Escape From a Dark Hole
Doug McElwain
2076 A.D., Earth
THE JUDGE banged her gavel. “Jonathon Langston, this court finds you guilty of unauthorized scientific research and sentences you to transport to the planet Haven where you shall remain for the rest of your natural life.”
The judge banged her gavel again, and then added, “Next case.”
Langston stood stunned. He hadn’t been in the courtroom more than five minutes. He looked at his lawyer. “I thought this was supposed to be a preliminary hearing. What about Due Process? My Rights?”
“Tough luck, son,” his lawyer responded. “Don’t worry, I’ll file an appeal,” he said, knowing it would do no good. “I’ve got to see another client. Here’s my bill.”
His lawyer handed him a piece of paper and walked off. The bailiff came toward Langston to put handcuffs on him, while two Bureau of Relocation guards watched, holding their sonic stunners at the ready. They were hoping the prisoner would put up a fight. They liked using their weapons.
Instead, Langston turned to the judge and asked, “What happened to Marie? Where is she?” Then raising his voice, “Where’s Marie Ward?”
The judge banged her gavel, “Order, order. Guards, remove the prisoner from my courtroom. Now!”
The last thing Langston remembered hearing was a sound like frying bacon.
Langston was in a daze for the next few days. At first he thought it was just a side effect from the stunners. But as it continued he began to suspect BuReloc put drugs in the gruel they fed the transportees. It would make sense to pacify them.
Eventually he was put on a shuttle with a group of other men. They were ferried up to the Bifrost, an old BuReloc ship, station keeping at the Earth-Moon L2 point. Zero gee made him feel sick. Langston wished BuReloc put drugs in their food for space sickness. But they didn’t care. Once one person threw up, the smell caused everyone else to do the same. It was a chain reaction. The smell was horrible.
After the shuttle docked with the Bifrost, BuReloc guards herded the transportees through the airlock into the ship. The guards held stunners. Langston didn’t want to get stunned again so he pulled himself along with everyone else. Langston was a big man; tall and heavy set. He found it difficult to float through the ship without bumping into the bulkheads.
“Hey buddy, move it along,” a voice behind him said.
“I’m moving as fast as I can. These damn passageways are too narrow for me and I’ve never been in space before,” Langston replied.
Finally they found themselves in a large compartment crowded from floor to ceiling with bunks. There must have been at least a thousand of them. The floor here was curved. When Langston saw that he gave a sigh of relief. He knew that meant the ship, or at least this part of it, could be rotated to produce the feel of gravity once they got underway. The air smelled like the inside of a boot that had been worn too long.
A trustee began talking. Two guards with stunners were on either side of him. “Everyone pick a bunk. It’ll be yours for the next thirteen months. But it won’t be just your bunk. You’ll be hot bunking with two others.”
Someone shouted, “What’s hot bunking?”
“Three transportees will use each bunk. You’ll use it a third of the time, another transportee will use it a third of the time and a third transportee will use it the remainder of the time.”
Someone else yelled out, “Where are our wives, our children?”
The trustee replied, “Every Bureau of Relocation ship’s captain handles transport as they see fit. Our captain separates the men from the woman and children for the entire trip.”
The same voice yelled, “That’s inhumane. We can’t live like this. I want to speak to the captain.”
There were more grumbles.
The trustee just grinned. Then he said, “If you don’t like your new accommodations you’re welcome to walk home.” At the same time the two guards shifted their stunners slightly toward the crowd.
It took a moment for that to sink in. Then the crowd grew silent.
The trustee continued, “You’ll get two meals a day. If you’re not in the mess line on time you wait for the next meal. The heads are over there,” he said pointing. “Through that hatch. That is all.”
Langston felt a tap on his shoulder. The same voice he heard earlier said, “Hey buddy, let’s get that bunk in the corner.” An arm appeared around his side pointing to a nearby space.
The bunks were four high from floor to ceiling. Langston pulled himself over to the corner bunk and grabbed the lowest one. The man behind him took the bunk above him. Stretched out Jonathon couldn’t fit into the bunk. He had to curl up to fit. The bunk above him was just centimeters from his face. He couldn’t turn over without getting out of his bunk. Eventually everyone seemed to find one. There were bunks that were still unclaimed. Langston didn’t understand what the trustee had been talking about.
The man in the bunk above him looked down and said, “My name is George Watson.”
Langston extended his hand. “Jonathon Langston.”
Watson grabbed his hand and said, “Jonathon, do you play chess?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think we can make a chess set? It would help us pass the time if we could play.”
“I can make one. It should be easy enough.”
Over the next week more and more transportees were brought into the compartment. Some came from Luna Base, some directly from Earth. The bunks eventually filled until all of them had three transportees. Then a deep rumbling sound penetrated the compartment and gravity began to slowly return. Langston knew they were under way. The long journey to Haven had begun.
A week after the first Jump a trustee came into the transportee compartment and said, “Watson. George Watson.”
“What do you want with him?” someone asked.
“I have a job for him,” the trustee replied.
Watson knew hiding wouldn’t help so he spoke up. “Here I am.”
“Come over here.”
He walked over to the hatch at the entrance to the compartment. The trustee was holding a tablet. “It says here you were a tech rep. Is that right?”
“Yeah.”
“What was your specialty?”
“Water recycling equipment.”
He lowered his voice. “Okay, we have a problem. We need your help. You’ll get a couple of good meals out of it if you can fix it. If you fix it fast I’ll even let you take a shower.”
Watson was bored. Here was a chance to get out of the transportee compartment. Still he said, “My buddy over there, Jonathon Langston, is good at fixing things too. I need his help. How about if he comes along?”
The trustee thought for a moment, waved at Langston to come over to him and said, “Langston, you too.”
After spending a few hours with the Fourth Engineer it became clear to Watson that the problem wasn’t the water recyclers. They were working to spec. No, it was that there were too many people on the transport for them. The Grand Senate had decreed that the Bureau of Relocation become more efficient. To do so BuReloc began loading their transports with more people than the water recycling systems could handle.
“Jonathon,” Watson said. “This ship is in real trouble. We’re in real trouble. If we don’t get this fixed a third of the people on this ship could die. They have already tied in the ship’s auxiliary water recycling system and we still don’t have enough capacity. I don’t know what more we can do.”
