Under Strange Suns (8 page)

Aidan held still. Waiting was an art he’d long since perfected. She was getting to something; he’d let her get there in her own time.

“Someone else was in the stands watching as well. Someone I knew. Not, apparently, very well, but someone I knew. My uncle’s graduate assistant, his right-hand man. Mehmet Azziz.”

Now Aidan grunted. Yes, it was hard to hold on to hate for so long, but some names would evoke a visceral response in the most placid of men.

“I know. I struggle with it every day. I was acquainted with the man for years. How could I not know? The thing is, the day after DC, I received a package. A large box. Doctor Azziz’s assistant had sent it, but the return label read M. Azziz. Inside was a note from the monster himself. All it said was, ‘I am sorry’ and his signature.”

“‘Sorry?’ Well, that settles the score, doesn’t it? Alert the media, we can stop fighting. Azziz said he was sorry.”

“Pretty much my response also, Carson. Ease off the trigger, soldier, I’m not trying to excuse the man. The note wasn’t the important item in the box.”

“No? You get a ‘my condolences’ card from bin Laden?”

Brooklynn cocked her hip and rested her hand on it. She tilted her head and offered a smile that damped down Aidan’s flare of anger. He decided he would like to see that smile again. She said, “What I got, smart ass, was a collection of Doctor Yuschenkov’s papers. What I discovered was his obsession with Upsilon Andromeda, a binary system about 44 light-years away. He maintained we were too focused on stellar satellites, failing to consider planetary satellites. He was convinced that Upsilon Andromeda d was an ideal candidate to possess a habitable moon.”

“Okay. That is interesting. I’m sure one of Yuschenkov’s biographers would find it fascinating. But...”

“But everyone underestimates the sheer impulsiveness of my uncle Brennan. The man was downright impetuous. The
Eureka II’s
destination was Alpha Centauri. No subsequent voyages found any trace of the
Eureka II
. But I’m convinced they made it. However, instead of coming right back as planned, I’m wagering–in a very real sense–that Uncle Brennan played his hunch, plotted a new course for Upsilon Andromeda. And that is where I’ll find the
Eureka II
.”

“So the geological survey mission is just a front?”

“Pretty much. I fully intend to perform surveys after exploring the Upsilon Andromeda system, but that is secondary. After I got the box I spent about a week in my house, thinking. Then I mortgaged everything to the hilt, sold every asset I could, cashed in every security. Scrounged, borrowed. I even got some backers, and I don’t intend to stiff them. I’ll do my best to see they get a return on their investment. Given how little they invested, it isn’t going to require the mother lode.”

“Okay, I think I understand why you need someone to lead a search party dirt-side.” Aidan was quiet for a moment, staring at the rusting gantry. “So you’re heading into unknown interstellar space on the cheap?”

“More or less.”

“On a wild goose chase? A lost cause?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say lost. We haven’t even started.”

“High probability of failure, then. Pretty good chance of never setting foot on Earth again, of dying in the void.”

“Let’s not get melodramatic. The
Yuschenkov
isn’t precisely a rust bucket. Maybe the equivalent of what they used to call a tramp steamer, but she’s space-worthy.”

“Fine, Captain. If you want me, I’m in. Ready to join the party, sign on the dotted line. Ready to launch today.”

“I think, Carson, you’re going to fit right in. Consider yourself hired.”

Aidan smiled. The prospect of setting off into the unknown, away from the despair and chaos, pleased him. The possibility of dying out there didn’t greatly trouble him. He’d lived with the specter of death on his shoulder almost constantly over the last two years. He’d come to terms with the fact that his life span had an established termination date. It would happen when it happened. What buoyed him was the thought that it might happen out there, seeing something new.

“Terrific, Captain. I’m ready to get to work immediately, go over the crew list and inventory the cargo manifest.” He was already considering his duties, assessing what gear he might need, wondering about living quarters. “Will I be assigned to the
Yuschenkov A
or
B
?”

“Excuse me?”

“Which of the pair will I be traveling in? With you, or in the other half of the pair?”

“What pair? The
Yuschenkov
is flying solo.”

