Authors: Anne McCaffrey
“Yes, it was. The Station was just operational,” and a look of regret crossed Ajmal’s round mobile face, “but I was not onstation then. Indeed I hadn’t even decided on astronomy as a career in ’twenty-eight.” He sighed. “Well, that PHA was unusual even for its whimsical type. I’m sure you understand that many small bodies cross Earth’s orbit without incident. We certainly are extremely careful not to cry ‘wolf’ to the SpaceForce. Any PHA is well documented and ephemerals constantly projected so there’s plenty of warning and no last-minute panic about Doomsday or Armageddon or Nemesis.” He raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes in despair of such dramatics. “October, it was, the sixteenth, and although HH49 should have passed within 560,000 miles of Earth, its orbit was perturbed by the passage of the Comet Enzuka in 2027 so action had to be
taken and the PHA was rather neatly disintegrated. Of course, with a united world government, the suspicions and paranoia of the late twentieth century simply can’t recur.”
Peter sensed that Dr. Pienarr was about to exercise one of his favorite hobbyhorses and interposed his request.
“If it’s possible, I really would like to see what you’re looking at now in the Patroclus group,” Peter said, eagerly.
Ajmal stepped agilely up to the nearest workstation, gesturing for them to follow him. “What we’ve been focusing on isn’t as spectacular as …”
“Oh, don’t change it just for me,” Peter exclaimed, but Ajmal had already typed in an altering set of commands.
“Nonsense. Even I know you’re not the usual visitor. I’ll just bring up one of the more impressive ones in the Patroclus group. I’ve saved the coordinates of the search pattern so it’ll be no trouble at all to track back. Ah, here we are,” and with a grand flourish of one hand, he indicated the monitor that lit up with images.
Peter was awed to have such a sharp focus on the distant object whose orbit was following Jupiter. Seeing was required for believing, as it hung in space, moving just perceptibly against its backdrop of asteroids and stars, Jupiter not visible in this frame.
“Tithonus,” Ajmal announced, tucking his hands under his biceps as he viewed the spectacle. Unnecessarily, the doctor repeated the information running along the bottom of the screen activated by his workstation. “Number 6998 in IAU, inclination 1.7, eccentricity 0.068, with a 28 km diameter. That’d be a handy one to move, at least, if you’re really considering that, Vin,” and Ajmal gave Cyberal a sly look. “Just fire the rockets in whichever direction you want to break it free from the L-5 point and inject it into a new orbit.”
Peter could even make out what looked like “dust” on the uneven surface of Tithonus. In his previous expeditions to observatories, the emphasis had been on the main planets of this solar system or observations from the faint object spectrographs of systems that were then the subjects of intense colonial interest.
“You seem fascinated, Pete,” Cyberal said in the sort of voice one used to break into intense concentration.
“Oh, sorry. Yes, I am fascinated. Thank you, Dr. Pienarr.”
“Oh, not the title, please.” Ajmal gave a testy wave of his hand. “Does get to you, though.” His attention had returned to the image.
“I wouldn’t mind your going back to the M-asteroid. I would rather not interrupt your work any more than I have to,” Peter began politely. Then he pointed to the window and control panels of the telescope. “May I have a look?”
“But, of course, my dear boy, of course. Though,” and Ajmal’s tone became almost derogatory, “it’s of a much earlier generation than the ones we now work with.” After a pause, he added, “It was built in situ.”
Peter glided over. The wide partition window seemed to be one of those that would turn opaque at a touch. Yes, there was a toggle clearly marked “window” on the control board. Accustomed to the usual dome protection, he was at first surprised to see the huge barrel—at least twelve meters long—just sitting out in the open. But there were no elements to guard against, only the full rays of the sun. Another control was marked “deflector shield” and he would have looked further but suddenly there was noise coming from the foyer.
Over Cyberal’s shoulder, because the major stepped in front of him, Peter saw Corporal Hinojosa backing in a step ahead of several white-coated figures. Peter swallowed, getting a flashback of a scene during Barchenka’s Mutiny.
“It’s all right,” he told Vin when he felt the public minds of the newcomers and knew they were harmless. Hinojosa’s door-keeping was helpful, not deterrent.
“Just my staff, Vin,” Ajmal was saying, startled by the sudden defense posture of the major. “Their shift is starting.” He turned to Peter as four men and a woman filed in. “We keep very odd hours here, you see. Now, since she’s making such a glorious transit, let me show you Callisto. As you may not know, once Mars Station is up and running, she’s being considered for an advance base.”