Watson turned to the Fourth Engineer and said, “You’ve got to tell the captain that we need to put into port somewhere to take on more water.”
The Fourth Engineer just laughed. “You crazy? The captain would never do that. He’d be canned if he didn’t arrive at Haven on time. Okay, if you guys can’t fix this it’s back to the holding pen with you.”
“Wait, wait. I didn’t say we couldn’t fix it, I only told you what I thought was the best alternative. My buddy and I can rig up something.”
“You’d better. You’re the ones who’ll be short the water if you don’t. After all, the Humanity League would have their knickers in a twist if we didn’t make sure the women and children got their water first.”
Watson turned to Langston. “Come on Jonathon; let’s look for alternatives.”
Langston replied, “What’s the bottleneck? What capacity do we need to increase to make enough clean water?”
Watson looked at the schematics. “It looks like there are a couple of bottlenecks. Here,” he pointed. “And here.”
“Okay, the biggest problem seems to be the ultraviolet disinfection system. After that it’s the filtration system.”
“We don’t have the parts to build another ultraviolet disinfection system.”
“No, but maybe we can make do.” Turning to the Fourth Engineer Langston said, “I want to see your fusion engine schematics.”
“What? What for?”
“I want to see if there are any pipes running inside the shielding that we can run the water through. If we can’t sterilize the water with ultraviolet light maybe we can use radiation from the engines.”
“I’ll talk to the Chief Engineer.”
Langston and Watson were feeling pretty good. They were sitting at a table in the crew’s mess finishing their first meal in over a month that wasn’t protocarb paste. And they’d just had a shower. Not a long one but a navy shower. Still quite a luxury since there was no water for the showers in the transportee compartments. They even wore clean coveralls. The captain had been quite pleased with their work. He had even thanked them personally.
“Jonathon that was a brilliant suggestion using the ship’s engines to sterilize the water,” Watson said.
“You’re the one who figured out how to increase the capacity of the filters.”
Watson paused for a minute then said, “Jonathon, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“I’ve heard you mumble a name a few times, when you were concentrating. Who’s Marie?”
Langston’s face fell. A moment later he said, “Marie Ward. She was my colleague.” Then he paused and added, “And I had hoped more. I was sort of sweet on her. She was one of the only women I could talk to.”
“Where is she? Is she with the women and children?”
“I don’t know. We were separated when we were arrested. I haven’t seen or heard from her since.”
Just then the trustee walked over to their table. “Time to go back to your compartment.”
Watson replied, “One more small request.”
“What more do you want?” he replied gruffly.
“Is there a Marie Ward in the women’s compartment?”
Langston’s eyes lit up at the question.
“I guess there’s no harm in checking that for you.” The trustee stopped and raised his tablet. He looked at it for a minute and said, “No, sorry. No one like that is listed here.” Langston’s face became ashen. He realized he’d never see Marie again.
The months dragged on. Word spread among the transportees that Jonathon and George had saved their lives. Like some revered shamans they were now off limits. While others fought, were mugged or even murdered, Jonathon and George were left alone. Every few days someone was killed or committed suicide. When that happened the trustees would come into the compartment and pick a couple of transportees at random to haul the body away to be spaced. They never chose Jonathon and George. And like shamans, transportees began coming to them to fix things. They developed a reputation that they could fix nearly anything. Finally, the Bifrost made its last Jump. They had reached the Byers’ System.
2076 A.D., Luna
The CoDominium’s Luna Base was built to withstand a nuclear attack. Only an asteroid strike could destroy it. Deep beneath the moon’s surface, Vice Admiral Sergei Lermontov met with his visitor; a very important one. Lermontov’s base quarters were spacious and one of the few places the Admiral felt free to talk openly. He had it swept daily by a handpicked team from Fleet Intelligence. His guest was sitting in his office. Around him were mementoes from a score of worlds. On the wall in front of the desk was a large viewscreen; currently turned off.
“So, my friend, you want to set up a secret research facility to study black holes? What happened to you out there?”
Grand Senator Martin Grant sat holding a glass of single malt scotch whiskey from Inveraray. “It’s hard to explain, Sergei.”
“I read Captain Ramsey’s report. I know he found a black hole. We named it Harriman’s Black Hole after the Henry Hudson’s brave captain. It is a shame we don’t have more men like him in the Fleet.” He paused for a moment, shrugged and then added looking at his visitor, “Or in the Senate.”
“I agree, Sergei, but damn it all to hell, we don’t. We have the people we’ve got. And I can’t get you any more funding for this project but I think it’s important. You’ll have to cut funding someplace else.”
“We need a new source of funds, Martin.”
“We’ve spoken of this before, Sergei. I only have one solution.”
“Tanith? The borloi trade? No!”
“Yes, Sergei.”
“Have we really fallen so far, Martin?
Even in the low lunar gravity Senator Grant looked tired and pained. He took a sip of scotch before answering, “I think it is time, my friend.”
“No, I do not agree. Maybe someday but not today. I will find the funds somehow.”
“All right, it’s your decision. Thank you, Sergei. Now, where should we build this research facility? As you said it needs to be secret. We’d be lucky to end up on Fulson’s World if this ever got out. Makes me think it has to be out-system.”
“Sparta. I think Sparta makes the most sense. It is very Earth-like except for the gravity which is stronger than standard. The terraforming packages have been successful. There are many unpopulated islands far away from the main continent. I’ll contact King Alexander. That way we will keep it in the family and keep it hidden.”
“Okay, it’s up to you. By the way, has your intelligence advisor found anything useful?”
“Not much. BuInt has been very thorough as usual. It is serendipity that Professor Stirner found one short report of an old experiment. I will send it along to the research team.”
“Thank you. One last thing. We have a request from our lead scientist, Marie Ward.”
“Yes?”
“She was arrested with a co-conspirator, a scientist by the name of Jonathon Langston. She says he’s brilliant and we need him. I checked; he was sentenced to Haven. To make this research team work we’re going to have to begin exiling more scientists to Sparta. But, we’ll need to do it very carefully. Here’s one who’s not on the books.
