Under Strange Suns (3 page)

Another voice replaced the first, sounding distant. It was counting down. When it reached zero Brooklynn saw the central portion of the engine cluster strobe red. The
Eureka II
disappeared and the blackness where it had been appeared to ripple momentarily, then subside.

* * *

Three months later Brooklynn was again eating pizza with her mother and watching television, this time at home. Reporters in various locations consumed airtime, repeating variations of the same basic message: “We expect them anytime.”

“Don’t get anxious, Brooklynn,” her mother said for the third, or maybe fourth, time. “They aren’t coming on a train. There is no timetable. Today is just the earliest they are expected. Remember, Uncle Brennan is in charge. He might have decided to stay a day or two longer to look around.”

Brooklynn spent the rest of the day flipping through the news channels, waiting. Her mother let her stay up an extra half-hour before putting her to bed.

It took Brooklynn a week before her excitement turned to worry. And it took three months for her mother to sit her down and say, “I’m sorry, baby. I don’t think he’s coming back.”

D
OCTOR MEHMET AZZIZ SAT ERECT IN
his office chair, still trim and lanky despite the gray in his beard. Across the desk from him sat his research assistant, Constantine Pappas. Azziz could not help but see the parallels to a day over twenty years past when he’d sat facing Doctor Yuschenkov and heard for the first time about the Y-Drive. It was the same office, but he wondered if Doctor Yuschenkov would recognize it. The bones were the same, as the University had been without funds for new construction for over a decade, and irregularities in the floor and scuffs on the door demonstrated that maintenance funds had dried up as well.

The windfall from Y-Drive patent licensing had never occurred, Thomas Coutts University having relinquished all intellectual property rights claims after Yuschenkov’s disappearance in a doomed attempt to distance itself from the cloud that had formed about the name Yusechenkov. But despite the fears the failure of the
Eureka II
had engendered, the promise of the Y-Drive remained too great for others not to risk pursuing the technology. In the long run, the University would have been better off weathering the public acrimony and hanging onto the patents.

Electronic facades transformed the office into something that would leave Doctor Yuschenkov awed. Gone was the heavy wooden desk. In its place were assembled glass panels holding staggering computing power. It was desk, filing system, research library, blackboard, workshop, classroom lectern, conference room. The perfect tool for a paperless academia, an academia in which a physical appearance by a lecturer in a real auditorium in front of actual live students was a rarity. Gone was the vanity wall. The walls themselves were floor to ceiling display screens. One meter-square section he’d set to a looping slide-show of the development of the Y-Drive, the
Eureka II
, and images of himself and Doctor Yuschenkov.

He clamped down a sigh, internalized it. He forced himself to focus on his assistant. So young. Haggard, eyes black-rimmed from sleep deprivation. And still eager. So like he’d once been himself.

“But those are museum pieces, Doctor Azziz,” Pappas was saying. “I don’t think I will be able to requisition them.”

“My authorization will clear it, Pappas. And I think only the graviton splitter and the photon impeller array are actually
in
a museum.” He did allow himself a sigh then. “Hard to believe it’s been twenty years.”

“More like twenty-one,” said Pappas.

“And yet, despite all the refinements, improvements, and embellishments, these relics still aren’t obsolete. Doctor Yuschenkov’s basic design remains the platform for every spaceship out there.”

“I was born before the Y-Drive, but not long before, so I have no memories of that time. For me, we’ve always had FTL capabilities. But, yeah, I get it. It’s amazing. I got a message from my grandfather last week. He told me Greece just launched its third pair of ships. Greece hasn’t been fully sovereign for–what, six years?–and even it has a spaceforce.”

“As cheap and ubiquitous as Doctor Yuschenkov predicted,” Azziz said. “It is something. Economies are stagnating, little wars are endemic, yet every minor corporation has trading pairs of spaceships and every Third World country has pairs of research vessels or at minimum a pair of armed spaceships for prestige. We’re colonizing, exploring. Seemingly vibrant.”

