Under Strange Suns (2 page)

“We’re looking at acquiring obsolete equipment. If we want new, our supplier is going to want to be our ‘partner’ and demand we share the technology. I realize you aren’t quite ready to relinquish control yet. So far the university is backing you, but the pressure from Washington is increasing. Say the word and we can partner with NASA.”

“Not until we have enough momentum to steamroller a bureaucracy. Stick with the obsolete hardware. At least we know it works. Do we have any leads?”

Lincoln consulted his tablet. “We have a line on a mothballed Dragon capsule. Perhaps you would like to inspect it with me, help me with an idea of its condition and value.” When Yuschenkov nodded, Lincoln continued, “I’ve also put out a request for bids for launch vehicles. The Russians and three private, heavy-lift companies have indicated interest. So it’s not all bad news. But–and I hate to harp on this–I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stonewall the government. The rumors are growing that we’re sitting on something very big, hence the pressure. Our patent lawyers are filing applications as piecemeal as possible, but eventually someone is going to put this all together and then...”

“Look, I’m not trying to hide anything. This is very big, yes, and I want to share it. But, and I repeat, not until we’re past the point where a dozen agencies and meddling congressional subcommittees can strangle this baby in the cradle.”

“Be careful what you want to share, Professor. The University fully intends to capitalize on its half of the patent licensing.”

Yuschenkov laughed. “Of course. By the time the patents expire, Thomas Coutts will have an endowment to rival Harvard. But more immediately, nice work tracking down hardware, Lincoln. Keep me informed. And get an extra ticket for Azziz; he’s more current on aerospace than I am. Been brushing up during thesis writing breaks. Slacker.”

* * *

New Mexico’s Spaceport America hadn’t hosted such a crowd in years. Spaceport authorities had opened shuttered warehouses and hangers to accommodate the assembled journalists, politicians, celebrities, and the just plain curious.

A young girl holding her mother’s hand stood in an advantageous location with assorted VIPs. She had an unobstructed view to a gantry supporting a Falcon Heavy rocket, atop which perched a gumdrop-shaped capsule. It was quite some distance away but using her pink binoculars, adorned with her favorite cartoon space pony, she could just make out a bulky-suited figure crossing a catwalk from gantry to capsule.

“Is that Uncle Brennan?” she asked her mother.

“Yes, Brooklynn, that’s my impetuous brother. Can’t leave the test flight to a test pilot.” Brooklynn’s mother, Colleen Vance, emitted a resigned sigh.

“What is ‘impetuous?’” Brooklynn asked.

“It is another word for ‘impulsive.’ It means he sometimes acts before he considers all the consequences.”

“Oh. Hey, look, Mom. There is Azziz.” She pointed with her free hand toward the left end of the VIP gallery where Azziz stood in the company of several men who Brooklynn thought looked a lot like Azziz: bearded, skin a few shades darker than hers, which she knew would have started to redden by now if her mother hadn’t liberally slathered her with sunscreen. She waved, then nudged her mother until she started waving as well, the motion sufficient to draw Azziz’s attention. He waved back, but it seemed hesitant and it seemed to bring disapproval from his friends. She saw some of them gesturing and white teeth gleaming through their beards as they spoke. Azziz dropped his hand.

“Should we go say hello?”

“No, Brooklynn. I think Azziz has a lot on his mind today, and it doesn’t look as if his guests would approve of us visiting.”

A countdown broadcast from loudspeakers mounted throughout the spaceport terminated further conversation. Fire burst from beneath the rocket, curling and breaking like a heavy sea hitting a rocky shore. The rocket seemed to gather itself, then lifted sedately into the sky. Brooklynn felt her mother’s hand squeezing hers almost painfully.

The countdown voice broke out from the loudspeakers again. “And we have liftoff of the
Eureka
for the first test of the Yuschenkov Graviton Faster-than-Light Drive.”