* * *

Aidan Carson hadn’t blinked when she dropped her standard interview bombshell on him. Merely raised an eyebrow. Brooklynn liked that. She liked the poise and control he exhibited, even that hint of humor beneath. And he wasn’t bad looking either. Though she hadn’t had time for that sort of thinking over the last couple of years, and it probably wasn’t time to indulge in it now.

She glanced about her cramped office, realizing this was one of the last times she’d ever see it. She felt no remorse or nostalgia on that account. The next step in her plans impended, after two years of hustling, calling in favors, tracking down friends of friends and the contacts of friends of friends. It hadn’t been easy. Commerce limped along in the aftermath of DC, even as the economy continued to shrink in the chaos of war and political uncertainty and large scale off-planet emigration. Still, investors and entrepreneurs remained. People unwilling to leave Earth: the optimists; speculators in conflict; eccentrics; the blinkered; the set-in-their-ways. Most had turned her down flat, the disappointing culmination of weeks or months of intermittent communication and uncertain or even hazardous travel through the disintegrating international aviation system. But a few she’d convinced to back her long-shot venture, pointing to some spectacular payoffs from other prospecting expeditions.

In funds, she had turned to buying a ship and hiring a crew, the former proving a simpler matter than the latter. There was no shortage of out-of-work spacers, but most of them preferred the certainty of a two-way trip. As soon as Brooklynn told the candidates they’d be flying without a pair, nine out of ten said “thank you very much” and walked out of the office. And she didn’t blame them. What she proposed was a long-shot. One from which none of them might return.

Brooklynn looked at the photograph of the
Eureka II
. Would she ever see it again?

“I’m coming, Uncle Brennan. I hope.”

A
IDAN WAS BACK AT THE SPACEPORT
a week later, this time tightly belted into a g-force reduction couch in the passenger compartment of a Wyvern space capsule. Captain Brooklynn Vance was strapped into the couch next to him. The other four couches were all occupied but Aidan didn’t know the occupants, just other passengers ready for departure to Cayman Station. His gear, what little he was bringing, was stowed in the cargo compartment. It was cheaper to launch cargo into orbit from the rail-gun systems so the capsule possessed only minimal storage capacity. Besides, Captain Vance told him most of what he would need could be purchased cheaply aboard Cayman Station.

He wasn’t terribly nervous. He’d been up several times over the last couple of years. But the thought of that enormous bomb strapped to his butt was always a little disconcerting. The single-stage, metallic-hydrogen fueled Iapetus rocket was a reliable heavy-lift launcher; a work horse, efficient, strong, re-usable. Still, it was a rocket after all. Even a placid work horse could decide to kick up its heels or just die in its traces, with no premonitory hint of ill-health.

And if it did blow up, turning itself into a blossom of fire, would that be such a bad way to go? Sudden, painless. On the way to the start of something new, something not yet tainted by a growing sense of pointlessness. There was a certain purity inherent in the possibility; an explosive injection straight into Valhalla.
Cough, cough. Here I am, guys. Hey, Summers, where’s the mead?

The display on the bulkhead above counted down to zero. The rumbling beneath rose to a sustained, thundering crescendo. Then he was rammed into the couch as the g-forces heaped all the free weights from a gymnasium on him and tossed on a couple of resistance training machines for good measure. He was thankful for both the couch and the snug compression suit.

The rocket separated from the capsule in low orbit, dropping back Earthward, directing itself to the closest retrieval location. The capsule emitted a thruster burst, pushing it into higher orbit where it would intersect the orbital path of Cayman Station.

Aidan savored the weightlessness. It felt like the first steps in his own shoes after a long day on the slopes in ski boots. He remembered the first time he’d gone into orbit, all those other grunts stuffed into a tin can, cracking wise and pretending not to be sphincter-lock scared. The launch had been a thrill ride, and he’d actually enjoyed it, experiencing the rush that extreme sports practitioners claimed to feel, and he figured most of the other soldiers got a kick out of it also. Zero-g, however, left several of them looking chartreuse and breaking out the vomitus collection devices, or puke-sacks as the instructors had termed the VCDs. Aidan hadn’t experienced nausea that time, nor during any subsequent jaunts off-world. And he was loving it now, getting a view of the sweeping curve of earth through a port window as the capsule made an attitude correction.

