It came through the dark, the spaceship from afar, slowly approaching the small twin planets—plutoids—after a journey lasting six and a half years. Small and compact, the device was the completion of an enterprise that had begun with the Soviet Union’s Luna flyby of the Moon in 1959 and continued through Pioneer, Mariner, Venera, Zond, Explorer, Galileo, Cassini-Huygens, ExoMars, and New Horizons I, visiting every planet and significant satellite in the inner solar system—including these last two, so seemingly insignificant.Yet the greatest surprise was saved for last.
For two months “Newer Horizons” had been sending back data and with every picture scientists were becoming more excited. As expected Pluto looked like it had been gnawed on by rats but its partner Charon was a perfect sphere.
“Just like the freaking Death Star™!” said Christain Monelly, mission psychologist. He was one of several billion people watching the pictures coming from NASA whose commentator, while visibly excited, was trying to sound reasonable. “It has not been confirmed that Charon is anything but a natural object.”
“Foo!” Monelly crowed. “There really is life out there!” He hugged the nearest woman, who happened to be surprised American engineer Lomaine Brooks. Her startled reaction pulled his foot from its restraint and sent him tumbling, laughing, across the room. When he reached the other side he grabbed a conveniently protruding knob, looking back at the now horrified young woman.
“Dr. Monelly! I-I’m sorry! I wasn’t expecting . . .”
He waved off her apology. “My fault entirely, Ms. Brooks, I was so excited, I forgot myself.”
“The man’s Italian, all right,” snorted another woman nearby. “Roamin’ fingers.” Lomaine turned but could not determine who made the comment. The lounge was quickly filling up as word spread throughout the station. Small vials of cognac and vodka appeared, saved for a special occasion. And what could be more special than finding the signs of life where it had been least expected?
They patted each other on the back. Many kissed. Never was there a warmer international feeling, a oneness. French, British, German, Zimbabwean hugged and shared drinks with their long lost brothers and sisters—the Russians, Americans, Hebrew, Japanese, Indian. Even a Chinese was there, Sen Chin Hui, observing the celebration rather coldly from outside the hatch.
Somebody broke out their private stock of “prison beer” and when a few more off duty “Techs” showed up the party quickly warped out of control. The irrepressible music of Yanni blurped from the PA as conversation became louder to compensate. Couples disappeared. Tension and desire, long repressed, snaked loose. None of them had been drunk in space before. Some of them had not been drunk since joining the astronaut program. It left them easy victims to their emotions. They danced The Huracanrana with abandon in cool microgravity and participated in adolescent drinking games. A huge puddle of beer (the Romanians entire supply) was persuaded to float in the middle of the room while various people drank through long plastic tubes. One guy stuck his lips on the globule and it quickly enveloped his head. Only the fast action of a couple of laughing marines saved him from drowning.
The frivolity continued until Admiral Grobotnin got wind of it. He looked into the room with horrified dismay, quickly gathering his staff who entered the room to quietly persuade the scientists and station personnel that it was time to go back to a reasonable facsimile of work.
Two hours later Banner Brummett shook his head in disbelief. The place was a disaster. The hatches had been shut and the module powered down to prevent crap from floating all over the station. It was up to him and him alone to make things right. He knew the job was dangerous when he took it. An Internal Maintenance Person (IMP) by any other name was still just a janitor.
ØØØ
“She called me her friend.”
“Too bad.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s already decided that you ain’t the lover-man for her. It’s her way of letting you know, you know?”
“Oh, no.”
“Yeah, too bad.”
“But if I just . . .”
“There ain’t no ‘buts’ about it,” Stubbs growled. “Women are very specific about these sorts of things. Maybe in twenty or thirty years. After one or two divorces her standards might change. You never know. Until then, forget it!”
“Twenty or thirty years?” He asked in dismay.
“Yeah, you’ll be surprised how quick the time goes by. But you gotta stay friends with her. Keep in touch.”