After the rocket disappeared from sight, Brooklynn followed her mother into a VIP lounge where television monitors displayed telemetry and a computer simulation of what was happening aboard the FTL test flight. Brooklynn sipped a cup of a mango and orange juice blend as the capsule separated from the last stage of the rocket. A quiet, uninflected voice provided one side of a conversation and occasional commentary, describing the checklist Uncle Brennan and his co-pilot, a Colonel Memphis Brown Jr., were running through prior to testing the drive. By this point, the calm voice was abbreviating the title of the Yuschenkov Graviton FTL drive as the “Y-Drive.”

Brooklynn was sucking on ice cubes and her mother was on a second glass of chardonnay when the capsule’s attitude adjusters fired, pointing the nose of the
Eureka
at a spot a couple hundred miles east of the moon.

“Roger,
Eureka
,” the quiet voice announced, “you are a go to engage the Y-Drive.” The voice added, “Good luck.”

The telemetry spasmed and the computer simulation froze. The voice said, “Y-Drive engaged, single pulse. Y-Drive bubble intact.
Eureka
beyond the light cone. Reacquiring.” There was a pause, then, as the numbers and charts on the telemetry screens resumed accustomed patterns, “
Eureka
reacquired, reverse thrusters engaged.” The computer simulation showed a curving edge of the moon, and beyond it a flaring, receding dot.

“Where are they going?” Brooklynn asked.

“Nowhere, sweetheart. They are trying to slow down. I don’t really understand it, but Uncle Brennan told me that once the–the Y-Drive was disengaged the
Eureka
would drop to below light speed. But it would have a lot of momentum, it would keep going in a straight line very fast, so they have to put on the brakes.”

“Can’t he just turn around and use the Y-Drive again?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to stop before hitting the Earth. Or maybe it can be done, sort of canceling out the momentum. You’ll have to ask him. Besides, this is the test flight. He’s only supposed to turn on the Y-Drive once.”

“
Eureka
, telemetry indicates an attitude shift. Please check angle of yaw,” the quiet voice spoke. Brooklynn looked at the screens again, noticing the numbers on one of the charts steadily increasing. She watched for several seconds before the voice spoke again. “Negative
Eureka
, you are not cleared to engage the Y-Drive. Ground control is aware that braking maneuvers and the return trip will consume some time, but ground control would like to emphasize that it does not care if you are bored.”

Brooklynn’s mother sighed. “Ground control is wasting his breath,” she said just before the telemetry spasmed again.

* * *

When Brooklynn saw Uncle Brennan trot down the ladder from the
Eureka
, she broke into a run. She heard her mother call her name and begin to sprint after her, but with her mother in high heels, Brooklynn felt comfortable outracing her.

People in uniform, firemen, people in white lab coats, people in business suits with cameras, all joined in the race. She couldn’t keep up and got caught up in the crowd. But then she heard her Uncle’s voice say, “One side, make a hole. Pioneer coming through.” And there he was, dropping to his knees in front of her, arms open to embrace her.

“You did it, Uncle Brennan,” she said into his chest.

“Damn right, I did, little Brooklyn.”

* * *

“Damn it, Azziz, I know Alpha Centauri is the closest. But it hardly makes a difference for the first interstellar test. If something goes wrong, it really doesn’t matter if we’re going five light-years away or fifty. We’re hosed either way. We can’t stop at the nearest service station for repairs. It’s either going to work, or it isn’t.”

Doctor Yuschenkov’s ebullient glow had ebbed over the year that had elapsed since his historic test flight. He wanted to push on, stretch the envelope, move from a walk to a run. But success, instead of opening the path, seemed to have erected barriers. More scientists, more engineers, more organizations accreted to the program and each successive test became less of a stride than a baby step of decreasing length. To Yuschenkov, every advance was frustratingly glacial. Even the impending–at long last–flight to Alpha Centauri, the first manned interstellar voyage, seemed paltry and unimaginative, not the bold leap it should have been.

“But there is a planet, sir. And it’s hardly larger than Earth.” Azziz said. He looked harried, as well he should, nearing the appointed time to submit his doctoral thesis and yet still spending the lion’s share of his working hours on the Y-Drive project.