Lermontov raised one of his shaggy eyebrows, “I can send a team, my friend. I will call the mission a training exercise. But, Haven is a harsh world. He may not be alive.”
“I know that Sergei but we could use him if he is. If they find him send him directly to Sparta.”
“As you wish, Martin.”
2077 A.D., Haven
Jonathon Langston and George Watson landed on Havenhold Lake next to Splashdown Island. The transportees were taken by boat to the Processing Center for P&A, preparation and assignment.
“Mr. Langston, Mr. Watson, please come in and take a seat. I’m your assignment officer. The captain of the Bifrost speaks very highly of you. In fact he has authorized us to cancel your debts.”
“What debts?” Watson asked.
“Why, surely you didn’t think your trip here was free. All transportees are charged for their food, water, air and transportation. It doesn’t matter,” he said waving his hands back and forth. “As I said, your debts have been canceled.”
“That sounds a lot like slavery,” Watson replied.
“Not at all. Everyone is given the opportunity to pay off their debts. Once they pay them off they are free to do whatever they please,” the official replied smoothly knowing full well it was rare for it to be that easy. He continued moving the conversation along. “In any case, I understand you both have a talent for repairing tech. There are several companies looking for people with your abilities.”
Langston had his guard up so he asked, “What if we don’t want to sign up with a company?”
“There are people who freelance. I suspect with your reputations you wouldn’t have much of a problem making ends meet. But you’d really be better off working for a company. I know that Haven Hydrogen Generation and Servicing is looking for technical people. They’re building a refueling station on the moon Ayesha. I know the new Chief Administrative Officer over there. I can put in a good word for you with her. If you don’t want to go off-world the mining companies are looking for technical people on the northern steppes.” He lowered his voice and said, “But I’ll tell you confidentially that’s a pretty dangerous place right now. I think H2GAS would be your best choice.”
“Can we sign up with them later if we want?” Watson asked.
The assignment officer sighed. He had enough experience to know he wasn’t going to get a spiff for these two; at least right now. Oh well, he thought. Then aloud he said, “Sure, just tell them I recommended you.”
“God it’s cold,” Langston said shivering. “And this is summer.” He was from Minnesota and his ancestors from Norway before that. He wondered why he hadn’t adjusted faster to Haven’s climate. Was it the thinner air? Or maybe it was the difference between the Bifrost’s point-five gravity and Haven’s point-nine gravity? He didn’t know but he was glad he had grown a beard. It helped keep his face warm. Though there was one surprise when it grew out. There were a few streaks of gray in it. He had expected his beard to be the same sandy brown color as his hair.
Langston was in Castell City, the largest city on Haven. Which wasn’t saying much. It was dimday. He and Watson had just had a rare luxury, beer with dinner at a local dive. They were walking back to their room. Langston looked up. The big gas giant Cat’s Eye hung in the sky. It was seven times the size of Luna from Earth. It was beautiful. Even so he said, “I wish it was cloudy. Damn those fourth power laws.”
Langston turned to his companion, “George, did you hear what I just said?”
Watson wasn’t paying attention. He was looking down a side alley. Langston followed his gaze and peered deep into the darkness. It looked like two men were beating someone up. Watson grabbed Langston’s sleeve and began pulling him away. “Let’s get out of here, Jonathon. We don’t want to get involved.”
Langston had been on Haven only a standard month but had seen numerous muggings and a couple of murders. Haven was better than the BuReloc ship but not by much. He didn’t know why but he yelled, “Hey you!”
One of the attackers stopped and looked down the alley at him. “Mind your own business, bub.”
Watson said again, “Come on, Jonathon, let’s go.”
Something snapped in Langston. He pulled his arm away and started into the ally. There was a short section of two-by-four on the ground. Langston picked it up and began to run toward the attackers. He turned his head back and yelled, “George, get help, even a Deacon.” Then he turned his head back down the alley and yelled, “You there, stop it.”
The muggers paused and looked at the giant running toward them, brandishing a two-by-four. One turned to the other and said, “Come on, Pete, let’s get out of here. We’ve got the rube’s money. We don’t need no trouble.”
The mugger started to run down the alley away from Langston, while Pete paused to kick the man one last time. Then he turned and followed his fellow mugger down the alley.
Langston stopped by the mugger’s victim. His chest was heaving; he was gasping for air and feeling dizzy. But he kneeled down and managed to say, “Take it easy friend. You’re okay now. Those two bastards are gone. We’ll get you to a hospital.” The man hadn’t heard him; he had slipped into unconsciousness.
Since the recent uprising most of the Harmonies had been driven out of Castell City. There were, however, a few brave souls who stayed and ran a small clinic. After all, no one could object to that. It was run as an act of atonement and as an act of kindness for those in need. For Jaime Taylor, the need was great. He woke up on a cot. The first thing he noticed was that he hurt all over. He tried moving his arms. His right arm was in a cast. But he was warm. Then he noticed there was someone sitting near him. “Who…who are you?” he asked a bit dazed. “Where am I? What happened?”
“My name is Jonathon…Jonathon Langston. You were mugged. You’re in the New Harmony Church’s clinic. My friend George Watson and I were walking by that ally you were mugged in. We chased away the muggers and brought you here.”
“What…why’d you do that?” he stammered.
“What do you mean?”
“Why did you stop the wallopers?”
“The what?”
“The muggers.”
“Oh, them.” Langston didn’t have a good answer, so he told as much of the truth as he knew. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve just seen too many beatings in the last year and I had to do something about this one.”
“You’re a wombat, Langston. Haven’t been on Haven long have you?” He didn’t wait for an answer but added, “Still, thanks mate.”
Taylor paused for a moment, and then he put his left hand up to his neck feeling for something under his shirt. There was a cord around his neck with a small leather bag at the end of it. He squeezed the bag and then smiled. He relaxed, his breathing became slower and he fell back to sleep.
Langston had been coming to see Taylor for five days before asking his question. “Jaime,” Langston said. “What’s so important about that bag?”
“What bag mate?” he responded.
“The one around your neck.”
“Nothing, nothing at all. Just a good luck charm.”
“Okay, if you don’t want to tell me that’s fine.” Langston changed the subject. “They tell me that you’re well enough to be discharged tomorrow.
