DAW 30th Anniversary Science Fiction Part 28

There was a noise at the doorway. Schaum turned and stared uncomprehendingly. Petty Officer Pensol had an arm around Professor Bell. The rating explained, almost apologetically, "Found him gagged and tied up. He says Rhodes . . ." There was more, but Schaum wasn't listening. He knew. David Rhodes had indeed stopped the professor. In his own way.

Together they got the scientist into a chair. Bell took a couple of deep breaths, shook his head. He wiped a streak of blood from his chin and gave Schaum a long grim look.

The lieutenant commander said, "Mr. Pensol, will you get a first aid kit? In the dispensary .

"It's nothing," growled Bell. "And yes, he took my suit. So, what now? Do we tell Leclerc?"

"No. We do not tell Leclerc. We wait." Fifty minutes. He set his watch, started to sit down again, then changed his mind. He began pacing, arms behind his back. The men at the table watched him uneasily. That made him even more nervous, and after a time he walked out into the little lobby and resumed pacing. After a very long time his watch alarm sounded. He sighed and returned to the comroom. No sign yet of Ariel or the boy. Father and son. G.o.d. How could he face the mother. Muriel. Fine woman. Deserves better. A mixture of lead b.a.l.l.s and sulfuric acid began to slosh around in his stomach.

He groaned and sat down next to Dr. Melchior. A strange one. He had not appeared at all worried. Quite the contrary. That odd smile. He had come in on the previous packet and would leave in a few days on the next one, having meanwhile become an expert on matters Jovian.

Schaum sighed. To each his own.

In the ShuttleDavid Rhodes checked instruments and screen. The shuttle was over Jupiter, and hopefully somewhere near his target. Within the narrow confines of the little vessel he struggled into Bell's experimental suit, locked the shuttle drive on automatic, and opened the air lock.

And now he hesitated. He wanted to tumble out bravely, but he couldn't seem to force his hands to let go of the grab bars. He endured a moment of sheer terror. Was it all a mistake? He waited, got his heart beating normally once more. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, opened his mouth, and he screamed, "Come on! Last one in's a rotten egg!" He jumped out into the thin mix of hydrogen and helium that surrounded the ma.s.sive planet. The gases were deep-and cold-a minus 150 degrees Centigrade. Those white cirrus clouds on top were tiny crystals of frozen ammonia.

At first the great gravitational force clawed at him and pulled him strongly down through the clouds, overwhelming his fear as he dropped in free fall. On this planet he weighed over four hundred pounds and he was dropping fast. He wondered if Stoke's Law of Fall applied, and whether he would develop a terminal velocity. He pitched and plunged, and his thoughts were chaotic, jumping from one thing to another. He'd better start thinking straight! He sensed that his whole brain wave system was now creating its own electrical program. It was talking to the retros in his backpack, and it was bending resiliently against the t.i.tan's magnetic aura. It adjusted neatly and with aplomb to magnetic spurts and gusts and eddies, almost as though they weren't there. He willed to move up, in a straight line. Then he leveled out. He moved cautiously along one plane of force, and then to the next, and the next. . . .

Wow! he thought happily. It works! It really works! And I'm not afraid! I'm a G.o.d! I'm Mercury . . . Apollo . . . ! (And I'll never admit to anybody that I was just a teeny bit surprised. And scared.) Which way? To improve chances of being seen by Prospero, the commander would almost certainly try to maintain Ariel's alt.i.tude by dropping ballast and/or warming the gasbag.

David moved up.

Ariel, where are you? He and the little probe were invisible to each other in a gas belt 7,000 miles wide, moving east at 200 miles an hour. Daunting, but he could deal with that.

Theoretically Ariel was floating somewhere within a radius of about twenty-five miles, and Prospero was...o...b..ting somewhere half a mile overhead and scanning the cloud tops in a desperate search for any sign of anything or anybody. Theoretically.

Although this hemisphere of the planet faced the distant sun, luminosity was only one twenty-fifth that as seen from Earth, and visibility through the fog and haze was almost nil. He flipped on his visuo-enhancer, but got only bright opaque veils of ammonia crystals. He turned it off. The eerie twilight gave him better vision.

His ear ca.n.a.ls had ceased to function. He had no perception of up or down, and though he knew he must be moving along at a fantastic velocity he had very little sense of motion.

Just then something whizzed past, and he ducked by reflex. In front, and below, he thought.

