by John Scalzi
“That’s right,” Hirsch agreed. “Come fourteen hundred hours, Lieutenant Wilson and I will jump out of a perfectly good space station.”
“It’s the first step that gets you,” Wilson said.
“I’m not worried about the stepping,” Hirsch said. “I’m mildly concerned about the landing.”
“Well, leave that to me,” Wilson said.
“I have to leave it to you,” Hirsch pointed out. “You’re the one with the computer in your head.”
“What does that mean?” Lowen said.
“The suits we’ll be inside of are controlled by a BrainPal,” Wilson said, tapping his temple. “Unfortunately your cousin lacks one, and doesn’t seem likely to get one between now and the jump. So I’ll be controlling the deployment of both suits.”
Lowen looked at her cousin and then back at Wilson. “Is that safe?” she asked.
“We’re dropping to the Earth from the darkness of space,” Wilson said. “What about this is safe?”
Hirsch cleared his throat, loudly and obviously.
“What I meant to say is, of course it’s safe,” Wilson said. “Couldn’t be safer. Safer than going to the bathroom. Lots of people die pooping, you know. Happens every day.”
Lowen narrowed her eyes at Wilson. “I’m not supposed to say this, but David is my favorite cousin,” she said.
“I’m telling Rachel,” Hirsch said.
“Your sister owes me money,” Lowen said. “Now shut up. I’m threatening Harry, here.” Hirsch grinned and shut up. “As I was saying, David’s my favorite cousin. If something happens to him, I’m going to have to come for you, Harry. And I won’t be as easy on you as those four soldiers were. I will, and this is a promise, kick your ass.”
“Have you ever kicked anyone’s ass?” Hirsch asked. “Ever? You were always kind of a girly-girl.”
Lowen slugged Hirsch in the arm. “I’ve been saving my kick-assery up for a special occasion,” she said. “This could be it. You should feel honored.”
“Oh, I do feel honored,” Hirsch said.
“If you’re so honored, you can get the next round,” Lowen said.
“I’m not sure I’m that honored,” Hirsch said.
Lowen looked shocked. “I threaten a Colonial Defense Forces soldier for you, and you won’t even get me a beer? That’s it, you no longer have official favorite-cousin status. Rachel is back on top.”
“I thought she owed you money,” Hirsch said.
“Yes, but you owe me a beer,” Lowen said.
“Family,” Hirsch said, to Wilson and Schmidt, and then got up. “Anything for you two?”
“I’ll get Harry’s,” Schmidt said, getting up. “Come on, David. Walk you to the bar.” The two of them made their way through the crowd toward the beer taps.
“He seems like a good guy,” Wilson said, to Lowen.
“He is,” Lowen said. “And I’m serious, Harry. Don’t let anything happen to him.”
Wilson held up his hand, as if pledging. “I swear I will not let anything happen to your cousin. Or at the very least, if anything happens to him, it will happen to me, too,” he said.
“That last part doesn’t inspire me with confidence,” Lowen said.
“It will be fine, I promise,” Wilson said. “The last time I did this, people were shooting at me on my way down. I missed having a leg blown off by millimeters. This will be a cakewalk compared to that.”
“I still don’t like it,” Lowen said.
“I sympathize entirely,” Wilson said. “This wasn’t exactly my idea, you know. But, look. David and I will have to get together tomorrow before the jump anyway in order to go over dive protocols and to walk him through what we’ll be doing. In your ample spare time, why don’t you tag along with him? I’ll give the impression I know what I’m talking about, I swear.”
Lowen pulled out her PDA and scrolled through her schedule. “Can you do it at eleven?” she asked. “I have a fifteen-minute hole in my schedule then. I was going to use it to pee, but I can do this instead.”
“I’m not responsible for your bladder,” Wilson said.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Lowen said. She put her PDA away. “At least I have time to pee. There are some people I know who have so many meetings now that they’re positively at risk for peritonitis.”
“Busy schedules,” Wilson said.
“Yes, well,” Lowen said. “This is what happens when one party drops a bomb onto everyone’s schedule and turns what was going to be an orderly summit into a goddamned mess, Harry.”
