Runaway
Lots of kids run away from home. If home is an asteroid, that's tougher.
(This is a long story. You may want to open it in a new tab.)
Alan clamped the new bottle of fertilizer onto the veggie rack and looked around the Old Chamber. His father was repeating instructions for inspecting the walls of their asteroid homestead to Kara.
He turned back to the garden and checked the pumping of the new bottle. The liquid flowed evenly to each plant’s little compartment. Another glance showed Dad and Kara had split up and were checking for flaws on the vacuum side of the chamber. Alan’s sister concentrated on the join between the metal and the asteroid’s rock, but Dad was directly across the sphere from Alan.
The young man checked to make sure none of the other children were toward their father. All clear—he kicked off the wall. Raised in free-fall, he could turn exactly to put his feet toward the wall at the end of the nine-meter jump.
He caught the hand-hold next to his father and absorbed the momentum of his jump effortlessly, only his toes touching the wall. “Dad, could we inspect the spare ‘ponics tanks?” he asked quietly.
The patriarch clipped the hand scanner to his belt and grabbed an ankle in each hand, stretching into a zero-gee isometric. “Hydroponics,” he corrected. “You think they really need it?”
“It wouldn’t hurt.”
Dad Swigart looked hard at Alan. “All right. Go get our suits. Kara! Inspect this part of the wall, too. I’m marking it.” He clipped a red ribbon to the bracket he’d been working from. His daughter waved an acknowledgment of the order with her scanner.
Alan felt eyes on him as he started running the prewalk checks on two EVA suits. The family made a virtue out of its lack of privacy, and asking for a private talk with the father was so unusual that it attracted even more attention than the oldest child normally got from his sibs. Mikey, the youngest, passed Alan an oxygen gauge when he got to the tank checks. Alan gave him a wink as the eight-year-old went back to feeding a grass bed. A look around the compartment showed four boys and girls—Alan unfortunately had the whole family witnessing this—working on their assigned tasks. Timmy stared so intently at his reader it was obvious he’d been watching Alan and Dad.
Kara and Kathy, the twins, traded looks as Alan went back to the prewalk. Keeping Alan and Dad’s fights limited kept taking more of their time as Alan got older. Neither one could find a way to intervene now, so Kara went back to searching for microcracks in the main compartment’s walls and Kathy to deboning the shift-meal’s meat. The younger children kept glancing at their elders for an explanation of the sudden tension, but no one responded and they kept to their tasks.
Dad launched himself across the compartment. He thumped next to the suits and began inspecting the parts Alan had already approved. The seventeen-year-old kept his mouth firmly shut. “Well, this looks sat, son. Let’s suit up.”
They took turns helping each other dress for vacuum. First they had to take off their everyday emergency pressure coveralls and put on the inner skintight suit. The instrument net slipped on like a body stocking. Over that went the armor, homemade steel. A sleeve of pressure-tight plastic connected each piece. Alan wrapped the plastic with tightening wire and ran some current through the wire until it contracted enough to seal the plastic to the armor. Putting on the helmets took the most care—the family couldn’t make new ones yet so the ones brought on the homestead ship had to be pampered.
Dad led his son through the pre-vacuum ritual. Alan kept his face stiff, trying to conceal his impatience. It was a long checklist.
“Check backup batteries. My batteries green.”
“My batteries green.”
“Check tool kit. Screwdriver. I have screwdriver.”
“I have screwdriver, hotcutter, knife, prybar—”
“Alan, don’t skip ahead. You forget things if you start doing that, and then where would you be? Check hotcutter. I have hotcutter.”
Pause. “Yes, Dad. I have hotcutter.”
Once they got into the airlock they moved faster, not wanting to spend more time in vacuum than necessary. The two-minute wait to check pressure seals seemed long to Alan. The scent of lubricating oil faded as he got used to it.
When the outer door opened they shifted to standard radio procedure. “I have the lead. We take rope 4 to number 3 hydroponics tanks. Over.”
“You have the lead. Rope 4 to 3 hydroponics tanks. Over.”
Dad grabbed the edge of the open door and pulled himself out. He let go with one hand and grabbed one of the cables anchored to the rock. With a tight grip on the cable he let go of the airlock and clipped a lead from his waist to the cable. Once he checked the lead held he started along the cable. “Moving. Over.”
“Following. Over.” Alan pushed gently on the inner airlock door and put some spin on to look over the panorama. Behind them the Old Compartment bulged above the grey rock. The painted “Swigart Stead” stood unfaded despite twenty-four years of sun and vacuum. He clipped onto the right cable and started after his father, already halfway to the near horizon. Posts held the cables above the asteroid’s surface, spaced every ten or so meters. Both of them wrapped their legs around the cable as they moved, careful not to scrape against the raw nickle-iron rocks. At each post they clipped the spare lead to the other side of the cable, then unhooked the one behind the post, always held by at least one.
They moved steadily, passing the side ropes to the foundries—the chip foundry brought on the homestead ship and the steel foundry Dad and Mom had built in the first year on their new home. Dad paused a moment to look at the homemade one. Gloating again, Alan thought. The boy watched the stars at the horizon. He had all the constellations memorized, but it was a challenge to identify one from the part visible over the limb of Asteroid Swigart Stead. He kept quiet, knowing better than to push his father too much. They passed the 60º marker—one third of the way.
“You wanted to talk about something, son?” Without the “over”—Dad was taking this seriously.
Alan sighed. “I can’t stand this anymore, Dad. You think you’re treating me like a man, but you still think I’m a child and it shows. I’m seventeen Earth years old! I’ve written programs, I built the wiremaker. They brought in most of our credit last year. I deserve to do some things without being checked.” Just one thing without being checked, he didn’t say.
Now the hard one. “I want to see other people.”
Dad Swigart stopped and turned to face his oldest child. “We’re a pretty big family, Alan. Not the biggest homestead in the belt, but how many steads have five kids at once? It’s not like we’re a colony.”
You’re going to make me spell everything out again, aren’t you? “I want to see some people who aren’t family.”
The two bulky figures faced each other, a couple of meters apart. “One of the twins been, uh, been trouble?”
“No, Dad. Nothing.” Instinct and Dad’s belt made for an powerful incest taboo.
“I didn’t think so . . . I know that’s a problem for you. Well.” It was hard for embarrassment to show from inside a spacesuit, but Alan could tell. “I was going to hold onto this until I knew it was sure, but I guess you’d want to know now. I’ve been talking to Old Man Petser.”
Huh? Alan sent some of his wire bundles to Petser Stead, another rock following behind Swigart Stead in the same orbit. The bundles took two years of drifting to get there.
“The Petsers have been storing up their rocket fuel, and right now they’ve got enough to get a big capsule here in 4300 hours. Another year and they could get one here in 2000.” Alan had no idea why this was embarrassing his father, or why the Petsers would waste volatiles to send trade goods in a hurry. “Now Lisa Petser’s near enough your age, and she’s wanting to leave too. So Old Man Petser and I figure she can come here—2000 hours, that’s reasonable—and the both of you can be happy.” Dad smiled as wide as Alan had ever seen him.
Alan took four deep breaths. “Now you’re getting worse!” Dad jumped in surprise, kicking the surface. “Didn’t either of you bulls think about what we might want? No, you just go and give me what you want me to have.” Alan’s hands clenched into fists, his legs braced to leap. Frustration and anger filled him. “A thirteen year-old! And you two want to lock her in capsule so you can distract me from my real problems!” He didn’t want to admit what his real problems were. They can choose whoever they want in the clusters.