What are you going to do then?”
“I don’t know. Those wallopers took all the money I had.”
“If you want you can stay with George and me for a few days until you get back on your feet.”
“Thanks mate. I owe you.”
* * *
After he was discharged from the clinic, Taylor made his way to the boarding house where Langston and Watson rented a room. The room was small and had a little stove at the far end. There were two narrow wooden beds on either side of it.
As Taylor limped into the room Watson threw him a blanket. “Here, this is the best we can do. You can sleep on the floor over there near the stove,” he said pointing.
A few days later Taylor asked, “What do you two blokes do? You disappear every twenty-four hours and come back later with food.”
“We go out and hunt for work. We’re both good at fixing tech. Or at least what little of it they have here. I used to be a Tech Rep until I did something stupid,” Watson said.
“You knock off the company and get caught?” When Watson looked perplexed Taylor clarified, “You know, steal from them.”
“No, nothing like that. No, I went slumming down in New Orleans. I was on my way back to my hotel when I got caught up in a BuReloc sweep. It was in the middle of the night and I was drunk. No one cared that I was a Taxpayer. At least I think I told them I was a Taxpayer. Anyway, they just shipped me off. I met Jonathon on the BuReloc ship,” he said pointing to Langston.
“I like to tinker with things. And, I’m good at it. George and I have that in common. We also watch each other’s back. Turns out you need friends to survive in those ships.”
“How about you Jaime? What’s your crime?”
“I’m a Mineralogist, or was. I used to work for Dover. I started out with them in Oz. Australia to you,” he added. “I specialized in opals. They offered me a chance to come here for a couple of years and go home a rich man. You know about the shimmer stones?”
Langston answered, “Not much. Only that they’re found here and nowhere else.”
“They thought I could help them learn about the stones. Maybe point them to new deposits. I made a lot of progress. That is until my boss’s wife made a move on me. You know how many available Shelias there are here? So, I started to put it to her, like regular. My boss found out and fired me. Now I have no way home. I’m stuck here like I was some common transportee.” Taylor realized what he said and added, “Sorry, mates, no offense.”
“None taken. After all we’re not common transportees either,” Watson said grinning.
“You blokes are fair dinkum,” Taylor said.
“Talk English will you?” Watson replied.
Taylor gave them a broad smile. “You’re the blokes who can’t speak the Queen’s English.” Then he got a serious look on his face and said, “If I show you something will you both promise not to tell anyone?”
“Sure Jaime. But what could you show us that anyone would care about?”
“You blokes have been right good to me. You’ve helped me out. Maybe there’s a way I can pay you back.”
Taylor took the bag from around his neck and opened it. He took out a small hand lens magnifier and handed it to Langston. Then he pushed the bottom of the bag out through the opening and slowly peeled back the seam. There was a small stone nestled there. It looked dull.”
“What is it?” Langston asked.
Taylor took the magnifier from Langston and said, “Here, look through this. Let me turn the stone over first.”
Taylor turned the stone over. It flashed in Langston’s eyes. It was scintillating. Langston had never seen anything so beautiful. He was mesmerized by it.
“That cobbers, is our ticket back to Earth. Not that stone since it’s flawed but ones like it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told you I learned some about shimmer stones. I learned about their structure and where they are likely to form. I learned how to cut them to maximize their brilliance.”
Langston quickly asked, “Their structure, what is it?”
“I doubt you’d understand, mate.”
“Try me.”
“They are a unique quasi-crystal made out of carbon and titanium. They have an aperiodic structure in all directions.” Taylor went on in more and more technical detail for several minutes. Langston sat there absorbing it all.
Finally, after Taylor had finished, Langston said, “It’s an icosahedral structure? That’s amazing. I never imagined there was such beauty in nature. I knew it existed in mathematics but not in something I could hold in my hands.” Then Langston got a faraway look in his eyes and mumbled something that sounded like ‘quantum spin liquids’.
Taylor looked at Watson and said, “Is he yanking my chain mate?”
“No, that’s how he gets sometimes. He was sentenced for unauthorized scientific research. Langston is one smart bloke,” Watson said using one of Taylor’s expressions.
Returning from his contemplation Langston asked, “Have you discovered the equations behind the structure? They shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out.”
“No, never got that far. But that’s not the point. The point is I have a good idea where we can find more of those. And just one good-sized stone will buy our way back to Earth or any other planet we want to go.”
“What are you proposing?” Watson asked.
“Why, we go hunting for those stones of course. We all contribute something and we all split the results equally. I’ll contribute my knowledge of the stones and where to find them. You two need to buy the expedition supplies. What do you say, mates?”
It was Watson who spoke up first. “Where should we look? Has anyone looked on the northern steppes?”
Taylor answered, “Nah, mate. If I’m right there’s nothing there. And they’re too dangerous anyway.” Then he pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and unfolded it. It was a map of the Shangri-La Valley. He showed it to Langston and Watson. “This is where I think we’ll find the beauties,” he said pointing to the southeast end of the valley near the Crater Sea.
Watson said, “It would take a miracle for us to get there. Do you know how far away that is? That’s thirty-five hundred kilometers from here. That’d be like riding a muskylope from New York to Denver. And, we don’t know this planet.”
Taylor continued to pursue it. “Look here. We could take a steamboat up to Purity. Then ride our muskylopes south to the Southern Coniferous Taiga. We’d then turn east and head up toward the Crater Sea. That’d cut our riding in half.”
“That’s still eighteen hundred kilometers.”
Langston added, “We couldn’t carry enough food. We’d need to hunt for it. That means we’d need guides and hunters experienced in the Haven back country. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to bring anyone else in on this. With shimmer stones at stake I wouldn’t trust anyone else unless I knew them real well. Are there any areas closer?”
“There is one other area. But it’s less likely we’ll find stones there,” Taylor said.
Langston responded with a question, “Why’s that Jaime?”
“They might be buried deeper than most.”
Watson asked, “And why do you say that?”
