InterstellarNet: New Order Read online

  He had no decent options, nor even a way to judge the rate at which they were gaining on him. His first clue would be their laser painting his hull. Depending how long they waited to fire, it might also be his last clue. Shivering, he programmed attitude jets to vary his formerly bee-line course with some zigs and zags. That might buy him a few more seconds.

  Then it hit him. Lucky Strike, like its pursuer, was only visible in IR. It was too hot—from its fusion jet, from solar heating—to slip away. The same was not necessarily true of the lifeboat, shirtsleeve cool in its bay.

  How long until a laser blasted him? Frantically, he disconnected the radar nuller and wired it into the tiny lifeboat. He despun Lucky Strike from its temperature-leveling barbeque roll, plunging the lifeboat bay’s hatch into darkness. As the bay’s heated air was pumped into the ship proper, he suited up. He did his preflight checks with the outer hatch agape, as the lifeboat radiated its modest heat into the black shadows. The lifeboat’s environmental systems remained off. At the next evasive zig that gave the lifeboat a slight nudge towards the hatch, Willem released the magnetic couplers.

  The continuing acceleration of the Lucky Strike imparted a spin to the lifeboat as it slid from the bay. It was his well-loved ship’s parting gift to him—a leisurely tumble to slow the sun-heating of the lifeboat. As programmed, the outer hatch slid shut behind him.

  Cool, dark, and stealthed, the lifeboat drifted away.

  Maybe his pursuers had decided death by laser blast was too quick, or maybe they got greedy and chose to capture Lucky Strike intact. He’d never know. Whatever the reason, they observed long enough to identify the recurring pattern of the programmed evasive maneuvers. Then they closed the distance—and docked.

  His only hope was to disappear without a trace, which meant his pursuers had to believe him dead. He had rigged Lucky Strike to explode when attacked. With mixed horror and grim satisfaction, Willem watched his IR view flash white-hot overload as the reactor blew. When the lifeboat’s optical sensors returned online, nothing remained of Lucky Strike and its assailant but a rapidly dispersing cloud of shrapnel.

  Shoppers strolled between storefronts. Kids on maglev boards sped through the loops and corkscrews of an enclosed track. In the mall’s central plaza, a water fountain burbled. Helmut sat on the broad rim of the stone wall that surrounded the fountain, waiting.

  Ten minutes late, Rothman emerged from a city tram. He approached slowly, trembling. His face glistening with sweat. That’s when it hit Helmut: I’m the supposed cold-blooded killer. Rothman picked this very public meeting place because he is afraid of me.

  “I’m actually sorry about this, you know,” Rothman said, tugging at an earlobe. Into a lengthening silence, he added, “You don’t know what kind of pressure I’m under.”

  “Nothing I did, I hope.”

  “No.” Rothman laughed nervously. “Here’s the thing. Someone is exchanging a big pile of interstellar cash. Nothing illegal, just irregular: gray-market stuff. It looked like there was serious money to be made.”

  “Snake money?” Not that it mattered.

  “Nah. Centaur. I don’t know why now.” Rothman glowered at a group of teens ambling in their general direction. They sneered back, but veered away.

  “What does this have to do with me?” Helmut asked.

  “A twenty-percent discount should have meant a tidy profit—but there’s so much sloshing around out there. I can’t unload what I bought without discounting even more. And I can’t wait for the market to return to normal. I … borrowed to make this investment.”

  Embezzlement? Loan shark? Helmut shrugged inwardly. The reason or rationale hardly mattered. “And?”

  “Sorry, Colbert. I need to repay soon, or some people will make things very unpleasant. You understand.” Rothman swallowed, somehow apologetically. “I need a quarter million sols.”

  There was no mention why “Colbert” would offer money, nor of terms. This was blackmail. If he had expected one alias to hide him forever, he would not now be on his third.

  Rothman might be as desperate and semi-decent as he seemed. Maybe he would be satisfied with one payoff, not that Helmut could afford even one, and that would be the end of it. Maybe there was honor among some thieves. Or maybe Rothman would pocket the bribe and then finger him for the far-larger underworld bounty.