Dad held onto the cable with both hands, trying to control his bounces. “Four years, that’s not much. Your mother was three years younger than me.”
“She married you when she was 26! I remember her telling me that.” This was too dangerous ground. Alan stopped to steady his breathing. Pumping too much carbon dioxide into his algae tank wasn’t good. “You even checked that girl’s gene chart, didn’t you?”
Dad had his motion stopped but was still flabbergasted by his present’s rejection. “It only took a moment. . . .”
Alan pulled himself forward along the rope until their faceplates were about to bump. “I’ll pick my own wife, damn you!” He’d never sworn in front of his father before. “It’s my life and I’m going to control it myself. Not following your obsessive checklists and getting what you decide for me.” I can’t live like this, he thought. That little girl’s younger than Kara and Kathy. They’d . . . He didn’t complete the thought.
Dad flinched at the anger in Alan’s voice. He backed away a little and tried to put a conciliatory tone in his voice. “Alan, we need those lists. Benny would be alive if he’d checked his suit right before going out. Sally’d had a chance to grow up some if we’d checked the tanks for that bug before eating it.” A swallow. “Your Mom would still be alive if I’d gotten all the medical data before she went into labor the last time. The checklists are what we need to do to stay alive, son.”
Alan waited until he had his emotions back under control. “I can stay alive without you leading me by the hand. I can make my own decisions for which job I’m going to tackle next. I can stay alive without you constantly watching over me. Seventeen is an adult. Let me be an adult.” Please.
“Earth wouldn’t let you be an adult for four more years.” Dad tried to make a joke of it.
“You and Mom came here to be shut of Earth. I don’t want to go to Earth, I just want to see other people my own age. I’ve watched the casts, Dad.”
“You hardly see any casts. They all just show the glamorous parts, none of the lying, the cheating, the backstabbing. Don’t talk to me about Earth. That’s not anything you should be thinking of.”
If he knew how many of them we actually watch, he’d— “That doesn’t matter, anyway.” A few breaths. “Will you be acting any different when I’m twenty-one?”
They spoke more slowly now, keeping the tension below the ignition point. “If you think I can’t change, what do you want?”
Alan broke eye contact, turning his shoulder. He reflexively dropped his helmet shade as the sun hit his face. Even from 450 million kilometers it was bright enough to burn. “I want to go to a cluster.” Of all the casts, theirs were the best.
“What, Ceres or Mars or the Trojans? We’d never have the fuel for a boost like that. This is an ore-rock, not a carbonaceous. How would you get there? We can barely send bundles into epoch changes to our neighbors.”
“There’s ships going through the Belt all the time, Dad. Get one to agree to pick me up. A small deviation, a net-snag. Just like we did with that bundle.”
“There were two of those bundles, and it only worked once. And they weren’t putting any load on lifesupport. Never happen. Not with how few ships come through the Belt.”
“We could ask. There might be a ship that could do it.”
“They’d make us pay. The Stead doesn’t have that much exchange, no matter how many bundles we ship off. Cargo rates are nothing like buying a download transmission. Any ship that does say they’ll take you, might have slavery in mind, or just might not pick you up. No. That won’t happen.” Alan had turned back to face him. “You come up with some ideas for making things easier for you to live here, let me know. I’m always willing to listen to what you have to say.”
You even think you mean that, Alan thought to himself. I’m glad I’ve got someplace to go. You’ll force me to fight you if I stay.
They resumed crawling along the cables to the backup tanks. The algae, rodent, vegetables, and other food tanks were all perfectly healthy, as they’d expected.
The computer screen’s glow painted a grey grimness onto Alan’s face. He ignored the ball whizzing by as Mikey and Tim played ricochet catch. They knew better than to bother him while he was working on some new software, and were good enough shots to keep a hand’s width from him always. Most of his computer time went to digging developments out of the InSystem broadcasts—that was how he got the specs for the wiremaker—but he also kept up some correspondence.
Right now he was rereading some messages from a research scientist, Dr. Herbert Frawley. A program for keeping air-freshening algae’s chaotic tendencies under control had had some applications to a plasma physics project, leading to a regular series of relayed transmission between the asteroid belt steading and the Trailing Trojans Research Center rocks in Jupiter’s orbit. A hairless, diapered rodent sailed between his face and the screen.
Kara swept by Alan’s head as she scooped up the animal. “If you’re going to play with the ginnies, can’t you at least keep them under control?” he complained. “Leave me alone!”
The fifteen-year-old flushed. “I’m sorry, Alan. He just got away for a moment, that’s all. Besides, they taste better when they’re exercised.” He grunted and looked back to his computer. Unlike the twins, the computer didn’t make him feel uncomfortable when he looked at it. Neither did the pictures he got through it. More reasons why he wanted to leave home.
He had a place to go. Growing up with an artificial ecology of many humans, two species of algae, modified guinea pigs, and over a dozen species of vegetables and other plants had given Alan an intuitive grasp of chaotic systems. Without Earth’s piles of resources or tolerance of a species disappearing, he’d developed methods for keeping it within bounds without ever reaching a steady-state, allowing the family to live with less material in reserve than Mom and Dad’s setup had allowed.
The programs incorporating those methods Alan distributed to the Exchanges. The Swigart Family had credit in the Belt banks, enough to buy valuable equipment but not to have it boosted to the Stead. A copy of each of Alan’s programs had been bought by Luna-Pacific Power, which had a great deal of interest in controlling chaotic systems. They’d commissioned Alan to do some more abstract modeling programs and liked what they got. Dr. Frawley of TTRC was LPP’s main contact with him. Frawley had made Alan an offer, and he’d decided to accept.
Kara caught the ginny and passed it to Timmy. “Why don’t you put this one back in the cage? It’s almost time to feed them anyway.”
The boy scooped up the animal. “Okay. Come on, Mikey.” The youngest wanted to keep playing catch, but a glare from his sister sent him off. The boys sealed the air-tight hatch behind them as they left the compartment, as Dad’s rules required.
Alan looked around. It was just him and Kara in the compartment. “Dad says it shouldn’t be just the two of us in a room.”
“Yeah? Why do you think he made that rule?” She drifted toward him.
He pushed away from the console. “Let’s not talk about that.”
The hatch opened and Kathy stuck her head in. “Ginnyburgers are ready. Time to eat.” Kathy looked over the tableau and flashed a superior smirk at Kara, then a smile at Alan. Kara jumped to the hatch. Alan followed. These two keep playing their games. And Dad wants to put a child between them. I have to get out of here.
It was night-cycle when Alan carried out his plan. The whole family was asleep, except for him as watchstander. Usually he’d take it as a chance to work alone, in between inspection tours. Often he’d used the watches to look at the pictures he’d download from Ceres Exchange or the Trojans and keep encoded.
This time he floated in the flower garden, staring at the rows of perennials. The yellow and blue flowers swayed gently as he moved by them, sniffing at each of the blossoms. When the timer clipped to his shoulder gave a canary chirp he stopped his meditation.
Prying loose the plastic liner over the flower bed soil, he scooped a small handful of dirt into a bag and put it into a pocket of his jumpsuit over his heart. Before leaving the garden he read the plaque one last time.