Meteorite? No-that would have been traveling a lot faster and would have made a lot more light. It was almost certainly a "seismo," the explosive that his father used in seismological exploration.

Ariel was trying to attract attention.

The youth was elated.As if to confirm his guess, he sensed a dull boom from somewhere below. Oh, good! Very good! The little pod was surely quite near. He punched a b.u.t.ton on his wrist console, turned up his earphones, and listened intently. The sound of the explosion would return to Ariel, and from there it would reflect outward in diminished volume. He would catch that reflection, and it would talk to him.

There! He read the luminous numbers on his sleeve. The decibels measured transmission loss of volume after reflection. That loss measured time of the sound in transit, and time in transit gave distance, because the velocity of sound in a gas mixture or 86% hydrogen and 14% helium at minus 150 degrees Centigrade had been worked out long ago and programmed into the circuits of Bell's suit computer.

According to the readout, Ariel was half a mile ahead, up, and a little to the south. Just then a distant sheet of lightning offered vague murky illumination to his front. There. What was that?

He could see something-a little to his left. He s.h.i.+fted course slightly/ gave a delighted cry. It was the cable. Gotcha! That at least fixed Prospero in s.p.a.ce. He wrapped several loops around his armpits and bounded forward. He wished he could tell Pater he was coming, but there was no way. And maybe just as well. Ev-ervthing depended now on the juncture in time and s.p.a.ce of s.h.i.+p, cable, and-himself. The prompt juncture, he added mentally. For they were now approaching the Great Red Spot.

The planet was mottled with light spots and dark spots. The light spots marked low pressure areas, the dark spots marked high pressure zones. "Spots," he knew, was a misnomer.

Many of the phenomena were big enough to swallow a continent. The biggest of course was the Great Red Spot-the "GRS." Three side-by-side Earths could fit nicely into the big oval with room to spare. The GRS was a t.i.tanic high pressure cyclone, a giant plateau of gas some fifteen miles higher than its surroundings. Viewed from the Station, it appeared peaceful, almost sedate, a fitting bronze buckle for the Zeta belt. Up close, the view changed, and it could be seen for what it was: the biggest and deadliest whirlpool in the solar system. Peripheral winds routinely exceeded five hundred miles an hour. They were the slow ones. Midway toward the center, velocities exceeding a thousand had been reported. Ariel was headed there.

But no more time to think about it. For Ariel loomed just ahead, tumbling and twisting in a weird tarantella.

Rescue Commander Rhodes watched the lightning flashes with bloodshot eyes. The strokes were increasing, both in frequency and strength. And getting closer. It was a superstorm. The consequent thunderclaps were weird. They weren't sudden blasts like Earth thunder, but rather more like diminis.h.i.+ng wails. Probably something to do with the hydrogen atmosphere. No matter, one good bolt . . . good-bye Ariel.

On Prospero's bridge Lieutenant Leclerc was trying to make a crucial decision. No contact yet with Ariel. And of course not with that poor lunatic, Bell, certainly long dead by now.

Leclerc was still trying to keep his battered s.h.i.+p above Ariel's estimated position-which he knew was no more than a wild guess. Considering the tumultous weather in the equatorialbands, the little probe s.h.i.+p could be hundreds of miles away.

And now, with the Great Red Spot looming, Prospero and its five men were also at risk. It was insane to continue. He must reel in the cable, abandon the search, save his own s.h.i.+p.

David moved in toward the little s.h.i.+p and found the sole window. A ten-second inspection of the shambles inside told him all he needed to know. He could see his father and the two petty officers. The console and all instruments were shattered but the three men were alive. He could breathe freely again. He pounded on the hardened silica surface of the window with a heavily-gloved fist. Inside, the commander looked up, bewildered. David pressed his helmet against the window. The officer squinted, blinked, then stared hard. He shouted something and pointed. His companions twisted around for a look.

David moved up so they could see the cable, then he crawled with it up the side of the gasbag to the crest. As expected, the cable socket was gone. Not just gone-shattered. As though at the center of an explosion. David looked around at the top of the gasbag in the socket area.

Pieces of metal were embedded in the bag surface. On impulse he picked up one.

With no cable lock, there was no way to reattach the cable. He'd have to do it the hard way.

As Bell had requested, Leclerc had let down an extra five hundred feet of cable. David pulled it down the side of the s.h.i.+p, then under the cabin, then up the other side and up to the crest of the bag. Here he pulled the remaining yards of the heavy filament around itself and tied it with his best Boy Scout knot. Despite the cold, the cable was surprisingly pliable.

