Dark as Day (16 page)

Jack Beston’s private suite, at which Milly took a swift and quite unauthorized peek, had a sitting-room, a kitchen containing the most advanced equipment that Milly had ever seen, and a large bedroom. The last contained a circular bed almost three meters across. Who was supposed to sleep there? Jack himself was skinny enough to become lost in its downy vastness.

Perhaps sudden, huge, and unexpected wealth would do that to anyone—especially if the ways that you could spend your money were strongly constrained.

The story as told to Milly by Hannah was sad, wonderful, or ludicrous, depending on your point of view.

Philip and Jack Beston had grown up together on Ganymede in moderate circumstances, neither poor enough to suffer hardship nor rich enough to be part of the
jeunesse dorée
who felt that Ganymede and the whole System were theirs to play in and with. Philip and Jack knew that they came from a family that had once been loaded. That, however, was more than a century ago. Now they were just smart, ambitious, and competitive.

And until Philip’s sixteenth birthday that was enough. Three weeks after that day, the boys received a call while they were in school. They were asked to come, at their convenience but without telling anyone—
anyone
, which made it really interesting—to the offices of Branksome and Reid. Philip and Jack had never heard of Branksome or Reid, but the caller assured them they had been legal advisers to the Beston family for many generations.

The original Branksomes and Reids were all long-dead, explained Martha Sappho Reid, a woman in her late seventies. She sat Philip and Jack down in the poky little office on deliberately old-fashioned wing chairs. She gave them green tea in ancient porcelain cups, and began.

“I have rather a strange story to tell you. You have heard, perhaps, of Marcus Tullius Beston?”

Jack looked to his older brother for assistance. Philip said, tentatively, “Like, the great-great-grand-uncle?”

Martha Reid nodded. “Add one great, and you have it right. Marcus Tullius Beston trained the first generation of cetacean managers, and he made a gigantic fortune from the Terran sea-farms. However, he formed no permanent liaisons, and he died
sine prole
.”

She caught the exchange of glances, and added, “That means he died without children. Rather than handing his wealth on to siblings or nephews and nieces, which would commonly be a preferred solution, he followed a quite different path. He set up a trust, the original assets of which were his entire fortune. Furthermore, upon his death the assets of the trust were to be invested and managed, but otherwise remain untouched for a period of three-quarters of a century. At that time, the heirs would inherit. Marcus Tullius Beston, however, was a man whom many would consider a little eccentric.”

She ignored Philip and Jack, who were looking at each other in a way that suggested they thought Marcus Beston was a total loon.

“Beston’s will decreed that the inheritance would be encumbered,” Martha continued. “Which is to say, it would go only to family members who satisfied certain criteria, and it could be spent only in certain ways. Those ways were rather tightly defined. Inherited wealth was not to be spent on pleasure. It was, rather, to be applied only to such enterprises as might significantly affect the future of the human race, and affect it in beneficial ways.

“In due course, Marcus Tullius Beston died. The first result of his death was perhaps entirely predictable. His will was contested by every living family member, all of whom had been in effect disinherited in favor of the far future. The will survived those challenges, and the trust was established. Perhaps you are beginning to guess the rest of the story.”

Jack looked to Philip for guidance. Philip said, “Er, the whole thing got wiped out in the Great War?”

“Indeed, no, though that is an intelligent surmise. The trust continued and its assets grew, through good times and bad, until the present day. And well before the Great War, the trust managers had the foresight to transfer a substantial fraction of the assets into investment in Outer System development. Now, however, we must come to the present day. It has been seventy-five years since Marcus Tullius Beston died. Today is, in fact, the exact anniversary of his death. The rules for the line of descent for his inheritors were complex, but well-defined. You, Philip Beston and Jack Beston, are his sole inheritors. You were bequeathed and will receive, in equal shares, the value of his estate.”

“You mean we’re going to get money?” The explanation had finally reached a point that Philip and Jack could understand.

“Eventually, but not for some years. The elder brother—that is you, Philip—will have to reach age twenty-three. Moreover, the assets may be used by each of you only in the manner originally described; namely, for such enterprises as will significantly and beneficially affect the future of the human race.”

“Do our parents know all this?”

