Chapter 6
The morning after Chryse Haller’s arrival aboard Procyon’s Promise, Terra called at Chryse’s cabin. She explained that she had been assigned as Chryse’s official guide and invited her to breakfast. Afterwards, she took her guest on a much more extensive tour of the ship than that of the previous evening, including a look into the engine room at the stardrive. About all Chryse got out of the experience was the impression of gigantic, incomprehensible machines jammed into an oversize compartment. It reminded her somewhat of the generator rooms in an orbiting power station.
After the engine room, Terra led Chryse up several decks to the bridge. There she explained the operation of each duty console and how the bridge crewmen monitored the operation of the ship.
“Why so many instruments?” Chryse asked. “I would think that PROM would fly the ship.”
Terra nodded. “She does. All of this is insurance against the possibility of computer failure. We keep in practice just in case we might have to fly ourselves home one day.”
“Sensible attitude,” Chryse said, nodding.
Terra glanced at the chronometer display on the astrogation console. She turned to Chryse, whose attention was directed overhead where the probe hovered close enough to the view dome that it dominated the whole of the ebon sky.
“Father asked me to invite you to a memorial ceremony we’re holding today,” Terra said. “That is, if you want to come. You don’t have to, you know.”
Chryse turned to face her host. “I’m honored to be asked. What sort of memorial ceremony?”
“It’s a Requiem Mass honoring all those who gave their lives that we could return home to Mother Earth. We were scheduled to have it immediately after arrival yesterday, but plans were changed when we spotted your ship next to the probe.”
“I can’t say that I’m sorry,” Chryse said, smiling. “This is more excitement than I’ve had in years. When is the ceremony, and where?”
“Any minute now in the airlock ready room.”
“Lead the way.”
There were a dozen Alphans in dress blues in the compartment where Chryse had been greeted the previous day when the two women arrived. Chryse recognized Captain Braedon, First Officer Martin, and Chaplain Ibanez. There were two officers whom she had met the previous evening, but whose names she could not remember. The others were strangers. Two spacers—Simmons and Mackenzie—were in vacsuits with their helmets cradled under their arms.
A moment after the two women arrived, a chime sounded throughout the ship. The Alphans formed a double line on each side of the inner airlock door, with Chaplain Ibanez at its head. Chryse and Terra stood to one side, as did Captain Braedon.
When everyone was in position, Braedon turned to Ibanez and said, “You may begin, Padre.”
The chaplain began by reading the Prayer for the Dead, followed by another passage from the Book of Pathfinder. When the prayers were finished, the two spacers knelt before him, and reverently accepted a small metal box. Simmons clipped the box to his utility harness. Both rose to their feet and clamped their helmets into place before entering the airlock.
There was a large holoscreen mounted on the bulkhead opposite the airlock. Chryse was sure that it had not been there the day before. As soon as Simmons and Mackenzie disappeared, the screen lit to reveal an exterior view of the ship’s hull. While Chryse watched, the outer airlock door opened and the two spacers stepped out. They slowly jetted across to the probe, their boots grounding expertly on the outer skeleton of the drive sphere.
Chryse turned to Terra and was surprised to find the younger woman’s eyes were glistening with tears. “What’s happening?” she asked in a whisper.
Terra leaned close, and whispered back, “That box contains the ashes of Eric Stassel, Pathfinder’s first commodore. He did not live to see the ship arrive, of course; none of the original crew did. However, when he lay dying, he asked that his ashes be returned to Earth and sprinkled across the wreck of the probe. That’s what they’re doing now.”
Chryse considered asking Terra if Alphans always honored such wishes, regardless of the inconvenience involved. She thought better of it and remained silent. Firstly, such a question would have been impolite under the circumstances; and secondly, she suspected the answer would be “yes.” From what little she had seen of the Alphans, they had some very strong traditions.
The two spacers disappeared into the interior of the probe. They reemerged a few minutes later, and the chaplain said a final prayer to a double row of bowed heads. Then the ceremony was over and Captain Braedon dismissed the ship’s company. As he did so, his eyes sought out Chryse and Terra and he moved quickly to where they were standing.
“Citizen Haller, I would like to see you in my office, please.”
Something in his tone told Chryse that her days as an honored guest might well be over. She did her best to keep her tone even when she replied, “Of course, Captain.”
Braedon glanced at Terra. “Join us, Terra.”
“Yes, father.”
Chryse smiled in spite of herself as she followed Braedon into the corridor. She made a mental bet with herself that Terra had been invited along as a chaperone so as not to compromise her (Chryse’s) reputation.