“Not in the habitable zone, Azziz. It’s a rock. No, they’re all so goddamned cautious. No progress is unattended by risk. And I’m the one taking it. Well, I and the rest of the crew. Sure you don’t want to come along? I can swing it for you. I’ve still got a little pull on this project. We’re talking making history here. You can get another chance to argue your thesis. The first trip to another star, well that’s unique.”

“No, sir. I’ll keep my feet on this planet, thank you.” Azziz patted the grass next to the concrete bench where the two of them were sitting in the quad, eating sandwiches in the creeping afternoon shade cast by the towering brick edifice of the library.

“It is a nice planet, Azziz, I’ll give you that. I do intend on coming back, you know.” It was a nice planet, and Thomas Coutts a nice campus. Across from the two men the gables and chimneys rose and fell along the roofline of the administration building. Students crossed between the classical facade of the music hall to the left and the Victorian plinths fronting the natural history exhibition to the right, while others sat on the lawn in the center; eating, studying, chatting up, sleeping. “The thing is, I want to get off this rock immediately every time I hear ‘we still need to test the cosmic ray warning sensors’ or ‘we need to determine acceptable redundancy of shielding within the redoubt’ or ‘we haven’t determined optimal nutritional requirements to compensate for bone loss.’ Something out there might kill me, but if we wait until we’ve perfected every precaution, I’ll already be dead by the time we launch.”

* * *

Doctor Yuschenkov was, however, very much alive on the bright, clear desert morning in early March when he craned back, looking up the gantry at the capsule that was to deliver him to
Eureka II
, waiting in orbit for him and the rest of the crew.

Brooklynn Vance gazed up at him. Her uncle appeared heroic, framed against the rocket, staring up at the heavens. Her mother was there, as were Azziz and the
Eureka II
crew, but at that moment only Uncle Brennan existed.

He brought his regard earthward, down to her, and she thought she saw the entire universe shining for a moment in his eyes. He squatted to eye-level, which was only a couple of pencil marks on the kitchen wall taller than last time he had gone into space. “Big day, right Brooklynn? Wish I could bring back a present for you, but I don’t think I’m going to find a mall out there.”

“I can come help you look. I wouldn’t take up much room.” Her voice held the same teasing tone his did, but there was an earnest appeal in her widened eyes and lifted brow.

“You’ll be up there soon. We’re going to open the stars for business. You might open the first toy store on another planet. Or a moon; people always forget the satellites. Someday a traveler like
me
might buy a teddy bear from
you
for
his
niece in your shop on the moon of a gas giant 50 light-years from Earth.”

She giggled at his sing-song vision even while he hugged her. Then she watched him hug her mom, shake hands with Azziz, and walk away with the rest of the crew to a building at the base of the gantry.

She watched the launch again from the VIP section, though it wasn’t as full this time; the real action wouldn’t happen until after the capsule dropped off its passengers at the
Eureka II
. But it was still exciting to watch the rocket lift itself skyward on its tail of fire.

She watched television in the hotel the next day, lying on the bed next to her mother and eating pizza from the box. A camera mounted on the capsule that had delivered the
Eureka II
crew was beaming Earthward the image of the first starship as it squirted attitude jets, adjusting itself to point in the direction of Alpha Centauri. The starship looked like a flattened tube of girders with a blockish engine cluster at one end and a slowly spinning ring at the other. A voice was explaining the mission while scrolling text along the bottom of the screen provided essentially the same information.

“Doctor Yuschenkov and the other three crew members of the
Eureka II
–Colonel Brown, Doctor Abrams, and Doctor Chandra–have completed the final checks for initiating humanity’s historic first interstellar voyage. Ground Control reports that attitude corrections are complete and final countdown is underway for initiating the Y-Drive, as Doctor Yuschenkov’s Graviton Drive has come to be called. Plans call for a four-week outward trip to what some have begun calling Planet Best Bet, orbiting Alpha Centauri. The crew will remain in orbit for a month of study, then will return to Earth, arrival scheduled for approximately three months from today.”