“Do you keep in touch, Stubbs?”
“Sure. Gotta girl in every port, as they say. Or is that a port in every girl? I always get them mixed up.”
“Naw!”
“C’mon, kid, there’s just a few simple rules. If she’s married, it’s hands off. Maybe have dinner with her and the hubby and meet the kids. Be a pal, it won’t kill ya. But if she’s between husbands, then I’ll be between her sweet sheets before you can wink an eye.”
Banner laughed. “Get off that!”
“Ah,” Stubbs turned away with disgust. “You young guys think everything has to happen right now! Plan for the future! Throw your net out wide and eat what you catch!”
This was why Banner hated talking about serious things with Stubbs. The old man had plenty of free advice, advice that could strip paint off a battleship. “Twenty years,” he sighed. Free advice when all he wanted was little Sophie.
Oh well, Camus would have to do for affection. The cat didn’t have complete run of the station but close to it. He was allowed in the crew quarters, the lounge, welcomed in the greenhouse, and the boys in CrispusAttucks® Bio Lab always liked a look at him. For some reason he didn’t go there much.
Banner had the responsibility to keep Camus fed, his litter boxes clean, and his furry body as far away from the brass as possible. Easy to do. Yeah. Many times he was called to rescue the feline, such as the time General Spigot was visiting. Who could have guessed the General had such an odd phobia? Oh, and they didn’t care for Camus wandering around in a shuttle after it had docked, or in the cloning tent, or surgery. Banner was certain he’d only sniffed at that old kidney, not licked like they’d said. The galley was also forbidden turf but Stubbs kept the cat out of sight while feeding him tidbits in a warm little spot near the forced-air oven that was his favorite place to snooze. Today, though, he was nowhere to be found.
Banner went into the cafeteria where he got a drink of limeade, avoiding the carbonated beverages. Unlike on Earth, in microgravity air would not come out of suspension within a liquid, meaning that the bubbles of carbonation passed through the body instead of fizzing out with a few satisfying burps when it hit the stomach. It wasn’t supposed to hurt the kidneys or anything but Banner didn’t care much for the tickling sensation later while it passed from his body. Supposedly if you drank enough you could even carbonate your sperm but he suspected that story had been made up by some overzealous Casanova.
There were several techies in the cafeteria but no one he knew so he left the module. He looked at his watch tattoo and realized with a shock that he had some free time before he had to be in Engineering. The luxury was so unexpected that he didn’t know where to turn first. Of course he should go back to his room and study, or sleep. He could visit Sophie, but she’d just put him to work. What to do?
Zeee zeee zeee, his cell phone signaled. Banner sighed before answering. “Brummett here.”
“It’s your cat again, Mr. Brummett.”
“My cat?” Banner protested. “You mean our cat, don’t you?”
“The furball’s in the command module,” the lieutenant scowled from the display. “The Admiral wants him out and I think he means all the way out.”
“Oh, right. And who do you think is more popular right now? Camus, the first and only space cat, beloved by children worldwide—not to mention the President’s daughter—or Admiral Grobotnin?”
“Just come and get him, Mr. Brummett,” came Grobotnin’s tired voice from behind the lieutenant.
Oops! “Right away.” Smooth move, Banner thought as he pulled himself along to Command, to piss off the Admiral.
Camus was being held by Sophie as he came in. He could hear the cat purring against her breast loudly.
“Where’d you find him?”
“By the vent.”
“He likes the warm air. Come here, big gray,” Brummett took the cat from her. Camus burfed with indignation. “It’s okay.”
Banner was surprised to see that all the station’s top brass were present, crowded in with some new faces that must have come up this morning. Even he could sense the ill-disguised worry and uncertainty here. He quickly hurried the cat away.