“Sorry,” Wilson said again.
“This goes back to that arrogance thing,” Lowen said. “You remember. You and I talked about this before. The Colonial Union’s biggest problem is its arrogance. This is a perfect example. Rather than sit down with the nations of the Earth to discuss the ramifications of keeping us bottled up for centuries, it’s attempting a sleight-of-hand maneuver, distracting us with this station lease.”
“I remember also saying to you that if you wanted someone to defend the Colonial Union’s practices, you came to the wrong shop,” Wilson said. “Although I’ll note, strictly as a matter of observation, that the Colonial Union’s plan seems to be working perfectly.”
“It’s working now,” Lowen said. “I’m willing to concede it’s a reasonable short-term solution. But as a long-term solution it has problems.”
“Such as,” Wilson said.
“Such as what is the Colonial Union going to do when the United States, China and Europe all say that as a matter of restitution, the Colonial Union should give us Earth Station?” Lowen said. “Forget all this leasing crap. The cost of one space station is a substantial discount on the profits accrued from two centuries of essentially free labor and security for the Colonial Union. You’d be getting off cheap.”
“I’m not sure the Colonial Union will agree with that theory,” Wilson said.
“We don’t need you to agree,” Lowen said. “All we really have to do is wait. The Colonial Union is unsustainable without new colonists and soldiers. I’m sure your economists and military planners have figured this one out already. You need us more than we need you.”
“I would imagine the natural response to this would be that you wouldn’t like what happens to Earth if the Colonial Union fails,” Wilson said.
“If it was just the Earth, you’d be right,” Lowen said. “But there’s option B.”
“You mean joining the Conclave,” Wilson said.
“Yep,” Lowen said.
“The Earth would have to get itself a lot more organized than it is at the moment,” Wilson said. “The Conclave doesn’t like having to deal with fractions of a planet.”
“I think we could be sufficiently motivated,” Lowen said. “If the alternatives were either a forced alliance with former oppressors, or being collateral damage when that former oppressor falls.”
“But then humanity is divided,” Wilson said. “That’s not going to be good.”
“For whom?” Lowen countered. “For humanity? Or for the Colonial Union? They’re not the same thing, you know. If there is a human division, in the end, who will be to blame for it? Not us, Harry. Not Earth.”
“You don’t have to sell me, Dani,” Wilson said. “So, how is this line of argument going with the U.S. delegation?” Wilson asked.
Lowen frowned.
“Ah,” Wilson said.
“You would think nepotism would help me out here,” Lowen said. “Being the daughter of the U.S. secretary of state should have a perk or two, especially when I’m right. But there’s the minor problem that Dad is under orders to tell us to try to hammer out a deal before the end of the summit. He says my points will make a fine ‘backup plan’ if we don’t end up getting the lease outright.”
“Does he mean it?” Wilson asked.
Lowen frowned again.
“Ah,” Wilson said once more.
“Oh, good, our drinks are here,” Lowen said, motioning to Hirsch and Schmidt,
who were navigating back, beers in hand. “Just in time to drown my sorrows.”
“Did we miss anything?” Hirsch asked, handing his cousin a beer.
“I was just talking about how hard it is to be right all the time,” Lowen said.
“You were talking to the right guy about that,” Schmidt said, sitting down. “Harry has the same problem. Just ask him.”
“Well, then,” Lowen said, and raised her glass. “I propose a toast. Here’s to being right all the time. May God and history forgive us.”
They all clinked glasses to that.
PART TWO
V.
“Captain Coloma,” Ensign Lemuel said, “another ship skipped in.”
Coloma muttered her thanks to Lemuel and checked her PDA. She had made it a standing order to her bridge crew to alert her when ships arrived or departed Earth Station, without giving them further explanation. The crew didn’t question the order; it was trivially easy to track the other ships. The order had been in effect for most of a day now. It was late morning on the second day of the summit.
