Authors: Unknown
His current situation was very different from the one in which Vasloff usually found himself. Usually he was an outsider, looking in. Now he was an insider, but one with no access to the public. His contacts with Earth were limited to a single 50-word message each week. It was not even a private message.
Dieter Pavel required that he deliver it to the communications office, where a computer paraphrased it before sending the message on.
The security measure had not been 100% successful, of course. While there were a number of code systems for imbedding information in seemingly innocuous messages, the paraphrase algorithm made any word-specific code inoperative. If “cat” meant something specific in a coded message, then “house pet”
would probably not carry the same meaning. Moreover, if there was anything worse than a coded message turned to gibberish by paraphrasing, it was that same message, but with the meaning transformed, possibly to the exact opposite of what was intended.
So long as communication exists, however, it is impossible to completely block the transmission of secret messages. Vasloff’s code relied not on specific code words, but rather, on code concepts. His first message had simply told Claris Beaufort that he had arrived at PoleStar and was in no danger. Whatever the rearrangement and substitution of words in the message that finally went down to Earth, it had passed along the core idea that he was not in danger. That concept was part of the impromptu code he and his assistant had devised. It meant, “Hypothesis confirmed.”
Claris’s messages to him were laundered through the same system. She did not have the same word limit, however, and so her messages generally carried more content than his did. The system was far from foolproof, but it worked -- after a fashion. The way he communicated reminded Vasloff of the troubles faced by submarine commanders in the East-West confrontation known as “The Cold War.” In those days, scientists had discovered that very low frequency radio waves could penetrate into the depths of the ocean. They had built a radio transmitter with an antenna several hundred kilometers long to transmit at those frequencies. While effective, the low frequency radio had possessed an extremely limited bandwidth. It had taken an hour or more to transmit a three-letter code group.
Vasloff would have been thrilled had his own secret communication channel been as fast. One idea per week was about the maximum for which he could strive. Still, he had managed to get some significant information out over the weeks, one fifty-word message at a time. He had told his assistant, “hypothesis confirmed,” “single alien,” and “make all preparations for a press conference.” Her replies had included
“message understood,” and “public relations apparatus has been alerted.” All that was needed now was for Vasloff to find a way to pass on what he had learned.
That was turning out to be more difficult than he had expected. Initially, he had thought to stow away aboard
Mercanter’s Wind
. With luck, he might stay hidden long enough to reach
Equatorial Station
.
Without luck, he would try to transmit a message from the orbital ferry. Unfortunately, events had conspired to thwart his plan.
Although most people thought of Vasloff as an agitator, his real job was public relations specialist. In a world with a nearly infinite number of communications channels, getting even a tiny percentage of the people to notice one’s message was nearly impossible. In order to move entire populations; it was necessary to have the full attention of hundreds, if not thousands, of communications channels for a long period. He had built
Terra Nostra
largely by knowing how and when to manipulate the mass media.
Unfortunately, for the past three weeks, the news channels had been awash with a story unrelated to aliens. Just as Vasloff had been planning his clandestine departure, news had broken of a major Helium-3
strike on Triton, the largest of Neptune’s eight moons. Helium-3 was the most precious substance in history - literally millions of times more valuable than gold - and the news had set off a rush unrivaled since the California gold strike of half a millennium earlier.
For the past month or so, ships had been hurriedly filled with refining equipment and then headed out into the deep black, racing to be the first to set up a refining station to separate the precious helium isotope from the frigid ammonia seas of Triton. The exodus had caused interplanetary shipping rates to double.
There had even been unconfirmed reports that the Stellar Survey leased one of their precious starships to transport processing equipment to Triton. Director Bartok had denied the report, of course, but Vasloff automatically discounted just about everything Bartok said.
Normally, even the hint that humanity had contacted intelligent aliens would have been front-page news.