“She is?” Peter echoed, surprised. “Really? Isn’t she covered with craters? Isn’t there supposed to be a salty ocean sloshing beneath all the ice? Wouldn’t that make her ineligible for a permanent installation?”
Ajmal Pienarr beamed as if Peter were a precocious student. Vin Cyberal cleared his throat in discreet warning and Ajmal shook his head.
“I thought this young man had total clearance,” he said almost testily.
“On First Base, but not necessarily to all of Space Authority’s future plans,” the major said.
Peter forbore to find out more from a closer ’path at Ajmal’s very open mind but his interest was certainly piqued.
“The Moon yesterday, Mars tomorrow, and why not the universe next week,” Peter said expansively, to show he had taken no offense.
“Yes, yes, and here’s Callisto. Splendid, isn’t she.” Ajmal said, stepping back a pace and folding his arms on his chest, to better admire the sight on the wall screen.
As fascinating as the asteroid had been, Peter was amazed at the size of Callisto, a brownish orange marble in a sky dominated by Jupiter’s formidable bulk to the left. He knew the moon had the oldest surface of the Jovian satellites since it hadn’t been constantly recycled by volcanic activity, like Io, so the moon hadn’t had the chance to cover her crater scars. She had sustained multitudes of “hits,” to judge by the interlocking impact craters that riddled the surface she turned resolutely outward.
“Valhalla?” Peter asked, pointing to the largest of these features.
“Correct,” was Ajmal’s response, nodding once again with pleasure at Peter’s correct identification.
“Aj, we need to alter the tracking on Number One now,” Simona Opitz said from her station, one of the white-coated men standing by her. “Or did Mr. Reidinger want to see the space ice?” She turned a very friendly but firm smile on Cyberal. “Have you remembered to ask where you want him to ’port objects in here yet? After all, that’s why you’re here. We can’t monopolize his time, you know.”
Which Peter had no trouble interpreting to mean “monopolize
our
time.” Well, he could appreciate that now he’d seen the staff arrive; they seemed to be waiting for their day’s assignments.
“You were very good to give me so much of your time, Ajmal,” Peter said affably, glancing back at the astronomer who was actually pouting. “Where would it be safe to ’port in here? I certainly wouldn’t want to …”
“Over there.” Ajmal gestured negligently toward the window partition and the control panel, exasperated by the captain, who merely smiled back. “We don’t use that area as much.”
Peter took good note of the angle of the partition window, the edge of the control panel, the storage cabinet beneath it, looking very much like
the corner of many other facilities. Then he saw the discoloration on the wall from the top of the window to the floor that resembled the southern tip of South America and Cape Horn. That and the windowsill would make it an easily identifiable site for him to “see.” Since deciding on such a place was the real reason he’d been brought to the observatory, his business here was over. Saying all that was polite to Ajmal and then Simona, Peter left the observatory with Cyberal.
“Damned managing female,” Cyberal said without rancor when they were in the corridor and the corporal was once more their advance scout. The astronomy office was on the north end of Akahiro Block. “Ajmal loves to talk, or had you noticed?”
Peter nodded with a little chuckle. “But all of that,” he began as they retraced their steps, “the mining and Callisto—they depend on getting the Mars Base started, don’t they?”
“It is started, you know,” Vin Cyberal replied in a low voice. “It’s keeping it going that’s the problem. It needs more personnel, supplies, matériel, instrumentation, and air. Water’s been found.” He shrugged at the immensity of the task involved. “But we don’t know if it’s enough. That’s why the search for space ice.”
“Well, humans walked on the Moon mid-twentieth century and they can now live comfortably and independently on it, why not on Mars before this century is out?”
I should have asked to “see” the Mars Base while I had the chance, Peter railed at himself. For that matter, there were plenty of coordinates he could use now that Airy was the Greenwich line of Mars and there were sufficient high-resolution images to paper the walls of the old Pentagon Building.
B
ack on Padrugoi, Cass Cutler had disguised herself as yet another innocuous cleaner, complete with a service trundle cart full of janitorial supplies. She had trudged the corridors of the lower levels, hunting for Flimflam. She had found him late on the first day, innocently asleep in his proper quarters. The contact was enough to refresh her sense of him, but she didn’t like what he was dreaming and balked at probing deep enough to wake him up and get him moving about so she could see what he was doing and where he went.
