Coyote - A Novel of Interstellar Exploration Part 1

Coyote: A Novel of Interstellar Exploration.

Coyote Book.

Allen Steele.

The crime of the century begins without a hitch On July 5th, 2070, as it's about to be launched, the stars.h.i.+p Alabama is hijacked-by her captain and crew.

In defiance of the repressive government of the United Republic of Earth, they replace her handpicked pa.s.sengers with political dissidents and their families. These become Earth's first pioneers in the exploration of s.p.a.ce...

Captain R. Lee, their leader. Colonel Gill Reese, the soldier sent to stop Lee. Les Gillis, the senior communications officer, a victim of a mistake that will threaten the entire mission. Crewman Eric Gunther, who has his own agenda for being M aboard. His daughter, Wendy, a teenager who will grow up too quickly. Jorge and Rita Montero, ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circ.u.mstances. And their son Carlos, who wijh hero in spite of himself.

After almost two-and-a-half centuries in cold sleep, they will awaken above their destination: a habitable world named Coyote, A planet that will test their strength, their beliefs, and their very humanity...

In Coyote, Allen Steele delivers a grand novel of galactic adventure-a tale of life on the newest of frontiers.

About the Author.

Allen STEELE was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and received his B.A. in Communications from New England College and a Masters Degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri. Before turning to science fiction, he worked as a staff writer for newspapers in Tennessee, Missouri, and Ma.s.sachusetts, as well as Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. His previous novels include Orbital Decay, Lunar Descent; Clarke County, s.p.a.ce', Labyrinth of Night, The Jericho Iteration; The Tranquillity Alternative; Oceans.p.a.ce; and Chronos.p.a.ce {all available from Ace). He is a two- time winner of the Hugo Award in the novella category. He lives with his wife, Linda, in Whately, Ma.s.sachusetts.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fict.i.tiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For Martha Millard -Literary agent, good friend.

This is the story of the new world. It begins not there, however, but on Earth, in the closing years of the twentieth century.

The Milky Way galaxy is nearly one hundred thousand light-years in diameter; within its spiral structure are approximately fifty thousand stars, ranging from tiny protostars coalescing within great clouds of interstellar gas to white dwarfs nearing the end of their life spans. Between these extremes are .tens of thousands of suns: some tightly cl.u.s.tered together near the galactic core, the vast majority isolated from one another by distances incomprehensible save by mathematical reckoning. Planets are commonplace among the main-sequence stars. Comprised of the leftover ma.s.s from a star's infancy, gradually formed over the course of millennia by tidal forces within their accretion belts, they're the afterthoughts of Creation.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, only a handful of scientists and the smallest fraction of the public thought intelligent life existed beyond Earth; by the time the twenty-first century arrived, it was difficult to find a well-educated person who believed otherwise. It stood to reason that, if planetary systems existed throughout the galaxy, then life, too, must be widespread. Yet even as writers, artists, and filmmakers envisioned a galaxy-indeed, an entire universe-teeming with extraterrestrials of every conceivable shape and size, many astronomers and astrophysicists began to suspect the opposite.

Although it was true that most main-sequence stars were capable of generating planets, it appeared far less likely than a.s.sumed earlier that most of these planets were able to harbor life, save perhaps in its primitive condition. The planets might orbit too close to their suns, or too far away, for their surfaceconditions to allow the emergence of complex multicellular life-forms. Although colonies of bacteria may evolve around the hot vents of volcanic fracture zones, it seemed unlikely that many of them would eventually develop into something greater. Not impossible, by any stretch of the imagination, just. . .

improbable. Faith and wishful thinking were not enough; although the Drake Equation maintained that the universe was filled with life, the Fermi Paradox posed a question that no one had yet been able to answer.

