Solar Express (23 page)

She tried to think matters through. The last message she'd received from Chris had been on October twenty-fifth. While he'd expressed his “appreciation” for keeping him informed and congratulations on the uniqueness of her discovery, that had been all he had written about. At first, she'd been upset, almost hurt, before considering that the way in which he had replied might well have signified how important it was. At least, that was what she hoped, especially after the prosaic responses from Director Wrae and the total lack of response from the IAU. Then again, after two centuries of seeking evidence of other intelligent life in the universe, maybe no one wanted to commit to saying much of anything until there was absolute proof.

But why hadn't he replied to her last message? It had been over a week, hadn't it? And he hadn't taken that long in replying in some time. Was he in trouble? Or was he on some military mission, something dark and secret?

 

32

T
HE
T
IMES OF
I
SRAEL

3 N
OVEMBER
2114

(B
EIJING
) “Government operatives have seized one of the Indra missiles reportedly missing from the Indian military,” Sinese Defense Minister Wu Gong announced late yesterday. According to sources close to the ministry, the missile was located in an undisclosed location in Mongolia, close to being ready to launch, and was of Indian manufacture. The official announcement did not name the group possessing the missile, presumed to be Mongolia First!, but indicated that further antiterrorist operations were ongoing in Mongolia. Other sources reported sporadic outbreaks of violence outside Ulaanbaatar and Choibalsan.

Local observers have also reported the movement of close to a division of Sinese troops into the northern sector of Arunachal Pradesh, an area China has claimed for well over a century, but which India has held since 1914.

Indian Prime Minister Narahaj Ravindra denounced the movement of troops and declared that the “so-called Indra missile is a fabrication by the Sinese government to justify aggressive action against India to prevent its completion of the Dyaus space elevator, which is designed only for the peaceful use of space.”

Noram Secretary of Defense Olassen Trudeau cautioned the Sinese Federation against “overreacting” and inaccurately linking a homegrown independence movement within the Sinese Federation to legitimate and reasonable aspirations to improve access to space by India and the UAAS.

Israeli Prime Minister Meir spoke briefly with Indian Prime Minister Ravindra, but did not disclose the substance of the conversation. Israeli military experts downplayed the ability of a terrorist group to program and launch such a sophisticated weapon, especially with the need for either a rocket-assisted or high-speed air launch. One suggested that the Sinese had obtained a prototype mock-up that had disappeared five years ago and were using the mock-up for political and military purposes …

 

33

R
ECON
T
HREE

5 N
OVEMBER
2114

Although Tavoian was trying to keep to a schedule, if only in an effort to hold his biological rhythms close to regular, he woke close to 0500 UTC on Monday morning, climbed out of the sleeping bag strapped to the control couch, stowed it, and checked all the monitors and screens. There was no sign of any hull damage, certainly less of a possibility now that he was largely above the system ecliptic, not that there was that large a probability, but as the old saying went, an extremely low probability high speed impact could kill him just as dead. He could only hope that he didn't run into anything that the Whipple shields and the graphene aerogel couldn't handle. He also really didn't want the booster to shred on him before at least some deceleration, since there was no way he'd have enough fuel to kill his outbound speed, let alone attain enough inbound velocity that he could return to the inner solar system before his habitability collapsed. The problem of traveling at the velocity Recon three had achieved, well over 315 kps, was that even the most sensitive scanning systems couldn't detect small objects still large enough to turn the fusionjet into fragments exploding everywhere early enough that even the nano-quick reactions of the AI could move Recon three to avoid such a collision. If they were to encounter something larger, the systems would detect that soon enough.

Far from the first time, he tried not to think about that as he strapped himself into the body-exercise suit and went at it for an hour. Then he cleaned up and returned his attention to his mission. He called up yet one more set of technical and operating details on another of the specialized AIs stowed in the cargo section of Recon three. After more than an hour, he shook his head and closed his eyes, trying not to think about anything for several minutes, but that was difficult with the only sound being the faint hissing of the ventilation system. He could have asked the AI for music from the tracks he'd loaded, but most of the time, except when he was trying to sleep, he preferred hissing to music. As for realies … although he'd loaded a few, he wasn't desperate enough yet to sample the technically sophisticated production of so-called entertainment that, if the viewer was lucky, actually had a plot, if basic, on which subliminal emoticons, suggestive rhythms, and four-note background music from a synth orchestra had been piled.

Finally, he called up one of the books he'd loaded into his personal system—
The Economics of Failure
—on his screen to read and continued from where he had left off, although he had certain misgivings already.

 … one of the worst miscalculations by both American financiers and politicians was the equation of liquidity to the availability of capital for both mid-and-lower income home-owners and for small businesses. In point of fact, the excessive liquidity created by speed-trading and lax regulation of the U.S. securities industry merely subsidized increasing speculation and led inexorably to the second and then to the final collapse of the old American economy. The growing misallocation of capital starved small and regional businesses and overemphasized service and media-oriented enterprises relying on comparatively few employees and capital-and-technology intensive infrastructures …

Tavoian paged ahead. He'd
thought
the book would be more interesting than it was turning out to be. It had been advertised as a tell-all about the Great Collapse.

 … the final bulwark against encroaching financial anarchy collapsed with the decision in
Goldman Sachs v. U.S.
…

He kept paging.

 … the first sign of unrest occurred when the Grads WithOut Work [GWOW] simultaneously severed major high-speed fiber-optic cables serving the major securities trading networks of U.S. financial institutions, then deployed sophisticated self-replicating malware that transferred the assets of the institutions randomly to individuals and small businesses across not only the United States but Canada and Mexico before destroying a significant percentage of financial records … The unsolved sniper shootings of David Jindal, the president of Wells-Fargo, and Robert L. Sullivan, the chairman of Goldman-Sachs, created greater consternation … followed by the imposition of martial law—

At that moment, slightly after 0700 UTC, the ship's AI informed Tavoian,
MAJOR, YOU HAVE A MESSAGE.

