at Halley’s Comet because it is there!… Or rather, here.” He grinned. “And why not just go because it is fascinating to do so? This flying iceberg has been swooping down on us Earthlings for thousands of years, enthralling so many of our ancestors…” Cruz lifted an eyebrow, “and scaring the shit out of quite a few of them.”

  Again, the delighted hilarity. Saul watched the Hawaiian contingent, eight men and women out of thirty sent by their vigorous, future-hungry land. They had put on bright, floral shirts over their long johns. Evenly split between Percell and Ortho, the group was a flamboyant mixture of types and colors. As they joined in the laughter, one head turned. Virginia Kaninamanu Herbert lifted her eyes and looked back his way. She saw Saul and smiled brilliantly. Saul winked back at her.

  “… Search for new chemical compounds, or perhaps to be used in the terraforming of worlds, bringing life to our sister planets which were less bounteously endowed than our beloved Earth.

  “Maybe some of you volunteered for all that promised duty pay—mostly for seventy-five years’ sleeping on the job.”

  Cheers, this time. Whistling approval.

  Cruz spread his hands.

  “But there are two special reasons why we have come here, so far from home, on a mission that will separate most of us permanently from all family and acquaintances.

  “First, and I’ll be frank with you, many on Earth are looking to this mission—with its many members of genetically altered extraction—as a test of humanity’s ability to rise above superstitions and prejudice. For a hundred years, people of good will have been fighting to wean our species of the most deep-seated tribal reaction for all—that fear of otherness that has caused such hatred and horror since time immemorial…”

  Since time immemorial… Saul closed his eyes, remembering Jerusalem.

  “…Will achieve a great thing if we prove to those on Earth that so-called Orthos and so-called Percells, living and working together on a long and dangerous mission, can rely on each other simply as fellow human beings, and bring home great discoveries to benefit all mankind.

  “The same goes for the many national and ethnic groups represented here. We are emissaries from the twenty-first century into the future. For seventy and more years, people back home will know we are up here, cooperating for the greater good.”

  Cruz let the words settle over them. Saul saw that many of those present were looking at their feet, suddenly uncomfortable, as if they were not sure they were worthy of this trust.

  “And of course there is also the fun stuff.” Cruz grinned and rubbed his hands together. “We came out here to test a lot of technological toys! Collecting comets into accessible orbits may forever unlock the door to space. The new toehold on prosperity mankind has regained, after the Hell Century, will be secure for all time.

  “And if we demonstrate dramatically that sleep slots work well for over seventy years—as all the data indicates they will—we’ll have established that humanity need not be locked into the solar system. The stars, the very stars themselves, will be ours.”

  The words hung in the chilly air, above the hum of the air fans.

  And Saul saw glowing belief on many faces present. Carl Osborn’s heroic jaw jutted in dedication to his captain’s goal.

  Well, maybe it’s partly stubbornness, too, Saul thought sardonically. When Carl played chess, it was with a methodical tenacity that admitted no defeat until the bitter end. But no, Saul thought, looking at the light in the young man’s eyes. He believes in Miguel’s dream. And I guess I do too.

  The feeling was obviously shared by a lot of the spacers, both Percell and Ortho. This was the passion of those who longed for Plateau Three… the stepladder to the sky.

  Still, there were others. They kept quiet, but one could read the signs. This crew, after all, had not been recruited entirely from the ranks of idealists.

  Why did a man or woman volunteer to go into dangerous exile, far from everything familiar? For many, including Saul, the choice had not been altogether voluntary.

  He saw Marguerite van Zoon, standing beside Akio Matsudo at the entrance to F Tunnel and the ne
w infirmary. The French Imperium had given her the option of “volunteering” for this mission or seeing her entire family imprisoned for lese-majeste.

  Saul had last heard that her husband had gone to Indonesia and slotted himself to await her return. It was some small solace, he supposed.

  And then there was Lieutenant Colonel Suleiman Ould-Harrad. Powerful family ties had gotten him into this mission, instead of a Mauritanian dungeon. But the black spacer seemed less than happy to be here. He stood over to the right, with Joao Quiverian and some other folk from the equatorial lands of the Arc of the Living Sun.