During the last months of 1995, two astronomers from San Francisco State University, Geoffery Marcy and Paul Butler, were engaged in the search for extrasolar planets by carefully observing stars through infrared inferometry to see if they displayed regular s.h.i.+fts in their apparent magnitude, which in turn would indicate the gravitational influence of a large body nearby. This technique had recently allowed astronomers at the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland to detect a gas giant closely orbiting 51 Pegasi, a G-type star fifty light-years from Earth; now Dr. Marcy and Dr. Butler, working with the 120-inch telescope at Lick Observatory outside San Jose, were hoping to find more.

Their efforts paid off in January 1996, when the planet hunters publicly announced the confirmed discovery of a giant planet revolving around 47 Ursae Majoris, a type-GO star 46 l.y.s from Earth.

Direct observation of the new world was still impossible, yet judging from its effects upon its primary, Marcy and Butler were able to determine that 47 Ursae Majoris B was a gas giant three times the ma.s.s of Jupiter, and that it occupied a nearly circular orbit 2. astronomical units from its sun. Compared to 51 Pegasi B, a planet 0.6 joves in ma.s.s yet located only .05 A.U.s from its primary, 47 Uma B was an almost textbook example of what a gas giant should look like. A normal planet, if such an astounding discovery could be cla.s.sified as normal.

The announcement made the front pages of newspapers across the world before it gradually faded from the public consciousness. During the following year Marcy and Butler would duplicate their success by locating more planets in orbit around Tau Bootis A, Upsilon Andromedae, and Rho Coronae Borealis.

By May 2000, over forty extrasolar planets had been discovered, some of them so exotic as to make 47 Ursae Majoris B mundane by comparison. Yet 47 Uma B remained of interest to exobiologists because its...o...b..t lay just beyond what many astronomers considered to be the "habitable zone," the approximate distance a planet would revolve around its sun in order for it to support life. According to that theory, 47 Uma B was just a little too far away from its primary for it to be habitable, yet astrophysicists at Pennsylvania State University postulated that if the superjovian had its own satellite system, infrared radiation reflected from the gas giant might possibly render one or two of those moons capable of supporting life.

Five years later, in August 2001, Marcy and Butler announced the discovery of a second gas giant orbiting 47 Ursae Majoris, this one less ma.s.sive and farther away from its primary. With the discovery of 47 Ursae Majoris C, humankind had evidence of a solar system that closely resembled Earth's.

Concurrent with the discovery of extrasolar planets, new interest was emerging among physicists and astronautical engineers in the idea of interstellar travel. During 1997 and 1998, NASA sponsored two academic conferences on the subject; one concentrated on breakthrough propulsion systems, the other on robotic probes. Although conference partic.i.p.ants often held wildly different opinions on when and how s.p.a.cecraft could be sent beyond Earth's solar system, the consensus that emerged was that interstellar travel, while perhaps unlikely in the near term, was not impossible.

Early in the twenty-first century NASA launched the Sagan Terrestrial Planet Finder, an array of four eight-meter optical telescopes positioned in low-Earth orbit by two successive shuttle missions. Once the TPF was bought on-line, researchers at CalTech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory began pointing the instrument toward those stars believed to have extrasolar planets. To no one's great surprise, it turnedout that a couple of the superjovians in the catalog were really brown dwarfs, feeble remnants of what might have been binary companions to their primaries. Interesting in their own way, but not what the JPL planet hunters wished to find. Over the course of the next few years, though, they managed to confirm through direct imaging the existence of several Earth-size planets in systems where superjovians had previously been detected. However, none of these planets lay within habitable zones; they either orbited too close or too far away from their suns for life to have been able to evolve upon them.

Yet when the JPL team focused the TPF-on 47 Ursae Majoris B, they discovered six major satellites, ranging in approximate size from that of lo all the way to one whose ma.s.s was almost identical to that of Mars. Six moons in stately circular orbits around a gas giant beyond the edge of what had previously been established as a habitable zone... but what did that mean, exactly? At one time, the depths of Earth's oceans beyond the continental shelves were believed to be lifeless and near-sterile, until volcanic black smokers were discovered and, teeming around them, dozens of different kinds of plants and animals, all well adapted to crus.h.i.+ng pressure and complete lack of sunlight. Conditions on some of 47 Uma B's satellites couldn't be anywhere near as extreme as that; something might have found a way to evolve on one of them, despite previous estimates of habitability.

