Authors: Karl Kofoed
Wysor took off his sunglasses, squinted at the screen, and chuckled cynically. “There’s no one out ’ere, c’mmander, just us. That’s ’less yer countin’ th’ cold ... or them aliens.” With that the Captain left the room.
Alex smiled. Wysor was a man of action. It had been over an hour since the flower first showed itself on the surface of the egg, and nothing had changed for a while. As Captain Wysor left Alex adjusted his dark glasses and sat back. It was still early in the day, but his instincts and his nostalgia for Ganymede had Alex wondering if he might steal away with the Captain for a brew. “Sounds like the Captain could use some company,” he said to Mary, as he started to rise from his seat. Mary put a hand on his leg and shook her head. “Stuff will happen soon,” she said, “and you should be here to watch.”
Alex sat back in the seat and looked at the black ceiling.
Not far from where Alex and Mary now sat was Lake Geneva. The lake and its peninsula park were the showplace of the biocylinder. At the moment Alex had seen too much of the alien world they orbited. Now, all he wanted to do was to walk by the lake with Mary and then take her home and make love to her. He wondered if Mary was having similar thoughts.
“You can wait a few more hours,” said Mary almost in a whisper.
“Dingers,” said Alex, as quietly as he could. “Try to answer only the questions I actually ask.”
Mary blinked her long eyelashes innocently. “Sorry.”
Alex put on his dark glasses and resumed the vigil with the rest of the crew. The flower was still there, but now he noticed a change. Earlier its petals had been fanning the air, rocking back and forth steadily and rhythmically, as if vectoring on the probe a few hundred meters away. Now the flutter seemed out of sync, almost random. The flower folded its petals and withdrew slowly into the tube from which it had unfurled. It gathered itself into a tight ball and slid slowly down the tube, moving in quick spasms. It took a minute or more to sink out of sight.
When it was gone everyone in the control room sat wordlessly, waiting for more, for something else to come oozing from the hole, or for creatures to come spilling out. But when a half hour had passed and nothing happened, Alex took off his dark glasses. He surveyed the control room and noticed Mary looking at him thoughtfully. “Was that what you expected to happen?” he asked.
“I sensed something more, but I guess ...”
Alex noticed that Commander Stubbs, seated at his console, was about to put on a virtual helmet. “Commander,” Alex hurried over to him. “Before you put that on ...”
“Yes?” Stubbs stared blankly at Alex.
Alex could see that Stubbs was tired, so he didn’t mince words. “Do you intend for us to sit and watch that pipe in the ground ’til we’re blind, sir?”
Stubbs laughed, albeit painfully. “Alex, you’re not here under orders. I thought you’d be interested in the developments.”
“All this is fascinating, sir. But I’m a pilot, sir. Like the Captain.” He pointed to Wysor’s empty seat. “Hands on, if you know what I mean. I’ve seen enough of the aliens for the moment.” He looked at the screen. The sonde’s camera was now focused tightly on the opening where the flower had disappeared. The image had been enhanced and darkened so it was easier to see. Now the camera was tracking across the glassy surface. The material looked like it was made of smoke, almost invisible. But when the camera pulled back it looked like a piece of ordinary polyglas.
“Alex, this is interesting stuff,” said Stubbs. “I thought you’d want to watch. It’s good to have your input, as well.”
Alex looked back at Mary. “You’ll never have to ask twice for my input,” he said with a laugh. “If you doubt me, ask her.
But at the moment, I don’t have much to offer. If we’re not needed, Mary and I would really like some time off. And with all due respect, Commander, you could use some sleep yourself.”
Stubbs smiled. “The ticker’s strong, Alex. And I can’t miss any of the action. You know that.”
Mary got up and stretched her lithe frame, then walked over to join Alex and the Commander. “Going swimming with the dolphin crew again, Mary?” asked Stubbs.
“That wasn’t at the top of my list,” she said, nodding politely.
Alex looked at Tony, Connie, and the Professor, all wearing dark glasses and seated in the lounge staring intently at the screen. “Tony?” he inquired. “Were you serious about the flying the ultralights?”
Tony took off his glasses and squinted at Alex. “They asked me to bring you, Rose. There’s a new ship they want you to try out.”
“Shouldn’t you start out with an older ultralight, Alex?” asked Mary. “Something tried and true?”
Tony laughed and put his glasses back on. “No such animal aboard, Mary.” As he faced the screen, he jabbed a finger in Alex’s direction. “Seven tonight in the hub lounge. The
Merlin
is booked in your name.”