Coloma’s display registered the new ship, a small freighter. It was one of eleven ships floating outside of Earth Station, the other ten arrayed in parking zones. There were four Colonial Union diplomatic ships; including the Clarke, there was the Aberforth, the Zhou and the Schulz, each carrying its complement of diplomats negotiating with the delegations from Earth, who came to the station by way of the beanstalk. Three ships, the Robin Meisner, the Leaping Dolphin and the Rus Argo, were cargo freighters from the Colonial Union, which had some limited trade with the Earth. The two remaining ships were Budek cargo haulers; the Budek were negotiating to join the Conclave but in the meantime were fans of citrus fruits.
In her earpiece, Coloma could hear Earth Station’s flight controller ask the new ship to identify itself: the first red flag. Colonial Union cargo ships had encrypted transponders that the station would ping as soon as the ship skipped into its space. The fact that control was asking for identification meant it either had no transponder or had disabled it. It also meant the ship was an unscheduled arrival. If it had been scheduled but was without a transponder, control would have hailed it under the expected name.
Coloma had the Clarke scan the new ship and ran the data against a specific database of ships given to her by the CDF. It took less than a second for a match to pop up. The ship was the Erie Morningstar, a civilian transport and cargo ship that had gone missing months earlier. The Erie Morningstar had started its life as a CDF cruiser more than seventy years prior; for civilian use, it was gutted and reconfigured for cargo-carrying purposes.
It didn’t mean it could not be reconfigured back into combat.
Earth Station was now hailing the Erie Morningstar for the third time, to no response, which satisfied Coloma that the ship was now officially in the “suspicious” territory.
“Captain, new ship skipped in,” Lemuel said.
“Another one?” Coloma asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Lemuel said. “Uh, and another … two … ma’am, I have a bunch skipping in pretty much simultaneously.”
Coloma looked down at her display. There were eight new contacts there. As she watched, two new contacts lit up, and then another two.
In her earpiece, Coloma could hear Earth Station control cursing. There was an edge of panic to the voice.
Now there were fifteen new contacts to go with the Erie Morningstar.
Coloma’s database from the CDF had sixteen ships on it.
She didn’t bother running the other fifteen.
“Where’s our shuttle?” Coloma asked.
“It just docked at Earth Station and is prepping to return,” Lemuel said.
“Tell it to hold and prepare to bring back our people,” Coloma said.
“How many of them?” Lemuel asked.
“All of them,” Coloma said, ordered the Clarke on emergency alert and sent an urgent message to Ambassador Abumwe.
* * *
Ambassador Abumwe was listening to the Tunisian representative discuss her country’s plans for Earth Station when her PDA vibrated in three short bursts followed by one long one. Abumwe picked up the PDA and swiped it open to read the message there from Captain Coloma.
Big trouble, it said. Sixteen ships. Get your people out now. Shuttle at gate seven. It leaves in ten minutes. Anyone still there after that stays there.
“Go back to the beanstalk,” Abumwe said, looking at the Tunisian representative.
“Excuse me?” the Tunisian representative said.
“I said, go back to the beanstalk,” Abumwe repeated, and then stood up. “Get on the first elevator down. Don’t stop. Don’t wait.”
“What’s happening?” the Tunisian representative asked, but Abumwe was already out the door, sending a global message to her team.
VI.
“You look like you’re in a unitard,” Danielle Lowen said to Harry Wilson, pointing to his combat suit as he and Hart Schmidt came up to her and David Hirsch. The four of them were meeting in an otherwise unoccupied cargo hold of Earth Station.
“The curious reason for that is because I am in a unitard,” Wilson said. He stopped in front of her and dropped the large canvas bag he was carrying. “That’s what our combat suit is. This one is actually a heavy-duty combat suit, designed for vacuum work.”
“Do you engage in dance battles?” Lowen asked. “Because if you did, I think that would be stupendous.”
“Sadly, no,” Wilson said. “And we’re all the lesser for it.”
“So I’m going to have to put one of those on,” Hirsch said, pointing to the combat suit.
“Only if you want to live,” Wilson said. “It’s optional otherwise.”
“I think I’ll choose life,” Hirsch said.