By the late twenties, NASA's political clout was nearly exhausted. Private enterprise had taken the lion's share of manned s.p.a.ce operations, and the success of commercial lunar mining operations had prompted widespread discussion within Congress that NASA should be dismantled, its operations folded into a new Federal s.p.a.ce Agency. Yet public interest in 47 Uma B and its satellites was sufficiently high to allow NASA's administrators to go to the Hill with two new-start programs: the Infrared Spectrum Telescope, which would be able to a.n.a.lyze absorption bands from 47 Uma B's moons and determine if any of them held telltale signatures of atmospheric carbon dioxide, ozone, or water vapor, and Project Starflight, a long-term program to investigate the construction of an interstellar probe. The first reliable nuclear-fusion tokamak had been put into operation in France six months earlier, and the United States was actively engaged in its own fusion program; a stars.h.i.+p utilizing a fusion engine now seemed feasible.

NASA's request might have been dismissed had it not been for timely intervention from an unlikely ally: Hamilton Conroy, a first-term congressman from Alabama who was one of the ideological leaders of the new Liberty Party. Although only in his early thirties, Conroy was already making a name for himself on the Hill; at the top of his agenda was the formation of a National Reform Program, which among other things called for a Third Const.i.tutional Congress that would substantially revise the U.S. Const.i.tution, including the Bill of Rights. Yet Conroy's vision extended beyond reactionary politics; captivated by the hazy images of 47 Uma B's moons captured by the TPF and arguing that America had a manifest destiny in s.p.a.ce, he managed to persuade his colleagues in the House to fund both projects. For their part, NASA administrators quietly decided to hold their noses and accept Representative Conroy's political a.s.sistance. If it took the support of a right-wing ideologue to keep their hopes alive, they rationalized, then so be it; they only prayed that it wouldn't be a Faustian bargain.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, a friendly compet.i.tion was quietly being held by JPL scientists. The six major satellites...o...b..ting the superjovian had been officially cataloged as 47 Uma Bl, 47 Uma B2, and so forth, but someone suggested that these moons and their primary should be given proper names.

So an informal contest was held, open only to CalTech researchers, to be judged by senior administrators. Suggestions were emailed back and forth, posted on bulletin boards, chatted about over lunch tables; they included everything from the names of the original seven Mercury astronauts to astrological signs to favorite Disney characters, but in the end the judges ruled in favor of animal-demiG.o.d names drawn from Native American mythology. Thus 47 Ursae Majoris B was called Bear, and in ascending order its satellites were designated Dog, Hawk, Eagle, Snake, and Goat.The fourth moon, the largest and most likely to sustain life, was named Coyote.

s.p.a.ce is huge enough, so that somewhere in its vastness there will always be a place for rebels and outlaws. Near to the sun, s.p.a.ce will belong to big governments and computerized industries. Outside, the open frontier will beckon as it has beckoned before, to persecuted minorities escaping from oppression, to religious fanatics escaping from their neighbors, to recalcitrant teen-agers escaping from their parents, to lovers of solitude escaping from crowds. Perhaps most important of all for man's future, there will be groups of people setting out to find a place where they can be free from prying eyes...

-FREEMAN DYSON, From Eros to Gala Main Fuel Tank Magnetic Field Generator Bussard Ramscoop Deflector Array Fuel Port Carousel (5 Crew Modules, Cargo Pods) Oa/HaO/Nz *"Tanks URSS ALABAMA Hub Module ~W$.

Primary' II Dish Docking Cradle Primary Structure Nozzle C1 Hibernation C2 Hibernation C3 Crew Quarters C4 Crew Quarters C5 Cargo C6 Cargo C7 Med Deck, Mess H1 Carousel Access H2 Engineering H3 Life Support H4 Command Deck H5 Airlocks "Magnetic Sail (Stowed) .a.rtJDne STEALING ALABAMA pHiuflDELPHin 7.M.70 / T-28.25.