“Not yet. Marcus Tullius Beston envisaged, and wished to avoid, any situation in which individuals might seek ways to leverage in advance a future bequest.”

Jack asked, “Do our parents
have
to know—ever?”

“I see that as inevitable. I do not see it as a problem.”

Jack said, “That’s because you don’t know what our stepmother is like.”

Philip said, “Oh shit. We’re not getting money. We’re getting trouble.”

* * *

“The way I’ve heard it,” Hannah went on, “Philip and Jack’s parents took their own shot at cracking the terms of the will, trying to get their hands on the kids’ money. They didn’t have any more success than the people seventy-five years earlier. They just made it so that Philip and Jack never wanted to speak to their stepmother ever again.

“Then Philip and Jack became old enough to inherit. They had a big problem. All that loot, more than they had ever dreamed of having, but they didn’t know how to get their hands on it. They suggested all sorts of things based on their own interests, but the trustees bounced every one. Martha Reid didn’t seem to see the value to humanity of Philip’s proposed hundred kilometer ice rink on Callisto, or Jack’s System-wide space race.

“Freedom to use the trust fund, but also to do something you’d like: that was the problem, and it was Jack who cracked it. He’d always been interested in the idea that there might be aliens, somewhere out there in space. If you could find some, there was no end to what humans might learn. So why not take the old ideas of listening for signals, and do it
right
? Propose a big, elaborate facility with the best possible equipment and people. And stick it far away from Ganymede, where Old Mother Reid couldn’t keep too close an eye on how you were spending the money.

“It was a great idea, and Martha Reid loved it. She agreed to approve it in a hot minute. Jack set to work, planning an L-5 Argus Station. And he was coming along fine, until he applied for permission to build.

“That’s when he found that there was already an application for a SETI station at Jovian L-5. Philip, without telling his brother, had decided that he would do the same thing, and do it
first
. Jack went nuts when he found out but there wasn’t much he could do—except win the race. They had always been competitive, now they would be super-competitive. He made his own application for a station at L-4, the other stable Lagrange point. He would do an all-sky survey, whereas Philip Beston was going to concentrate on selected target stars, but otherwise they’d be using the same sort of equipment and analysis methods.

“And there was one other thing, something that neither brother had expected. Once they got going, Jack and Philip discovered that they were fascinated by the SETI projects. The longer they worked, the more it became an obsession. They’ve being going head to head for the past twelve years, with neither one slowing down and neither showing an advantage—until now, with the Wu-Beston anomaly. You can imagine how Philip welcomed
that
message from the Ogre.

“Better be prepared when you reach Odin Station, Milly. It’s odds-on that the Bastard will have a reception planned for you. I wouldn’t like to guess what.”

11

ABOARD THE OSL
ACHILLES

Welcome aboard the OSL
Achilles
.” The blond-haired man in the white uniform stared dubiously at Janeed, and then at the two bags. “Is that all you have?”

“I’m afraid it is. Is there anything wrong with that?”

“Well, no. But some of the others …” He gestured to a huge heap of luggage. “Most people try and bring the contents of the family home, including the cat. It’s my job to talk them out of it.”

“I never had a family home, so it was easy.” Janeed examined his silver badge, which offered the cryptic message F. O., MARR P. They were already in Earth-synchronous orbit, and her light-headed feeling was due to more than the micro-gravity environment. Normally she would never have added, to a total stranger, “Is that all you do, handle luggage? And what does your badge mean?”

He seemed more amused than affronted, and looked hard at Janeed for the first time. “No, it’s not all I do. My name is Paul Marr, and I’m second in command. First officer, sort of a spare captain—I suppose it’s in case we lose one.”

“You mean you’re the first mate.”

“If you want to put it in the old-fashioned Earth way, I guess I am.” Janeed and Sebastian were the last to board, so there was no pressure to keep them moving along. Paul Marr glanced at Sebastian, who was staring enraptured out of the port at the full globe of cloudy Earth, far below, and added, “The first mate. You sound like you’ve been to sea yourself.”

“For more than a dozen years.”

“Really? You don’t look old enough.”

“Easily old enough. Thank fresh air and early nights if I look younger than I am. It wasn’t on a real ship, though. I worked in the South Atlantic on a Global Minerals’ mining platform.”