They gave their lives striving
to give us all better ones.
Rest in peace.
Benjamin Swigart
Sally Swigart
Ellen Swigart
Alan went into the sleeping compartment. They weren’t disturbed by his movements, he’d already inspected it twice this shift. This time he went to Timmy’s sack and shook it gently, putting a finger on his lips as he woke. A very quiet whisper, right up against the ear. “Tim, you have to take the watch. Don’t ask any questions. I’m going outside. Get up and take the watch. And don’t bother Dad.”
Timmy stared at Alan’s eyes as he slid out of the sack and pulled on his gearbelt. The family only took off jumpsuits for spongebaths and EVA. Alan’s glare cut off Tim’s only attempt to ask a question. They dressed up Alan in his spacesuit. The bag of dirt went inside the skintight. When they finished an abbreviated version of the initial checks Tim had his voice back. “You’re not doing something stupid, are you?”
Alan forced a little smile. “No. You’ll be the big brother now. I’m going away—I found someone who’ll give me a ride. Wait a day and then dig out a file named ‘goodbye’ on my locker.”
“A day? Okay. You know where you’re going?”
“Sure. It’s in the file. Don’t pay any attention to Dad the next few days—he’ll being saying stuff to you that he wants to say to me. Tell Mike and the girls that too.”
“Okay.” Neither of them could say much more. Tim wouldn’t ask the questions Alan didn’t want to answer.
“Take care of everyone, Tim. I love you.”
“I love you. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.” A tense hug and Alan opened up the airlock door. As the pumps pulled down to vacuum his skintight stretched and his skin followed. That was the least of his discomfort. The vacuum checks showed his suit held fine. The outer door opened. Alan coasted out and hooked onto the #1 cable and stopped for a moment. The Swigarts had soft pads in the sides of their helmets, so you could rub your face against them to clear sweat out of your vision. They worked on tears, too.
Loading up the gear from his cache—computer, some selected programs, consumables, spare parts, a wire bundle, some emergency gear—only took minutes. He was well ahead of schedule. He drifted to the antenna by the main compartment’s dome and plugged in. His suit electronics connected the radar controls to the computer. A quick scan located the incoming blip. He transmitted the code from Dr. Frawley’s last message.
He could see it by eye, with the faceplate projector pointing it out.
He needed to do some mental discipline exercises to keep him alert, necessary after being awake for twenty stressful hours. He stayed around the horizon as it landed. A soft landing for a robot—Alan felt the thumps through the rock. He hurried before his father woke up and found out what was happening. The Independent Missions Rocket sent by Luna-Pacific had driven cable leads into the rock and shed its first stage tank.
Alan quickly strung his hammock—woven from his own wire—onto the spars projecting from the top of the IMR. More wires held the hammock steady and kept him belted in place. A cable connected his computer to the IMR’s and he was ready to go. The rocket shucked its hold-downs and fired its engine in a quick cough. When it was certain of its balance the main burn began.
The tank left behind was more carbon than the Stead had ever received at once, and weighted heavily in the accounting Alan had left in the GOODBYE file. He didn’t think Dad would consider it a fair trade, though. He didn’t himself.
The quarter-gee of acceleration was more force than Alan had ever experienced. His physique could handle it easily—environment is not everything—and Dr. Frawley’s advice was to just sleep through the half-hour burn. He did.
Alan woke up with the burn long over. He’d put in a full day before putting in the night watch, and he hadn’t been getting much sleep lately with the worry over the confrontation with Dad. He rechecked all his suit components, then called up Dr. Frawley’s most important message.
<. . . Ganymede Credit Service came through with the loan. Corporate came up with some property collateral to back up your freelance earnings potential. Still not enough to cover the cost of your pickup, but the rest we’ll put in from petty cash—this is a major mission you’re hitchhiking on. You’re on the second leg. We’re making stops at BeltEdge and Tapped Keg, a 2 AU rock. Then on to home. First time I’ll be back to Earth in 21 years. You can’t join me there, of course, but zeroborns have done well on Luna and there’s plenty of stations near Earth. You’ll have that loan paid off in four years if you stay with LPP, or six if you go back to freelancing. But sticking with us should be fun. The technical details will be attached to a later message. If something comes up, the loan can be canceled without penalty for 143 more days.>
That was a year ago, LPPS Dirac already more than a year out of the Trailing Trojans toward the Belt. Now it was only a week away and had sent the pickup rocket ahead from BeltEdge. A few more days and he would join Dr. Frawley and the Dirac’s top-secret cargo. Alan trusted the IMR’s guidance to make the rendezvous. If it failed he would orbit for years before passing near any humans again, much longer than his suit’s endurance.
The rocket held a constant attitude. Alan studied the stars. He rarely had a chance to just watch them when outside, they’d concentrated on getting their work done and getting back in where it was safer. Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn . . . he found the ecliptic and oriented himself to the Sun. The minor constellations were hard to pick out. The classic pictures didn’t have the stars too dim to show through Earth’s shroud and they cluttered up the sky. Sometimes he cheated, projecting the outlines on his faceplate.
Stargazing wore thin by the end of the first day. He added some excitement by switching his algae tanks just for practice. Any of the three could handle his breathing and wastes until the growlight’s power ran out. He’d have to get pretty hungry before he ate it, though. The taste was vile.
He went to sleep again. He kept waking up and calling for one of the other kids—they always comforted each other during nightmares or insomnia. Being totally alone was something new for Alan. He slept for half of the first 40 hours. The rest of the time he spent reading or listening to story tapes. The constant smell of suit oils began to bother him—in the Stead he kept moving from one smell to another—powdered rock, plants and dirt, sweat, animal shit, every compartment was unique.
Once he called up the pictures in his computer and began looking at his family to relieve the loneliness. The first picture was one of the twins, reflecting off the inside of his helmet visor. The projector was dim, to avoid dangerous glare. One look at the stars shining through his sisters’ bodies was enough to make him stop. He went back to listening to a recording of Shakespeare’s Richard III, the classic 2057 production. The whole flight he played performances, ignoring texts. He needed to hear human voices.
A third of the way through his flight Alan picked up a transmission from Swigart Stead. He didn’t have a voice receiver other than the suit-to-suit radio, but the Stead wasn’t sending voice. Most steads and bases in the Belt were light-minutes apart—long distance conversations weren’t practical. The family was sending a letter.
Alan read the short note quickly. The first part, signed by everyone (the phrasing marked it as one of the twins’ writing), wished him well, assured Alan they were doing fine but missed him, and asked him to write when he reached a big enough transmitter. His father’s part wasn’t as cheerful.
<Boy, doing stupid things to prove you’re a man might be a tradition but you’re really overdoing it. You never saw these people and you’re going where you have to slave for them or breathe vacuum. Not too smart, son. Be careful. Earth-born types aren’t nice people. They’ll pirate you or just stab you because you’re in the way as they pirate each other. The girls can be even more dangerous, because you want to be nice to them.
<Be careful, son. Work hard. Keep learning. Write when you can. Don’t forget us.
<I wish you all the luck in the System. I love you, Alan.
<Dad.>
He read it ten times before the rendezvous.
Spotting the Dirac was easier than he expected. The computer put an outline on the predicted bearing, but even without that there was only one flickering star in the heavens. With his ‘scope Alan could pick out the separation between the ship’s hull and the revolving life support pods. The pods hung from strong cables, spinning to provide Luna-equivalent gravity for the passengers and crew.