The Liberty Bell is much larger than he expected. Nearly fifteen feet tall, weighing over two thousand pounds, it's suspended by its oak arm between two cement supports, the ceiling lights casting a dull sheen from its bronze surface. Captain Lee stands in front of the bell, meditating upon the long crack that runs down its side, the biblical inscription carved around its top: Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof. Lev.XXV:X.

Reflected in the window behind the bell he can see the URS lieutenant who escorted him to the pavilion.

The park ranger who met them there is young and nervous; his hand was sweaty when Lee clasped it, and he stuttered as he commenced a long-winded recital of the bell's history until Lee politely asked to be left alone. Now they wait patiently behind him, respectfully giving him a few moments alone.

Through the pavilion window, on the opposite side of the gra.s.sy mall, lies Independence Hall. The reception was already under way, yet Lee's in no hurry to join it, even though the party is being held in honor of him and his crew. It's a distinct privilege to be allowed to view the Liberty Bell; one of the first acts the government took after the Revolution was to close the site to the public. Citing the risk of a terrorist attack, the Internal Security Agency claimed that the bell was too valuable to be left unguarded during a national emergency, yet it's been nearly twelve years since the Revolution, and still the Liberty Bell is off-limits to everyone save the Party elite. Lee can't help but wonder if the government fears what the average citizen might think if he saw for himself the artifact from which the Liberty Party had taken its name and read the words inscribed upon it.

There's still time to call it off. A few words whispered to the right people, a couple of discreet phone calls using innocuous code phrases, flllen M. Steele and the conspiracy would not so much unravel as it would simply cease to exist. Everyone involved would stop what they were doing and a.s.sume fallback positions, and with any luck the Prefects would never know that a conspiracy had existed.

Tonight's his last chance to back out. After this, there's no turning back, no acceptable alternative exceptsuccess; failure means treason, and treason means death. Which is why he's come here, to this particular place; not as a symbolic display of patriotism, as everyone a.s.sumes, but simply to give himself a few minutes to think.

So is he going through with this or not?

Lee still hasn't answered his own question as he turns away from the bell. The lieutenant snaps to attention; the ranger self-consciously does the same even though it isn't necessary.

"All right, Lieutenant," he says quietly, "I'm done here. Let's go to the party."

As appropriate for the Fourth of July, the President's Reception is being held in the cobblestone square behind Independence Hall. Once the guests make their way through the security checkpoints, they find that an enormous screen has been unfurled across the rear of the redbrick colonial courthouse, upon which real-time images of the Alabama are being projected. Lee ignores the screen as he saunters through the crowd, untasted gla.s.s of champagne in his gloved left hand, his right hand held formally behind his back. In the humid warmth of the July evening, his white dress uniform clings to his skin. He deliberately arrived after his senior officers; attending this fete is the last thing he wants to do, yet his appearance is mandatory. Besides, there's one last bit of important business that needs to be settled.

So Captain Lee mingles with the gentlemen in their batswing ties and frock coats and the ladies in their bodices and gowns, smiling and bowing, pausing now and then to shake some stranger's hand or be photographed with another, yet taking care to remain in motion so as not to be cornered for very long.

Along the edge of the crowd, he can see the uniforms of URS soldiers: black berets, jodhpurs tucked into leather knee boots, polished rifles held at parade rest. The red softball-size spheres of surveillance floaters hover above the partygoers, watching, listening, scanning. Security is tight; the President is supposed to be flying up from Atlanta for the occasion, although Lee has little doubt that he will be unavoidably detained. Philadelphia is a little too close to the New En gland border for the President of the United Republic of America to consider himself entirely safe. Indeed, very few people ever see him outside the capital, although the news media regularly show footage of him attending events in places as far distant as southern California.