“Seemingly vibrant? Doctor Azziz, isn’t that, I don’t know,
actual
vibrancy?”

“Maybe. Maybe I’m just getting old and pessimistic, but it reminds me of an ant hill sending out colonies before the queen dies and the original hill expires. A lingering demise, directionless ants meandering, performing random, meaningless tasks, dying one by one until the hill is nothing but an abandoned shell full of desiccating corpses.”

“Jeez, sir. I think you need to get out. I mean, you are getting out, but, like, on a vacation.”

“Sorry, Pappas. I got carried away again. You are right. DC will be no holiday. I promise, after DC, I will take an extended vacation.” And in truth, he wished he could. He wished this promise represented more than misdirection or appeasement.

“Going to search for Dr. Yushenkov?” Pappas snorted, then looked stricken.

Azziz allowed himself a wry smile. “Join the ranks of crackpots and academics on sabbatical pursuing harebrained theories? Since the U.S. gave up sending search pairs - what, ten years ago? - none of the searchers are remotely serious. Trust me, they all come to me hoping I’ll bless their pet theories. Spiraling patterns centered on Alpha Centauri. Algorithms tied to gamma ray burst detections during the month of the
Eureka II
-launch. Truly bizarre notions of gravity well fluctuations. After the obvious searches were completed, the whole thing became hopeless. How does one search an entire galaxy? No, not for me.”

“No, sir. Of course not. Sorry.”

“It’s all right, Pappas. Now, let’s go over the list again. If the Space Safety Committee wants to rehash the disappearance of the
Eureka II
once more, then I want it to be for the last time.”
And it would be the last time
, Azziz thought with bitter humor
.
“We’ll go through the hardware minutely, so let’s make sure we can re-create the prototype Y-Drive down to the last bolt.”

“Right. What about...?”

“Hang on, Pappas. Before I forget –” Azziz reached down to retrieve a banker’s box at his feet. “I’ve one more task for you. I’d like you to ship this box for me Thursday. The address is already affixed.”

“Thursday? But don’t you want me with you at the Committee review?”

“No, Pappas. Believe me, a grilling before a congressional sub-committee is not a reward. I need you here. Someone needs to start grading papers, and you’re nominated.” Sticking Pappas with the task was the very least Azziz could do for him, and he took some consolation from it.

* * *

The room at the Watergate Hotel was technologically current, if not precisely cutting edge. The wall facing the bed was a full display entertainment unit. The bed itself boasted twelve different adjustments, activated by either voice command or the suite’s portable control pad. Vibration sensitive insulation reconfigured itself automatically to absorb outside noise of whatever frequency. White noise generators awaited activation to thwart eavesdroppers, providing guests with the assurance of conversational privacy.

Nonetheless, Doctor Mehmet Azziz programmed his phone to route through seven different satellites before he placed the call. Upon connection he tapped in a code which initiated encryption security that harnessed his phone to that of the man on the other side of the conversation, simultaneously jumping frequencies every four seconds according to a random sequence. It was as near hermetic as any call could be in these days of code-cracking quantum computers and omni-prevalent surveillance.

“Brother,” said the voice on the telephone. “God be praised, the day is at hand.” What the voice sounded like in reality Azziz could not know, but the voice that met his ear was cultured, well-modulated with a trace of a Southwestern English accent.

“God be praised, Elder Brother,” Azziz answered, his words flat, toneless.

“Do not sound disheartened, Brother. This is a day to rejoice, the culmination of years of patience and planning. You will perform a tremendous task and your reward shall be everlasting.”

“Rewards are of no consequence if the thing done is unworthy.”

“Unworthy? Brother, now is no time for second thoughts, for concern over personal safety.” The voice was reproving, though gentle.

“I do not hesitate out of fear any more than I rush to my reward. I hesitate over consideration of the enormity of my action; I question the morality motivating the action.”

