A Grey Moon Over China (15 page)

Children waved to me through the window, but I just watched them, as I always did. As always I felt unable to wave back, unable to respond at all.

“Mr. Torres, please!” I was taking too long.

Stopping moments later in front of the command complex windows, it was clear why I’d been called. His Excellency Chih-Hsien Chien, emissary
of the Greater Chinese Peoples’ Space Colonization Committee, did not look happy.

Nor did Priscilla Bates, the Air Defense room duty officer. Nor her superior, David Rosler, who was now Air Operations chief. Technicians behind them studied their consoles with conspicuous diligence. Pham was sprawled in a command chair ignoring them, watching the human-vs.-drone soccer game on the situation monitors. She was infantry chief, and shouldn’t really have had any business in Air Defense.

“Ah, Mr. Torres,” said Chih-Hsien. “Thank you for coming so promptly.”

“My pleasure, Excellency.”

“That I very much doubt. However, I do bring excellent news.”

I glanced at Priscilla Bates, then at Rosler, who looked down to wipe his glasses on his shirt tail. Then back at Chih-Hsien’s wizened, hard-to-read face. “I see.”

“Yes. I am honored to announce that the heroic efforts by the People’s Republic of China and her valiant allies to remedy the western nations’ failure to complete the Kerr-mass toroidal projector have succeeded.”

A long pause.

“It’s been tested?”

“Yes, Mr. Torres. This morning. An object was translated through the torus at speed, in the direction of Holzstein’s Star. The predicted Hawking-Rosen effect was observed—the object appeared to possess infinite length, then vanished.”

It was very good news. The tunnel was ready for the drones.

“This is certainly a great success,” I said, “for the Greater Chinese Peoples’ Committee as well as for the People’s Republic. You’ve done the colonization effort a great service.”

“A great service, yes. Disproportionately great, perhaps.”

“I believe,” I said carefully, “that our enterprise has already been disproportionately generous toward Chinese ambitions for the peaceful colonization of space. To the detriment, I might remind you, of the Africans and the Europeans.”

“Pah! The Europeans! They are worthless scum. I do not know why you involve them at all.”

“Oh? What do you know about the Europeans?”

“I know that they are tired of being the second-class citizens that they are, and that they are up to no good. For what other reason do you think the Commonwealth have excused themselves and asked to work with the North Americans instead of the Europeans? They want no part of the Europeans’ vile plans. No, I could put the Europeans’ ships to far better use, I assure you.”

“We are in the best position to judge how the ships will be used.”

“You are in a position to judge nothing! You are young and arrogant, you and your criminal band. You treat the suffering peoples of the world like servants. You claim to decide who will survive and who will not. And the deaths you cause with your exploding batteries are obscene! Do not speak to me of judgment!”

“You know that without harsh protection for the batteries none of us would be here.”

“Perhaps. But you did not need to force us, your loyal allies, to carry more than two million of them all the way to the torus. We could have built a single one at the site, or carried a few large ones with us. You see, you do not trust even us!”

“We couldn’t be sure that others wouldn’t attack the torus, Excellency, and steal the design from such unprotected cells.”

“The torus and the approaches to it are exceedingly well defended. No one may approach.”

There was something final in his tone. Rosler put on his glasses.

So the Chinese were sealing up the Torus. Priscilla Bates shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, then after a minute one of the technicians called out.

“Priscilla! Unauthorized engine-start, north runway. No ID, no IFF!” His monitor showed a picture from an airfield camera trying to follow one of our tail-fans down the runway.

“Track it, Sayid! Infrared and zero in. We need to see who it is—maybe his radio is out. Let’s go, lock on!”

The camera swung uncertainly back and forth past the plane as it approached the opening and rotated for take-off.

Then Pham was reaching across the technician’s console. The picture snapped into focus and tracked. In quick succession she forced over a bank of switches, then pushed away the technician’s hand and reached for the aiming ball. White crosshairs slid in and locked on the plane. The picture itself didn’t zoom in, so the inside of the cockpit still wasn’t visible. But the instant the crosshairs were centered she knocked aside a red switch canopy and jammed her hand onto the button.

The aircraft blossomed into a brilliant orange, then collapsed on the runway and smeared across it. It exploded again in a furious cloud of white flame as the battery struck the ground.

Bates grabbed for a phone. Screens up and down the consoles lit and steadied as technicians went to full alert. Pham snorted and went back to her chair. She weaved a little as she walked, smacking into a console on the way.

The soccer game had stopped. Fire crews raced for the north runway. Pilots reported in as they reached their planes.

Next to me, Chih-Hsien Chien stared at Pham’s back in disgust.

“Vietnamese barbarian,” he said. “And drunk, too.”

Rosler hung up a microphone and gave Pham an appraising look. Priscilla Bates raised an eyebrow in my direction.

“Probably an infiltrator,” I said, knowing it wasn’t what she meant. “Thought we wouldn’t fire during the fair.”

I turned back to Chih-Hsien.

“Forgive the interruption, Excellency. But as you see, we do have reasons for concern.” Uncalled for as it was, Pham’s attack would serve its purpose. “You were saying, I believe, that the approaches to the tunnel are well defended. Surely such measures aren’t necessary.”

“Well, perhaps you are right. Nevertheless, my colleagues worry. You see, there are so many excellent Chinese scholars and scientists who are eminently qualified for this journey but who have not been able to join us, that we fear they may try to secure their places—and the tunnel—by force. This would be a great misfortune, don’t you agree?”

“And do you suppose,” I said, “that there might be a way to appease these very eminent Chinese scholars and scientists, and thus ensure our safe passage?”