“Even so, it’s a lot more than I’ve ever done. It must be wonderful down there on Earth: the sea breezes, the tides, the storms.”

“Not just those. Don’t forget the pirates, the grog, the lash, the treasure, keel-hauling and hanging from the yard-arm.” Janeed’s strange sense of freedom—of
liberation
—would not go away. It was like waking on a spring holiday morning when she was six, with the whole day and the whole world waiting. Perhaps it was unfair to dump her exhilaration on Paul Marr, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was laughing, and it was with her, not at her.

“Get yourself settled in on Ganymede,” he said, “then you must take another trip on the
Achilles
. We’ll go down to Earth, just the two of us, and you can show me everything.”

Was it a come-on, after less than two minutes in each other’s company? It certainly sounded that way. Janeed decided, to her own amazement, that she wouldn’t mind if it were. Paul Marr was part of the mystery, shaking off the surly bonds of Earth and heading into the unknown.

But Marr was staring at Sebastian, who had suddenly swung away from the port.

“I’m sorry.” The first officer was looking at Sebastian, although he seemed to be talking to Jan. “The gentleman there. I assumed that you two were brother and sister. But the manifest shows different last names.”

“We’re together, but we’re not related.” At Paul Marr’s frown, Jan added, “We grew up together, ever since we were a few years old.”

Paul Marr said, “Good”—which so far as Jan was concerned could mean absolutely anything—and then, to Sebastian, “I’ve been curious to meet you, Mr. Birch. You are the reason that the
Achilles
will be detouring to Mars, instead of taking a straight run to the Jovian system.”

Sebastian said nothing. It was Jan who had to ask, “Why? What’s on Mars that involves Sebastian?”

“Not what. Who. We’ll be picking up a Dr. Valnia Bloom there, who has been recruiting for her science section. She wants to talk to both of you and give Mr. Birch another set of tests on the way out to Jupiter.”

“Why?”

“You’ve got me. But it will offer you the chance to see a bit more of the System. Of course, you won’t have an opportunity to go down to the surface of Mars. We’ll just do an orbital rendezvous.”

“Good.” Sebastian spoke to Paul Marr for the first time. “I’ll see cloud patterns.”

“You’ll certainly be able to do that. Are you interested in the clouds on Mars?”

“Not very.” Sebastian turned back to the observation port, leaving Paul Marr to stare quizzically at Jan. His expression said,
Is he normal
? Jan didn’t want to think too closely about that. She loved Sebastian more than anyone else in the universe, but even she couldn’t deny that he was strange.

“Come on.” She took Sebastian’s arm. He seemed fixated on Earth again. “You’ll have time to look at that later. Now we have to go to our quarters and settle in.” She picked up the bags, handed one to Sebastian, and moved along the entry umbilical that led through to the ship’s interior.

At the hatch an odd feeling in the back of her neck convinced her that she was being stared at. She turned. Paul Marr had not moved. He gave her a nod and a little smile, and said, “Enjoy the
Achilles
. We’re proud of her. I hope I’ll see more of you on the flight out.”

* * *

Marr had sounded sincere enough, but for the next four days Jan did not see him at all. It was not for lack of trying on her part. The
Achilles
was a substantial vessel, a fat ovoid forty meters long and thirty across its round mid-section. The engines that propelled the ship toward Mars at a steady third of a gee were housed in the rear, together with the ship’s instrumentation and control room, all behind a bulkhead that said NO PASSENGERS BEYOND THIS POINT in large red letters. Jan decided that Paul Marr must be hiding there, because he was certainly not in any other part of the ship. While Sebastian stared first at the starscape beyond the observation port—“Boring,” he said, after half an hour—and then drowsed in his bunk or gazed vacantly at the cabin ceiling, Jan explored the whole vessel.

There were seventy-one other passengers, bound for the Jovian system as final destination. Jan and Sebastian were the only ones who would head farther out, after the indoctrination sessions on Ganymede. She spoke with a fair number of fellow travelers, but found little in common with most of them. They had worked indoor office jobs on Earth, and they expected to work indoor office jobs somewhere on Ganymede or possibly Callisto. Jan’s life on the high seas of Earth meant nothing to them, though she did swap sea stories with one former sailor. Her own ignorance of what the future might hold in the Saturn system ruled that out as a subject for conversation.