  Another tacit part of the transaction was an in-case-of-my-death note. Depending how and with whom that message had been left, someone beside Rothman might already know who “Colbert” really was.

  Helmut had to assume the worst. His best hope for escape was to leverage Rothman’s greed. “I’ll need a couple days to free that up as cash. Can we meet here in forty-eight hours?”

  Telling Corinne was stupid, but Helmut never hesitated. They talked all night in her hotel room. More truthfully, he spoke for hours; she, apart from incisive requests for clarification, only listened. Reliving the horror with someone was cathartic. Despite the ticking of the clock, he kept talking.

  “It was a getaway, but hardly clean. I sold the lifeboat to raise cash. And I needed a new identity—fast. If I’d been the hardened criminal the stories make me out to be, I might have known how to disappear. But I’m not. I don’t know exactly what went wrong.

  “Maybe a serial number on some part of the lifeboat was traced back to Lucky Strike. Or maybe someone—a fence, or the doc who sold me this face, or a chance passerby who knew me by my mannerisms—revealed Willem’s survival.” His escape had cost the lives of everyone aboard the claim-jumpers’ ship, and the destruction of the ship itself. “The bad guys had short tempers and long memories. They put a price on Willem Vanderkellen’s head. I ran, again.”

  Corinne nodded. “And so was born the legend of the Frying Dutchman.”

  “Funny how you didn’t seem especially surprised.”

  “At who you turned out to be? I’m a helluva reporter. Did I neglect to mention that?”

  “How?” The next time I slip up, it could kill me.

  “Besides your general evasiveness when, for days on end, we had no one but each other to talk to? It’s not like you’re a good listener. The final proof was in that ratty old hat of yours. It’s quite the departure for Capt. Clean. I got curious enough to have a DNA match done on a hair.” She stretched and yawned. “Sorry. That was not about you.”

  “Thanks for not saying anything.” Helmut stared at a wall holo, the scene something terrestrial and pastoral he did not recognize. Killing time. Avoiding saying goodbye.

  “There’s more than one legend of the Frying Dutchman,” she said. “Often he’s the good guy. Apparently the families of your old crew get anonymous financial support. There’s no ambiguity about the gangsters who put the bounty on your head.”

  And still he sat.

  “Get out of here. Take Odyssey. Use the shipboard account. Just send me an anonymized message where the ship is when you’re done with it.”

  He just stared at her.

  “It’s been too long for you, but that’s what friends do. Help each other.” Corinne gave him a hard shove toward the door. “Now, go!”

  CHAPTER 27

  Himalia receded slowly in the bridge’s main holo. In a nearby tactical display, a swarm of invisibly small UP warships, their positions revealed by their traffic-control transponders, continued their security patrols around the antimatter factory. At this scale, neither display showed the decelerating lifeboat for which the humans had traded years of their antimatter production.

  As an unusual sound disturbed Mashkith’s concentration, the main holo flipped suddenly into a tiled view of large chambers throughout the ship. He recognized the engine room, mess halls, interior parks, gathering places, and auditoria. Every area teemed with Hunters, crew and families alike, gazing upward into unseen cameras. Puzzled, he turned to the bridge officers.

  The soft rumbling deepened. Lothwer stepped forward, licking his lips in satisfaction. “Accomplishment of mission, Foremost. In readiness
for triumphant departure. Permission for presentation of status?”

  Mashkith could more easily have ascertained the ship’s condition with a mental query to a shipboard AI, but he did not. This extraordinary assembly was a ceremony to be savored, no mere accounting to be expedited. “Report of status?”

  Lothwer gestured to the arc of officers just behind him. One by one they stepped forward, stiffly erect with pride and accomplishment. “Antimatter containment at capacity.” “Hydrogen, deuterium, and tritium all at capacity. Water at capacity.” “Biochemicals, Hunter and herd, at capacity.” “Sulfur, at capacity.” “Metals of all kinds, at capacity.” “Clan health excellent.” “Shipboard ecology, both zones, returning to nominal.” “All onboard auxiliary vessels at full operational readiness. Remaining vessels”—on final approach from charm-offensive visits to Mars and Ceres—“on maintenance schedule for routine engine overhauls.” The good news went on and on.