“Well, it is possible—since you mention it—that these eminent persons and the expedition alike would benefit were they to be provided their most deserved passage along with the rest of us.” He offered a very small bow.

“So if we were to provide the Greater Chinese Peoples’ Committee with one more ship—at the expense, of course, of the other committees—then we would no longer have this difficulty, in your opinion?”

Chih-Hsien’s face took on a look of pained reluctance to offer bad news. He wrung his hands.

“I am afraid that the Committee might not be sufficiently motivated to make certain the extra seats went to exactly the right eminent persons, Mr. Torres. They are less, ah, reasonable than I am. Five ships.”

“I see. Allow me to ask a question, Excellency. Why have you made this proposal to me, and not to Mr. Polaski?”

“Pah! I cannot deal with this self-appointed emperor of yours, Polaski. You are a much more sensible man.”

More and more often I found myself asking other people what Polaski was doing.

“Very well,” I said. “I will direct that one ship be delivered as you wish and placed at your disposal so that you can sell the seats at whatever price you can get. With certain conditions:

“First, the passage of the drone ships and
all
of the colonists’ ships to the tunnel will be unimpeded.” He nodded carefully.

“Second, the launch of the drone ships in a few days’ time will be protected by the air forces of the PRC—”

“We have nothing to do with the PRC! We have no control—”

“Drop it, Chien. Your ships will be filled with PRC cadres, and it will be very much in their interest to protect the drones from launch to translation.

“Third. Those colony ships are designed to carry one hundred people. Every person you sell a seat to in excess of that means someone will die. If you sell one seat more than those ships can hold, Chien, I will kill you.”

His eyes widened, then he leaned closer as though to see me better.

“I cannot be responsible—”

“Fourth. You’re coming with us.” His mouth opened in disbelief. Then, when he recovered, he drew himself up to his full five feet.

“Three ships.”

“One.”

“Aieee!” He hissed and turned for the door. “Sleep lightly, Mr. Torres.”

“Your escort, Excellency.”

He stiffened and waited for the armed guards.

Pick your enemies carefully, Patel had said. But had I?

B
ang, you’re dead.” Polaski sat behind a desk with a pistol aimed at the door where I stood.

I’d found him on 40-deck of Hull Zero-Zero. He no longer kept a fixed office, but moved from place to place. He wore a plain grey uniform.

Chan had come with me, walking out to the giant colony ship along a clattering catwalk over the dark assembly chamber. Arc welders and annealers in the distance provided the only light, reflecting from the white, pencil-thin ships. Six hundred feet tall but only twenty-six in diameter, they floated in the darkness like threads hanging from the ceiling.

The ships had the proportions of 450-story buildings. Yet instead of resting on their bases at one G like buildings, they were designed to “rest” on their engines under thrust at six Gs. Any flaw and they would vibrate and shatter like glass.

The catwalk ended at a seamless airlock marked “30-W”. A pair of recessed handles spun in opposite directions to open it, one of the few stable movements possible in free-fall.

30-deck was empty except for coils of fiber and tools. There was a panel that curved out to encircle a lift running down through the floor and up
through the ceiling. An emergency ladder ran next to it. 30-deck, half way up the ship, was the ship’s lowest usable level. Below were the big induction coil, the batteries and fuel mass, and the equipment and shuttle bays.

From 30-deck we’d ridden the lift up to 40.

“Put it down, Polaski.”

“Yes, sir.” He set the pistol on the desk, still pointing at the door.

“The Chinese have tested the tunnel,” I said. “The drones go in nine days.”

“I know,” he said. I glanced at Chan.

“I don’t like not knowing how Miller’s programmed them,” I said. “We could shoot all forty thousand of them through the tunnel, and for all I know they can’t even count to three. We’d wait for years for one to come back without knowing if it was the tunnel or the drones that had gone wrong. How much do you know, Polaski?”

He toyed with the gun. “Ask your friend here. She’s the priest.”

“I only program the little ones,” said Chan, “and the fleet. All I’ve seen of the real drones is what she’s let me see. But what I’ve seen is good. Almost scary, it’s so good. But I agree with Eddie. We need to know more.”

Polaski pursed his lips.

“And do something about Pham,” I said. “She’s drunk half the time.”

“You do something.”

It was the inevitable answer.

“What’s the matter?” he said. “You got the hots for her like everybody else?”

Chan walked around the desk. Polaski had once said something to her about her having conceived without first being tested in the centrifuge, and she’d never let him forget it. She leaned down now and said something in his ear, then turned and left. Polaski stroked the gun and watched her go.

P
ham’s not so bad, Eddie.”

Chan and I had stopped on the catwalk, and now stood watching the pale ships off in the dark chamber. “It’s Polaski you should be watching,” she said.

“I watch him. So what about Pham?”

“We talk sometimes. She’s a little like you, you know. Couldn’t stand the way things were, wants to leave no matter what it takes. Hated her father. Lonely.”

“I didn’t hate him.”

“You sound like it, sometimes. You were only ten, Eddie, it’s hard to remember.”

*  *  *

P
atel was visiting Chan when I returned to our quarters on the ship that night. He sat half-buried in a pile of duffel bags on the bed, with Kip asleep next to him. Cards were spread out on the floor.

Patel peered out at me from under bushy eyebrows, then set Kip’s flute down on the bed.

“Did you know, Eduardo,” he said, “that this is an enchanted flute? It should be perfectly easy to play, but only our young friend here can do so.”

C
harlie Peters, our logistics chief, joined Chan and me for breakfast the next morning. He carried a wrapped parcel and a piece of bread.