Swallow the Sky: A Space Opera (29 page)

“Good grief! To think of
all those hours we spent playing with the thing. It makes one wonder whether
any of our old toys could be valuable.”

Carson scanned the
recorder. “I can’t find any mention of them…”

“Oh, we have countless
boxes of toys in the royal storage rooms. The Huan people never bothered to
catalog them.”

Carson leant forward,
trying not to drool on the table. “Sir, antique toys are terribly fashionable. Frankly,
your collection could be worth a great deal of money. I strongly advise you to
hire an independent evaluator.”

He turned his attention
to the image of the Palace. The viewpoint swooped to a large ornate room lined
with paintings.

“This is the Hall of
Ancestors” Gustav said.

Fascinated, Carson
studied the pictures. He half expected to find another message from Samuelson,
neatly framed and backlit, hanging on the wall, but all he saw was a procession
of stern portraits. He stopped in front of a painting of an elaborately dressed
man who carried a noticeable resemblance to the King.

“The catalog entry says
‘Portrait
of Gustav IV, artist unknown. Estimated value thirty thousand Ecus.’
In
reality this work is by Vanuka.”

“Really? How can you be sure?”

“Trust me sir: the
composition, the use of color, the way light models the subject, I’m sure. But
you can confirm it. Vanuka liked to work the pigment with his fingers and any
good forensic system should be able to extract enough genetic material to give
a positive identification. He specialized in still life so this portrait is
very rare. I’d estimate its value to be at least thirty million.”

“Good gracious! My dear
Carson, would you by any chance be interested in the position of Curator of the
Royal Collection?”

“Sir, you have no idea
how much I would love that job, although right now I have other priorities. But
if you give me a copy of the catalog I’d be happy to check as much as possible
before I leave.”

“You are most kind.” Gustav
held up his right hand. “Here is our private address. Send us your findings.” They
touched palms. “So if we may inquire, what is keeping you so busy?”

Carson glanced around. Caelin
had long since excused herself and had gone to join the crew’s revelry; Aiyana
too had wandered off the moment the catalog appeared. Meantime Rasul was deep
in conversation at the other end of the table. He moved closer to the King.

“When I was last on New
Earth I did some research that suggested that a cache of colonial era artifacts
may be located somewhere on Orpheus. I plan to conduct a search.”

“Good luck, but we fear
your treasure may be buried under the glaciers. Best to return in a hundred
years.”

“The ice age will be over
that quickly?”

“It will be if we can
help it.” Gustav looked down the table. “Everyone seems to have deserted us. Treasurer
Rasul, can you describe the Reclamation Project for our visitor?”

Rasul moved over to join
them, and went on to describe the strategy to reverse the effects of the temperature
drop. The reduction of the sun’s output was bottoming out he explained, but it
would remain at that level for several thousand years.

“So we have to warm up
Orpheus artificially.”

The plan was to create a
series of artificial volcanoes by blowing holes in the planet’s crust. Initially
the volcanic dust in the atmosphere would lower the temperature even further,
but once settled it would decrease the reflectivity of the snowpack and hence
aid the absorption of heat.

“But the principal benefit
will come from the volcanic release of stupendous quantities of carbon dioxide
gas, creating what the ancients called a
greenhouse effect
.”

“Sounds kind of tricky”
said Carson. “Suppose you get too much and you end up like Old Earth?”

“I know, that’s one
reason we wanted to evacuate first. Still, we’ve already done a proof of
concept. Last year we created our first artificial volcano, although we played
safe by using a remote island in the southern ocean as a test site.”

A small black hole
materialized in Carson’s stomach.

“Where was that?” he
croaked.

“You will never have
heard of it, a place called Lanzor. It was perfect – it is, or was, an extinct
volcano so it required less explosive force. And oh did it work! The whole
island is spewing lava and ash.”

Carson sighed to himself,
perhaps one day things would be easy.
Oh well
, he thought,
if the
cache has been destroyed at least it stops Juro getting hold of it
. And it
was not as if they were returning home empty handed.

A courtier leaned in and
whispered to Gustav. The King nodded. “The Prime Minister is becoming anxious. We
are afraid that we should depart.”

Everyone stood up.

“Will you be leaving the
planet now that the Palace has gone?” Carson asked.

“Not yet, we intend to be
the last person to leave Orpheus, and the first to return.”

Without appearing to do
so the King had raised his voice so that people in the vicinity heard his
words. Carson saw many of them smile and nod. There’s something to be said for
hereditary monarchy, he mused, Gustav really was a born leader.