Once in Braedon’s cabin, Chryse and Terra sat in chairs bolted to the deck in front of the captain’s desk while Braedon took his place behind it. Chryse let her gaze move swiftly around the office, noting a display case full of alien looking artifacts on one bulkhead. Two holocubes graced the desk. In one, a handsome woman held a small baby in her arms and laughed into the camera. In the other, two young boys—one minus his front teeth, the other an acne-faced teenager—flanked Terra in front of a whitewashed stone house.
“Are those Star Traveler artifacts?” she asked, pointing to the display case.
Braedon nodded. “From the estee city outside of First Landing. I unearthed them from what we think was their refuse dump when I was a student.”
“And I presume this is your wife, Captain. May I?” Chryse asked, reaching for the holocube.
“By all means.”
She made a show of examining the photo carefully, and then replaced it on his desk. “You have a beautiful wife. I can see where Terra got her good looks.”
“Thank you for saying so.”
“How is it that she has allowed you to travel so far away from her?”
“We all do what we must, Citizen. My wife knew I was deeply involved in the stardrive project when she married me.”
“Still, it must be a strain being separated from her.”
“Unfortunately, it’s necessary.” The Captain stared wistfully at the holocube for a few seconds longer, then turned his attention to the business at hand. “Citizen Haller.”
“Yes, Captain?
“Who are you?”
Chryse blinked. That was the last question she had expected.
“I’ve already told you. My name is Chryse Haller.”
“Chryse Lawrence Haller?”
“Oh, oh! I presume that I’ve been reported missing.”
Braedon nodded. “PROM intercepted the report an hour ago. I confess that I was surprised to find out that I had kidnapped one of Earth’s most influential citizens. This could have serious implications regarding my mission; therefore, I ask again: Who are you?”
Chryse sighed, leaned back in the chair, took a deep breath, and launched into a condensed recounting of her life. “As I said, my name is Chryse Haller. I am 35 years old, and have been married twice. The first time my family broke it up after three days; the second marriage was a standard five-year contract. If it makes any difference, he elected not to renew.
“It has been reported that I am one of the ten richest individuals in the solar system. That is false. My personal fortune is only about 3.5 million stellars. However, my father is Harrold Haller, and he is one of the ten richest. He’s Chairman of the Board of Haller Associates, the family conglomerate; I am president as long as I don’t do anything to displease him. The family fortune is based on the exploits of one Blackpool Haller, an enterprising individual who got his start gouging singularity prospectors in the asteroid belt back in the claiming rush of the early twenty second century. Our holdings are primarily in heavy industry—shipyards, powerstats, and large construction projects. We also control several research laboratories, a shipping line, and a few hundred lesser enterprises. Anything else you wish to know, Captain?”
“How is it that you just happened to be on the probe when we arrived?”
“As I told you, I was on vacation.”
“It seems something of a coincidence that out of all of Earth’s billions, you were the person to greet us.”
“Nothing coincidental about it,” Chryse replied. “I’m one of the few people who can afford to charter day cruisers for pleasure jaunts.”
Braedon pursed his lips together in concentration. “This would seem to change things.”
“How so?” Chryse asked.
“I had hoped to have time to quiz you about the situation on Earth. As it is, they are bound to launch an immediate search for you.”
“Not all that immediate,” Chryse replied. “Searching space is expensive. Usually they will check all possible destinations where a pilot might have gone before dispatching Space Guard. You’d be surprised how many spacers forget to close their flight plans upon arrival. As for quizzing me, go ahead. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
Terra, who had been listening to the interchange between Chryse and her father, frowned. “You almost sound as though you are unhappy that you’ve been missed.”
“I am,” Chryse replied. “As I mentioned earlier, I’m more excited than I can remember being in a long time. I want to help you people attain your goal.”
“What do you know of our goal?” Braedon asked.
“You said you wanted to mount an expedition to search for the Makers, didn’t you? That’s just the sort of challenge the human race needs right now. Count me in!”
* * *
Space Guard Cruiser Victrix was twelve days out of Phobos Spaceport on the last leg of a three month patrol. Ensign Ricardo Santos was on duty in the communications center and very bored. He looked up at the chronometer on the bulkhead in front of his work console. The red numerals read 04:30:28, exactly five minutes later than the last time he’d looked. He sighed and turned back to his workscreen.
The crescent Earth, its blue-white brilliance achingly beautiful after three months of constant black, was poised in the center of Santos’ screen. To the east of the sunrise line, great swirls of white clouds hid the Indian Ocean. To the west, the lights of Northern Europe reflected against a blanket of new fallen snow. Santos’ gaze was drawn to one particular dim patch of radiance on the Iberian Peninsula. His brain supplied the image of a white walled, red tiled villa on the outskirts of Barcelona. Madre Mia, it would be good to be home again.