“Brother, let such burdens fall from you. It is not for you to decide upon the righteousness of your act. It has already been deemed holy. Your conscience is clear. Your act is worthy. Do not trouble yourself over motivations. Your act is righteous whether driven by the purity of the cause or the promise of reward. Or the well-being of those you love.”

Azziz inhaled sharply. “They are well?”

“Of course. We keep very careful watch over three particular homes in Ankara. We know when the most distant cousin experiences the least trace of ague, when your eldest sister feels a twinge of arthritis while at her sewing. They are all looked after, around-the-clock. And, God-willing, they will continue to be well. They shall, as we discussed, be even better off following your noble act.”

“Then God’s will be done through me, Elder Brother.”

“And you will never be forgotten. Now, we have been on this call long enough. God be with you, Brother.”

* * *

A chauffeur met Azziz in the hotel lobby and helped him wheel out the collection of cases and boxes to the waiting car, a boxy all-electric model in black. The chauffeur rapped on the side panels and the passenger side window before opening the door for Azziz. “Bulletproof,” he said. “Safe.” He assisted Azziz into the back seat before loading the cases in the trunk.

Most of the cars on the short trip to Capitol Hill were gasoline burners, most at least a decade old. They appeared for the most part lovingly cared for, clean and running well. To Azziz it brought to mind old tales about Havana, the Chevys and Fords of the nineteen-fifties rolling along rutted Cuban roads, engines maintained with craftsmen’s dedication. He spotted a few electric cars, new, gleaming. He assumed they were carrying politicians or lobbyists. Few people could afford the price of electric vehicles. But the government had declared a winner and showed no sign of willingness to second guess itself. So, since electric was the only legal option for new automobiles, despite plentiful supplies of hydrogen provided by the Lunar Colonies, most people retained their old cars, even with gasoline running–according to the sign at the last station he’d seen–$17.39 per gallon. Azziz recalled the public reaction to the sticker shock, anger at the price of the vehicles once subsidies and tax incentives were phased out. The expected reduction in battery costs never materialized. The Chinese limited sales of neodymium to the US, and environmental groups stifled domestic production. Lobbyists had seen to it that the language of the electric vehicle mandate effectively banned lithium ion powered options; some company or other had not been willing to play ball and had been frozen out in retribution.

The Mall drifted by, close yet seeming otherworldly on the far side of the bulletproof glass. He saw few tourists, and the lawn about Washington Monument was free of protesters. Azziz recalled the last time he had been to the Washington Monument. That picnic with Fatima. If only he could relive that afternoon. He had felt something real with Fatima, a chance for marriage, children. But that was a dream. A wife, a son–they would only be more leverage to keep him moving on the path chosen for him.

He saw few cars now, only electrics and a few military vehicles. The environs had been declared pedestrian-only a dozen years prior. Only the pass displayed by the chauffeur at a checkpoint had allowed them passage.

A congressional aide took over from the chauffeur at Capitol Hill, helping Azziz wheel his cargo into the United States Capitol building. They passed several checkpoints, Azziz’s cases garnering scrutiny at each one. He was sure that without the congressional aide flashing a badge and invoking a ranking sub-committee member’s name, he’d have gotten no further than the front door.

The aide briefed him on what to expect and on protocol as they made their way through the corridors to the designated hearing room. The room itself was underwhelming: a box containing lights, tables, cameras, microphones. He knew there were forty members on the subcommittee, but didn’t bother to perform a head count to see if all were in attendance. He listened to the subcommittee chairman stretch a thirty-second introduction into five minutes.

“And so, ladies and gentlemen, I call Doctor Mehmet Azziz to present his conclusions regarding the disappearance of the
Eureka II
and its crew.”

Azziz sat at the witness table, cases piled up beside him. He rattled through his rote introductory remarks, reminding the legislators that he had assisted Doctor Yuschenkov in the development of the Y-Drive and that–in the absence of Doctor Yuschenkov–he was the foremost expert on the original model.