Alex nodded to Tony and the Commander as he and Mary made their exit. Outside, the central lighting column had reached its full midday brightness. He squinted into the sky, trying to see the ultralight hangar. “Dingers, I can’t even see the hub lounge up there.”
Alex knew there would be no ultralights flying the cylindrical skies until the lights were turned down, or even off.
Sciarra had told him that night flying, which brought with it interesting thermals and less vertigo, was favored by all the pilots. He was rated as an expert pilot, but the thought of diving out of the hangar at the gravity free hub of a mighty wheel gave him second thoughts. He squinted and shielded his eyes, but the air was hazy from the recent artificial rain.
“We don’t have to climb it, you know. Just tell the cab,” Mary skipped ahead of Alex, pointing to a grove of lush oak trees. “Look Alex, the squirrels are screwing!” She turned to face him and smiled. “Last one into bed is a happy man,” she giggled, and ran at top speed toward their house.
Chapter 2
1
Alex was still asleep as Mary slipped, naked, from the bed and ducked into the steamer. Rather than wake him, she ordered a double helping of Morimoto Duck from the food dispenser in hopes that the smell would arouse him. She was standing at the window, partially behind a curtain, when Alex sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Are you cooking?” he asked.
Mary turned and smiled. “Three times in a row is a record for you, Alex.”
Alex looked at his withered member under the sheet. “I think it’s dead,” he said mournfully.
“We’ll check into that issue a bit later. Don’t you want to eat before you go ultralighting?” Mary pointed upward. “It’s six o’clock.”
Alex flopped back into the pillows and moaned. “What was I thinking?”
“I know,” Mary said mischievously. “You’ve become deflated. Inflating is the order of the day, Alex. I can fix that.” She dove under the sheet and buried her head in Alex’s lap.
Alex stared wide-eyed at the white dome over the bed. Suddenly it sprang to life with an instructional recording.
“ULTRALIGHT AIRCRAFT OPERATIONAL HAZARDS,” read the bright white letters as they scrolled across the darkened screen.
“Dingers,” said Alex. “Forgot I ordered that.”
The pleasure Mary was giving him suddenly stopped. Mary’s head, still under the sheet, popped up. “Ordered what?”
She scrambled out from under the sheet and looked up at him. Her perfect lips were wet and so inviting. Mary rolled over on her back and watched the dome as the program, taken from a pilot’s helmet camera, took them out of the hanger and out into the weightless hub of the cylinder. Above them was the central column that housed the gee-pulse core and the solar trenches that lit the interior.
“Boring!” she proclaimed as she disappeared again under the sheet.
2
“What do you mean, a hundred credits?” Connie Tsu shouted at the hangar chief. “What’s this, a fluid economy?”
The man arguing with Connie was hanging from a personnel cable while holding on tightly to another cable attached to an ultralight. The sleek black flyer looked ready to fly as it floated in the weightless ultralight hangar at the ‘northern’ hub of the great rotating biocylinder.
“Until we start gathering hydrogen, it has to be rationed. No unscheduled flights,” he argued, the ultralight’s tail fin in a vice grip. “The price is up for now.”
Wearing jet packs, Alex and Mary floated into the hangar in time to overhear this. Alex couldn’t help laughing. “Did she say Cretaceous?” he asked, grinning at Mary.
“At least she didn’t call him Jurassic,” muttered Mary, smiling back at him as she looked around at the hangar. “That would be bad.”
Several folded ultralights of different colors were secured to the white netted walls by cables. Sciarra, also wearing a jet pack, floated into view carrying a propeller. When he saw Alex, Tony propelled himself toward them. “Damn, you made it,” he shouted in disbelief. He handed the propeller to a boy who floated next to a partially dismantled flyer. Sciarra grabbed the boy’s coverall strap as he turned to leave. “Remember. Green side forward,” he said sternly. The boy nodded and moved off to join two others who were crouched working on the other side of the plane. “Ya gotta build ’em right before ya can fly ’em right,” Tony said, looking at Alex. “Right?”
Connie saw Alex and Mary enter and moved quickly to join them. She was dressed in jet black leatherskins with a red minicap covering her short black hair. “Alex,” she said, “They’re robbers.”
Alex held up his hand. “Hey, I’m no authority here, Connie!”
“Deal with it later,” said Tony, impatiently. “We’re on a schedule here. Yours is over there. The one marked
Merlin
.”
Alex shrugged at Tsu and slapped Tony on the shoulder. “I’m ready!”