He started signaling from outside the nominal range. His suit radio was weak, but LPP put big antennas on their ships. He didn’t get any response. Must not be listening yet. I’ll wait for them to call me. He went back to napping after setting his computer to wake him after picking up a signal. The spaceship’s elliptical orbit was taking her past Alan, at the edge of visibility. It would be a while before his greater speed brought him close enough for the rendezvous.
Alan’s eyes popped open. Dirac was so close he could see the glints of sunlight off the cables of the life-support units. The radio record said no transmissions had been picked up. He got suspicious and checked the rocket’s radio, but it agreed with the suit’s. Alan started transmitting again. “Alan Swigart to LPPS Dirac, do you read? Swigart to Dirac, are you ready for rendezvous?”
No response. This is really bad. He kept signaling, with no response. After the seventh unanswered call Alan stopped and went into a breathing control exercise. Radios break all the time. They’re probably fine. The IMR could only handle three-quarters of the velocity change needed to rendezvous with the Dirac. The rest would come from a net catch, snagging him and braking him with the cable until he was at the same velocity without expending propellent. He’d had an idea for a backup for that, but he didn’t want to test it.
Unless he had to.
Alan hooked his computer into the rocket’s guidance module. It was a simple machine, no voice or AI capabilities. It wouldn’t accept orders for anything but rendezvous with the Dirac. LPP didn’t want to waste money on unnecessary capacity. SPECIFY PRIMARY BURN OBJECTIVE (DEFAULT: MINIMIZE RELATIVE VELOCITY) AND ACCELERATION (DEFAULT: 0.25 G). Alan pecked at his keyboard with a screwdriver held in the thick fingers of the suit’s glove. OBJECTIVE: MINIMIZE CLOSEST APPROACH SEPARATION. The IMR radar painted the Dirac’s vectors and fed it to the guidance unit.
The gyroscopes of the rocket shifted its axis slightly. NEW BURN PROGRAMMED AND READY. BURN WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY INITIATED. Alan was already working on something else. Dad, I’ll never complain about your backup compulsion again. The spools of his homemade wire included a thousand meters of the highest tensile strength one he made. The spool fitted into a braking winch. He tied leads from the end of his hammock to the winch. Knotted loops of the winch cable tied on a magnetic grapple. Alan added a timer to the grapple’s switch. An extra hundred meters of tensile wire with a hook made from a spare antenna went on his hip in a coil. Dirac visibly brightened as they closed on each other at more than four kilometers a second. Still no response to the signals his computer transmitted every minute. It was time for the burn. The rocket put a blinking BURN WARNING on his faceplate.
Alan couldn’t see Dirac while tied down again for the burn. The rocket began thrusting again. After the preliminary puff a steady quarter-gee of acceleration pressed down on him. The hammock kept him horizontal to the thrust, so his blood flow remained steady. The metal segments of his suit pressed their edges into his skin uncomfortably. Fully rested, he concentrated on keeping his breathing steady. Heck, this isn’t bad. I could keep this up forever. He lacked the experience to imagine what standing up under acceleration would be like.
Five minutes into the half-hour burn a signal came. The computer played it immediately, putting details on his faceplate. “Alan, can you hear me? This is Frawley. I’ve got to warn you! Do you read?” He needed four tries to hit the transmission button, heaving his arms around in the acceleration.
“Alan to Dirac. What’s the problem? I read you clearly.” He looked at the reception display. “Why are you transmitting on the EVA channel? Over.”
“Frawley to Swigart. Dirac’s been sabotaged. Someone put a Hal program in our computer. It’s killed more than half the crew. We can’t put a net out. How much fuel do you have?”
Alan swallowed hard. Oh, boy. I wish Dad was here. “I’m a thousand meters per second short but I have a substitute ready. How safe is the ship?”
“I hope it’s something clever, boy. Outside the ship is secure, it doesn’t have many sensors out here. Lt. Burns and I are the only uninjured survivors. Mate Tang is shy half a leg. We’ve still got a few days of supplies.” A pause went by. “There’s still a few things we can try.”
Stars in heaven. We’re all dead. They’re doomed. “Swigart to Frawley. Right. I’ve got to concentrate on this trick now. See you on the ship. Over.” I’ve got to prepare myself.
“Okay. Good luck. Over and out.”
Alan put a countdown for the end of the burn on his ‘plate and spent fifteen of the next twenty minutes practicing the calming words his mother had taught him.
When the countdown neared its end he switched the display to a vectoring picture for his throw. He lifted his left arm from its resting position on his stomach and clutched the magnetic grapple.
When the burn ended he shook his head and pulled out his hotcutter. He hit the on button and the blade glowed red. As he pulled it through the wire suspending the hammock from the rocket’s frame the wire’s long-chain molecules dissociated, puffing around the blade in a sphere. A second cut left the hammock connected only to the winch. Alan shoved the hotcutter back into its insulated sheath. Dirac was approaching at a thousand meters per second.
He grabbed the IMR spar and turned himself toward the ship. Oh, shit, I’m going to hit it! He switched the grapple from left hand to right, hit the timer button, gave it a push to get it clear of the hammock lines, then started swinging it. Lassoing had always been the safest way to retrieve objects that had floated free of Swigart Stead. Carefully gauging the wire against his own spin, Alan sent the bundle at Dirac.
The spaceship had its axis pointing straight at the Sun, keeping the delicate fuel bottles shaded. The rocket and runaway swept by only ten meters from the hull. Alan had a flash of the yin-yang warning sign on the antimatter tank. The magnetic grapple changed trajectories as the powerful electromagnet began to attract Dirac’s hull. It slammed against the ship a dozen meters behind the hub and stuck tight.
The winch brake pulled hard on the wire hissing off the spool. The ten-gee deceleration crushed him against the hammock wires. All the solid pieces of his suit pressed into his flesh deeply. Where the forearm tubes stopped short of his elbows they pressed against the bone, inflicting excruciating pain. Alan would have screamed if he had the breath. He hadn’t centered the winch over the hammock and his legs lifted above his head, blood draining into his torso. His vision reddened and began to turn black as he watched Dirac soar away along the long wire. He couldn’t inhale no matter how hard he tried. His diaphragm was too weak to lift his chest against the force.
The eternity ended after ten seconds. Alan gasped in a breath and blinked rapidly as his vision began to clear. The slight force still coming from the half-kilometer of wire suspending him was unnoticeable amid the pain from every limb. He forced himself to clear his head and look around.
One of the life support modules went by thirty meters away. He was swinging in the same plane as them, moving slower than the suspending cable did at this radius. As the wire began winding up around Dirac’s hull he sped up.
Now for the easy one. Dad had no talent for lassoing—he always left it for Alan. He took the coil and hook from his hip and cast for the other support cable as it came by. The hook went well past the cable, then swung back around. Alan sent a ripple down the wire and the hook caught on the wire. The loop pulled tight and the wire began winding around the cable, pulling him in. He sped up again. Oh, no! He crossed his arms in front of his fragile faceplate.
The impact left more bruises on his already-injured elbows. Alan couldn’t even move his arms for half a minute. He braced a foot against a hand-hold as he began to slide along the cable. He tried looking for the IMR as he waited for the pain to fade, but it was long gone. Maybe someone can salvage it someday. It’s too good to let waste.
