The Sunborn (11 page)

Silently she joined a team that was harvesting corn. It was good, solid work, letting her hands go and have fun while her mind could idle, running on its own. Cut, sort, bag…

One winter she had gone out on a Girl Scout trip, and they had stayed overnight in a bush farmhouse with a tin roof. In the night birds thumped heavily onto the roof, because when they looked down from their migrating patterns, it reflected the moon and so looked like an inviting pond. She had rushed outside and found dazed ducks, given them water, and off they had gone—no doubt to make the same mistake again, because nature saw no point in giving them the processing power to learn from experience, much less to tell others of their kind. If there had been many tin roofs, they would never have made the migration, never made new ducks. Nature had not made them too narrow, not this time.

Too narrow… Could evolution have found a way to give the mat some use for the magnetic field waves? It sounded crazy.

Julia was thinking so hard about this that the burst of hand-clapping startled her. When she brought in a bushel of picked corn, her coworkers applauded. “Fastest picking I’ve ever seen,” a man said. Julia was startled. She had not even noticed.

Sitting in the cafeteria, nursing a cup of coffee, a young woman from the bio section asked, “Mind if I sit down?” The room was crowded. Julia waved her into a chair. Stephanie, she recalled, a biochem type. They had even been on a dozen-author paper together, on how the Marsmat used sulfur for energy.

“Nothing much to do,” the woman chatted on. “I’m a sexile for the next few hours.”

“Uh, what?”

“Exiled for sex. My roomie has a guy in.”

“Uh, oh.” At first Julia blinked, affronted at this sudden bolt of intimate detail. Then she realized that this was another effect of living in a tight little base, however grand the views were outside. Unavoidably, formal hierarchy dissolved under the rub of informal daily life. See the commander daily slurping coffee and washing dishes, and pretty soon he doesn’t look like the leader anymore. Even legends did scut work—or should.

The woman started happily chattering, and her talk went in Julia’s ear and out the other. Only when the other woman started to notice did she make an attempt to respond. Julia was busy realizing how out of touch with the younger staff she was.
Could Praknor be right? Time to hang it up?

Praknor tried to put her foot down over their excursion, eyes flashing. “No, it’s ridiculous.”

“Axelrod said we are to recover package,” Viktor said.

“You can barely walk!”

“I’ll do the walking,” Julia said. “The route is along one of our standard drives, and I can do the driving, too.”

“It’s twenty-three kilometers—”

“We leave at dawn, back in plenty of time.”

Praknor sat very still. “I believe we must define just who is now in charge here.”

Julia said in a deliberately conversational tone, “Well, I hardly think it’s a dichotomous choice. Still, no need getting our knickers in a twist when we can defer to Earthside on this one, eh?”

Earthside would be very surprised to be asked; tight control of excursions had faded away years ago. But she was counting on the fact that Praknor was so green she didn’t know what the routine was.

Viktor picked this up. “And can talk to staff, too.”

Praknor sputtered, but Viktor’s intuition proved right. The staff would support the venerable Marsnauts, not a fresh manager who hardly had her Earthside smell worn off.

Julia sent a long message to the Consortium, and Praknor wrote one even longer. Off these went. Experience proved the rule: Earthside dithered for hours. Praknor got distracted with work. Nudge nudge, wink—

So they went. It helped that everybody was talking about the new results from the Pluto expedition, and a bit distracted. Nobody asked questions. The ISA discovery of a biosphere there had electrified them all. Julia had no idea what to think about the Pluto reports. The biology seemed impossible. But then, so had the news that the solar system’s bow shock was moving inward. She had long before learned to let the outer world go on, without her attention. She put aside everything and focused on the task at hand—always, on risky Mars, a good idea.

Going out, Julia noticed how much of the landscape was now rutted and marked by the ever-busy humans. She could see the towers of their water-drilling fields in the distance. Some pingos nearby were thoroughly excavated, both for bio-signatures in the deep ice deposits and for geological data; then the ice was harvested, leaving holes yawning like mouths. Not far from them was the crumpled descent package.