With Helium-3 fever running wild, Vasloff worried that his warning would be buried down in the third-level news menus. Worse, it might be restricted to the highbrow information nets where science papers were published. The common citizen might not even hear of it, or if he did, might cancel the transmission in favor of the latest sparsball scores.
The need to let the Neptune story cool had caused Vasloff to delay his prison break. The previous evening a new shuttle had docked at the PoleStar habitat and Dieter Pavel had summoned him to a meeting.
“There you are, Mikhail Sergeivich!”
Dieter Pavel’s use of his patronymic irritated Vasloff, although he refused to let the emotion show. To do so would be to acknowledge weakness. “You wished to see me, sir?”
“How would you like to go on a little trip?”
“Trip? Where?”
“To Luna. The team surveying Sar-Say’s ship has need of his advice. My orders are to cooperate fully, and we have an extra berth if you would like to go.”
“How long will Sar-Say be gone?”
“Not long. Why? Planning a trip of your own?” Pavel’s smile was friendly enough, but Vasloff wondered if he were being sent a subtle message.
“Come to think of it, I don’t have anything urgent on my calendar,” he replied with just the right hint of humor.
Two can play this game, you bastard!
“Good. Gather up your kit and meet Mark Rykand at the No. 3 Airlock in twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes? You could have alerted me earlier.”
Dieter Pavel smiled everywhere but his eyes. “Yes, I could have, couldn’t I?”
#
Most people think of the Moon as bright, when in fact, it is surprisingly dim. Its albedo, the percentage of light that the Moon reflects back into space, is only 10%. That compares to Earth’s albedo of 38%. The difference was readily apparent to Mark Rykand as he watched Earth rise above the Moon’s limb. Like the other passengers aboard
Parthenon
, Mark was strapped into a spider-web harness that left him in a standing position. Unlike takeoffs and landings from Earth, the one-sixth lunar gravity made it unnecessary to take the stresses lying flat.
Lisa Arden was hanging like a fly in an adjacent spider web as she strained to catch her first glimpse of their destination. The journey from PoleStar had been uneventful, as were most space journeys? that is, those that one survives. Still, Mark could not help the rising sense of anticipation at what was about to happen. That he could not outwardly display his feelings made the situation even more exciting. Of the four passengers aboard the lunar landing craft, only he and Lisa were privy to what was really going on.
The other two, Sar-Say and Mikhail Vasloff, thought they were on their way to inspect the
Ruptured
Whale
. In one sense, that was precisely what they were going to do.
Mark had initially resented being assigned as Vasloff’s babysitter. Being the dissident’s liaison had proved less odious than he had feared. Save for his paranoia on the subject of colonizing the stars, Vasloff was a good man to be around. He was an interesting speaker and raconteur, with a wealth of ready stories concerning his life as a young boy on the Kama River. He was also a quick study. He had shaken off his reaction to news of the Broan Sovereignty in less than a day, approximately three times faster than average. Moreover, having recovered from the shock, he had studied the alien with an intensity that reflected his antipathy. He had studied long hours, absorbed scientific reports that even senior members of the technical team found difficult, and kept his political opinions largely to himself. In fact, his behavior had been so good that the Project Security Officer wondered what Vasloff was up to.
It had been Director Bartok’s fear of a premature public announcement that had caused him to make his devil’s deal with Vasloff in the first place. So far, the head of
Terra Nostra
had kept his bargain. Whether he had done so honorably and willingly, or because he could find no way to transmit a message, Mark was not sure. Whatever the reason, the secret had kept far longer than Mark thought possible. However, no secret lasts forever and this one would not either. Luckily, it did not have to.
The public announcement was already scheduled. Two weeks hence, at an hour guaranteed to glean a huge audience, the World Coordinator would go on holovision and reveal Sar-Say’s existence to the waiting Solar System. The more sensational aspects of Sar-Say’s story would be de-emphasized, but none of what they had learned would be held back. Even couched in the most benign terms, the announcement was expected to spark a reaction ranging from riots to religious revivals.