  Percells and Orthos, Northerns and Arcists, liberals, moderates, and even a few fanatics; Saul was certain it was pretty much the same among those still in slots. Cruz and Oakes were inspirational leaders, and they would get the best out of the colonists, but Saul did not expect this long voyage to be entirely trouble-free.

  Nothing ever is, Saul. Exile is not the same as escape.

  Captain Cruz continued with a hearty tone.

  “And now I have a surprise for all of you. Many of us had high hopes for great scientific advances on this voyage, but I’d wager none of you expected that within weeks of arriving we would already have written a new chapter in the annals of human discovery.’

  Saul saw the audience stir. People looked at one another. A wave of shrugs and confused looks showed that the secret had held for the last three days of frantic tests, experiments, and double-checks.

  Saul took out his handkerchief and blew as quietly as the nose his parents had given him would allow. He knew it might be his last chance for a while.

  Cruz grinned at his audience, milking the suspense for all it was worth. He held up his hands and the crowd quieted again.

  “I certainly don’t want to hog the show, or steal anyone’s day in the limelight…”

  Oh, no, Saul thought. He had asked Cruz not to do this.

  “… So let me just call up the man who has made this epochal discovery, whose name will, within a week, be the toast of the solar system. Come on up here, Saul Lintz, and tell us what you’ve found!”

  Sigh.

  Saul pushed off from the packing crate as scattered applause rose from various parts of the hall. After the first stumble caused him to drift above the floor for a few seconds, he had to endure being passed from hand to hand by those more experienced in microgravity.

  Along the way he saw that much of the applause came from certain groups— Matsudo and Malenkov, who had helped in the analyses, from the Hawaiians up in front, from some of the Percells…

  There were some among the African and Latin contingents who looked aside and lowered their arms, unable, like him, to forget Jerusalem.

  Someone put her hands under him and pushed hard. He went sailing, without a bit of spin, in a smooth arc that landed him right beside Dr. Bethany Oakes. Good shooting, he thought as the small woman swung him around to face the audience.

  “Don’t worry, Saul,” Cruz whispered to him. “You’ll get your space legs yet. Your problem is you’ve spent too much time in that damned wheel.”

  Saul shrugged. “Some of us are too old to change, Mike.”

  Cruz laughed and gestured that the “floor” was his. Saul gingerly slid a foot forward. He looked out over the assembly.

  “Um, I’m sure you’ll all recall…”

  “Louder, Saul!” a thickly accented voice called out from the back of the hall. “You don’t have to whisper to prove to us you’re not a loudmouthed Levite!”

  Gasps rose from the crowd and several dark faces seemed suddenly to go pale. Saul recognized Malenkov’s shout and wave from the back of the room. The grinning Russian bear had the tact of a tornado, but Saul smiled.

  “Sorry. I’ll try to speak up.

  “I was about to say that I’m sure you’ll all recall the fantastic array of organic compounds that the expedition to comet Encke found while they were testing out the techniques needed for this mission. Many of those compounds were totally unknown until then, and led to some revolutionary changes in industrial chemistry.

  “In fact, one of our lesser goals here is to see if nature has cooked up any more wonderful polymers and agglutinates for us, perhaps as valuable as Enkon and Stannous-Clathride have become.”

  Directly below the platform, Joao Quiverian frowned. He had discovered those compounds, on that earlier mission, so in a way he was responsible for some of the motivation to explore and “exploit” comets.

  “But one of the most exciting discoveries at Encke was that the core of that aged, nearly dead comet contained an abundance of chemicals best called ‘prebiotic’… accumulations of purities, pyrimidines, phosphates, and amino acids nearly identical to the sort of mixture modern biologists believe made up the primordial `soup’ that led to life on Earth. It was hoped, when we set off on this trip, that by studying a large, younger comet, we might, well, shed some light on the way things were on our homeworld four billion years ago, when we all began.”

  Saul cleared his throat, and hoped the raspiness in his voice would be attributed to general hoarseness and excitement. Ten rows back or so, among the colorful Hawaiians, he saw Virginia Herbert smiling up at him. The admiration in her eyes was pleasant, if a bit disconcerting.