“Frawley to Swigart. You make it, son? Frawley to Swigart, please come in. Frawley to Swigart, over.” Alan ignored his radio. When he could unbend an arm he clipped a belt cable to the nearest bracket and started some stretches to find the limits of his damaged body. Each one pushed him away from the side of the cable and centrifugal force brought him back with a thump. The fourth time it happened Alan had to stop and bring his nervous tension under control. His reflexes said something else should happen and the unusual falls frayed his nerves.
“Frawley to Swigart, please come in. Frawley to Swigart, are you all right?”
Alan finally felt well enough to talk. “Alan to Frawley. I’m alive. Hurting. But I made it.” A few breaths, he wasn’t up to a speech. “I’m on one of the pod cables. Over.”
“Hot damn, that’s amazing. We saw you go by like a streak. Wow. Look, the cable’s not a good place to rest. PAUL—that’s the ship’s computer—he can do too much if you stay there. He probably hasn’t figured out what you did yet so speed’s your safest bet. We’re on the truss separating the main hull from the fuel tanks. Get here as fast as you can. Over.”
“Okay. Don’t think I can move too quick, though.” Breathing hurt.
“Quick or dead, boy. PAUL will kill you if he can. There’s five dead on this ship and that’s no shit. We’ve got medicines here, but you’ve got to get here.”
“Right. Moving. Out.” Alan used the hotcutter to free himself from the hammock and wires. The handholds along the cable were spaced two meters apart. He cut some extra long safety lines. The trip to the hub stretched longer than the circumference of Swigart Stead and was straight up. Up wasn’t a theoretical concept to Alan any more.
An extra wire with a hook made the climb easier. Two or three throws would hook it over the next handhold, then Alan could climb up and fasten a safety line to it. Once secure he’d go down and remove the other line. Then go back up and repeat. Progress was steady, but. . . .
“Frawley to Swigart, do you read? Over.”
Alan hung on a handhold. “Swigart here.”
“Alan, PAUL has a repair robot coming down the cable from the pod. Its speed is changing so I don’t know when it’ll get to you.”
“Repair robot. Right.” More damn problems. I want to sleep. “What’s it got? What’s it moving on?”
“It has magnetized treads so it can go anywhere on the hull. It’s got drills, saws, current probes, a bunch of stuff. Anything you’d put in a workshop. We try to avoid them. If you can go any faster, move. Three of us might be able to beat one. Over.”
“Thanks. Out.” Okay. This is a real, lethal emergency. That’s what Dad said they’re for. The toolkit included some first aid gear. In that was a set of pills Dad had bought from Earth military suppliers. The taboo he instilled in regard to them had kept his children from using any of them so far. A damn killer robot. I want to find some girls and I get a damn robot after me. I’m too tired for this. He put one of the three red pills labeled “Turbo” into the chow lock of his suit helmet. He popped the inside of the lock with his chin and washed the pill down with a squirt of algae-tainted water. Hey, that tasted good. The Stead didn’t grow cherries. Wonder how long it takes to start working.
The climb continued. He’d done a half of the 500 meters to the hub already. Now he went slower to always check behind him. He didn’t see the robot at all, but he didn’t want to take the time to circle around the cable. Might as well stick to going up. I know that’ll be useful. Finally he got fed up with the back-and-forthing with the safety lines. Once I’ve got the hook caught I don’t need the line I’ve got set. I could move three times faster. As he got into the rhythm of throwing and pulling his speed increased even more.
At one handhold he fumbled hooking the safety line on so badly he lost hold of both lines and fell a meter before grabbing hold of the hook line again. That pill sure is strong. Sneaky. I’m going to have to watch myself. Don’t want to get dead fast either. He circled around the four-meter wide hollow cable, spotting the robot a hundred meters below him. The distant sun glinted off the vision lenses projecting from its body on a pole. So it’s a race now. That makes the risks a good idea, I guess. He went back to the rapid climb.
When Alan reached the hub the robot had closed to twenty meters. He jumped from the moving hub to the stationary hull in a perfect leap, but the hull ran for 120 meters before the truss began. I’m going to have to fight it.
“Alan to Frawley. It’s going to catch me on the hull. Got any ideas?”
“Burns to Alan. I’m the assistant engineer—chief engineer now. PAUL’s got pretty good control of them. We tried shorting out the E-probe into the hull, but it cut the power too fast. They’re not really armored, but there’s no way to reach one without giving it a shot at you, and they’ve got a lot of power. I don’t know what to say. We’re a klick and a half down the truss, we can’t help. Over.”
Well, you’re real useful. “I’ll let you know how it comes out.” Getting the first hit . . . Timmy had really liked surprise wrestling attacks for a while until Alan cured him of it. He reeled off more wire from his last spool and tied one end to his belt. Now to find a good handhold.
He waited for it twenty meters from the hub. The spot gave him a perfect view as the robot came down the cable on its tread. The electromagnet in each tread link came on as it touched the surface and went off when it was about to be lifted off. At the hub it turned off the tread and extended a set of spindly arms which grabbed the hub and lifted the robot off the cable. Next the arms brought it to the hub and it clamped its tread back on. Alan heard the clank through his boots. The other end of his new line was securely tied to the handhold. The hotcutter was in his hand, ready but hidden behind his back. He judged the speed of the robot. Back in freefall, all his reflexes were useful again. He jumped straight up.
The robot’s vision lenses followed him up, along with a tiny radar dish. It kept the same velocity, headed for the handhold he’d left behind. A circular cutting blade on a stalk extended from the front of the repair machine, aimed at the wire trailing after him.
At the moment the wire went taut Alan pulled hard on it, sending him back toward the hull faster than he’d left. The hotcutter glowed red, held pointed at the handhold. The robot stopped right there and the saw cut the wire in two seconds. Alan was unsecured.
The hotcutter reached first. The robot flung up some arms and stalks to block it, but they were designed to hold only their own weight. Alan shoved his tool through the thin protective wall, the thousand-degree heat melting sensitive electronics. He hit the hull badly, the robot keeping him from absorbing the impact. Bouncing, he drifted slowly away from the hull, leaving the hotcutter in the robot. Broken by the impact, it discharged its powerpack into the robot’s center.
Alan tumbled slowly. A jolt of electricity had blinded him for a second. Looking down at his stomach, he noticed a bright mark where a drill had dug partly into his armor. A saw had nearly penetrated a forearm piece. He took the hook line he’d climbed the cable with and looked for handholds. The robot was sparking and melting, but nothing else was in reach. He put the hook over one of the sturdier arms and gave a yank.
He hit it feet first and pushed off flat to the hull, toward a handhold. Once he’d tied down a safety line he allowed himself the luxury of feelings again. Shit, that damn thing nearly took me with it. That was close! After a moment he decided to call in. “Alan to Frawley or Burns. Swigart to anyone, come in.” Not only was there no answer, his faceplate projector didn’t list the transmission. He checked his computer and saw the “Overload Shutdown” light. When he restarted it worked fine. So did his projector and one of the algae growlights, but the radio and most of his suit instruments were fried. Closer than I thought.
Once he reached the end of the hull the other humans were easy to spot. The open truss stretched for two kilometers and the cluster of three spacesuits and some bags couldn’t be missed. He crawled down the girders toward them.