The plane was jet black and hidden among the other ultralights, but the name
Merlin
in electric blue glitterite stood out boldly. “It’s the first of the ramjets. She can fly all day,” said Tony with delight. He floated over to the plane and pulled it free from its holding rack. He grabbed a lever on its rumpled fuselage. “Stand back a bit,” warned Sciarra. “She’s got a meter more wing than the rest. Snaps out quick.” Tony yanked the lever and the plane unfolded quickly, accompanied by the whine of a small motor.
The body of the ultralight telescoped fore and aft, while the wings, made of softer material, inflated. Except for its markings, the ultralight’s taut black skin reflected almost no light. As the thing unfolded before Alex’s appreciative gaze, Tony boasted that he’d helped develop the design for use by
Goddard’s
security force.
The
Merlin
seated only one person, which disappointed Alex. He’d hoped that Mary could join him on the ultralight’s maiden flight.
An observation lounge with a bar was connected to the hangar, with a large window that looked out on the interior of the biocylinder. Each end of the three kilometer long structure had several such bars. One, Clavius, had been built at the lunar gravity level of the wheel, while another, Isidium, was at the Mars gee level. But the most popular site was the observation lounge where Mary found a good location to watch Alex’s flight and a menu that served real Martian ice drinks. Or so Alex learned when he switched on his helmet’s radio as he slipped into the
Merlin
’s tiny cockpit.
“They gave me a radio set, so I can talk to you,” Mary announced.
“Great,” replied Alex as he strapped on a chute-pack and settled into his seat. The ramjets had reached drive temperature, but it took a while to get flight clearance because his craft was new and required special monitoring procedures.
“They just don’t want it farting up the air,” explained Tony while they waited at the open hangar entrance, a rectangle perhaps ten meters wide and three meters tall. It had a complex sliding door that could open wider if necessary, but currently it was set for a limited number of takeoffs and landings.
It was dusk in the biocylinder and the strip lights were approximating the ethereal hue of a sunset. Finally, the word was given and the
Merlin
was launched with a simple shove administered by Tony and an attendant. As his ultralight floated weightlessly into open space, Alex looked for Mary at the window. “I’m waving,” he heard her say inside his helmet. “Can you see me?”
Alex couldn’t see her, but pretended to, and waved. “Here I go, Mary,” he shouted, confident that her eyes were on him.
As his tiny aircraft drifted out of the hangar, he felt like a gnat lifting weightlessly from the surface of a vast curving plate.
Moving farther from the hangar doors he glanced from side to side, marveling at the striations in the arching hub wall, indicating different floors and gravities. Seeing it from this vantage point, Alex was once again awed by the scale of the
Goddard
and the effort and cost that had gone into building it.
Studying the different levels, he could see that some were dark, while others were lighted in various ways. Some bore the steady glow of occupied buildings, and others twinkled with the arclight sparking of construction zones. These seemed to be clustered around the hub where gravity was at a minimum. The mid-levels at both ends of the cylinder were dark, empty superstructure.
Suitable for development
, he thought.
In a great ring around the rim of the biocylinder hubs, where gravity was at normal levels, were the places he and Mary had often visited, brightly lit entertainment centers and malls, with their large picture windows offering scenic views. Now the glow of those multicolored lights was beginning to spread out over the landscape at both ends of the great cylinder.
Despite the helmet, Alex could hear wind rustling the gossamer membrane covering the wings. His aircraft was still drifting slowly, gliding without power about a hundred meters off the hangar bay. Everything seemed trim enough, so he relaxed and let the air currents tug at his aircraft. The cooling of the lights in the central core was causing thermal eddies, and as the
Merlin
got farther from the wall their influence began to make it drift.
Above his head the long gray column searchlights were switching on to illuminate locations on the surface that required extended light. Some of the bigger lights were trained on farmland. One was lighting a village square where he could see people involved in a game of X-ball, and several others were trained on a golf course and ball field at the end of Lake Geneva.
Suddenly, on his helmet radio, Alex heard the voice of Connie Tsu. “This’s better than Bubba, isn’t it, Alex?”
“Hi, Connie,” he said. “You’re up, I see! What was that guy dingin’ you about the price for?”
There was a moment of silence, then, “Later, Alex. Look behind you.”
Tsu was right on his tail. A second glance caught Connie’s grinning face though her tiny wrap-around cockpit window.
“No games, now, Connie,” he cautioned. “I’m on a test flight, here.”
“I can see you, Connie,” said Mary’s voice. There was the sound of Mary fumbling with her helmet, then Mary spoke again. “That’s better. A woman sat on my radio pack.”
“Starting to lose altitude, Mary. Time to light her up,” said Alex as he lifted a switch on the dash that engaged the ramjets.