He made his farewells and
went to search out Aiyana. Finally he found her standing at the bar.

“Where’s Caelin?”

“Asleep in her cabin,
she’s been working non-stop for days.”

As they trudged to the
scooter Carson recounted Lanzor’s fiery demise.

“Let’s check it out
tomorrow, but I’m note hopeful.”

Aiyana climbed stiffly
onto the scooter.

“Ouch!” she yelled as she
sat down.

“Are you all right
honey?”

“Oh, me? Sure, why
wouldn’t I be? Hey come on, let’s get to the camp before it gets any colder.”

Carson smiled to himself
but said nothing as they zipped through the frigid night air.

“Well there it is.”

They were in the buggy looking
down at the island of Lanzor from an altitude of ten thousand meters. Directly
in front of them a three kilometer-wide column of smoke and ash rose into the
stratosphere. As the little craft flew lower they could see rivers of larva
flowing down the outer slopes of the crater while explosions continued to spew fresh
volleys of rock into the sky.

“Let’s go” Carson said. “Nothing
has survived down there.”

They flew back in
silence, both of them staring out at the empty ocean.

Eventually Aiyana said
“is it worth checking out the other locations?”

Carson shook his head.

“Rasul supplied me with
up-to-date satellite imagery. All the other potential sites are under the ice. As
the King said:
return in a hundred years.
”

The deserted metropolis
came into view. The Palace had been replaced by a raw gash in the earth. Piece
by piece the city was being eaten away.

“Aren’t you worried about
Tabarak finding us again?” Aiyana asked as they spiraled down to the abandoned
office block where they had made their camp.

“Not so much. He got
lucky on Falk, there was just one point of entry – the consulate – so it was
easy to locate us; in this system we could be anywhere. And things may be
chaotic but it’s still a technically advanced society – he can’t throw his
weight around as he did last time.

“Besides,” he added
warming to the subject, “he may not come here at all. Remember I told him that
we’d already visited Orpheus and didn’t find anything. He probably didn’t
believe me but once he sees the ice caps he may decide I was telling the truth.
If that happens he’ll bust out of here and head straight for Mirama.”

The buggy flew directly
into the huge office atrium. Carson and Aiyana climbed out and began packing up
the camp.

“Welcome back” said the
image of the woman in the improbable summer dress. “We are so pleased to have
you visit us again.”

“It’s kind of sad” Aiyana
said. “All these systems humming away trying to sell property that’s underneath
a glacier.”

“I tried to cheer them up
while you were out yesterday” said the buggy. “I told them I represented a
wealthy client who wanted a custom-built home. We spec’d out a beautiful villa,
and you should see the garage I designed for myself.”

They finished breaking camp
and were soon heading into space.

“Did I tell you that
Caelin asked me to stay in the Orpheus system?” Aiyana said.

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Don’t be silly. She told
me that with all the new immigrants there’s a huge building boom going on in
the Belt. She’s thinking of starting her own company and my expertise would be
useful. We’d go prospecting – nickel-iron asteroids, that sort of thing. It
could be fun, searching for treasure out there in the void.”

They both stared at each
other as they realized what she had just said.

Carson laughed out loud. “If
I get any more stupid I’m putting the portable stove in charge.”

“I’ll see if I can raise
her” Aiyana said as she opened a channel.

“Aiyana! You’ve changed
your mind.”

“Sorry Caelin, no, but I
do have a question for you. Where can we lease really powerful phase-array
radar? The type that could be used to locate small objects in cometary orbit.”

“You Aiyana?”

“No, I’m Carson”

“The contract says
Aiyana.”

Carson sighed and opened
a private channel. “Honey, come and talk this dumb machine.”

They were back on the
ship. Two days earlier, on Caelin’s advice, they had interrupted their return
journey to stop at Diotima in the Belt to arrange the lease of deep scanning
radar. The asteroid was an elliptical chunk of rock one hundred and fifty
kilometers long.

“What’s that on the far
end?” Carson asked Aiyana as the buggy approached the planetoid. “It almost seems
like a polar cap.”

“It is – standard way of
storing water. At one time it was probably a Kuiper Belt object; I bet them
just jammed it on the pointed end to stop it drifting away.”

Aiyana was enjoying
herself. This was her natural element and for once she was the expert.

It was clear that Diotima
had been heavily developed; less than half the surface still showed the
original raw rock and many of the large craters had been enclosed by
transparent domes.

“Hey, that’s where the
Palace is going, though Caelin said it will be weeks before it arrives – they
daren’t move it too quickly.”