“I’ve studied where shimmer stones are dug up. They seem to cluster around old lava flows. That’s common knowledge among prospectors but I wanted to verify it. It occurred to me to look at some old gravity field survey maps. The survey was done back when the Edward V explored Haven. The data is not widely available but Dover had a copy of it. I don’t think they ever used it though. Maybe because they didn’t know they had it. Anyway, I found it while rummaging through the Edward V’s maintenance records. Never mind why I was doing that. When I put the survey over a map of shimmer stone mining areas I found that there were exposed dikes near all the finds. Now, here’s the corker. From the survey I also found several buried dikes in the Shangri-La Valley. The closest one is three hundred kilometers southwest of here. The dike doesn’t show up on any geological map. So, I don’t think anyone knows it’s there. But if there are stones there how far down they are is any bloke’s guess.”
Watson nodded while looking at the map. “It looks like we can take a steamboat down the Xanadu a couple of hundred kilometers and cut our muskylope travel in half. It might take us less than a week of riding to get there.”
“Ripper, mates, we’re on a good lurk here.”
Watson raised his eyes to the ceiling and groaned. Langston just shook his head slowly back and forth.
“It means we’re on to a good thing,” Taylor explained.
The three friends sat on their muskylopes and watched the steamboat pull up its ramp, back away from shore and head downriver. Taylor turned to his two friends and said, “That’s it, mates. We’re on our own now. Might as well get cracking.”
Each man carried a semi-automatic rifle and trailed another muskylope carrying supplies. They turned away from the river and headed south.
As they headed away from the river the lush foliage gave way to drier, sparser plant life. The area they traveled through was unpopulated. They were soon riding over low rolling hills covered with what looked like dirt and sand. On closer examination it turned out to be Haven cryptobiotic soil; a crusty mat of cyanobacteria, algae, fungus and lichen. Larger plant life remained scarce. Maybe there were heavy metals in the soil. They didn’t know. It was like a desert without the heat.
Here and there they passed tufts of red screw grass with its strange corkscrew blades. Other places they passed clusters of wireweed bushes with their stiff bristles. In the sky they sometimes spotted what looked like dactyls flying high overhead. It was quiet. The only sound they heard was the wind.
Four standard days after leaving the river they came to a stand of ironwood trees in a small depression. Truenight was falling. They made camp close to a stream flowing nearby. First they made sure their muskylopes had water and grazed on the few tufts of screw grass that grew there. Then they set up their tent and made dinner. Finally they wrapped themselves in blankets and turned in. A few hours after they bedded down, the muskylopes began to mew softly. Then the night exploded.
Lieutenant Jaspers and his Marine SAS team had been on Haven a standard week. Upon their arrival they had set up their base of operations just outside Castell City next to the Seventy-seventh Marine Headquarters. For the past week they had been working with local informants and using other technical means to locate Langston. A few hours ago they had identified his position. Now they were preparing to retrieve him. In the meantime they were keeping watch on Langston with a high altitude UAV using its infrared camera.
“Lieutenant, you’d better have a look at this,” Corporal Eddington said.
“What is it Corporal?”
“I pulled back on the camera view. It looks like someone else is heading toward Langston’s camp sir.”
Lieutenant Jaspers looked at the display. He saw a five person group moving in the direction of Langston’s camp. The Lieutenant watched for a few minutes. The group was moving like a military force. Lieutenant Jaspers turned to the drone operator. “Corporal Eddington, give me a close-up of that unknown,” he said pointing to one of the small blobs on the screen.
“Yes, sir.”
Through computer processing the image jumped. “That looks like a Kalashnikov. And they’re wearing night vision goggles.”
What kind of goat rope is this? Aloud Lieutenant Jaspers said, “How close to Langston’s camp are they?”
“About fifteen klicks, sir. Based on the distance and the speed they’re moving, my guess is that they’ll be there within the hour,” the Corporal replied.
“Sergeant Petrov, load up the team and prepare for an emergency interdiction mission. Full gear and ammo load. Wheels up in five.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Sergeant spoke into his shoulder mike and ‘On Full Kits’ immediately sounded through the team’s comm system.
The Lieutenant continued, “We don’t know if these are hostiles but it’s probable.” He pointed at the screen. “Our first priority is to retrieve Langston alive. Our second priority is to protect the other civilians in Langston’s party. The Rules of Engagement are to fire if fired upon.”
Five minutes later the tilt-rotor took off and headed southwest. As they flew Lieutenant Jaspers and Sergeant Petrov looked over a Tri-V terrain map on their tablets and planned their troop deployment.
Lieutenant Jaspers addressed the warrant officer flying the tilt-rotor. “Here’s the LZ.” He tapped an icon and transferred the map coordinates from his tablet to the avionics display.
“Gunny, set up the sniper team here,” he said, pointing to a hillock overlooking Langston’s camp. “Set up a covering fire position here on this second hillock. Position the remainder of the team along this line. Fan out and form a perimeter between the potential hostiles and Langston’s camp.”
They flew in from the east to the LZ a klick south of Langston’s camp and set down. Once on the ground they silently double-timed it around Langston’s camp and deployed as planned. The group following Langston almost immediately came into view.
On a secure comm channel Lieutenant Jaspers said, “Here we go, Gunny.” Then through a megaphone he announced, “This is Lieutenant Jaspers of the CoDominium Marines. Halt and state your intentions.”
The approaching group dived for cover and began firing. The Marines returned fire.
The Marine corpsman attended the wounded and dying from both sides. The Marines had lost three men. The hostiles had been wiped out; they were outgunned but did extraordinarily well considering the larger force they were up against. The hostiles were carrying weapons and kits of standard CoDominium issue. Just before dying one of the hostiles mumbled something about his mother and Lebensraum to the corpsman. He said it with a Sauron accent. This, and how they fought, were indications that the hostiles were Saurons.
Langston was still in shock from the firefight. He was sitting on a cot in a tent holding a cup of Hecate tea. It warmed his hands but not much else. Langston’s left thigh had a bloody field dressing around it. It throbbed even though the medic had given him a shot of some type of anesthetic. Langston knew he’d been lucky. If he hadn’t dived behind that ironwood tree he’d be lying out there with his friends. He remembered the fear and the confusion of the fight. They had awakened to gunfire. They didn’t know who was fighting whom. They didn’t know who the good guys were and who the bad guys were. They only knew that they had to grab their rifles and make for the ironwood trees. Only he made it there alive.