Admiral Grobotnin watched them leave, then called the meeting to order. The room was small but far better than being in a submarine, where he had started his career, because here, at least, you could sit on the ceiling. He had grown used to a lot of unconventional things, he realized, looking around where the senior personnel of the major partners of the International Space Station floated queasily. The group included US Admiral Phillis Creed; the representative for the European Union, “Long” Jean Albertine; Sen Chin Hui of China; Cal Mikaru representing JAXA. Advisers included Group Captain Henry Ireton of Britain; Major Dunker from the US Army; Italian psychologist Dr. Christain Monelly; and American engineer Lomaine Brooks. Besides the bigwigs, bigger wigs watched from Second Life.
Admiral Creed was the first to speak, befitting the leading role the US expected to take. “We are gathered here to discuss the recent discovery of an alien artifact by the United Nations Space Ship Newer Horizons and form some sort of early consensus as to our response.” Her dour gaze drifted over the representatives of the senior partners of the United States.
On the room’s screens pictures of Charon and Pluto were shown, many unreleased to the public. “Of course the first shots returned were highly compressed. These are the complete transmissions and you can see quite a bit more detail. There was no doubt about the huge open pits under the ice on Pluto’s surface were not natural formations. By contrast Charon and the smaller moons look as smooth as billiard balls although the surface has some cratering and what look like tearing in the surface.”
“We’ll have to go there!” Countess Tracy spoke without taking her eyes off the slideshow.
“Yes, it looks that way,” Creed replied. “We’ll send more probes, of course, but our robots just aren’t sophisticated enough to do what needs to be done.”
“First contact!”
“Maybe . . . There’s little doubt that someone built Charon from material that was probably mined on Pluto but the evidence suggests that it’s been a long time since anyone was there.”
“Could they be in suspended animation?”
“Or living inside without knowing where they are?”
“Or controlling our world through proxies?” Christain Monelly snorted. “All of this is speculation, pure science fiction. We won’t know until we get there.”
“How will we accomplish this?” Long Jean asked. “It took almost seven years for the probe, a small device, to reach there.”
“As you know we’re about to commence tests on the Moon of a nuclear powered ion drive that we were planning to use for the Mars expedition,” Creed replied. “We think we can lead an effort to send up to twelve people to Charon within, oh, five to ten years.”
“You are preparing to lead . . .” Albertine repeated with muted hostility.
“Well, it’s a very general document, of course. Congress would have to approve as well as the partner nations.”
“It’s good of you to want our approval.”
“What does that mean?”
“US leadership has always lacked . . . focus.”
“It might be time for someone else to take the lead,” Nikolai Matroshka, the Kremlin’s advocate, interjected.
“Someone else? Who do you have in mind? Russia? You couldn’t even make it to the Moon!”
“Americans’ problem is that you always overcomplicate things.”
They all looked to Grobotnin. The Russian, after all, had been onboard Mir! He had been with the ISS from the very beginning of the cooperative venture, instrumental in keeping the Soyuz supply craft aloft when Congress had refused to allow NASA to pay its share of the effort. His whole career was invested in getting along with the Americans.
He shrugged. "Will be better to go our own way.”
“Alexi, I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” Creed said, aghast.
The noise in the room grew as everyone starting arguing at once, including the avatars on Government Island.
ØØØ
Next to the air lock Banner quickly went through the checklist one last time with the astronaut floating before him. The man was nervous inside his space suit, this being his first time out.
“Nothing to worry about, Ace,” Banner reassured him. “We’ll be watching you closely.”
“Sure,” Cantrell replied, thoughts somewhere else. He was there to work on the (Space) Measurement Project, an offshoot of the investigation of tethers in orbit, where it was shown that a single strand of aluminum, 10 kilometers or longer, would thrum the magnetic lines surrounding Earth causing electricity to flow through the tether. With completion of the loop this electricity could be used. The cost was in a declining orbit, which inevitably had to be paid back—expensively.