The suit with FRAWLEY written on the chest came out to meet him a little shy of their “camp.” They touched helmets.
“Good to see you, Alan. That’s twice I thought you were dead. Looks like you’re more talented than we thought.”
The Turbo pill had worn off halfway along the truss. “Dr. Frawley, I just got to get some sleep. I got to.”
“Sure, son. Relax. I’ll tow you in.” Frawley didn’t have a gentle touch in freefall, but Alan collapsed without noticing.
He woke eleven hours later. As soon as he noticed Alan moving Frawley came over to him. “Here, Alan. Water. Fresh from the fuel tanks.” Alan drank gratefully. It was distilled but tasted better than what his algae tank produced. “Feeling any better?”
Alan did a few stretches before touching helmets again to answer. He stared down the truss at the anti-matter tank, a small ball surrounded by large ones. The yin-yang stared back at him. “Most of the aches are gone. Still got a headache. I guess that’s probably the pill.”
“What pill?” After Alan explained Frawley nodded. “Yep, you pay for what you get with those guys. You definitely made the right decision, though.”
Alan shifted so he could watch Frawley’s face as they talked forehead-to-forehead. “So what now?”
The physicist shrugged (done in a spacesuit by tilting back his head). “There’s several things. Burns found some access into PAUL, we could kill the Hal program if we made good use of that. If we could find a way to control it finely we could disconnect the antenna from the ship net and call an LPP office. They’d have some wizards tell us what to do and settle it that way. It waited until there were no offices anywhere near close, though. We couldn’t hold it steady enough. And then there’s going in and nailing the core, but PAUL’s got to have trapped it up the wazoo by now. Besides, we need it to get home.”
That took Alan some time to digest. His eyes drifted back to the anti-matter tank’s yin-yang again. “So unless we come up with something new, we die.”
Frawley shrugged again. “Right. Four days for me and Burns, running out of oxygen. Our suits don’t recycle. Careful when you talk to Burns—he’s taking this kind of personally. Tang’s still bleeding inside her suit, I think. Might be dead in six hours. More likely she’ll last two days. You could hold out a while but your suit’s so messed up I don’t think you’d have more than a week. And I’m fresh out of ideas.” He stared at Alan, a pilgrim searching a statue of Mary for a miracle.
“Why would someone do this? Why?” Alan needed some reason to explain what had shattered his dream of a careful escape from Swigart Stead. Any reason, just something to remove the randomness from his suffering.
Frawley was slow to answer. “I’d told you we had a valuable cargo on this ship. I didn’t say how valuable. You deserve to know, you put us on the right track to solving some of the main problems.”
“Me? I just did some programs.”
“Yep. And the solutions you got to those chaos problems were the ones to some plasma physics problems we were working on. Not the same, but close enough that we could solve ours. So our toy project became a major breakthrough.” Alan was baffled. “Safe fusion.”
“Fusion? That’s outlawed.”
“It is now, the Hainan Laws set up after the disaster. No one could build a fusion reactor that wouldn’t rupture from chaotic instabilities. Until you showed us how to work with the instability instead of against it. Dirac has a working prototype on board. We’re going to run it on Luna until it’s accepted. Then we can supply energy to the whole population of Earth. There’s still people starving there, you know. We’re going to end that. And you provided the key.”
Stunned, Alan didn’t say anything. Finally he forced out, “But why the Hal program?”
Frawley grimaced. “Cheap power could be huge profits instead of universal prosperity. Someone must have bribed a computer tech at BeltEdge Station. Probably a ship will come and ‘salvage’ the cargo when we’re supposed to all be dead.”
Alan thought silently. An idea had come bubbling up. What’s the one thing I’d least want to do? Right. “I think I have an answer to how we can survive.” Silence.
“Well?” demanded Dr. Frawley.
“Could you control the antenna fine enough to get Swigart Stead?”
“What, two million klicks? Easy. Oh—relay messages to LPP?” Alan nodded. “How’d your father take you leaving?”
“I left him a note.”
“Uh-huh. Maybe not the person in the Belt most likely to do Luna-Pacific a favor.”
“He’ll do it for me. Let’s set the antenna up.”
“Okay. Let me break the news to Burns gently. Eat something.” He went off to where the other two were. Alan pulled a concentrate bar from his belt and fed it into the chowlock.
Taking the antenna was easy. Every moment that went without an attack made them more certain one was about to come. PAUL didn’t even try to fry their suits with microwaves as they approached it. No traps had been placed. The control leads were quickly cut and the power feed shunted to the solar backup, a “dumb” system. Frawley’s quips failed to lighten the mood. Burns had no interest in being cheerful and Alan hadn’t planned to send home until after his first success. He transmitted his message as the other two watched for homicidal interference.
“Hi, Dad. I made it to the ship all right. We’re all in big trouble here, though.” Alan’s computer faithfully relayed his speech to Burns’, which controlled the antenna. “Some one sabotaged the ship’s computer, and it’s trying to kill us all. It got most of the crew al—already.” Saying it out loud forced him to accept the reality of his danger. He took a deep breath to get the quaver out of his voice. “If we had some real experts we could regain control, but the nearest ones are at Tapped Keg Station. So I’m asking you to relay a message to Luna-Pacific Power, telling them what’s happening here and asking for help. We’ll last two to five days without help.
“Coordinates follow. Message repeats.”
Alan hit the stop button and looked at the two men. He pressed his helmet against the antenna housing and asked, “How was it?”
“Good enough,” Burns said. “It’s short enough, they might get the whole thing in one squirt. It’ll probably take a few pickups before they recognize the transmission.”
“No, I think Dad’ll be listening this way.”
“Well. It’ll be a while either way. Get some rest. You have the third watch.”
Alan sagged into a loose curl without saying anything. His battered body welcomed more sleep.
The LPP professionals positioned themselves on opposite sides of the antenna. The big dish vibrated as it scattered signals toward Swigart Stead. “So what d’you think of your new hire, Frawl?” With Alan’s radio destroyed they had perfect privacy.
The physicist replied instantly. “Luckiest damn kid in the System. I thought I’d written his death warrant, but here he is. Bruises and a hangover. What a kid.”
“What about his father?”
“That’s a different story. It takes a bigger fortune for a steading ship than to buy into a colony. All those guys are crazy to begin with.”
Burns didn’t want background. “Will he do the relay, dammit!”
“I don’t know. Probably. It’s his kid’s life, too. He’ll try to squeeze corporate some, but he’d have no idea what the value of this cargo is. Yeah, he’ll do it.”
“Soon enough to save Tang?”
“I hope so. Can’t say. But I hope so.” Alan floated gently by the antenna’s base as they watched the hatches and sides for robots and other surprises.
The reply was anticlimactic when it came. “Dad Swigart to Alan Swigart and Dirac crew. Message received and relayed. Round trip on relay is nearly two hours. Alan, there’ll be a personal message for you in a few hours. Swigart Stead. Message repeats.” Burns persuaded Frawley to let Alan keep sleeping. When the antenna established a steady link with the Stead they sent a technical dump of all the information they had.
Lise Gonzalez had a digestion that never could adjust to free fall. She fiercely avoided all but her closest friends for the hour after eating. Only after reaching the level of LPP station director could she enjoy lunch on working days. Hence the withering glare she aimed at her Chief of Operations, Jomo 7 as he burst into her office. Jomo shrank back in the hatch. “Lise, this is an emergency. We heard from Dirac and she’s in deep shit.” Outraged privacy forgotten, the executives headed for the Operations Room.