He remembered holding Taylor as he died. Taylor gave Langston his shimmer stone. He remembered Taylor saying, “You’ve been a good cobber. But you can’t save me this time. Here, take this.” Taylor had then pushed the small brown bag into Langston’s hands. Then Taylor slipped away. Langston took the bag and shoved it into his pocket just as the bullets came for him again. This time they hit him. Fortunately, they missed Langston’s femoral artery. A centimeter further to the right and he would have bled out before the Marines were able to get to him.
More shocks. The CoDominium had come looking for him. Him! When they found Langston behind the ironwood tree they had his photo and compared it to his face. Then they took a DNA sample. Now there was a guard posted outside the tent. A shiver ran down his spine. The soldiers seemed polite enough but what did they want from him? Wasn’t exiling him to this hellhole of a planet enough? He didn’t trust the CoDominium and these were some of their most elite troops. He knew he wasn’t going to escape from them.
Finally, the tent flap was pulled back. Lieutenant Jaspers ducked into the tent. “I’m sorry your two companions didn’t make it, Mr. Langston. I’m sure you have a lot of questions. Unfortunately, I can’t give you a lot of answers.”
“Do you know who these guys were? Were they bandits?”
“We think they were Saurons and that they were after you.”
“What would Saurons want with me?”
“I don’t know. They went to considerable trouble to hide who they were. And when it was clear we were going to win they turned their guns on you and your friends.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Why would they do that?” Realizing that the Lieutenant didn’t know, he looked up and asked, “What now?”
“This may help.” Lieutenant Jaspers held up a memory cube. “Mr. Langston, I was ordered to give this to you if I found you.” Answering Langston’s unspoken question the Lieutenant continued, “Yes, we were looking for you. My orders didn’t include why. There’s a player on the table over there,” he said pointing. “I’ll leave you alone to watch it. Maybe you’ll find some answers there.” He handed the cube to Langston, turned and left.
Langston didn’t know what he was expecting but it wasn’t this. He squeezed the small bag Jaime had given him. After a moment he got up and limped over to the small table. He put the memory cube in the player and pushed the start icon. He thought he was beyond surprises but he was wrong. Above the unit a small Tri-V image formed. It was Marie Ward.
Marie Ward looked better than he remembered. She had lost some weight. But wisps of hair still stuck out at funny angles from her head. If there was anyone he wanted to see right now it was her.
It looked like she was standing on a bluff overlooking the ocean. It could have been California. As he watched she began to speak. “Jonathon, if you are viewing this it means you are safe. I’m very thankful for that. I can’t tell you much but I can tell you to go with these people. You can trust them. They will bring you to me. I have very exciting news. I will explain everything when you get here. Please, please go with them.”
FLASH MESSAGE BEGINS
TOP SECRET, EYES ONLY
TO: VICE ADMIRAL SERGEI LERMONTOV, CDSN COMMANDING
FROM: COMMANDER DMITRY ORLOV, CAPTAIN CDSS FRANCIS DRAKE
SUBJECT: HAVEN SITREP
JONATHON LANGSTON RECOVERED. SUBJECT WOUNDED BUT IS RESPONDING TO MEDICAL TREATMENT. IN TRANSIT PER ORDERS. SAURONS MAY BE INVOLVED IN ATTEMPTED ABDUCTION OF LANGSTON. NO SAURON SHIP INSYSTEM. INFERENCES:
1) POSSIBLE SAURON SECRET BASE ON HAVEN. RECOMMEND FLEET INTELLIGENCE INVESTIGATE.
2) POSSIBLE COVERT PROGRAM BY SAURON TO AQUIRE SCIENTISTS. RECOMMEND FLEET INTELLIGENCE INVESTIGATE AND CONFIRM STATUS OF EXILED SCIENTISTS.
FLASH MESSAGE ENDS
The trip from Haven to Sparta took just under four months. Langston made the journey on the frigate Francis Drake. It was a hard trip for him but it was nowhere near as bad as his trip on the Bifrost. For the first couple of weeks Langston lay on a bed in sickbay hooked up to a regeneration stimulator. That wasn’t the hard part. In the sickbay he could read; and think. No, the hard part was that the spin of the Drake’s crew quarters kept increasing; although slowly.
He asked the captain about it one day when they were having dinner in the Wardroom.
“Mr. Langston,” Captain Orlov replied in broken English. “Spartan gravity twenty percent above standard. That means is one third more than Haven. We try acclimate you. Make easier for you later.”
Langston was shocked. They were going to a great deal of trouble for him? He couldn’t imagine why.
2078 A.D., Sparta
The delta wing craft circled the island several times bleeding off her speed before touching down in a bay on the island’s west side. Langston couldn’t tell how big the island was but he knew that the turns the craft needed to make were very wide. As the landing craft came to a stop in the water he felt the full force of Sparta’s gravity take hold. It was no longer masked by the landing craft’s bouncing around. Thank God the Drake prepared me for this.
A door in the side of the craft was cracked open. The ocean air flowed in and mingled with the ship’s musty air. Langston inhaled deeply. It smells clean and salty and there’s a hint of something else I can’t quite place. Something I’ve never smelled before.
He’d had the same experience on Haven. An alien world, even a terraformed one, smelled different than Earth.
Langston saw a small boat coming toward the landing craft. After the boat pulled alongside the lander, he climbed down an accommodation ladder and stepped aboard the boat. Langston’s luggage, what little there was of it, came down after him. Then the boat headed for shore. They passed a larger one coming out to take cargo off. Along the way back to shore he noticed what looked like a pod of dolphins in the water. He pointed them out to the coxswain.
“You have good eyes, sir,” the coxswain said. “They are dolphins. They were seeded on Sparta over fifty years ago, but over near the main continent. I guess they’re explorers like us. I heard from some seasonal fishermen that they showed up here about ten years ago. They feed on the local grunter, a warm water cod-like fish. They must be smart, too, because they stay away from our landing zone.”
As the boat pulled up to the pier, Langston saw two people standing on it. One was a CoDominium naval officer. The other was Marie Ward. She was giving him a broad, face cracking smile. Something you didn’t see often on her.
“Marie,” he yelled. He jumped off the boat and ran to her. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her.