  Down, boy. Don’t imagine more’n is there. No doubt she looks on you as some sort of surrogate dad.

  “Well,” he resumed. “Dr. Malenkov and Dr. Quiverian and I have studied one of the latest cores collected by Dr. Otis Sergeov—”

  “Don’t be modest, Saul.” Malenkov interrupted again. “You did it! You get the blame!”

  This time, at least, people laughed and applauded. Saul smiled. Thanks, Nicholas. Deep inside he wondered if the Russian wasn’t really right… if blame might someday be the right word. Look at what had happened to Simon Percell, whose name should have gone down alongside Galen’s and Schweitzer’s. Dame Fame was a fickle bitch.

  “… Uh, well, with the help of those gentlemen I was able to isolate…”

  Oh, come on, Saul, he chided himself What would Miriam think if she had lived to see you now, standing here stammering, when you have a chance to make an announcement like this!

  Saul straightened his back, almost losing his footing in the process. He looked out at the audience and borrowed one of Miguel Cruz’s gestures, spreading his hands apart.

  “The signs are strong. The specimens are unambiguous. No contamination could explain what we have found. We’ve worked for a week to be certain it is nothing brought from Earth.

  “How it got here, nobody can imagine as yet. How it survived or evolved, we haven’t a clue. But what we do know now is that we appear to have stumbled on what mankind has been looking for ever since our first explorers stepped onto another world, nearly a century ago.”

  He smiled. Let them make of it what they will…

  “For the first time, ladies and gentlemen—for the first time we have found definite signs of life beyond Earth.”

  PART 2

  IN THE HOT BREATH OF THOSE DAYS

  When beggars die, there are no comets seen—

  The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.

  —Wm. Shakespeare

  VIRGINIA

  The great, tumbling ice mountain hurtled outward into the void. Behind it, smaller and fainter with every passing watch, the Hot fell away into the eternal blackness.

  Briefly, the sun’s blazing furnace had scrubbed and gouged and broiled away at the snowy worldlet—had cracked and charged its temporary atmosphere, sending waving flags of ionized gas flapping in the interplanetary breeze.

  But then quick summer passed. The flames were left behind again, still bright, but growing more harmless hour by hour. The savage exuberance of perihelion passage was fast fading from memory.

  Autumn was marked by a gentle fall of dust. Tiny bits, carried away from the surface in the waning blow of escaping gas, had never quite reached escape velocity, even from the comet’s feeble pull. Gradually,
they drifted back again, laying a dark, talclike patina over the icefields and rocky outcrops. The flickering snake of the plasma tail had already vanished, and now the foreshortened dust tail—so like shimmering angels’ banners not long ago—dissipated as the ancient comet streaked past Mars and on, toward the orbit of Jupiter.

  Virginia found it beautiful. The dark regolith was laid bare, here and there, exposing a slumbering icy substrate. Although a thin coma of shimmering ions still hung overhead tenaciously, the vault already showed more stars than the dark, tropical nights back home.

  I’ll bet the view is even more spectacular in person, she thought. One day I really must go up to the surface myself.

  She could feel the soft webbing holding her to her link-couch, in a cave laboratory deep under millions of tons of primeval matter. But otherwise it was almost as if she were up on the comet’s Surface, in person. The holographic images brought her a nearly perfect sensation of being out on the ice.

  She was wearing—teleoperating—a Class III surface mech, moving its spindly, spider legs as she would her own, looking with its swiveling eyes, feeling the faint brush of drifting gas molecules as a wind on her face. Her fingertips moved gently in their waldo grips as she sent a chain of mental commands to the host mech on the ice, making it turn.

  The method had first been tried back in the late twentieth century, and had seemed quite promising at the time… until several famous disasters led to near abandonment of direct mind-machine interfaces. It turned out to require a special kind of personality to control a mech in this way, without letting random thoughts and a hundred human reflexes interfere, sometimes catastrophically. This had been discovered the hard way, during those early, naive applications to aircraft and factory equipment. To this day, spacers like Carl Osborn tended to distrust the technique, preferring voice and touch controls.

  That was then, though. This is now.

  One of the reasons for her presence on this mission was the fact that such extensive use was to be made of mentally controlled robots for the first time in decades.