Their effect was instant as the tiny plane jumped forward. Alex pulled back on the stick and the
Merlin
did a quick loop, ending up behind Tsu’s ultralight. Lifting the right wing slightly, he throttled up and passed her. He smiled broadly, enjoying the ride, as the ramjet warmed and gobbled more air and fuel. Finally both jets reached optimal thrust and a light went green on the meager console. “I got a green light here. I’ll take it to mean the rams are workin’ fine. I’m lit real good, eh’ Tsu?” He didn’t have to look over his shoulder to know he had already left Tsu far behind.
“I’ll say,” muttered Connie. “Look at ’m go, folks. A man with a new toy!”
“Yeah, yeah ...” Seeing clear air ahead, Alex decided to see how fast the
Merlin
would go. He heard a rumble as he throttled up and saw the details of the huge central column begin to move by quickly. “Dingers,” he said through clenched teeth as his head snapped back.
“How fast?” asked Mary. “Don’t tell me ... eighty-four point ...”
Glancing side to side Alex saw sharp points of blue flame trailing each wing jet. Because of the weightlessness, the tiny ship was behaving more like a space bike than an ultralight, but as his speed increased so did the feeling of flight.
He began to notice details on the other end of the cylinder. “The
Merlin
’s doin’ fine, so far,” he announced to whoever was listening. “I could use more room in this cabin. But the ramjets are workin’ fine.”
“Just enjoy it, Alex,” advised Mary. “Quit the mission talk.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Off to his right Alex noticed Lake Geneva. On the peninsula that divided the lake was a lighted emergency landing strip. Tony had told him to note its position and use it as a point of reference in case the
Merlin
failed. But so far it was running smoothly. He noticed a switch on the dash near the throttle. The glowing text above it read MUTE
MODE. He switched it to ‘off’ and instantly the roar of the ramjets ceased.
Behind the rush of the wind, Alex heard music. Somewhere below, many voices were singing. Almost as soon as he noticed it, the music was gone. He had heard it said that there were places in the cylinder where sounds bounce or gather in odd ways. In fact,
Goddard’s
engineers had built two areas for conferences that could be heard by two audiences on opposite sides of the cylinder. He put the ship into a left bank and headed to where he guessed the music had come from.
Suddenly his wrist communicator spoke. Its computer voice, geared for clarity, not quality, chirped in his ear. “
Alert ... as
you dive gravity will increase. Be prepared for early roll-out.
”
Alex blinked. He’d been told of the danger. An ultralight moving from the weightless hub toward the cylinder wall will experience increasing gravity. He cut the throttle immediately and brought the
Merlin
’s nose up a bit.
“
Air brakes ... press heel lever
,” reminded the tiny voice.
“Yes, mother,” groaned Alex.
“It’s like having me along, isn’t it, Alex?” said Mary’s voice. “I think I can help you with your music. Go left.”
Soon he was able to hear music, and then words: “... we come on the ship they called the Mayflower ... we come on the ship that sailed the moon ... we come at the age’s most uncertain hour ... and sing an American tune ...”
He smiled. “Recognize it, Mary?”
“Bah!” interrupted Tsu. “Sapdrippin’ Ameriganda!”
“Shheeesh,” said Alex. “It’s just a song.”
“Earther,” hissed Tsu.
“He’s no Earther,” said Mary. “Trust me.”
The
Merlin
swooped just above a grove of trees arranged in rows, lit by a spotlight from above. Alex pulled back the steering column and the ship responded perfectly, leveling out a respectable distance above the ground. He squinted at the other gauges on the dash. It was hard to read them in the cramped cockpit while keeping his attention focused outside.
In a clearing beyond the trees he saw a circle of people seated by a fountain. They waved up at him as the
Merlin
flew by, but before he could return the gesture they were far behind him, lost in the darkness behind more trees.
Alex realized he was flying against the spin of the cylinder, which amounted to a permanent climb. So he banked the ship 90° to the right and noticed the change immediately because he had to dip the nose. “It’s confusing flyin’ in a spinning bottle, isn’t it, Tsu?” He searched the skies but didn’t see Tsu’s ultralight.
“That’s why I’m holding altitude,” replied Tsu, a cynical tone in her voice. “It’s my maiden flight, too. I’m not taking chances.”
Suddenly streaks of light spilled upwards from behind a line of trees, showering the
Merlin
with white hot sparks.
“Dingers,” cried Alex. “What the hell is going on?” A glowing spark hit the fuselage and bounced off harmlessly, but another hit his wing. Instinctively he banked his ship away from the area, but found the ground coming up quickly because of the curvature of the landscape. He learned then why most of the ultralights stayed well away from the surface. He gunned the engines, aiming the
Merlin
’s nose toward the central column.