He gave three tugs on the cord. There followed a heart-stopping moment of waiting, then the cable tightened, became rigid under the load as Prospero dutifully began reeling in. The knot was holding. Ariel began to rise slowly. He looked down. Below was a ravening sea of graying pink clouds. The GRS. It had been a near thing.

He eased down to Ariel's air lock and they let him in. He removed his helmet and stood there for a moment, looking at his father and aware that every muscle in his body ached.

Commander Rhodes' face looked strange-icy, yet very red. For a long moment the officer just stood there, staring at his son. Then his jaw began to tremble. He made unintelligible noises, and then he seized his son in a crus.h.i.+ng hug. Together they lost their balance and grabbed for straps.

"That was very stupid," the wet-eyed commander said harshly.

David grinned. "Me? Or you? . . . sir."

"Both."

The two petty officers moved forward and shook hands awkwardly with the newcomer.

Stimson shouted, "Davey, don't know how you did it, but we're sure glad to see you."

Moments later Ariel was safely within the bosom of Prospero and there was another exuberant round of congratulations and demands for explanations.

During Prospero's trip back to the Station hangar David was able to get his father aside for a whispered discussion. "The cable didn't fail. An explosion ripped out the eyelet. Pieces were embedded in the bag. I found this." Holding it by the edges, he pulled a fragment of sheet metal from a jacket pocket. "I think it's a piece of a K-3 cube. It may show fingerprints. Dad,somebody was trying to kill you."

The older Rhodes didn't reply for a moment. "It figures. We heard a loud 'pop' just before everything went crazy." He rubbed his chin. "Let me have your fragment. And we'll check the top of the bag. Not a word of this to anyone. We'll proceed as though the cable snapped in the storm." He smiled grimly. "Come on, let's look alert for the welcoming party."

As the commander led them down the folding stairs, they were greeted by Schaum, joined by Dr. Melchior and the whole Station crew, white caps, ratings, and officers. More congratulations and explanations as they retired to the comroom, where they took seats around the table. David noted that Melchior and Lieutenant Katlin seemed oddly subdued. Odd indeed, he thought. When Ariel was in grave danger, you seemed happy. Now that we are safe and sound, you seem almost glum. Prime suspects . . . ?

Marshall Rhodes tapped on the table and cleared his throat. "Gentlemen, I certainly appreciate this warm welcome. I speak for myself and for my brave crew. But time presses.

The Committee will meet in Was.h.i.+ngton in a few days. We need to prepare a report-which will include a recommendation. The seismic data are on file. We now know that Jupe's core is rich in all kinds of metals. We'll need mining engineers, freighters, special transport trucks.

We're talking billions of dollars. Industry will jump on the bandwagon. They'll demand that Congress open the budget floodgates.

"With the new Bell retropack, as so elegantly demonstrated by Mids.h.i.+pman Rhodes, it seems clear to us that moving about in the gases above the core will be perfectly safe. I'm requesting funds for five hundred Bell suits. We'll need experts, consultants in all sciences-especially astrophysics." He grinned bleakly at his son.

The next packet duly arrived. David and his father watched Mel-chior and Katlin climb aboard. David frowned. He whispered under his breath, "Their fingerprints were all over the K-3 fragments. You're letting them off scot-free?"

"Not exactly. We have no judicial process or prison here at the Station. I had Katlin transferred home, ostensibly to take a desk job in Was.h.i.+ngton. They'll go into deepsleep for the six-month trip home. They'll wake up in a prison on Luna, charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, destruction of government property, lots of other stuff. We'll probably have to return to Earth to testify. You'll be on extended leave and I guess you can start your PhD." He smiled. "Your mother will be glad to see you."

C. S. Friedman.

I remember the day that the ma.n.u.script of In Conquest Born came into our office.

It was hand delivered by a friend of the author, who told us that he had stolen it off her desk-because left to her own devices the author would never have had the courage to submit it.

I know now that this story was a ruse, that in fact the author C. S. Friedman had been preparing the ma.n.u.script for submission all summer. But it really wouldn't have mattered how we received that ma.n.u.script, because Don and I were captivated fromthe very first line. Now, more than seventeen years and countless hundreds of ma.n.u.scripts later, I can still quote that first mesmerizing line from memory: "He stands like a statue, perfect in arrogance."