“Jonathon, it’s good to see you too. I need to introduce you to someone. This is my husband, Commander Dave Trevor.”
“Your what?”
“I met Dave on the expedition to the black hole.”
“To the what—? What are you talking about Marie?” Langston looked in shock.
“They haven’t told you anything have they? Okay, but it’s a long story. Let’s sit over there,” she said, pointing to some crates.
She walked over to the crates and sat down. Langston followed her. “Jonathon, after the CoDominium arrested me I was tried and convicted of unauthorized scientific research. The judge sentenced me to transport to Tanith.”
Jonathon winced. He’d heard stories of how hard life was for transportees on Tanith. It wasn’t like Haven but it was just as deadly.
Ward paused to gather her thoughts and then continued, “After my trial, an intelligence advisor to the Navy interviewed me. It was during that meeting he got the idea that my research might help the Navy with a problem they had. So before the Bureau of Relocation ship got underway I was pulled off and sent to the CoDominium’s Navy base on Ceres.
“Spaceships were being lost on the Jump between A-7820 and 82 Eridani, Meiji’s sun. The first ship lost was a civilian cruise liner. On board were Grand Senator Martin Grant’s daughter and grandson. The Navy sent a couple of ships to search for the liner but several of those were lost too. Not every ship disappeared after Jumping. In fact it was a rare event. Even so, the Navy had to call off the search and warn ships away from using that tramline. They couldn’t afford to lose any more ships.”
Ward paused again. “After meeting with me on Ceres the Navy decided to send one more expedition. That is, as long as I went with it. If we found a black hole they thought I might be able to help get them home. So, I agreed. After all, black holes are my expertise and no one had ever found one close enough to visit. I wanted to see it. And I had nothing to lose. Anything was better than being shipped off to Tanith.”
Langston said, “That’s true.”
Ward nodded her head toward Commander Trevor. “As I said I met Dave on the expedition. He was First Lieutenant on the Daniel Webster. That was the ship the Navy sent us on.”
Then she hurriedly changed the subject back to the main narrative. “Anyway, we Jumped and found ourselves near a black hole. We found the other ships that had been lost. All were damaged and only two were spaceworthy.”
At this point Ward’s face brightened and she burst out with, “Oh Jonathon, there were gravity waves! They were strong enough to shake our ship from one AU away.” Then she regained her composure. “That’s not important right now.”
Langston had been listening to Ward recount her story without saying anything. Now he became excited. “Sure it is.” Then in rapid fire he asked, “Gravity waves? What was creating them? That doesn’t make sense unless mass was falling into the hole. Were they scalar or tensor?”
“Tensor. The black hole had a small accretion disk around it. It was made of rocks of all sizes. From asteroids down to dust. Periodically, something would fall into the hole and be destroyed. When that happened, it not only produced gravity waves but Alderson forces too. However we couldn’t use those to make a Jump out. We couldn’t predict their occurrence or their magnitude. They were too random. We ended up sacrificing one of our ships to get home.” Her face took on a sad look and she added, “And one very brave man. Captain Harriman.”
After a few moments the sadness passed and she became excited again. “Jonathon, we received telemetry from that ship all the way in. And we returned with the logs and sensor readings from the other ships. Five years’ worth of observations, Jonathon. Five years! When we got back, Senator Grant was so grateful he decided to set up this research station so we could study black holes. Now you’re up-to-date.”
After Ward finished her account Trevor could see different emotions running across Langston’s face. Excitement, jealousy, anger and finally, hope. Trevor didn’t know which would win out. He only knew it wouldn’t be long before Langston settled on one. So Trevor gambled on the truth. “I’m going to give it to you straight, Mr. Langston; technically you are not free. Your sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on this island of New Alexandria. So while we can’t force you to work in this research station we can keep you here. I know this is hard for you but you will have almost anything you want here.
“I’m told you ran into a security situation on Haven. We don’t want to see that repeated here. So we have our own security. But that is to protect you, not to keep you in. And, as you might have guessed, this facility violates a number of CoDominium laws. This is a Fleet research station. If it is ever discovered the best any of us here could hope for is exile to Fulson’s World; or maybe Haven if we were really lucky. You already know what that’s like. So it needs to be kept secret, for all of our sakes,” he said nodding his head slightly toward Marie.
Trevor continued, “Even though this is a secret facility you will have the intellectual freedom within it you never had on Earth. And you will have colleagues to work with that are of your caliber. You will have equipment for your research. You will not want for food, clothing, shelter or other material needs. The climate is very pleasant if you ignore the gravity. But that’s something you get used to. And most importantly the team has begun to see glimmers of a grand unified field theory. Something that, as I understand, you’ve pursued. The expedition to Harriman’s Black Hole was critical in pointing the team in the right direction. As Marie said, you will have access to all the expedition’s logs and data. Please Mr. Langston, think about it.”
“Jonathon, the team needs you,” Marie added.
“This is a lot for me to take in. I need to think,” he said looking around. “Is it safe for me to walk along the beach?”
“Yes.”
* * *
It was a warm and sunny afternoon. Langston turned and walked away from the pier toward the beach. A beach with sand that was as white and pure as any he had ever seen. No one tried to stop him. This wasn’t Earth but it wasn’t Haven either. Few escaped that cold, dark place. Now, he’d been offered more than he ever imagined possible. With a feeling of melancholy he thought about his friends who had died on Haven. What would they have done if they’d had a chance at a new beginning?
A smile grew across his face. He remembered something Taylor had said and knew the answer. They would have been on a good lurk.
Arriving at Haven’s main spaceport, in Castell City, I was confronted by a big sign reading:
Welcome to Haven
THE PLANET ON THE MOVE!
Had I somehow strayed into a Sinclair Lewis novel? Had not that bumpkin Boosterism which Lewis so deplored been left behind on Earth?
Indeed it had. The sign was to be taken literally. Haven was the planet of nomads. Thanks to the Bureau of Relocation, Haven boasted more nomads than any other human-colonized planet, and quite possibly more than Earth herself. (Reliable census figures for nomadic peoples do not exist on any planet. For Haven we have to extrapolate from BuReloc data on transportees.)