This was yet another miracle of design. Hardly the size of a coffee table, the smart, carbon-fiber shell had survived the blistering plunge by flying itself. Stubby wings let it use the infalling energy to bank and lift, gaining the time to locate Gusev. Viktor insisted on parking only meters away, so she had a very short walk. The announced reason for this flight was some vital small parts for a malfed pressure control system, and they were indeed most of the payload mass. But when she lifted the parts out, there was a cylinder at the back. On it in big stenciled letters was
FOR JULIA AND VIKTOR ONLY
. In Axelrod’s hand.

She got it back into the rover, and inside was a rolled-up letter. “It’s so like Axelrod to send an old-fashioned letter rather than an electronic squirt,” she said, opening it.

“Hang the expense,” Viktor said. “Is also much more secure this way.”

They read it together. “Now will be much fun to talk to Praknor,” Viktor remarked.

“I can’t believe it,” Praknor said.

They showed her the letter. Axelrod had even written it by hand; he never trusted the security of digital media and more than once had been proved right. Praknor read it over twice.

“The big nuke is for heavy Mars hauling, yes.” Viktor began, as usual, by illuminating the tech angle. “Will land with plenty supplies, rovers, support gear. Rut will take off with water in holds.”

“This is insane,” Praknor said quietly.

“Maybe, but is orders.” Viktor even smiled.

“I thought, I was told, I was to prepare you for transfer to the moon. But, but—to send you to Pluto!”

“They need help,” Julia said. “Nobody there has experience dealing with alien life, communication—”

“And
you
…”

Praknor didn’t finish her sentence, but Julia knew how it went:
You over-the-hill types are going to ride out there in the biggest, best nuke yet built, to help? When young people like me are available?
Ah, the arrogance of youth!

“We are only part of it,” Viktor said crisply. “This nuke has crew, supplies needed on Pluto, just needs us for maybe helping with the communication problem. And Axelrod, he has money in his mind, too.”

Praknor shook her head. “There’s no money to be made at Pluto. That’s an ISA expedition.”

Julia suppressed a smile. The whole nuclear rocket program had emerged from military, commercial, and exploratory arms. The Mars Prize itself had been the first step toward true international cooperation, and it had drawn two entries: Axelrod’s Consortium from the USA, flying in big chemical boosters, and the Euro-Chinese end run, using a nuke.

After that, it seemed obvious that merging abilities and assets, with economies of scale, could make space a far easier enterprise. Ultimately that cooperation had formed the International Space Agency. Axel-rod’s can-do personality had driven much of it. Julia spoke with him nearly every week, still, but her memories of him were over two decades old now and fading. But she was sure that the man would never do anything that did not hold at least the promise of profit.

“You forget the ice asteroids,” Viktor said.

Praknor just looked perplexed, so he went on. “Inner solar system was dried out by early, hot sun—the T Tauri stage, is called. Sun’s light pressure blew lots of light elements out, so the gas giants are all beyond the asteroids—and even ’roids are dry. To develop inner solar system, need light elements—water, carbon dioxide, methane. There are whole chunks of that orbiting out beyond Neptune—the Pluto expedition found lots. Tested a few. Axelrod wants to move some in, far in—to here—so Consortium can use.”

Praknor snorted with derision. “Move asteroids? Wouldn’t it take huge energies?”

“No, little needed. ’Roids out there move with orbital velocities of maybe one, two kilometers per second. Slow. Take that away, they fall straight in toward sun.”

“But even a small change, for such a huge mass—”

“Use nuke reactor. Melt some of ice, heat, blow it out back, makes rocket. Use the ’roid’s own ice to move it. Cheap.”

Praknor blinked, her mouth pursed, and then she stiffened. “That’s what the board thinks?”

“Axelrod says so in his letter,” Julia added. “Me, I think he wants to get all the help he can for the Pluto expedition. After all, it’s getting plenty of media attention—distracting people from what we’re doing here.”

Praknor said slowly, “He wants to get back in the game.”

Julia could tell by the subtle sag of Praknor’s shoulders that she was accepting defeat. “If he can supply water to people in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, he can capture all the mining industry. There are more metals available in the belt than in the outer crust of the Earth.”

“But is more,” Viktor said, eyes crinkling.

“What?” Praknor was guarded, already hammered heavily by this torrent of news.

“On Pluto expedition is his daughter. And they are in deep trouble.”