However, the reaction to the coordinator’s message was not a concern to those aboard
Parthenon
.
They would not be around to see it. If all went well, by the time Coordinator Halstrom spoke to the assembled masses, they and several thousand others would be embarked on the longest journey ever attempted.
Thirteen starships, humanity’s entire fleet, would make the 7000 light-year journey to the Crab Nebula.
By the time the rioters and the revivalists flooded into the streets of every major city on Earth, the fleet would be moving superlight through the deep black. Once they slipped Einstein’s leash, no power in the universe could recall them.
The space dock at Lomonnosow Crater resembled nothing quite so much as one of those sports colossi of the 20thand 21stcenturies, the domed football stadium. The old Space Navy base had been built to overhaul large exo-atmospheric craft that lacked both landing gear and the structural integrity to survive terrestrial gravity. Had the captain of any such craft attempted to touch down on the Mother of Men, his hull would have cracked like the shell of an egg. However, most ships of deep space were sufficiently strong to survive Luna’s gentle one-sixth gravity.
The space dock’s original purpose was to maintain the big Space Navy blastships, weapons-festooned globes more than 150-meters in diameter. Eighty years of peace had taken its toll on the Space Navy.
Most of its blastships and cruisers were in high Earth orbit, mothballed against the day when they might again be needed. Lomonnosow Base now eked out a meager living overhauling planetary transports and the Stellar Survey’s starships.
The dock had an unobstructed internal volume of four million cubic meters. Its designers had started with an impact crater, excavated a hollow bowl, and then roofed the bowl over with a multi-segmented dome.
The dome was normally closed, allowing the working volume to be pressurized with a thin atmosphere of pure oxygen. While the pressurization and pumping systems had added mightily to the expense of the dock’s construction, the shirtsleeve environment it provided had paid for itself through increased efficiency. Whenever a new ship was due or a job complete, the atmosphere in the enclosed dock was pumped into storage tanks and the dome opened. Its eight segments lay flat against the Lunar plain, allowing ships to enter or depart. When open, the dome had the appearance of a sunflower growing out of the grey-black soil of Luna.
Mark Rykand, Lisa Arden, Mikhail Vasloff, and Sar-Say entered the dock through a tunnel that pierced the crater wall high up one side. Entering the giant manmade cavern, they streamed to the edge of an observation platform and gazed down at the activity below. The cold air of the dock had a metallic taste to it and exhalation fog surrounded their heads as they breathed. The distant throbbing sound of pumps was more felt than heard. Unlike the humans, Sar-Say’s exhalation fog came in short pants. Whether the alien’s rapid breathing was caused by excitement or the thin atmosphere was not readily apparent.
The
Ruptured Whale
lay at the bottom of the pit that had been hollowed out of the lunar landscape, perched on a work stand cobbled together from one of the mighty docking frames that had once held Space Navy dreadnoughts. Overhead, multiple banks of million-candle-power polyarc lamps illuminated the dock interior, turning its entire volume into a brilliant island of white light. This latter feature completed the dock’s resemblance to one of the legendary football stadiums of three centuries earlier.
In the bowl of the dock, surrounding the
Whale
, work stands and scaffolding lay scattered as though playthings dropped by a giant child. Although there was little activity now, the ordered chaos gave the impression of the frantic effort that had taken place here in the past several weeks. At various places around the bowl, ant-size individuals or small groups continued to work at indecipherable tasks. Mostly, however, the alien starship was an island of order in a sea of maximum entropy.
The
Ruptured Whale
before them was not the same ship as the one that had limped into dock ten weeks earlier. That ship had been tattered and torn, its hull deeply scarred by the touch of energy beams, and its compartments open to space in a dozen different places. The ship below them was unbroken as far as it was possible to see from their vantage. Gone were the deep gouges and the broken hull plates of a damaged craft. In their place was a smooth, almost mirrored hull, with its inlay of alien technology. It was as though the Battle of New Eden had never taken place.