Spotting another pair of white Service uniforms beneath the boughs of a walnut tree, Lee makes his way through the crowd and finds Tom Shapiro, the Alabama's first officer, huddled with his executive officer, Jud Tinsley. He can't make out what they're saying until he's nearly beside them. Tinsley sees him coming and briefly touches Shapiro's elbow as he straightens his shoulders.

"Evening, Captain," Shapiro says.

"Gentlemen..."

"Enjoying the party, sir?" Tinsley raises his bare hand to stifle a burp. "Pretty nice send-off they're giving us."

"It'll do." Lee knows the XO is drunk even before he notices the empty champagne gla.s.s on the low wall beneath the tree. "Just make sure you don't enjoy yourselves too much. Jud, b.u.t.ton your tunic and put on your gloves. We're in public."

"Sorry, sir." Tinsley's face reddens; he digs into his trouser pockets for his gloves. "It's kinda warm tonight."

"Enjoy it. You'll be cold soon enough." Lee steps forward to fasten the top bra.s.s b.u.t.ton of the youngerman's uniform. Shapiro, at least, is properly dressed and reasonably sober. "You're not talking about anything you shouldn't, are you?" he murmurs when he's close enough that only the two of them can hear him.

Tinsley starts to mutter a halfhearted denial. "Just a couple of details," Shapiro says quietly. He glances up at the low tree limbs above them. "We figured the floaters couldn't sneak up on us over here."

Good thinking, but not good enough. "Not the time or place," Lee says. "Save it for..."

He catches himself. The next meeting, he was about to say, yet there aren't going to be any more meetings, are there? After the reception they'll driven straight to the airport, where they're scheduled to board a jet to Gingrich s.p.a.ce Center. By 0600 tomorrow morning they'll be in quarantine along with the rest of the crew, and there will be no opportunity for any of them to have a conversation without risk of being monitored. If they wait until they reach the Alabama, by then it may be too late to make any changes. Perhaps Tom has the right idea after all.

"Has something come up?" Lee casually gazes up at the walnut tree, just to make certain a floater isn't hiding among the leaves. "Anything I should know about?"

Neither of his senior officers says anything, although they give each other a silent look. "Nothing we haven't already gone over, sir," Shapiro says at last. "It's just... I mean, the ignition lock-out..."

"Don't worry," Lee says. "We're taking care of..." Tinsley coughs into his fist, his right foot innocuously prodding Lee's shoe. The captain glances his way, sees the XO gazing past his shoulder. A swish of a crinoline skirt from close behind, then a soft hand touches his arm.

"If I didn't know better, Robert," Elise says, "I'd swear you were avoiding me."

She's half-right; if Lee had known she would be here, he would have avoided her. Yet as soon as he hears her voice, he realizes this particular encounter is inevitable: it's only natural that she would attend this reception, and not only because they were once married.

Yet, as the captain turns toward Elise Roch.e.l.le Lee, he feels no regret over having left her. Their marriage lasted for more than seventeen years, and yet she remains as icily beautiful as when they first met at an Academy mixer; it's only in the last eighteen months that he's come to realize that he barely knows her.

The fact that she's kept his name long after their legal separation is yet another indication that she married him for reasons that had more to do with social stature than love; for all intents and purposes, she's still the wife of Captain R.E. Lee, commanding officer of the URSS Alabama.

"I wasn't. I simply didn't see you among all these people." Lee takes her silk-gloved hand, gives her a quick buss on the cheek. "You look splendid... is that a new dress?"

"Flatterer." Elise folds her hand around his elbow as her gaze s.h.i.+fts to Shapiro and Tinsley. "Pardon me, gentlemen, but may I borrow your captain? There's someone who wants to meet him."

"By all means." Shapiro a.s.says a formal bow as he steps back. Tinsley does the same, and Lee can't help but notice that his eyes never leave Elise's cleavage.

Those b.r.e.a.s.t.s once attracted him, too; it took him a long time to discover that the heart beneath them is cold. "Captain, ma- dame..."