For this experiment buckytubes, hollow carbon fibers, were produced from doped slurry of carbon, aluminum, and a patented catalyzing-agent, shipped to Earth orbit. The filaments were kilometers long, more ephemeral than cobweb, yet harder than diamond. Although they cut into almost any surface, individually they were too light to do much harm unless the shards were inhaled. It was only when they were twined together in long thin ropes, that the strength of the carbon molecule became apparent.
For this experiment the fiber had been left untwined, and a little brittle from its doping. From Banner’s monitor in Engineering ten kilometers away it looked something like a huge, dark ball of cotton candy with a long string attached.
“And from this you’ll get power?” he asked Lomaine dubiously.
“Not so much,” she said. “Think of it as a sieve sweeping through Earth’s orbit. They’re trying to define space, or at least the strip of it that passes through that sieve, to way below the atomic level.”
“Damn!” Banner said thoughtfully.
“Electrodynamic tethering is only one thing they’re investigating. There’s also some hope of finding a useful way to tap vacuum energy.”
“I’ll guess I’ll have to wait for the paper.”
Outside the crew was still running over their checklists. Lomaine stretched her rubbery body, sighing, then took a drink of water. “Better do your business if you got any,” she said. “This’ll be your last chance for awhile.”
“I’m fine.”
Lomaine continued studying her readouts even though there was little to see as they waited for the crew to finish their readiness checks and move into position. Considered one of best of the new generation of space engineers, Lomaine Brooks was on her first stint at the ISS, although she had been to the Moon once, helping dig Tunnel East at New Neil, the village nestled against Armstrong Moon Base.
She was a “NASA brat,” growing up in Cape Canaveral.
“What was that like?” Banner asked wistfully.
“Probably like anywhere else in the South except they’d let us out of school sometimes to watch big honking rockets go up.”
“Lucky.”
“Well, Dad worked for NASA, so I knew everybody. They let me have the run of the place. I met all the astronauts, even Neil Armstrong once,” she sighed dreamily.
“Damn! I got to see a Shuttle go up once. Dad and I had to stay three days for the weather to clear. Missed out on Disney World but it was worth it.”
Lomaine laughed. “You probably drove right past my house.”
“What did your father do at NASA?”
“He helped get shuttles ready for launch.”
“He’s retired now?”
“He died in a fueling accident, with four others. Twelve years ago.”
“Oh, I’m . . .”
“No, it’s . . .” She smiled sadly at Banner’s look of consternation. “I’m only sorry he didn’t get to see me make it up here. It was his dream, too.”
“We’re ready, Houston,” Stan Orsky said from outside, allowing them to drop the conversation and concentrate on their jobs.
Ace Cantrell was easy to find since he was wearing the big fluorescent green stripe of a rookie. He represented the companies that were underwriting this project. Castile and Orsky were wearing the orange of the experienced outside worker.
They had finished combing the hair of the Medusa’s head of buckytubes and were ready to begin calibrating the tools.
Orsky, an old hand, had helped construct the “Next Gen” ISS. A naturalized American citizen from Poland, he hid sly humor beneath a peasant’s face. It was as if Copernicus’s brain had been dropped into a plumber’s head. The third astronaut, Hermando Castile, was the best Belize offered, one of the nation’s few pilots to rate a jet fighter. Even so he’d been teaching classes at the University of Belize just five years before.
Banner’s duties weren’t much, an extra set of eyes. Watching another person work in space was boring, really, so keeping his checklist up to date was important, it kept him involved. It also kept his attention focused on detail, which is why he didn’t notice the new guy swooping towards the collector field. Its tendrils seemed to ripple as if it were underwater, an illusion that reminded some of a giant jellyfish but to Banner it always looked nasty and sharp, like a porcupine.
A tool had slipped from Cantrell’s grasp with enough momentum to take it through the safety zone.