“Only three crew alive, but they made that pickup. The message was relayed by the pickup’s origin,” Jomo finished with his summary. The station security chief got to Ops before them.
“I’m bringing in my wizards now. And a secure message to BeltEdge Station’s Security,” she said. The SecChief massed less than half of what Jomo 7 did. Watching the two of them bobbing at the same eye level usually made Gonzalez chuckle, but this was a crisis.
“Show me that letter,” the director ordered. One of the Ops staff put it up on a screen.
<Dad Swigart to LPP boss. Here’s a message from your ship Dirac. It’s a hell of a mess, and I’ll be glad to pass along whatever to them. Now I’m sure you’ve got some lawyers writing up a check for me, but I don’t care about that. I want my son back. He’s my boy and I’m not leaving him with you slavers. So get back with what you want me to send along, but start with how you’re sending my son back home. Swigart Stead. Data follows.>
“Who’s the son?” SecChief Vidkun asked.
Jomo replied, “The wiz-kid Trojans Research wanted so badly. He got picked up after the sabotage took effect.”
Gonzalez cut in. “So what do we give Mr. Swigart? Whatever it costs, we have to get through to Dirac.”
“The standard insurance on this will cover all the exchange he could dream of. The only real issue is the son.” Jomo studied a reader. “The contract he signed says he starts employment the moment he boards Dirac. If he’s a full employee we’re restricted by the good faith rules. We can’t fire someone just to bribe another party.”
Vidkun was shocked. “Of course not. The Employee Council would never stand for it.”
“So we can’t give Swigart what he wants and we have to make him happy to save Dirac,” said Gonzalez. “What are our options?”
Burns was checking on Tang when the message for Swigart Stead came in. The first mate remained unconscious and her skin was visibly paler. The readouts showed declining blood pressure and a rapid pulse. Her stump kept bleeding and he couldn’t make the tourniquet any tighter from outside the suit. She’d die soon if he couldn’t get more blood into her, though he didn’t have the training to say when. “Frawley to Burns. Incoming signal from Swigart Stead. Over.” The scientist followed proper procedure when he kept calm.
“Burns to Frawley. Coming back in. Over.”
“Frawley to Burns. How is she?”
“She’s dying. Out.”
Alan reread Dad’s cover message twice before the engineer arrived. <Dad Swigart to Dirac. Alan, the stuff following is some questions the LPP computer people need answered before they can find the key to that bastard. Now I got them to promise a free ride home for you. All you have to do is reject your contract and you’re home free. Do it right away, before they can think up some trickery. When all that’s settled I’ll send you the programs for getting control of the ship back. Data follows.>
Frawley intercepted Burns as he reached the antenna. “Leave Alan alone. His father’s trying to make LPP trade him for the ship.”
The engineer stared at the young man a moment. “I’d rather be alive on a stead than dead on a ship. What’s his problem?”
“It’s kind of complicated,” Frawley said defensively.
Alan plugged himself into the suit computer controlling the antenna. With feedback from the Stead, it held firm enough for continuous transmission. The sidelobe leakage was enough for the professionals to hear the message clearly. “Alan to Dad. I’m not going home, never mind how much it costs. I’m out and on my own now, and I’m not going back. Even if I die out here I’ll do it on my own. Dirac out.”
Burns cursed viciously. “The conceited little twerp! He’ll get us all killed!”
“Wait a minute,” Frawley said. “You can’t force him to go somewhere he doesn’t want to go.”
“Oh? Maybe you’ll let that boy kill himself and you with his adolescent pride, but I won’t let him kill me or Tang.”
Frawley leaned away from the engineer’s glare. “Don’t do anything hasty. The father’s got some sense. Corporate’s working on him, and he won’t want his own son to die. Be patient.”
“Patient? Tang’s the patient on this ship.” But he didn’t move toward Alan.
“Director Gonzalez?”
“Yes?” She saw one of the Security staff offering her a reader.
“Ellen—Chief Vidkun, I mean, she had Earthside dig this up.”
The director took it and started reading it aloud. “Ships in a harbor are safe. But that’s not what ships are built for. Humans are safe on Earth, but we are not made to stay where it is safe. Only in the frontier—Who wrote this shit?” she demanded.
The security man grinned. “Look at the bottom, Ma’am.”
“Kevin Swigart . . .” she laughed.
“An advertisement he placed in the East Coast Times right before launching his steading ship. We think it might make him realize he’s being hypocritical about letting his son go.”
“Maybe it will. Have Psychology figure the best way to add it to the package. Don’t want to get his back up.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” He vanished. She looked around the Ops Room. Everyone of her key people not trying to crack PAUL’s insanity was working on how to persuade a stubborn, lonely man. The programmers knew they had the easy part. After looking at the first committee product intended for Swigart she’d decided to keep the final say on the package for herself.
That meant getting deluged, of course.
Jomo grabbed a hand hold next to her station. “Think he’ll see the light, Lise?”
“How should I know? About the only thing we know about him is that he loves his kids and hates the rest of the human race. How’s that emergency fallback coming?”
“Ceres Astronomy likes the money, so they’re checking the engineering. Not something I’d want to depend on, but it could work. When do we transmit?”
“The wizards are double-checking. They want another set of background tests, but Swigart would never pass the results back. They have enough data anyway, they just want to calm their jitters. Call it an hour.”
“Typical experts.” He waited until another proposal for twisting Dad Swigart’s arm had been disposed of. “How long has the crew got?”
“Twenty to thirty hours. Less for Mate Tang, of course. Are all the relatives notified yet?”
“All but Captain Lambert’s. His son went on a family camping trip in the American Rockies—that’s a park—and Earthside had to send someone in on foot. Might be a couple of days.”
“We’ll have to release word before then. Damn. This is almost as bad as the Tycho Blowout.”
“Someone will pay.”
“I’ll go check on Tang,” Alan said when the next signal started to come in. It took him thirty minutes to cover the length of the truss. She was dead when he got there. He’d never seen a dead person since he was ten. He’d denied his big brother’s death for hundreds of hours but this corpse was far too real to ignore. He checked the readouts to make sure, but they hadn’t broken. The spacesuit was already cooling without the heat generated by its occupant. Alan pulled the sunshield over her faceplate and started back to the main hull slowly.
After a few meters he turned around and went back. Rechecking all the readouts showed she’d been dead for nearly an hour. His own medkit confirmed it. Her arms had been restrained at her sides when she was tied to the truss. Alan clumsily retied them so her hands met over her chest. Rigor hadn’t set in yet, but the double-walled spacesuit bended stiffly. He bent over and put his helmet against hers while he recited the words his father said at the Remembrances. He couldn’t recall all of the ceremony and made some up to fill the holes. After he finished he paused, then unhooked her radio from its bracket and plugged it into his suit.
Alan started down the truss again. I wonder if she would have made it if Dad wasn’t so stubborn. He pondered it the whole trip. No, we’d have never gotten inside quick enough. He concentrated on maintaining his determination.
Frawley met him. Burns had been avoiding Alan since the last message came in. “How’s Tang?” he asked as their helmets met.
“She died before I got there. Why aren’t you running the program?”