"Your father?" Lee murmurs, as Elise escorts him away. "I figured he would send you to find me."

"Perhaps." Her smile becomes enigmatic as they stroll through the crowd. "Why, is it such a burden foryou to see him one last time? After all, he had quite a bit to do with your selection."

A soft purr from somewhere just above his head. A floater has picked them up; now it's following them as they move through the reception. Even if he was inclined to give a candid answer-thank you, but I've accomplished this on my own-now isn't the time. "For which I'm grateful," Lee says. "And no, it isn't a burden."

"Good. I rather hoped not." Her hand slides down to take his own. "Besides, he has a treat for you."

They find Joseph R. Roch.e.l.le, the senator from Virginia, standing in front of the screen, surrounded as always by aides, Liberty Party apparatchik, local political cronies, and sycophants of one sort or another.

A short, avuncular man for whom somatotropin therapy has erased nearly twenty years from his real age, he now looks only slightly older than his former son-in-law. His back is turned as they approach; he must have just finished another one of his anecdotes, for everyone laughs out loud. Senator Roch.e.l.le rarely lacks for an audience, in or out of Atlanta.

"Oh, very good! You've found him!" Senator Roch.e.l.le beams as his daughter leads Captain Lee into the midst of the circle, then he half turns to make an expansive gesture at the screen looming above them. "I was just saying that someone... I won't say who, of course... in Atlanta had insisted upon christening your s.h.i.+p the Virginia." A broad wink that everyone understands. "But of course, that particular someone didn't have quite as much clout as the gentleman from another state."

More laughter from the senator's entourage, and Lee forces himself to smile appreciatively. While the Alabama was still under construction, there had been considerable infighting within Congress over which state the vessel would be named after. In the end, the President settled the dispute by christening it in honor of the state whose NASA center had been most responsible for its research and development. An ironic choice since NASA itself no longer exists; it's now yet another civilian agency dismantled under the National Reform Program, its primary functions folded into the Federal s.p.a.ce Agency, an arm of the United Republic Service.

But Lee doesn't say anything, nor does he need to; it's only necessary for him to smile and bow as the senator introduces him to a dozen or so men and women whose names he forgets as soon as he shakes their hands, while Elise stands between them, playing the role of the loyal daughter and loving wife.

When all was said and done, this is about appearances; once again, Lee realizes that he hadn't chosen his wife so much as she had chosen him, and then only with her father's pragmatic approval. The senator needed a son-in-law from the Academy of the Republic, an up-and-coming URS officer whose career he could advance from a discreet distance in order to further his own political ambitions. Tonight's the big payoff for everyone.

As the senator begins telling another one of his stories, Lee's attention drifts to the screen towering above them. The Alabama hangs suspended in low orbit above Earth, the spotlights of its skeletal dry dock reflecting dully off the s.h.i.+p's light grey fuselage. A tug gently maneuvers a cylindrical barge into position below the s.h.i.+p's spherical main fuel tank, in preparation for onloading another ten thousand tons of deuterium and helium-3 strip-mined from the mountains of the Moon. Fueling operations will continue nonstop right up until ten hours before the beginning of Alabama's scheduled launch at 2400 tomorrow night.

Once again, Lee finds himself wondering if he should call it off. Everything depends upon the timetable being kept. Nothing can be allowed to go wrong between now and then... and yet there are a hundred different ways it could all fall apart.

"Why the long face, Captain?" One of the nameless men to whom he had just been introduced nudges hisleft shoulder. "Concerned about the mission?"

"No, not at all." Out of the corner of his eye, Lee catches Elise studying him. "Just observing the fuel-up, that's all."

"Robert doesn't worry. He's the coolest officer the Academy has ever produced." Senator Roch.e.l.le favors his former son-in-law with something that might resemble fondness unless one happened to look closely at his eyes. "He just wants to get out of here and see to his s.h.i.+p. Isn't that right, Bob?"