  “And morale?”

  Lothwer spoke to a camera. “Clan Arblen Ems. Your answer?”

  The omnipresent rumbling swelled into a resounding roar of approval. Lothwer saluted crisply.

  “My thanks to all hands.” Mashkith paused for a deep breath. “To home!”

  “Home!” and “K’vith!” echoed thousands of voices.

  With cheers still ringing in his ears, Mashkith returned to his cabin. For all his pride and certitude, there was also melancholy at the truth he admitted to himself.

  Many would soon die to make real the dream of restored clan greatness, a dream that, although shared by all, they did not fully understand.

  Teak furniture, oil paintings, hand-loomed tapestries, hand-knotted Berber carpet, a bottle of actual Earth unblended scotch—the room exemplified conspicuous consumption. “Penthouse” was perhaps an odd label for the deepest tier of an underground structure, but no term better fit the pretentious décor.

  As Art studied his reflection in a gilded mirror, French doors swung open. Chung swept into the foyer of his suite in Callisto’s finest hotel. “I do hope this is important, Doctor. It is quite late.”

  Why else would I have staked out your rooms? “It is, Ambassador.” Art fumed as Chung concentrated on pouring himself a drink. “Important and time-sensitive.”

  “Then please get to the point.” And belying his own words, “Can I get you something?”

  “I want to go on the flight tomorrow,” Art said.

  “Yes, well, so do many people, and the seating is limited. You were on a vacation joyride recently, weren’t you? Io, I believe.”

  “That’s irrelevant. This is about—”

  “I have chosen, and you are not going.” Art blinked. Chung was never this direct. “Do you know why that lifeboat went straight from the Kuiper Belt to Himalia? Why I must fly to Himalia to accept the ship on the UP’s behalf?”

  “As a token of appreciation they’ve invited some of the scientists and technicians that have worked most closely with them. Himalia is more convenient for most of them.” Final approach of the lifeboat, and everything to do with it, had been all over the news as UP escort ships paced it to its landing.

  “Hardly.” Chung stared at him. “I am going to share something the Foremost told me in confidence. ‘That is the ship whose interstellar drive has been demonstrated. It will go directly to the most secure facility in the Jupiter system. I will not have Dr. Walsh accuse me of bait and switch.’

  “In short, Dr. Walsh, your rude skepticism has offended our guests. I will not further insult our K’vithian friends through your ill-mannered presence. Consider yourself persona non grata. Now if you will excuse me, I have an early flight tomorrow.”

  Gleaming consoles in front of rows of command seats. Soft-spoken crew working their way down their preflight checklist. Radio chatter with space-traffic control. In a way, this was like the bridge of every vessel Eva had ever seen. And in another way….

  Finally, she was on a starship!

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” she whispered to Ambassador Chung. His nod lacked enthusiasm. He obviously cherished the right and the perk to participate in the turnover of the interstellar-capable lifeboat. Just as plainly, being aboard held no intrinsic interest for him. Too bad he was like that—many would have loved his place on the flight. Art, for one. She had missed him today at breakfast, despite the bon voyage dinner he had insisted upon. Art could be sweet.

  “Bit of a cold fish, isn’t he?”

  It took Eva a moment to switch mental gears. He meant Chung. In her mind’s eye, an avatar winked. It belonged to Corinne Elman, the pool reporter seated on Chung’s other side. As the two women netted, more of the group filed in and buckled into their seats. Eva knew most of the guests from other visits to Himalia: antimatter experts and theorists with whom she had worked on hypothetical interstellar drives.

  Eva had half-expected to wind up sitting on the floor, but the lifeboat had chairs and adequate headroom for humans. To Art’s surprise, the Snakes had promised a shirtsleeves environment. All the passengers’ spacesuits were now neatly stowed in cabinets, and they had full view of the controls and crew operations through a crystal-clear partition.

  Truthfully, not much so far had met her expectations. A handful of Snakes, their flight crew, had been on the UP ship from Callisto. The lifeboat itself had arrived at Himalia on autopilot. Chung seemed unsurprised to find its airlock locked when their group arrived, muttering about cynics who made life too complicated.