“Your father didn’t send it. Just a personal message for you.” Alan pulled away before Frawley could say any more.
He plugged into the antenna computer again and read the message from his father.
<Dad to Alan. Son, don’t be silly about this. Those corporate pirates say they’ll keep you unless you reject that contract. So do it. Then I’ll transmit. Life in the Stead is all you know, all you can understand. Your brothers and sisters haven’t been able to think straight since you left. We need you here.
<Now say you’re going to come back and make it official. I don’t want you to die, but I’d rather have a son of mine die free than live as a slave. Do it now. Dad out.>
When Alan yanked his suit plug out of the socket Frawley placed his helmet against the antenna base, wanting to talk without getting too close. Alan matched him. “What are you going to tell him?”
“I’m not going to tell him anything. If he wants to hear from me he can say something other than that.” He headed back toward the truss, seeking solitude for his confusion.
“Burns to Frawley. What’s the deal? Over.”
“He’s just going to wait for Dad to change his mind.”
“Oh, yeah? Not with Tang dead and us breathing socks.” He started toward the end of the hull. Frawley tackled him hard enough to break his hand’s grip. Burns flew clear of the hull until his safety line snapped taut and yanked him back.
“You’re not going to hassle my employee!”
“We’re going to die and you want to sit around and watch two hick steaders play chicken with their egos!”
“Wait. Corporate will come up with something. You’re not going to touch Alan. And that’s an order.” LPP pay grades didn’t confer line authority but Burns didn’t say anything.
Kathy peeked into the electronics room. “Dad?”
He looked up from the antenna readouts. “What?”
She closed the hatch behind her but held onto it. “How long are they going to wait? We’re worried.”
“They’re just making up excuses. The lawyers already have the reasons made up, they want me to lose my nerve.” Dad normally went on longer about Earth’s corruption, but he looked back to the readouts instead. Tapped Keg still kept sending null signals, maintaining the link without saying anything.
His daughter floated by the hatch, her face drawn. “Now don’t worry, Kathy. Their crewmen are going to run out of air in another thirty hours, and then the pirates’ll lose their fancy ship. They have to give Alan back.”
“When?” she asked.
Dad sighed. “Slavers like putting lives on the edge . . . ten, fifteen hours probably.”
“And then Alan comes back?”
“Soon. Depending on where they send him back from, 1500, 2000 hours. And if there’s a ship coming here we’ll be able to cash in all those credits we’ve got added up. As soon as they send word they’re sending Alan back I’ll send off that message to the ship.” His finger drew a circle around the button.
“That’s great, Dad. Thanks. Want anything to eat?” said Kathy.
“No, I’m just going to wait here.”
“Okay.” She darted out of the compartment. Everything he’d said she heard from Timmy three hours earlier.
After an hour Alan returned from the truss, continuing his sulk fifteen meters from the two men. They stayed silent. Watching for a probe from PAUL was a welcome distraction. Alan kept Tang’s radio on receive-only and stayed in line of sight of the other two. The precaution didn’t help while none of them spoke.
Frawley liked talking more than his companions, but he didn’t want to risk any sign of weakness before the Dirac’s crewman. Once he had to bite his tongue just to keep silent. Looking at each other each one could detect tension in them by the twitching and shifting in their stances. Two hours later they were all ready to lash out at anything. PAUL didn’t oblige with a target and they were controlled enough to not approach each other.
When the oxygen gauge on his suit passed below twenty hours Burns nearly said something. Instead he glanced at the others and went back to watching a cargo hold hatch.
<CERES ASTRONOMY TO DIRAC, SET OFF A FLARE IF YOU READ THIS. CERES ASTRONOMY TO DIRAC, SET OFF A FLARE IF YOU READ THIS. CERES ASTRONOMY TO DIRAC, SET OFF A FLARE IF YOU READ THIS. CERES ASTRONOMY TO DIRAC, SET OFF A FLARE IF YOU READ THIS. CERES ASTRONOMY TO DIRAC, SET OFF A FLARE IF YOU READ THIS. >
They all heard it through their suit radios. The antenna computer had to reduce amplitude to protect itself. “The radio telescope!” Frawley burst out. Burns laughed loud, shaking with the relief. Then he scurried up the truss toward the fuel tanks. Alan dodged him nervously.
“What about the radio telescope?” he asked.
“Don’t you see? Corporate can’t get any messages from us, but with a big enough signal any antenna can receive. The Ceres Radio Telescope can put out more signal than anything else in the System.”
They’d both turned off their radios and were back to head-bumping. “Why is it so powerful?”
“You try bouncing radar off a comet.”
“Oh.”
Burns had reached the fuel tanks. He’d sealed the hole he drilled for drinking water with a double air-lock valve pipe. It came off quickly enough. Clinging to a handhold he beat at the hole with the pipe, breaking off chunks of ice that threatened to clog the flow of water. The fluid steamed and froze as it sprayed into the vacuum. Sunlight made beautiful sparkling patterns in the growing cloud.
After fifteen minutes he let the hole seal itself. Dirac had a comfortable safety margin but his blood’s thriftiness won out. He returned carefully to the main hull.
It was 76 minutes until the transmission changed.
<CERES ASTRONOMY TO DIRAC. THAT’S A PRETTY FLARE. WE HAVE YOUR RECAPTURE PROGRAMS AND WILL COMMENCE DOWNLOADING IN FIVE MINUTES, MARK. DOWNLOAD WILL BE REPEATED FOUR TIMES. I’M GLAD YOU HEARD US, AND GOOD LUCK.>
They clustered by the antenna, backslapping and babbling foolishly.
###Personal Transmission. Alan Swigart to Swigart Stead. Line 56.
—and once that program went through it was just going in and turning off the hardware. One trap put a scratch on my chestplate but the robots had already been turned off so it wasn’t really dangerous. We wiped the memory and restarted it after cleaning the banks of the Hal program. Then it was repressurize the life compartments and have a bath. We needed it, too. Nine days in suits—I don’t even want to remember what we smelled like.
<Now I’m working hydroponics again, but the plants are all different. It’s tricky. The computer killed all the live plants and I’ve got to start from seeds. It’s real fun, though.
<That’s all I can write this shift. I can get in one more note before we pass out of transmission range and that’ll be good-bye.
<Love to you all,
<Alan>
The reply was a mushy goodbye note, obviously written by one of the twins. Dad signed it, though, and the PS was all him.
<PS You’ve got more damn luck than anyone else in the history of this family. Mind you don’t land on your face when it runs out. If you get to Luna I’ll send you some notes on where your grandparents were when Mom and I left, so you might find them. Don’t trust anyone you don’t have to.
<Love,
<Dad>
FOR PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION****
FROM LPP PUBLIC AFFAIRS****
LPPS DIRAC ARRIVES AT TAPPED KEG STATION AFTER DISASTER.
Returning from her sabotaged deep space mission, Dirac was brought into Tapped Keg by the Lloyds of L5 rescue cruiser Southborough with only three crewmen surviving. LPP Belt Operations director Jomo 7 predicted that Dirac would still make her window for Earth orbit. A Qatar-registry ship made an offer of assistance to Dirac after the Southborough made rendezvous, which was declined.
ENDS******
More stories by Karl K. Gallagher are on Amazon and Audible.
Great story, though I'm a little worried about Lisa Petser.