Instead of landing on the
outer surface they headed to the south pole where they found a huge circular
opening capped by a shimmering blue inertial field. As the little craft pushed
through the restraining membrane it announced that they were in a pressured
oxygen-nitrogen environment. They had entered a kilometer-wide tunnel hewn from
the axis of the little world. Running perfectly straight, it converged to a
vanishing point in the remote distance.

The interior was an
endless series of concentric rings interspersed with circles of pure white
light that illuminated the whole interior. Everywhere the surface seethed with people
and vehicles. Each ring appeared to have a separate function. Immediately next
to the opening giant docks unloaded freight while further down were storage
facilities, repair shops, production plants, administration buildings, and even
some recreation areas. Every few seconds a transport emerged from one of the
countless side-tunnels, shot down the bore and disappeared into another
opening.

The buggy landed on a
quay labeled
Vertical Ascent Shaft 48A.
As they clambered out a local
field gently pushed them to the ground so that they were standing upright on
the tunnel’s surface with their heads pointing towards the axis.

“This feels kind of
weird” Aiyana said “I suppose that this close to the center real gravity is too
weak to have any effect.”

They walked over to a
twenty meter-wide side-tunnel, which from their orientation appeared as a large
hole in the floor of the quay. Without a moment’s hesitation Aiyana walked off
the edge. Carson followed her and squawked as they were immediately flipped
upside down. Now the shaft towered above their heads.

“Kamal Prospecting” he said
and they were shot vertically up. As they travelled the view flashed between
bare rock face and synthetic caverns, some of them huge; it seemed that the
entire planetoid was a three-dimensional maze. At one point they found
themselves going past layer after layer of green fields that stretched into the
distance.

“Vertically farming”
Aiyana explained. “Ground-up asteroid rock makes a pretty good growing medium.”

“Why not just synthesize
all the food?” Carson asked.

She pulled a face. “Would
you eat the portable stove’s cooking your entire life?”

Their ascent finally slowed
to a stop. The peristaltic field pushed them into the entrance of a large plaza
where they gently settled to the polished floor – this far from the axis the
gravitational pull was enough to be serviceable. Fifty meters above them Carson
could make out a ceiling of hewn rock studded with lights and conduits.

“Can you see where it
is?” he asked as he checked out the shops and offices surrounding the open
space.

Aiyana flexed her knees
and jumped thirty meters into the air.

“Over there!” she yelled,
pointing as she gradually descended.

Carson grinned –
ultra-low gravity was going to take some getting used to. A cheerful man
wearing a helmetless environment suit bounced over to meet them as they
entered.

“I’m Mudil, welcome to
Kamal Prospecting. Caelin tells me you want to rent an array.”

For the next hour Carson
took a back seat and let Mudil and Aiyana put together the specifications for a
system that could, in theory, find something as small as the storage units left
by the Yongding in the vastness of space.

“The radar arrays are
modular” Aiyana told him, “so in theory they can assemble one as big as we
like.”

A long technical
discussion ensued that Carson could not follow. Finally, the design was agreed
and he joined the conversation.

“How much?”

“Bad time to be leasing,
we have lots of demand…”

“So how much?”

“Twenty-five thousand a
day”

“Ouch, ouch, ouch”

“That’s with a four day
minimum, twenty percent in advance”

Carson groaned and began
bargaining. Mudil would not budge on the price but did finally agree to throw
in a free fifth day.

“It will be ready in forty-eight
hours” he said. “All I need now is the deposit and the rendezvous coordinates.”

“The irony is” Carson
said to Aiyana as they returned down the shaft, “we’re carrying cargo worth
untold billions and I’m getting worked up about a lousy hundred thousand.”

“I just wish there was
some way I could help but I left Mita with nothing.”

He kissed her. “I know,
not even the clothes on your back.”

But there was a way for Aiyana
to improve his mood. Once they were in the buggy and heading to the ship she
persuaded Carson to show her the Huan inventory of the Palace. Within minutes
he was pointing out all the treasures that the Museum had missed and ended up
spending the entire journey annotating the catalog.

Carson continued to work
on the inventory for the next two days while Aiyana, Tallis, and the ship
formulated the optimum search strategy for the array. Eventually he forced
himself to stop, packaged up the results, and sent off his findings to the
King’s private address.

“He should be happy, I
reckon I’ve found him at least another two hundred million, and I haven’t even
seen his toy collection.”

“Nest-mates, my outriders have identified a
large spacecraft approaching.”

“Large?”

“Very large indeed”

The array had arrived.