  The Himalia scientists by electronic consensus nominated her to ask the question topmost in everyone’s mind. Fair enough. She had had more dealings with the Snakes than anyone aboard but Chung, and they could not silently consult a humanist. “Lothwer, everyone is wondering when we will be taking off.” “Soon, Dr. Gutierrez.” Lothwer’s eyes glazed briefly, presumably confirming status. “We need only to finish integration of the traffic-control transponder. Safety first.”

  And for reasons of safety first, all substantive questions were deferred until they reached uncrowded surroundings. Operations were easier to demonstrate than describe, Lothwer told them, and the controls would be demonstrated in free flight. Fine, she had waited this long to get onto a K’vithian vessel; she could wait a little longer.

  At last, all was ready. Lothwer said a few words. Chung said many words. They boosted slowly, a holo display showing them cautiously making their way past layers of UP warships on patrol.

  Surely by now they were far enough out. “Lothwer, I think I speak for my colleagues in suggesting…. “She stopped in confusion as her neural linkup dissolved in a burst of static. Mutters and soft curses all around said the failure was not limited to her implant. A suppressor field? Like what was used in prisons?

  She was still pondering that odd impression when a soft hissing sound from the air vents penetrated her awareness. Next to her, Chung slumped in his seat. For an instant she felt weary and confused.

  Then she felt nothing.

  CHAPTER 28

  “To recap what we now know, an unexplained catastrophe has occurred in the Jovian system, centered on Himalia. This moon is, was, home to the recently disclosed top-secret UP antimatter program. From the incredible magnitude of the destruction—the very world of Himalia has shattered into three large pieces and innumerable shards—experts now theorize that an antimatter explosion was the root cause of the event. Tremendous loss of life among the scientific community on Himalia appears almost certain.”

  Around Art, the bridge crew of Actium was all focused attention and intense whispers. A data fusion from multiple sensors filled the tactical display. Glowing fragments of the shattered moon dominated in IR. Dense clouds of dust and debris continued to stymie radar and lidar. Just outside the blast zone, identified by their traffic-control icons, hung a small armada of Galilean naval vessels and hospital ships awaiting clearance to enter. Smaller holos were dedicated to media 3-V coverage, but distance and thick clouds of dust rendered their telescopic images all but useless.

  �
�Compounding the tragedy, the shock wave, an intense burst of radiation, and shrapnel from the blast have crippled the UP fleet which had been securing the top-secret facility. None of the few ships to have reestablished radio contact remain flight-capable, and all report significant casualties. Ironically, one victim of the disaster was the K’vithian lifeboat bartered to the UP for antimatter. That small boat was on its final approach to Himalia following a demonstration cruise for UP scientists and dignitaries when the moon detonated.”

  Eva had been so excited about her spot on the lifeboat demo, since she’d never gotten onto Victorious. Art remembered thinking how cute she was being. Now cute seemed such a disrespectful last memory. She and so many others were gone, their bodies adrift in an expanding volume of debris, perhaps shredded beyond all recognition. His imagination insisted on strewing the dead across a stony red landscape.

  Carlos Montoya plopped into a chair beside Art. “You look about as shitty as I feel.” Part of that comment was sincere sympathy. More of it was: You’re in charge now, so get a grip.

  Would Chung have seen the irony, Art wondered. The ambassador’s blacklisting had left him the senior member of the delegation. Or maybe Art should credit an ability to piss people off so highly developed it crossed species boundaries. “Sadly, I feel as crappy as you look.”

  A video crawler made clear he was watching Interplanetary News Net, but Art didn’t recognize the voiceover. The famous Corinne Elman was the pool reporter aboard the Snake lifeboat. With the secrets of both antimatter and an interstellar drive to be protected, anything she was going to netcast about this ride was to have been cleared first by UPIA censors. Whatever she knew had died with her.

  Victorious swelled in the main holo. At the time of the accident, it had been moving slowly to the outer reaches of the Jovian system. The starship had not changed course since, and its acceleration remained low. Messages had been exchanged, expressions of condolence and puzzlement, but light-speed delay from major settlements had been making consultation with the K’vithians impractical.