Genus Homo, species sapiens, variety nomad. Or should it be Homo nomad? Biologists define a species by its being “reproductively isolated.” On Earth lions and tigers were inter-fertile, but were considered to be separate species because they never mated with each other in the wild, only in zoos. On Haven the nomads trade with the “townies” or fight with the townies, but never intermarry with them. Hence the nomads are reproductively isolated from town dwellers.
This can be clearly seen in their faces. Haven killed off a large number of new immigrants. The small communities of survivors found their few nubile members were of assorted races and ethnic groups. Racial and ethnic taboos were quickly discarded, and one married whoever was available and reasonably attractive, with no thought of ancestry or skin color. Considering the number of women who died in childbirth in the thin, cold air of Haven, it became a matter of a Havener male marrying whomever was available, period.
Walk down a street in any town on Haven and you will see a rainbow of skin colors, a museum of physiognomies. The Haveners worry about winter and land gators, not about race.
In a nomad encampment one will find quite a different situation. I visited several tribes who spoke Mongol dialects and found no one there who did not have the brown skin, black hair, and slanted eyes which on Earth caused Asians to be called the “Mongolian” race. Mongol tribesmen marry primarily within the tribe, or in some cases outside the tribe but only with other Mongols. Even Turkish or Tungus nomads were taboo as marriage partners. The Mongols remain inter-fertile with townspeople, but their “Mongolian” features are as fixed in their gene pool as are the stripes of the Earthly tiger.
The cultural adaptations made by the nomads after arriving on Haven are sometimes astonishing. Consider the religion and lifestyle we call “shamanism.” It is certainly an ancient practice. There are so many similarities between the shaman of Siberia and the medicine man of pre-Columbian North America that one can only assume shamans existed when “Native Americans” were still native Siberians.
A characteristic feature of Siberian shamans is the ceremony in which they achieve shamanhood. Supposedly the new shaman acquires his powers by making a journey to the spirit world and back, a journey which is re-enacted in the elaborate initiation ceremony he goes through.
Where is this spirit world? That is a secret of the shamans, yet they cheerfully admit, boast even, that it can only be reached via old Earth. So a newly initiated shaman on Haven has to make his mysterious trip to the land of the spirits by traveling first to Earth, then to his destination, then returning via Earth, without benefit of the Alderson drive. I never observed a shaman’s initiation, so I cannot say how the space trip is symbolized, much less how it is supposedly accomplished. But it is easy to spot the wagon that belongs to the tribe’s shaman. It is decorated with pictures of stars and a single spaceship.
One wonders how much this will change when the shamanhood becomes dominated by Haven-born practitioners. Will they retain Earth as the necessary waypoint on the journey to visit the spirits, or will they move the spirit world closer to Haven? Or consider Islam and its attachment to the holy city of Mecca. One would think this would force Islam to be Earth-bound.
There is the pilgrimage to Mecca that every male Muslim is supposed to make once during his life. This requirement is so important that during the 20th Century it transcended the Arab-Israeli conflict. Every year, at pilgrimage season, a fleet of motorbuses would lineup on the Arab side of the border and the Arabs would open the border to allow their fellow Muslims in Israel to board the buses for Mecca.
What is done on Haven about the pilgrimage? It is not possible for the average man-on-the-steppes to afford a round trip to Earth via Alderson tramlines. Allah’s will is plain, say the Muslims. Had Allah intended each tribesman to travel to Mecca, then space flight would be cheap enough to make it practical for pilgrims.
So each Muslim tribe saves money to send a holy man, once a generation, on the round trip to Earth. This is the ideal, of course, since many tribes cannot save up enough capital even in a quarter of a standard Earth century to pay for the ticket. Still, every tribe at least tries to accomplish this ideal.
Take the simpler matter of praying five times a day facing Mecca. On Earth that is easy. A clock will give you the proper times, and a map will show in which direction to face. On Haven, there are no twenty-four hour Earth standard days, and Mecca is a sixth magnitude star in the sky.
What does a good Muslim do? Why, he badgers the CoDominium Consul-General or Governor on the planet until it becomes the duty of the CoDo naval attaché to produce an almanac giving the Haven times corresponding to the hours of prayer on Earth, and the azimuth and altitude of Earth at those times. Every Haven year the Navy sends out copters to deliver this almanac to Muslim tribes scattered far and wide across the planet.
Nomads do not marry townspeople, and would never consider sleeping under a roof, yet they are a part of the Haven civilization. Their nomadism is not due to a permanent dislike of towns, or to an inherited antipathy to urban “bourgeois” values. Nor in the last analysis is it cultural. It is economic.
The nomads choose to occupy an economic, almost an ecological, niche. They live off their flocks. On the empty steppes of Haven, there is not sufficient pasturage to maintain a flock of sheep, camels, goats, yaks, cattle, reindeer, moorse (an import from Churchill), or whatever in one place. Not even the native muskylopes can live by grazing in a fenced-in pasture. It is necessary to move about to find sufficient food and water for the herds. The need to take pregnant women to low-lying areas for childbirth reinforces the urge for constant movement.
The nomads are a part of the overall Haven economy. For every sheep they butcher and eat, they sell at least two at some urban market. They save up the money they make from the townies to pay for spaceship tickets to Mecca. They are dependent on prayer almanacs printed in Castell City.
They are not isolated from the rest of Haven. They merely have mobile addresses.
* * *
On old Earth, I saw a classic exhibit of nomads interacting with the urban dwellers around them. A few Bedouins are still allowed to roam the Judean hills around the city of Jerusalem. On the Mount of Olives, barely a kilometer from the edge of urban Jerusalem, I saw a Bedouin encampment with a television antenna sticking out of the headman’s tent. My tour guide laughed and said, “While the headman is busy with one wife, the other three watch television.”
I didn’t laugh; I made notes. What I saw was a typical group of Haven-style nomads. Their source of wealth was their flocks of goats, which could not survive camped in a single spot in the barren Judean hills. These Bedouins lived by the age-old rhythms of goat herding in the Wilderness, but they also took their pick of the culture and technology around them.
From Georg Bekroff, The Peoples of Haven, Vol. IV: Nomads of the Steppes, Castell City: The New Harmony Ethnographic Society, 2074