When he finished, she got up from her perch and moved to the narrow stair leading down to the second floor.
After Claris left, Vasloff rotated his powered chair to gaze out on the overcast world below. A canal barge was moving ponderously upstream. As he watched, he reviewed the last few paragraphs of the Coordinator’s speech.
True, humanity had faced danger before, but had there ever been a time when the danger was as acute as now? If so, how had his ancestors coped? How had they withstood this oppressive fear and not gone mad?
#
Chapter
Seven
To most people’s surprise, parliament passed the Coordinator’s bill establishing three independent institutes in record time – proving that even legislators can move quickly when sufficiently frightened.
The locations of the three institutes were chosen with an eye toward tradition. The group assigned to flesh out the Gibraltar Earth plan was assigned to the Stellar Survey Academy in Colorado Springs; while the Vasloff Plan Institute would be at the University of Paris. The independent Broa Research Institute was to be co-located with the Harvard Exo-Biology Center.
Two weeks after the hearings in Toronto, Mark Rykand and Lisa Arden found themselves living in a single room in the old section of the Stellar Survey Academy. Their new accommodations were not much larger than their compartment aboard the
Ruptured Whale
. Until recently, it had been the living quarters of four cadets, who had been dispossessed to less “luxurious” quarters.
It took Mark a few days to get used to the academy’s quaint architecture, misnamed “modernist.” Eventually, he was able to see the beauty inherent in the style, including in the soaring A-frame pile of steel-and-glass that was the Cadet Chapel. Lisa thought the 20
th
century architecture ugly.
Around their island of quaintness, the rest of the academy soared skyward in a series of modern towers. The academy had been chosen for the nascent institute because most survey members were in favor of the Gibraltar Earth plan.
The Vasloff Plan Institute was to be located in Paris for similar reasons. The French had been culturally opposed to anything new for half a millennium. It was an attitude built into their genes; and one reinforced by the Islamic Crusade of the mid-twenty-first century that had resulted in a nuclear near-miss on the Rock of Gibraltar.
The first month in Colorado Springs was taken up with organizational tasks, including the importation of university professors, scientists from private industry, engineers, and officers from the Earth’s small Space Force. Every new arrival had to be assigned housing, office space, and membership on one of a dozen study teams. They also had to be briefed on the expedition to the Voldar’ik sun and given an overview of what humanity knew of the Broa.
The latter tasks fell to Mark and Lisa. Once each week, they presented a four-hour orientation lecture to newly arrived cadre, taking turns to break the monotony. The rest of the time they were available for “consulting,” which meant answering a constant barrage of questions from each of the study groups. Many of these were redundant, but referring the questioner to the published answer did not seem to work well. Everyone wanted to hear the information direct from someone who had seen the Sovereignty with their own eyes.
Their weekly lecture was an introduction to the history of the Sovereignty, Broan physiology and psychology – actually Sar-Say physiology and psychology – and what little was known of the physical layout of Broan Space. Unfortunately, the answer to the question: “What do we know about Broan Space?” was “Not much.”
The problem, as Mark often told those who asked, was that people who travel via stargate have little interest in the physical positions of the stars in the universe. What they cared about was the sequence of gates needed to jump from System A to System B. Their maps, therefore, were like subway maps. They de-emphasized the astronomy involved and showed sequences of jump points that made no effort to correlate with the actual position of the stars in the sky.
It did not take the Astronomy Working Group long to declare that this lack of astrogation data to be the institute’s most pressing problem. Each of the other working groups had other “most pressing problems,” and all of them thought either Mark or Lisa could clear up the confusion if they just asked them enough questions.
This barrage of inquiries caused Mark to wonder if they had been smart in abandoning Klys’kra’t so quickly after learning the truth about Sar-Say. After all, had they finalized the database deal before they fled, they would now have a full astronomical database to study.
#
“There was another demonstration today,” Lisa told Mark after he finished the weekly orientation lecture. The two of them were squeezed side-by-side into their tiny kitchenette, making dinner.
“Oh, where?”
“Toronto, where else? They say a million people showed up to demand ‘peace,’ but it only looked to be about 200,000 from the pictures I saw.”
“Vasloff seems to be doing a good job getting people on his side, doesn’t he?”
“No wonder. He is on every news program and talkathon on the net. Doom and gloom sells, I guess.”
Mark turned and took her in his arms, planting a kiss on her forehead. Then he just held her. “There is something we should consider, my darling.”
“What?”
“He may be right. We could be setting humanity up for a suicide mission here.”
“Don’t say things like that,” she said sternly before returning the kiss, this time on the mouth.
“Why not?”
“Because his way leads to the
illusion
of safety. Our way leads to the
fact
of safety.”
“Or to our extermination.”
She nodded. “Or to our extermination. Either way is better than what Sar-Say has planned for us.”
Mark felt a cold shiver down his spine. When confronted aboard the
Ruptured Whale
about his plans for Earth, Sar-Say had been very straightforward in proclaiming what subservience to the Broa meant. Perhaps he had intended to frighten them into surrendering. If so, he miscalculated. His description of life under the overlords had hardened their resolve rather than weakened it. Still, even though the plan for resisting the Broa was his, Mark sometimes had his private doubts.
“How did your day go?” Lisa asked as she wriggled out of his grip and turned back to the task of chopping celery for the salad.
“Same old, same old. I gave the same talk we have given six times now, got the same questions, gave the same answers.”
“It won’t be long now. The institute is almost completely staffed. Once we are all in harness, no more ‘orientation lectures.’”
“Don’t kid yourself. Once the staff is in place, the visiting VIPs will begin to show up. Guess who will have the honor of showing them around?”
Her expression showed mock horror. “Not that! Surely they can get some flunky in the public relations department.”