Before falling asleep, cuddling close, Julia said thoughtfully, “Didn’t these last few days seem, well, a bit odd?”

“How you mean?” Viktor was sleepy.

“First we get Praknor, who made a mess of dealing with us. Got our backs up.”

“Axelrod is not diplomat.”

“No, he’s an order of magnitude better than mere diplomats. He’s a conniver.”

“How you mean?” Viktor turned off his light and got his skeptical look on his face. She knew that he would listen for maybe a minute, then close his eyes and drift off to sleep. Very efficient.

“Praknor pushes us all out of shape by threatening to ship us back to the moon. She believes it, too, and is the most abrasive person I’ve ever seen sent out here.”

“Um.” He did not open his eyes, but he said slowly, “So we think this is first of new breed.”

“And she can point at the big nuke, due in soon.”

“Last train out of Dodge.”

“Huh?”

“I been watching movies. Westerns.”

“Oh. Then Axelrod slips in this fast sail message, absolutely authentic, in his own hand.”

“Personal touch.”

“Good cop, bad cop.”

Viktor chuckled. “Praknor, very bad cop. Good cop saves us from a routine life on moon. Holds out Pluto, where the action is right now. The nuke is already partway there, see? Energetically Mars is third of the way to Pluto.”

She ran her hands over his back. “I love it when you talk technical.”

“I know this.”

She made a rude noise. “So we’re to be part of a grand expedition, helping out his own daughter—and the Consortium can play it as a rescue plus science.”

“Sells well.”

“You got it. Great story, featuring our famous, fave heroes from the Mars Race.”

“Is what Axelrod intended all along. Moon was phony choice.”

She slapped his ass cheerfully. “And now we’re glad to grab the chance! A month ago I’d have resisted leaving Mars at all.”

“Now we are ready.”

“Yes, we are.”

“Axelrod smart guy.”

Julia nudged him. “Plausible, right?”

“Does not matter.”

“What? Why?”

“Because he could just order us to. But this way we’re enthusiastic. Much better to have employees who want to do the work,
da
?”

She felt offended. “We’re not employees!”

“To Consortium we are.” He rolled over and put both arms around her. “Let them play their manager games. We have the fun. Is all that matters.”

L
IGHT—PALE
,
BLUE COLD
,
little more than starshine—crept over the gray ice plains. Dancing blue and green auroral sheets shimmered in the deep blackness above. On the dayside skyline a turbid yellow stain swelled at the hard brim of the world. Then a sudden blinding-bright point threw stretched shadows across the hummocked land. The seventy-seven hours’ night was over.

Sunlight, waxing yet still wan, laid siege to a rampart of spiky white needles. Temperatures edged up from the night’s 96 degrees Absolute that made everything here rock-solid. Even the methane ice hills loomed like rumpled blue steel.

But the coming of the sun—now a pinpoint only as bright as a streetlight a block away—changed the landscape. Methane needles caught the sunglow, and their sharp crystalline spearpoints curled, sagged, slumped. Gray vapor rose to meet the tepid dawn. It met even colder, drier air from Darkside that came sliding in on a rushing wind.

Methane rain fell in wobbly dollops, spattering on black ice. The zand awoke.

It peered out at the slow awakening of a slumbering land. Its body stirred. These bleak days were not remotely like the warm breath of summer, now long lost. Centuries would elapse before Pluto again saw methane ice sublime into its pink haze. The grinning crescent of Charon above loomed large but was still too small to hold its gases. The eons had stripped Charon of its methane, leaving bare, rock-solid water ice. During the richly remembered summer Charon had grown a pearly vapor tail like a comet, while still stolidly performing its gravid waltz with Pluto. Now its vast, pocked plains yawned above as each world rotated with the other, face-to-face. Like dancers forever doomed to the same pace, the ice world’s cycle repeated every 6.4 days.

Surface relays kindled by the sun sent crisp neural discharges coursing through the zand’s body. The spherical shell that had sealed it from the long night split and retraced. Brittle rods clacked, withdrawing inside, finding fresh socketings in an internal skeleton. Pulpy organs sluggishly awoke. In such deep cold, only organic solvents could ooze to a slow, throbbing pulse.