“Looks peaceful from up here,” said Captain Vance.

“I’ll try to remember it that way,” Aidan said. He gazed out the port for some time, watching the continents roll by.

Vance adjusting the bulkhead display drew his attention. She’d called up the view from the command compartment, and was craning forward to watch, the video showing a donut on a spike inching steadily slower.

“Pilots,” Aidan said. “Don’t be a back seat driver, Captain.”

“What can I say? Can’t leave it at the office. Wonder which docking port we’re assigned? Look, see that spar?”

“That one? Looks like one of the sprinkles fell off the top of the donut, got stuck to the side?”

“Right. That sprinkle is the shuttle departure arm. You can’t see it from this distance, but there are probably five to ten shuttles berthed there right now. One of them will be taking us to lunar orbit tomorrow, delivering us to the
Yuschenkov
.”

Aidan watched the growing habitation. He could make out the spin of the station. The sprinkles on the donut resolved into antennae, docking ports, the shuttle launching pier, viewing cupolas, and any number of miscellaneous appurtenances projecting from the vast metal toroid. The long axle thrust through the center sported solar panels, power relays, a bewildering system of motors, the entire length festooned with blinking lights like an enormous, girdered Christmas tree.

A docking port seemed to swell before them, expanding to occupy the entire screen. Captain Vance muttered grudging acceptance of the pilot’s competence as the capsule socketed into the port with only the gentlest vibration. Locked into the station’s centripetal force, they were shoved back into the launch couches. “Welcome to Cayman Station,” she said, “gateway to the stars, castle in the sky for those plutocrats too nervous to stay on Earth and too timid to put down roots on another planet.”

Aidan collected his duffel bag and gave a nod of thanks to the pilot as he climbed the interior shaft of the docking port to the airlock. Captain Vance preceded him and the other passengers up the rungs, activating the pressure door. The airlock computer read the equalized atmospheric pressure on both sides of the compartment and cycled them through to the station without delay. The door above them slid open to a welcoming chime and a female voice greeted them: “Welcome to Cayman Station.”

They climbed out of the airlock into an antechamber with another airtight door. Captain Vance stabbed the “open” button with her gloved hand and the door slid open to reveal the arrival concourse, a compact, beige-walled chamber lined with storage lockers, its level floor and ceiling not betraying any of the curvature of the station. A half-dozen attendants awaited them, assisting the newly-arrived passengers in removing helmets, gloves, and pressure suits.

At the far end of the concourse a woman in a black blazer and tie, hair snugged back in a tight bun, sat behind a desk. Two men wearing black combat fatigues, mirrored helmets, and armed with submachine guns flanked a door set in the wall behind her.

The woman kept her eyes on a display on her desk as the passengers approached.

“You can’t see the scanners if you don’t know what to look for,” Vance said. “But as we walk, we’re being sniffed and patted down. If you’ve got an appendix scar she’s looking at it right now.”

Vance paid the Cayman Station entry fee for both of them and they passed between the two sentries into the bustle of the station proper.

Aidan was impressed. The military satellites he was accustomed to were closets compared to the expanse of the station sweeping up before and behind to high horizon lines, walls curling up on either side to enclose him within the vast tube of the wheel. He found himself in a bustling street lined with compact buildings. Alleyways led to smaller parallel streets whose buildings seemed to jut out from the curving station walls, the elevation perhaps providing vistas for homes or upscale restaurants. The ceiling, hubward, was a brightly lit pale blue across which drifted the occasional wisp of simulated clouds. The purposeful strides of passersby reminded him of the New Mexico spaceport. But there was an additional note: whereas the New Mexico spaceport was fundamentally a workplace, this place was also a home. Many of the buildings were shops, offering clothing, home furnishings, food and drink. The restaurants did not appear to possess the perfunctory airline terminal quality of those he’d seen at the spaceport. Instead they hinted at the comfortable ambiance of neighborhood eateries. He didn’t see the furtiveness, the worried expressions he was accustomed to Earthside. These folks were concerned with business, the day’s work, re-decorating, not with whether the local government was going to collapse, or if the Chinese were able to suppress uprisings in the western provinces long enough to launch an invasion of Taiwan as they periodically threatened. Or any of a dozen other likely calamities.