Banner’s first thought was annoyance. He was certain he’d tethered the instrument correctly. But it was difficult to use that way and Cantrell must have removed the restraint—presumptuous for a rookie. Then he realized the man was moving too quickly as he sailed past the tool he was chasing. Even as Banner keyed a warning he knew it was too late, watching with horror as Cantrell plowed into the field of buckytube filaments. There go a few hundred million bucks down the drain, he thought, watching the man disappear in a puff of splintering tendrils. Who was going to clean up that mess? He was just glad there was a video record of the suiting because they were going to blame somebody for this cock-up. For sure Cantrell would never leave the ground again.
“Aw, Christ!” Lomaine exclaimed violently. Then with consternation, “Stan!?”
“We’re on our way.”
She turned up the gain on Cantrell’s suit mike. They could hear his angry muttering. There was also a whispering sound as he passed through the bucktube field, like sawgrass slapping against bluejeans.
It took Lomaine a moment to realize what that meant, and then she gasped, “Get him out of there!”
Cantrell’s squeal died like a deflating balloon. Banner could see the filaments puff a bit from escaping gas where the man had disappeared. White frost limned the Medusa’s tendrils. In shock, Banner barely noticed the emergency alarm going off.
ØØØ
Dr. Mary Ellen Cartouche performed the autopsy in a special room. She was wearing a Mylar™-coated space suit because the module had been evacuated to prevent contamination of the evidence. It was also to keep the infinitesimal shards of buckytube from contaminating the station, or invading the skin and lungs of the doctor, she hoped.
In the middle of the room a large cube of black stuff was strapped to a gurney. It was what was left of Ace Cantrell after they had removed the bits that didn’t have human paste stuck to them. All she needed to do was dig out a few samples so that they could officially confirm that this mess was who they thought it was and for the drug tests and whatnot. Maybe a brick to give to his family for burial, although she’d let the metallurgists handle that. The remainder would be dropped into the Sun with the rest of the hazardous waste.
Cantrell had been sliced to less than ribbons by the buckytube filaments, Dr. Cartouche would tell the inquest. Oh, you wouldn’t notice the first one you brushed against, or the first thousand. The damage they did would be microscopic, not enough to raise a welt on bare skin. But a million would start to hurt and a billion buckytubes would completely shred a man, one molecule at a time. There was nothing left of Cantrell, no suit, no bone, no lucky rabbit’s foot, or picture of his children. There was just this block of freeze-dried human/carbon goo where even the DNA had been parsed into tiny fragments.
ØØØ
Ashlee pressed the warm towel to her face, getting the pores to open and breathe. Sometimes it seemed that being hidden underneath a damp towel was the only time of the day when she could be completely alone. Sadness filled her briefly as she listened to Christain humming to himself from the other side of their compartment. He was listening to Caledonian pop again through the ePod™ implanted into his cochlea. She had to smile as he tried in vain to keep up with the tempo.
Their private suite was by far the most extravagant in the ISS but still only about the size of a large Tokyo capsule hotel. Nevertheless, they had enough space for their own sanitary facilities and even enough room for two or three visitors if they packed everything away and nobody breathed hard. She carefully braced herself before pulling her red hair back in a ponytail.
The humming stopped. “Ashlee, honey,” he said in his soft accent. “Come to bed, please. We have to be up in four hours.”
“All right,” she said, pulling herself over to her sleepystation and unraveling its womblike hammock. They no longer shared a sack but she had gotten used to that.
Christain watched her undressing in the dim light. There was a time when the sight would have filled him with anticipation but tonight it filled him with vague anger. It didn’t make sense; after all they’d agreed to an open marriage—at least that’s what he’d thought. Scratch an American and you’ll find a Puritan lurking underneath the surface every time. Why had he married one?
Looking at the round curve of her ass he knew one reason. Another was that she was by far the brightest student he had ever taught. Despite their age difference, like most women she had been easy enough for him to seduce, but there was something else in her: energy, ideas, and—Christain was honest with himself if with no one else—political connections, which attracted him and was the reason why he had made her his fourth wife.