The janitorial staff was composed mainly of offenders sentenced off-Earth: offies in the current slang. They wore double wristbands, which technically limited them to the lower levels of Padrugoi. Janitorial squads were brought above the permitted level by guards, especially when the open public areas had to be cleaned up after special assemblies or brawls among freighter crews. They were searched before and after the work period. Cass observed to herself that brawls could be started. So it wouldn’t be hard to leave something behind where only the intended recipient could find it. There might indeed be a flourishing black market on Padrugoi in spite of all the precautions. No anomalies had been brought to official notice since Barchenka’s time. She didn’t know if this was a reflection on Admiral Coetzer’s more enlightened regime or not.
Until the sabotage of
Limo-34
. Only
that
had been arranged to be a space accident and no one, or no evidence, should have remained to explain the destruction. Had Flimflam, if indeed he was responsible, slipped out of a work party on the boat bay and sabotaged the spaceship? Not by himself.
The next shift started in two hours so she cleaned the dormitory hall. Ironic that the area janitorial staff lived in needed cleaning. She was accustomed, from work in the Linears, to filth, but those buildings were much older than Padrugoi. Finally men and women emerged from their sleeping quarters, to eat before going to work. No one noticed her but then, part of her value was that she could blend nicely into any sort of background. Five men exited Flimflam’s room but he did not. The prospect of cleaning for another eight hours in this section of Padrugoi had no appeal whatsoever; even if the hallway hadn’t been so clean since oxygen had first filtered into it.
She decided she’d better get some sleep. If she had to do any chasing of Flimflam, she’d need to be rested. Crowd control was easy compared to surveillance. She slipped into a nearby almost empty female accommodation, ignoring the pong in the room and the thinness of the mattress. She tried to set her mind to wake her up if she felt Flimflam’s mind moving away from her. But she discounted the depth of her fatigue.
She was awakened by another cleaner who indignantly demanded why she thought she had the right to take someone else’s bunk. Meekly, Cass left with her trundle-cart and cast about her for Flimflam’s mental signature. It was well into afternoon before she sussed him suddenly at a
distance; he might have come off an elevator. She couldn’t ’path too far away without a partner but it was him, coming her way. She whipped out a damp rag and began to scrub.
She could feel his mind seething as he neared, so chaotic with doubts that she automatically tried to broadcast reassurances. And stopped. The day she helped Flimflam would be a cold one in Hell. Out of the corner of her eye, she was surprised to note that he was wearing tailored fatigues and the insignia of a lieutenant junior grade in Communications. He passed her without so much as a glance, fretting over the lack of news. What news? she wondered. He was twitching inside and out, jiggling one hand as he strode, outwardly confident and wearing the sort of expression that would turn aside any casual inquiries. He inserted a metal strip into the slot of a door halfway down the corridor and went inside.
“Well, well, well, and well,” Cass murmured, laying her hand on the plasteel wall. He was doing something. The moment his activities inside stopped, she bent over, and her hind end was all he’d see of her. She did not make the mistake of working too industriously since the cleaners she observed never used much energy on the job.
Flimflam, his mind disquiet with a variety of anxieties about the rewards of failure, which he still vehemently denied as he examined acceptable excuses, strode past her. He was no longer clad in tailored clothes. Trouser legs of regular issue flapped about his ankles, showing regular-issue ship shoes rather than the polished leather half boots that an officer usually wore.
Well, he always was a quick change artist, she mused. She let him get out of sight and then, trundling the cart to the door he had used, she got out the special strip Commander Ottey had warily entrusted to her—it allowed entry to any room up to CIC—and got in with a quiet snick.
One look inside and she hauled the cart in as well, closing the door behind her. Staring about her, she whistled in surprise. In her haste to get in, she hadn’t noticed the label on the door but whatever that said, it lied. Flimflam had converted it to his use. Part of it was his changing room for a variety of uniforms and collar tabs, no rank higher than lieutenant commander, but every type of authorized apparel from fatigues to dress tunic hung from a rail. The other part was supplies. Drawers and shelves contained sundry items from instant sustenance packets to gourmet freeze-dried foods, bottles of wine and hard liquor, drawers packed with
circuit boards and tools, manuals (two marked TOP SECRET), including one for MPUs, and odd-shaped vacuum packs, identified only by serial codes. Hanging on a nail were a half-dozen wrist IDs. How had he removed his distinctive double wristband so that he could use these? The fact that Flimflam possessed spares of anything was disturbing. She jammed the bands into her thigh pocket, patting them flat. Having had a good look around, she turned back to the door, looking for any surveillance device Flimflam might have planted. There was none, but there was a sketch of sorts on the back of the door, marked with squares, rectangles, and circles, running vertically in a weird design. She stared at it, trying to comprehend its significance.