The view was from an aft camera slaved to the high gain antenna mounted on the cruiser’s port side. A lighted reticule pattern was centered about where Addis Adaba ought to be. Santos twiddled with the antenna controls, and watched as the focus of the big dish moved a few seconds of arc to the west. He unconsciously chewed the end of his mustache as he made the delicate adjustments, taking his eyes from the big workscreen only long enough to check a smaller screen beside it. The small auxiliary screen continued to display a ripple of white snow, while a soft hissing noise issued from Santos’s headphones.
“Damnacion!”
Technician Senior Grade Laret “Larry” Coxin glanced up from the ebook he was scanning at the duty station next to Santos’s. “Might as well give it up, Mr. Santos. Until the Captain points our exhaust plume somewhere other than directly at Earth, we’re stone deaf to the entertainment bands. Hell, with all that plasma spreading out in front of us, we’re lucky to be able to receive FleetCom.”
Almost as though the technician’s words had provoked a response, Santos’s screen cleared and words began to flow across its face.
“Code,” Coxin grunted, sitting suddenly erect in his chair. “I’d say Commanding Officer Sequence, although it could be the new Officers-and-Chiefs variation, too.”
“Read off the authenticators,” Santos ordered.
“Aye, sir. Authenticators are Arbiter, Pendulum, and Vaccination. Priority code is A7. Sequence is Zeta.”
Santos keyed the information that served to verify the message’s authenticity into the ship’s computer. As quickly as he completed his input, a klaxon tone began sounding in his ears. Santos gulped and turned to his technician.
“Holy shit, Larry, it’s a goddamned fleet alert!”
“Can’t be! It’s been better’n fifteen years since the last big alert, and that turned out to be a mistake by some wet-behind-the-ears ensign aboard Conqueror. Better check again.”
Santos keyed in the information a second time and was rewarded with the same result.
“No doubt.” Santos hesitated for a split second before deciding that duty took precedence over discretion. “Get me the Captain.”
“Are you sure you want to do this, Mr. Santos? You know how irritable the Old Man gets when he’s minus on his shuteye.”
“That was an order, Larry.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“You been drinking, Mister?” Commander William Tarns asked shortly after Santos rousted him out of a warm bed with news that there was a fleet alert brewing.
“Uh, no sir!” Santos stammered. “Computer verified the authenticators. Twice.”
“Okay, I believe you. Squirt it to my cabin and stand by.”
Tarns keyed in his personal identifier as several dozen lines of glowing text superimposed themselves over Santos’s image. Without further human intervention, the scrambled message began to unscramble itself.
FLEET ORDER 1735816Y RELAY 325.1 A7
ROUTING: SGC VICTRIX (CN3612).
AUTHENTICATORS: ARBITER, PENDULUM, VACCINATION
FROM: M. K. Smithson, Admiral, COMNATWES.
TO: Commanding Officer, SGC Victrix.
DATE: 04:30 hours GMT, 18 October 2488.
SUBJECT: OBJECT ENTERING SOLAR SYSTEM FROM INTERSTELLAR SPACE
MESSAGE BEGINS
1.0 At 14:20 hours GMT, 16 October 2488, SIAAO Observatories on Achilles and Aeneas Asteroids reported contact with powerful radiation source at position 0738/+0518. Source believed to be caused by extra-solar spacecraft entering SolSys with velocity substantially in excess of light speed .
2.0 Subsequent telescopic observation places spacecraft at the wreck of the probe, position 72.03/00.00/1.0 Earth Relative .
3.0 Be advised: Rough estimate of propulsive efficiency indicates decelerations on the rough order of 10,000 meters-per-second- squared.
4.0 You are hereby ordered to proceed at maximum acceleration to position noted in 2.0 above and make contact with target spacecraft.
5.0 Under no circumstances will you take any action that could be construed as hostile.
FLEETCOM MESSAGE ENDS.”
“...Velocity substantially in excess of light speed ... decelerations on the rough order of 10,000 meters-per-second-squared ... take no hostile action.”
Tarns blinked and banished all thought of sleep. “Get me the bridge, Santos.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Bridge,” Lieutenant Huyck, Victrix’s second officer answered after a moment’s delay.
“Sound general quarters, Mr. Huyck.”
“General quarters, sir?”