For Ashlee’s part, she was used to having men fall in love with her. It was expected. Like a child with too many toys she’d lost interest in all of them. She rejected most men before they’d opened their mouths. Christain, though, had proven to be a hard nut to crack.
Christain’s age, he was twenty years older after all, had scandalized her family, but the sex was very good and felt somewhat naughty. Most importantly, their ambitions were identical. They were both deeply interested in the social and physical environment of humans living in outer space. Christain was Europe’s leading researcher in space medicine and psychology. Forming an alliance with him made sense, the more intimate the better.
Or had been. While discreet, Christain had never made a secret of his interest in all women, from 18 to 80, but when it reached a point where Ashlee couldn’t touch him until she’d seen the results of blood tests he’d taken on his way to bed, she knew it was over.
Typically, now that she was all cozy in her sleepysack, Christain wanted to talk. About work, what else was left? Another sign of age, or was it familiarity?
She answered him the best that she could. He was concerned, he said, about the imminent break-up of the coalition that supported their work. She woke a little at that. “You’ve heard something new?”
Monelly sighed. “I can tell you because it’ll be public knowledge in a few hours.” He paused as if considering what to say.
Ashlee snorted. She knew he had worked out every word well in advance. He always did.
“My government is ending its cooperative agreement with NASA and the United States.”
“What?”
“I’m being recalled.”
“So it’s come to that. When did you find out?”
“A few hours ago.”
“And when were you going to tell me?” she said as cold certainty enfolded her.
“I just did,” he replied calmly. “I had to pack first.”
“What about you and me? You remember, man and wife?”
“I assumed that you would want to stay with your people.”
“My people?” She puzzled. “What people?” She peered at him out her sleepysack. Thin blue light cast his face into shadow as he answered.
“You know it wasn’t working.”
“Our relationship?”
He shook his head with disappointment. “No, my dear, the relationship between our nations.”
“Is it irreconcilable?”
“Well, duh,” he said mockingly, showing his age.
“I’m not one of your bimbos, Christain,” she replied angrily. “What the fuck?”
Monelly looked up at her peering from her cocoon. Even here he was impeccably dressed, graying hair neatly swept back, wearing a robe and slippers. All he lacked was a pipe. Work surrounded him like a blizzard. “Ashlee, I know you’re paying closer attention to the world situation than that.”
“I’ve been busy working on the calcium differentials you’ve been ignoring.” She felt tired, politics bored her. “Let’s see—for sure the Brits with the Americans, bringing most of the old British Empire with them; Israel, Canada, Mexico, a few others; the Russians and . . . I don’t think Japan is ready to break with the US yet. France? Where will they jump? They don’t like the Americans or the Germans. China will carry along a couple of vassal states; Islam, Inc., obviously, will stick together; Europe, east of Alsace, west of Russia . . . Italy? You’re reviving the Axis?” she said, laughing. “You people are insane!”
“More like the Holy Roman Empire,” he answered dryly. “There is much to be said for the Homelands Movement™.”
“You believe that Pride without Prejudice shit? Peaceful Persuasion?”
“Europe for Europeans. There is nothing wrong if it’s done humanely.”
“Like putting a dog to sleep.”
“More like putting the dog out for the night, my dear. What your country does with its Hispanic population.”
She didn’t have an answer for that.
“You can see why our marriage would be a liability. For both of us.”
“Nobody would want that.”
“You could come along,” he offered insincerely. “Join us.”
“I’ve always dreamed of being a tool of German Cultural Alliance propaganda.” She watched him for a moment. He continued reading his PapeR™ serenely. “I was leaving you at the end of our tour anyway.”
“I know,” he sighed. Silence lingered for several moments.
“Do you want a farewell fuck?” Ashlee finally said, poking her head out of the sleepysack.
“Not really,” Christain answered without bothering to look up. “I’ve a busy day tomorrow.”
“Good,” she replied, quickly falling asleep.
.
.