“Now that’s what I call a
piece of hardware!” exalted Aiyana as she examined the image floating in the
center of the cabin.

Tallis had not exaggerated
– the array was twice the size of the ship. It consisted of ten obsidian squares,
each twenty meters across, joined together in a straight line. Behind the
squares was a collection of push drives, Higgs engines, superconducting cable, logic
arrays, and all the attendant paraphernalia required to make the deep space
radar work.

“So you Aiyana? I need
some identification.”

She placed her right hand
in a console’s green circle and shot her genome across the vacuum.

“Okay, so what’s the
job?”

“Not so fast, first I
want to see your specifications and maintenance data.”

Aiyana studied the
information as it flowed in.

“Why are only nine units
calibrated?”

“Tenth is a spare.”

“And if you have a systems
failure you will need it. I want it properly calibrated in the next hour or I’m
flushing you straight down the gravity well.”

“Alright lady, no need to
give me a hard time”

“Damned if I’m taking
attitude from a machine” she muttered to Carson.

Thirty minutes later the
array was fully functional. Aiyana told it about the storage modules.

“We’re expecting to find
maybe twenty to thirty of them, almost certainly linked together.”

“Got any images?”

No, Aiyana explained, we
can do better than that. She and Tallis had devised a dry run for the array. The
day before the buggy had taken one of the empty units that they had found on
Mirama and deposited it in the empty void. Now she challenged the array to find
it.

They watched fascinated
as the giant machine slid apart, separating into its ten primary components. One,
the spare, remained behind while the other nine shot off, each powered by its
own push drive. Eventually they halted in a three by three formation, forming a
square thirty thousand kilometers wide. Then, working in precise synchronization,
the array began searching the sky with an eye the size of a planet.

“Multiple baseline interferometry,
that’s how it gets the incredible resolution” Aiyana said.

“That’s great, but what worries me
is that the array’s signal is like a huge beacon saying
‘Hey Tabarak, here
we are!’
I just hope he’s been and gone.”

“Perhaps he’s prospecting as well.”

“Not a chance. All their equipment
and expertize is with Shin. I’m certain his orders are simply to steal whatever
we found.”
And to kill us
Carson added to himself.

Tallis and had been thinking along
similar lines. She announced that she was deploying a second set of outriders
so that they could follow the search while maintaining vigilance around the
ship.

“Found it” the array said. The
unmistakable image of the target module floated in the cabin.

“Whoopee!” Aiyana yelled.
“We’re in business.”

The strategy was
straightforward: simply sweep out a circle with a five billion kilometer radius
around Orpheus’s sun. The array estimated that its resolution could detect the
modules within a hundred million kilometers of its location, so it was
effectively searching a toroid two hundred million kilometers thick.

“I’ll feed you hits up to
twice that distance” it said, “but some are going to be false positives.”

Circumnavigating a
thirty-one billion kilometer circle in five days required travelling at a
quarter of the speed of light. The array had never performed a search at such
high velocity and it needed the ship’s help to calculate the Fourier analysis for
the incoming signals.

“It’s big but it’s not
very bright” the ship said.

The first hit occurred
within hours and Carson and Aiyana stayed glued to the displays as Tallis’s
fleet rushed off the check the find. Eventually an image appeared of an odd
collection of rocks floating in the void.

Carson was livid. “I
mean, what the hell are they doing this far out?”

The search went on. After
the initial fiasco the array agreed to send the raw data along with its
analysis of the hits. This enabled the ship to run its own confirmation before
sending in the fleet.

At the end of the day the
ship jumped forward six billion kilometers to keep pace with the hunt. The
second day passed without incident. On the third day the array scored a hit at
the very limits of its search envelope. The ship’s algorithms were unable to
settle the matter and Tallis sent out of her craft. After six hours of flight
they found a garbage dump, presumably tossed out by a passing vessel.

“Goddam vandals! I’m
going to bed.”

Carson drifted away,
muttering to himself.

Four hours later while they
were in the depths of sleep rosy light suffused the cabin. Gentle chimes
sounded. It was the ship’s standard way of waking up the crew.

“What the… what time is
it?”

“It’s the middle of the
night. Sorry to wake you guys but I think we’ve found it.”

By the time they were
dressed the ship had coffee brewing in the galley. Tallis, who never slept, had
already redirected her fleet.

“We are very hopeful that it is the storage
modules nest-mates. The radar image is a near-perfect match!”

“Are you both properly
awake yet?” the ship asked.

“Sure, why?”

“Because there’s more to
the story. I can’t be certain at this distance but it appears as if another
ship is already there.”