I have always thought of C. S. Friedman as "the natural." For her, the flow of words is like a force of nature-something which cannot be contained. Her prose style has a pa.s.sion which derives from a deep wellspring within her, and flows like a dark river engulfing and hypnotizing her readers.

In Conquest Born was never intended to be a novel. For years, it was Celia's refuge-the place she would escape to after long hours at school or work. She even wrote one chapter the night before her master's thesis was due. She didn't have a choice-she hadto write it. Making In Conquest Born, a loosely connected series of dramatic, episodic vignettes, into a cohesive novel was not an easy job. Celia jokingly describes the process wherein we separated the work into its component parts, a.n.a.lyzed and reordered them, eliminated those episodes which did not further the main plotlines, and decided which new scenes had to be added, as "The Shredding."

That we succeeded in making this work into the powerful novel it is today remains a remarkable triumph for both of us.

In the nearly two decades Celia and I have worked together I have never ceased to be impressed by her imagination, her range and her almost magical level of ability.

Her writing seems to come so easily-the flow is so smooth, so natural, and so powerful. But I know the reality is far different. She is her own toughest taskmaster.

Endlessly self-critical, she destroys much of what she writes. We only get to see the cream, but the cream is something very fine, indeed.

It's an incredible privilege to work with an author of this caliber. And getting to read Celia's books before anyone else does is one of my greatest personal rewards.

-BW.

DOWNTIME.

C. S. Friedman.

BY the time the messenger from the DFO came, Marian had almost forgotten about the Order. You could do that if you tried hard enough. You just tucked the unwanted thoughts deep into some backwater recess of your mind until the normal clutter of everyday life obscured it, and then you pretended it wasn't there. Marian was good at that. She had her own special places for hiding things, dark little crevices in her soul where one might tuck a fact, an experience, or even a whole relations.h.i.+p, so that it never saw the light of day again.

She knew the day her sister died that a lot of new things were going to have to go in there, and she'd done her d.a.m.nedest to make them all fit. She'd done so well, in fact, that when the door first chimed, there was a brief moment when she genuinely didn't know what it was about.

Who would be coming to see her in the middle of the day?

She was curled up with her children and her pets at the time: two boys, a girl, two cats and a small dog, whom she collectively referred to as "the menagerie." They couldn't all fit on thecouch at one time, but they were trying. Only Amy had given up, and she knelt by the coffee table now with her crayons laid out before her like the brushes of a master artist, her face screwed tight with concentration as she tried to draw a horse exactly right. When you're the oldest child, you have to do things right; the other children depend on you. Marian watched the delicate blonde curls sweep down over the paper for a moment before trying to disentangle herself from the others. With five bodies and two afghans involved it wasn't easy, and finally she yelled out, "Coming!" at me top of her lungs, in the hope that whoever was on the other side of the door would hear it and wait.

The dog didn't come with her to the door. Maybe that was an omen. Usually he was the first one at the door, to welcome strangers. But dogs can sense when things are wrong, sometimes even when their owners don't. Marian walked past him, and ignored the complaints of both cats and children as she looked through the peephole to see who was there. It was a woman, neatly coifed and with the socially acceptable minimum of makeup, wearing some kind of uniform and holding a letter in her hand. That was odd. You didn't get many real paper letters these days, unless it was something important. For a moment Marian couldn't think of who would have sent her a registered paper letter . . . and then memory stirred in its hiding place, and she was suddenly afraid. She hesitated a moment before unlocking the door, but couldn't give herself a good reason for not doing it. Trouble doesn't go away if you refuse to sign for it, does it?

As she opened the door, Marian noted that the woman's uniform didn't have any insignia on it. That could be just an oversight ... or it could indicate that whoever had designed the uniform believed that people wouldn't open the door if they knew what she was there for. Not a good sign.

The woman looked up at Marian, down at her electronic pad, and then up again. "Marian Stiller?"

Marian could feel all the color drain from her face as she just stared at the woman for a moment. Maybe she should lie about who she was, and tell the woman Ms. Stiller wasn't home? Shut the door, lock the problems outside, and stuff this memory down into the dark places along with all the others. That would buy her a bit more time. But what would it really accomplish? Sooner or later they'd find her, and then there would be fines to deal with on top of all the rest. Maybe even jail time. The government was notoriously intolerant when it came to people who tried to avoid their filial duties.

"I'm . . . I'm Marian Stiller."