“Probably the right choice,” Wilson said. He reached into the bag he was carrying and handed Hirsch the unitard within it. “This is yours.”
“It’s a little small,” Hirsch said, taking the article and looking at it doubtfully.
“It will expand to fit,” Wilson said. “That will fit you, or Hart, or Dani. One size really does fit all. It also features a cowl, which when I activate it will cover your face entirely. Try not to freak out when that happens.”
“Got it,” Hirsch said.
“Good,” Wilson said. “You want to put it on now?”
“I think I’ll wait,” Hirsch said, and handed it back.
“Chicken,” Wilson said, taking and storing it back in the bag and pulling out another object.
“That looks like a parachute,” Hirsch said.
“Functionally, you are correct,” Wilson said. “Literally, not. This is your store of nanobots. When you hit the atmosphere, they release and form a heat shield around you to keep you from burning up. Once you make it into the troposphere, then they form into a parachute and you’ll glide down. We’ll be landing at a football field outside of Nairobi. I understand some of your friends will have a helicopter standing by to take me back to the beanstalk.”
“Yes,” Hirsch said. “Sorry it won’t be a longer stay.”
“It’ll still be good to hit the home soil,” Wilson said. He set down the ’bot pack and reached in for one more object. “Supplementary oxygen,” he said. “Because it’s a long way down.”
“Thank you for thinking of that,” Hirsch said.
“You’re welcome,” Wilson said.
“It doesn’t seem like a lot of oxygen,” Lowen said, looking at it.
“It’s not,” Wilson said. “When the combat suit is covering his face, it will sequester the carbon dioxide and recirculate the oxygen. He won’t need as much.”
“It’s a handy suit,” Lowen said. “Shame it looks so silly.”
“She’s right, you know,” Schmidt said.
“Don’t you start, Hart,” Wilson said, and then both his BrainPal and Schmidt’s PDA went off in alarm. Wilson accessed his message, from Ambassador Abumwe.
Sixteen unide
ntified ships have appeared around Earth Station, it said. Stop what you’re doing and head to gate seven. The shuttle leaves in ten minutes. Do not wait. Do not start a panic. Just go. Now.
Wilson looked over to Schmidt, who had just finished his message. Schmidt looked back, alarmed. Wilson quickly put everything back into his canvas bag.
Lowen caught their expressions. “What is it?” she said.
“There might be trouble,” Wilson said, hefting the bag.
“What kind of trouble?” Hirsch said.
“Sixteen mysterious ships suddenly appearing outside the window kind of trouble,” Wilson said.
Lowen’s and Hirsch’s PDAs sounded. They both reached for them. “Read them while walking,” Wilson suggested. “Come on.” The four of them made their way out of the cargo hold and headed to the main corridor of the station.
“I’m being told to head to the beanstalk elevators,” Lowen said.
“So am I,” Hirsch said. “We’re evacuating the station.”
The four of them walked through a maintenance door into the main corridor, and into chaos. Word had spread, and quickly. A stream of Earth citizens, with looks ranging from concern to panic, were beginning to push their way toward the beanstalk elevator entry areas.
“That doesn’t look good,” Wilson said, and started walking purposefully against the general rush. “Come on. We’re going to our shuttle at gate seven. Come with us. We’ll get you on our shuttle.”
“I can’t,” Hirsch said, stopping. The others stopped with him. “My team has been ordered to assist the evacuation. I have to go to the beanstalk.”
“I’ll go with you,” Lowen said.
“No,” Hirsch said. “Harry’s right, it’s a mess, and it’s going to get messier. Go with him and Hart.” He went in to give his cousin a hug and a quick peck on the cheek. “See you soon, Dani.” He looked over to Wilson. “Get her out of here,” he said.
“We will,” Wilson said. Hirsch nodded and headed down the corridor, toward the beanstalk elevators.
“Gate seven is still a quarter of the way around the station,” Schmidt said. “We need to start running.”
“Let’s run,” Wilson agreed. Schmidt took off, weaving through holes in the crowd. Wilson followed, keeping pace with, and making a path for, Lowen.