He stirred the spaghetti that was cooking on what in earlier years might have been described as a ‘hot plate,’ then said, “I have news for you, my dear. Flunkies are us!”
#
Dr. Octavius Brainard was a tall man, heavy-set, and graying. He was a physicist out of Stanhope College and a member of the team studying the application of alien technology to humanity’s conquest of the Broan home worlds.
He gazed down at Mark from an elevation of two meters, and boomed, “You were right, young man. Obtaining stargate technology is essential to our attack. Without it, the logistics are just impossible!”
Mark wondered why that fact wasn’t obvious to everyone. It certainly was to those who had endured the year-long journey to the Crab Nebula and another year coming back.
The two competing star travel technologies had their pluses and minuses. The stardrive gave humanity the advantage of mobility. They could go anywhere. However, traversing a light year at top speed required a little more than an hour, and crossing 7000 light years required 9000 hours. That was a long way to haul the megatons of supplies required for a successful interstellar war.
Traveling by stargate, on the other hand, eliminated the distance problem. In effect, there was zero distance between gates, which meant that the jump from one system to another required zero time.
Fighting a war at the end of a year-long voyage was too cumbersome to be workable. If Earth was to be successful against the Broa, they would have to establish forward operating bases on the periphery of the Sovereignty and would have to keep them continually supplied. For that, they needed stargates of their own.
Brainard continued: “The problem, of course, is getting our hands on the technology and learning how it works. Any suggestions?”
“Just my original one. That we steal a gate from some out-of-the-way system and then reverse engineer it.”
Brainard nodded. “Might work, but it would be risky. For one thing, the Broa are likely to react strongly to the theft of a gate by ships that don’t seem to need them.”
“There is that,” Mark agreed. “The last thing we want is to alert them that they have acquired a competitor.”
“There is another scenario, Brainard mused. “Perhaps we can develop the technology on our own without recourse to risky raids on Broan gates.”
“Do you think we could?”
“It’s conceivable. We know the gate exists. We have the measurements of the jump field that you people made while escaping the Voldar’ik System. We may be able to develop the technology with our current understanding of physics.”
“Do you think it possible?”
“I will have to speak to the Director about establishing a separate working group, one composed of the best physicists we can attract. Of course, even if we invent the technology ourselves, we will need to be careful about using it. Gravity waves, you know.”
Mark nodded. Gravity waves were something he understood. When a ship entered one end of a stargate pair, it disappeared from normal space. When it exited the other end, it reappeared. In between, it did not exist. The discontinuities caused gravity waves at both ends. One was a “negative wave,” produced by the sudden disappearance of mass. The other was a “positive wave,” caused by the sudden materialization at the other end of the jump.
Just as Earth was the center of an expanding bubble of radio noise, every stargate was the center of its own expanding bubble of gravity waves. The Sovereignty was filled with stargates and ships jumping hither and yon; which meant it was awash in gravity waves, some thousands of years old and barely detectable, others radiated outward with the strength of youth.
These were the normal waves. There were other, stronger gravity waves. These were generated when a ship entered a stargate at the beginning of its journey, but rematerialized in open space. It had been such a one-way jump, triggered by a wayward energy bolt, that had caused Sar-Say’s freighter to be cast into the New Eden system along with its tormentor.
Once humanity learned the secret of the stargate, they would have to be careful not to use their own gates too near Broan stars. That meant that humanity’s forward bases would have to be at least 100 light-years outside the Sovereignty. Otherwise, the Broa would detect the human-generated gravity waves and awaken from their ignorance-induced slumber.
#
Chapter Eight
Low lying clouds scudded across the sky as blustery gusts tugged at Professor Alan Fernandez. The storm had caught the trees of Harvard Yard in the process of their annual transformation. Stately Hawthorns and cedars were midway through their annual color change, with half the trees sporting summer green and the other half adorned by yellow and red leaves. The bare limbs of coming winter were foretold by the colorful leaves tumbling across the sere grass, blown by the inconstant wind.
Surrounding the park-like expanse were buildings of red and brown brick with windows filled with darkened glass panes. Some of the buildings dated back half a millennium. Others, outwardly antique, had been erected within the current generation.
As Fernandez hurried along the concrete walkway, he held his left hand clamped firmly over his hat, while a briefcase of red leather dangled from his right.
Fernandez held the Chalmers Chair for the Study of Exo-Biology, a position that had propelled him to the directorship of the Institute for Broan Studies. For more than three years, he had been one of the team that had studied Sar-Say from afar, of necessity. His heart was not up to the rigors of space travel.
To read the reports of others and never have the chance to study humanity’s only intelligent alien was not his idea of an optimum situation. Luckily, he had reached a position where he could do something about it.
Rounding a corner where colored leaves swirled in a small whirlpool of wind, he hurried up the steps into the former science building that had been turned into Institute headquarters. The chill wind tugged at his clothes as he passed through the weather barrier into the marble-lined foyer beyond.
Fernandez strode up the spiral stairs to the second floor at a rate prudent for a man of his years and physical condition. His office was at the end of the hall. As he pushed the door open, his secretary looked up from her screen and said, “There you are, Professor. Drs. Knowlan and Hirakawa are in your office.”
“Been there long?”
“About five minutes.”
“Good, I thought I would be late. Any messages, Marcy?”
“All on your to-do list.”
“Thank you,” he replied over his shoulder as he pushed through the inner door to the sanctum sanctorum.
As he entered, he found an office around which were scattered boxes and packing crates. Some were half-empty, others had yet to be cracked open. They held the contents of his former office across campus.
“Hello, Hiro. Sebastian. Thanks for coming.”
“No problem, Al,” Hirakawa said. “What is so important that it couldn’t wait for the weekly staff meeting?”
“I am going to make a controversial request. I want you two to back me up.”
“What request?”