Tavoian frowned. “Display, please.”

The pages of
Economics of Failure
vanished.

Tavoian, Christopher A.

Major, NSC

NSS-21/Recon Three

Communications block is hereby lifted. All communications will be burst-sent to Donovan Base, including personal transmissions, no more often than once every twelve standard hours, with the exception of those of an urgent or emergency nature.

Official and personal messages follow.

The first message was official, as well as short and without any identification. As soon as he began to read it, he understood why.

Sinese fusionjet recently docked at Sinese counterweight orbit station. Receiving supplies. Crew size unknown. Armament, if any, unknown. Ship type: Twin-drive longliner, Jiang class.

The newest class Sinese longliner, when longliners almost never docked at the counterweight station?
Their quick conversion to an alien-artifact chaser?
Tavoian nodded, then looked for others that might be official. There weren't any, which surprised him. The next message was the official Space Service news summary. The only entry that was of great interest was the summary on the continuing developments surrounding rising tensions between the Sinese Federation, the Indian-UAAS alliance, and Noram.

President Yates called for a three-party conference to discuss the issues surrounding the space elevator issues. Sinese Head of State Jiang agreed “in principle,” but reiterated that a necessary precondition for any such talks was a multination inspection of Indian space installations to assure that no militarization of those facilities was occurring. Prime Minister Ravindra countered by indicating that no such inspection would be allowed until and unless a similar inspection of Sinese installations occurred concurrently. None of the three have made further statements.

Since there wasn't much he could do about any of that, when he finished reading the news summary, Tavoian called up the first personal message—from his sister Kit.

Chris—

I don't want to bother you. Not now, with all the problems with comms and the Sinese, but I haven't heard from you. As soon as I could get away from Ottawa after the hearings, I flew to Cedar, and drove to Brian Head.

Tavoian winced. Even with her salary, the cost of flying would have cost half a month's pay.

Dad didn't expect me. He didn't want us to worry, he said. How could we not worry when he's been hiding something? I know you're on some kind of training for something, but is there any possibility at all you could come home, for even a day? I wouldn't ask, but I thought you should know. Mom's got T3.

Tuberculosis three?
Tavoian felt like he'd been punched in the gut. T3 was resistant to every known treatment. It didn't kill immediately, but most people who contracted it had only a few months. A few might last a year, but their mother was already frail. He kept reading.

Is it at all possible for you to get emergency leave or something, sometime, before too long? I'm sorry to send a message like this, but I knew you'd want to know, even if you can't get home. She made me promise not to tell you. So I lied and said I wouldn't. I hope you can come home. If you can't, and even if you can, PLEASE don't let her know I told you. She doesn't want you to worry when you could be in danger with Noram, the Sinese, and the Indians all threatening each other. I hope I'm not wrong, but I did think you'd want to know, rather than be kept in the dark …

She was right about that.
Tavoian had been worrying anyway.
But … T3?
How had she even come in contact with anyone? Then, the reports were that it was far more contagious than previous versions of TB. He continued to read.

I hate testifying before legislative committees, or even advising anyone involved. Almost none of the politicians want anything objective. They barely listen until some fact comes up that they can use, distort, or turn into a campaign issue. I suppose it's always been that way, but it doesn't make me feel any better …

Tavoian read through the rest of the message, mostly about her expensive and tedious flight to Cedar City, and how their father was handling matters, then immediately began to compose a reply, even if he wouldn't send it until later, with everything else he needed to write and include.

Dear Kit,

Thank you for letting me know about Mom. I'd worried that she was having some sort of trouble, but I never imagined it was as terrible as T3. Something like that makes any of my problems seem trivial. Compared to what she's facing, I don't have any real problems …

Not any that you can mention or would want to.

There's no possible way I can get home for some time. I wish I could. You know that I'd come if there were any way possible, but with what's happening right now, I doubt that anyone in the Space Services is going anywhere at the moment …

All that's true, but misleading. What else can you say?

 … I hope the politicians can resolve this mess peacefully, but the Sinese seem determined to find a way to dominate the solar system, one way or another, and the Indians and the UAAS seem equally determined not to let them. Our official position seems to be …

He paused and then deleted the last sentence. He really had no idea what the Noram official position was, and there was little point in speculating, because that might be censored and that would delay the message.

Until matters settle down, and probably for some time after that, I'm stuck where I am. I can't tell you how glad I am that you can see them both. I also can't tell you how much I appreciate what you're doing. I'll never be able to make that up to you, and it's so unfair, but life isn't always fair. We can only try our best to make it that way when we can. Sometimes, we don't get even that chance. My love, and more appreciation, to you.

After putting his reply to Kit in the “send” queue, he checked all the screens and indicators, not that the AI wasn't faster and more accurate, then asked, “Are there any objects anywhere close to our immediate course line?”

THERE ARE NO OBJECTS NEAR THE COURSE LINE WITHIN DETECTION RANGE.

Compared to the more than a million large and small objects already detected in the solar system, there were only a comparative few that had either supra-ecliptic orbits or orbits inclined more than twenty degrees to the plane of the ecliptic, most of which were comets or cometary remnants. Of those few asteroids with such orbits, the largest was Hildago, with an inclination of forty-two degrees, and for an asteroid with such an irregular orbit, it was huge, with a diameter of twenty kilometers.