“That’s what I said, Lieutenant.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Tarns turned to his closet and was reaching for his pants when the alarms began to sound. By the time they ceased their clamor, he was nearly dressed. He found himself whistling off-key while he combed his hair. He smiled. After 20 years of uneventful patrols leavened only by boring desk jobs, something had finally happened to make life worth living. On a whim, he punched for an external view on his screen. By chance, he tuned to the same camera Santos had been using to aim the high gain antenna at Earth. Tarns hesitated in the act of tilting his cap at the proper jaunty angle and noted that it was raining in Calcutta, Greater India—Tarns’ hometown.
Ah, rain! He remembered the feel of the drops on his face, the smell in his nostrils, the gentle warmth as it soaked through his favorite cotton shirt.
It looked to be a beautiful day for a hunt.
* * *
Robert Braedon stood before the viewport in the office adjoining his cabin and gazed across a thousand meters of void at the machine that had sent his ancestors to the stars. From this angle, the probe’s wounds did not seem quite so extensive. It was easy to imagine an alien intelligence still very much alive somewhere in the open latticework of the control sphere; an electronic ghost that waited in silence, watching to see whether the strange bipeds of Sol III were going to live up to their end of the bargain. He (Braedon) wondered the same thing.
“Robert.”
Braedon glanced over his shoulder at the speaker grill set in the bulkhead behind him. “Yes, PROM.”
“You seem very quiet. I hope I’m not interrupting your work.”
He smiled, suddenly struck by the incongruity of the computer’s remark. For the entire voyage, PROM had watched him (and every other crewmember) with unceasing vigilance. She was the ultimate voyeur. When she could not see someone, she listened for them with ears sensitive enough to triangulate the position of bare footsteps on thick carpeting. Yet, in spite of the constant surveillance, she worried about invading his privacy.
“You are welcome, PROM. What’s up?”
“I think the Solarians know where we are.”
“Are you sure?”
“I estimate the probability to be eighty percent.”
He slowly relaxed and turned back to the desk he had recently vacated for a few minutes of probe gazing. “Give me the sordid details.”
“I am currently tracking six thousand twelve individual targets that represent major Solarian space installations. Included in this number are three hundred twenty-seven spacecraft under power. These latter are tracked by both the light emissions put out by their fusion generators, and the radio noise of their plasma exhausts. Over the last several hours, two ships have departed Earth orbit and a third en route from Mars to Earth has radically changed its orbital track. All three are now headed this way.”
“Identification?”
“I believe them to be military.”
“Any possibility they are a search party looking for Chryse Haller?”
“Three warships for one daycruiser? Unlikely, Robert.”
“How the devil did they find us?”
“Unknown. No search beams have impinged on my surface. It is possible that they have developed something of which we are unaware. However, they may also have guessed who we are, in which case, they could easily have deduced that we would visit the probe.”
“How long before they arrive?”
“Twenty hours for the first. Thirty-two for the other two.”
Braedon sighed. “Well, it had to happen sometime, I suppose. Where is the contact team?”
“They are just finishing breakfast, with the exception of Scholar Price, who is going over communications intercepts in his cabin.”
“Inform them of everything you’ve told me, and have them join me in the wardroom in fifteen minutes.”
“I am in the process of doing so now, Robert.”
“Anything else we should be doing to prepare for visitors?”
“I would suggest that we not make it too easy for them until you have made your decision. Those vessels undoubtedly carry telescopic cameras and will be able to image us within another few hours.”
Braedon nodded. “Logical. So how do we stop them?”
“I suggest that we move inside the probe’s cone-of-shadow. That won’t hide us from radar, but it will make reflected light photography impossible.”
“Idea accepted. Begin preparations for getting underway.”
Ten minutes later, the dazzling disk of the sun slid behind the probe. As darkness fell outside for the first time since they entered the solar system, Braedon caught sight of a flash of light near the limb of the backlit drive sphere. The flash was followed by another, two more, then dozens—until the probe appeared clad in a halo of swirling, sparkling diamonds.
“PROM, what makes the probe sparkle so?”
“Does it, Robert? I really hadn’t noticed, but then, I do most of my seeing at shorter wavelengths than you humans. Now I see it. Quite pretty. Obviously, numerous tiny particles around the probe are refracting the sun’s rays.”
“Particles?”
“Bits of reinforcing fiber from the composite beams that make up the probe’s structure. A large quantity must have been vaporized during the destruction. They recrystallized in the surrounding vacuum, and underwent gravitational agglutination. Obviously, the loose particles were dislodged when the edge of our drive field brushed against the probe just now.”
“How long before they settle out again?”
“It will take years. Is there something wrong?”
“No. I was just curious about something I didn’t understand.” Braedon shook his head sadly. “It’s jarring sometimes to realize that destruction can also be beautiful.”
“Philosophy, Robert?”
“Merely an observation. Keep me informed. I’ll be in the wardroom with the contact team.”