The woman glanced at her pad again, as if checking her notes. You'd think the DFO delivery folks would have their stuff memorized. "This letter is for you, Ms. Stiller." She handed her the envelope, thick and heavy. Marian took it numbly and waited. "I need you to sign for it, please." The pad was given to her. Marian hesitated, then pressed her thumb onto its surface. The thing hummed for a moment, no doubt comparing her print to government records.

Confirmed, it blinked at last. The woman took it back from her, cleared her throat, and then a.s.sumed a more formal position that she clearly a.s.sociated with official announcements.

"Ms. Stiller, I have delivered to you an Order of Filial Obligation. You are required to read the contents and respond to them in a timely manner. If you do not, you may be subject to fines and/or imprisonment. Do you understand?"

She barely whispered it. "Yes, I understand.""Do you have any questions?"

"Not. . . not in front of the children." She was suddenly aware of them not far away, and heard for the first time how their chatter had quieted suddenly. They had to be protected from this. That was her first job. Questions . . . the Department had places for questions to be answered. Later.

"I understand." The woman bowed her head a token inch. There was no sign of emotion in her expression or in her carriage. What did it feel like, to spend your day delivering messages like this? "Good day, then." Or was she one of the people who believed in the Filial Obligation Act, who thought it was a good thing? Marian didn't ask. She didn't want to know.

She watched her walk away from the house because that was one more thing to do before opening the letter. When the woman rounded a corner and that excuse was gone, she turned with a sigh and shut the door behind her. The envelope was heavy in her hand. The room seemed unnaturally quiet.

"What? What is it?" She met the eyes of child after child, all gazing up at her with the same worried intensity as the dog in its corner. Children, like animals, could sometimes sense trouble. She looked at the letter in her hand and forced herself to adopt mat teasing tone she used when they worried over nothing. "It's just mail. You've never seen paper mail before? I swear."

She shook her head with mock amazement and curled up on f he couch again. She couldn't read it here, not in front of them, and she certainly couldn't go off to a private room now that they were watching her. She threw the letter onto the far end of the coffee table, facedown so that they wouldn't see the DFO insignia ne xt to the address. It landed on top of a pile of drawings, cover- lrt g over the lower part of a horse. Amy fussed at her until she moved it. By that time everyone else was back on the couch, and she found some cartoons on the children's net and turned up the volume and hoped it would distract them. Best to just pretend the letter wasn't really important, until they forgot all about it. Then she could go off to the bathroom alone with it or something, or say she had to start cooking dinner, or ... something.

She wondered if they could hear how hard her heart was beating.

To Ms. Marian S. Stiller, child of Rosalinde Stiller: This Order of Filial Obligation is to inform you that your family status has been reviewed, and it has been determined the debt formerly a.s.signed to Ca.s.sandra Stiller is now the rightful debt in whole of Marian S. Stiller, only surviving child of Rosalinde Stiller.

Enclosed you will find an Appraisal of filial Debt and Order of Obligation from our offices. Please review both these doc.u.ments carefully. You are expected to comply with this Order by the date indicated. Any questions you have should be addressed to our offices within that time. Failure to comply with this Order promptly and with full cooperation may result in substantial fines and/or imprisonment.

Ohe was helping Amy with a jigsaw puzzle when Steve came home, teaching her how to a.n.a.lyze the shapes with her eyes so that she didn't have to try as many wrong pieces before she found the right ones. The boys had tried to help, but they didn't have the attention span to keep up with it, and they had gone off to play with the dog.

She almost didn't hear him come in. Not until he was standing in the door was she aware ofhis presence. She looked up then, and saw the broad smile of homecoming waver a bit, as he read something in her eyes that he didn't know how to interpret.

Amy ran up to hug him and as he lifted her up to his chest for a big one his eyes met Marian's. What's wrong?

She shook her head and glanced at Amy. He understood. The ritual of homecoming always took a while, but today he kept.it as short as he could. She was grateful. She needed him a lot more right now than the children did, and certainly more than the pets.

When he was done with all the requisite greetings, she whispered some excuse to Amy, and she led him away into their bedroom. Not until he shut the door behind them did she draw out the envelope that was hidden in the nightstand and hand it to him.

He glanced at the DFO insignia on the envelope and his eyes narrowed slightly. She watched as he pulled out the letter and read it, then the forms. It seemed to her that he read everything twice, or maybe he was just taking his time with it. Scrutinizing every word.