"Anything you say, Duke." Lee addresses the senator by his nickname, and this elicits more laughter from the cronies. No one ever says no to the senator from Virginia; by much the same token, Duke knows that Lee doesn't like to be called Bob. t.i.t for tat.

Roch.e.l.le chuckles as he pats Lee on the shoulder, then he takes him by the arm. "If you'll excuse us," he says to the others, "I'd like to have a few words with the captain." They nod and murmur as Roch.e.l.le leads Lee away, Elise falling in behind them. "This will take just a moment," Roch.e.l.le says softly once they're out of earshot. "There's someone here who wants to meet you."

Believing the senator wants to introduce him to yet another politician, Lee suppresses a sigh as he lets Roch.e.l.le walk him past the edge of the crowd. Yet Duke surprises him; instead, he takes him behind the screen, toward the back entrance of Independence Hall. A pair of soldiers stand guard near the door, their rifles at ready; behind them is a Prefect, wearing the calf-length dark grey overcoat and braided cap that is the uniform of ISA officers. The soldiers step aside when they see the senator, but the Prefect doesn't budge. He silently waits as Roch.e.l.le produces his I.D. folder; Elise reluctantly does the same, giving the intelligence officer a haughty glare as she holds her card out for him to inspect. Only Lee is spared; apparently the Prefect recognizes him, for he shakes his head as Lee reaches into his pocket.

Satisfied, the officer turns and opens the narrow wooden door leading into the building.

The hallway is silent, vacant save for another soldier inside the entrance. Their footsteps echo faintly off the old plaster walls as Roch.e.l.le beckons Lee and his daughter toward double doors to the right; he gives them a quick look-over as if to check their appearance, then he quietly taps on the door. A moment pa.s.ses; the door clicks as it's unlocked from within, then it's opened by yet another soldier standing just inside.

Lee immediately recognizes the place from history texts he's studied since childhood: the a.s.sembly Room, where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the First Const.i.tution debated and framed. Small wooden desks, each with its inkpot and quill pen, arranged in semicircular rows around a low platform on which a long table had been placed in front of three high-backed chairs. And here, in the middle of the oak- paneled room with his back turned toward them, stands Hamilton Con- roy, the President of the United Republic of America.

Senator Roch.e.l.le stops at the wooden railing at the back of the room. "Mr. President," he says formally, "may I present to you Captain Robert E. Lee, commander of the United Republic Service s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p Alabama."

Hearing the senator, President Conroy turns away from the gaunt middle-aged man with whom he had been conversing. Rotund and short of stature, with narrow brown eyes set in a broad face, the President is smaller than he seems on government netv; now he seems diminished by the room itself. A pretender to history, Lee reflects. A charlatan aspiring to greatness.

"Indeed." The President smiles briefly as he walks toward the railing, his hands clasped together behind his frock coat. "I've been looking forward to meeting you, Captain. Your father-in-law has told me great things about you.""Thank you, Mr. President." Lee doesn't relax from the rigid stance he automatically a.s.sumed the moment he saw the commander in chief. "I hope I live up to your expectations."

The President laughs dryly, without much humor. "At ease, Captain. You're among friends here." He glances at Senator Roch.e.l.le. "Duke, you should have let him know I would be here. This reception is in his honor, after all. No need for surprises."

"The ISA requested I keep your presence secret," Roch.e.l.le says. "Security considerations."

"Yes, of course." The President dismisses the senator with scarcely a nod, his attention solely focused upon Lee. "Sorry to take you away from the party, Captain. I only wished to meet you in person. I haven't had a chance to do so before, and after tonight I'll never have an opportunity to do so again."

"Yes, sir, Mr. President." Lee clasps his hands behind him. From the corner of his eye he sees Elise doing a slow burn. She's probably been awaiting this moment for several weeks; now she's being ignored, with no one bothering to introduce her to the President. "I apologize if I've taken you away from urgent business."

The smile fades from the President's face. "Only matters of state." He turns toward the man with whom he had been speaking. "I don't know if you've ever met our Director of Internal Security before... Mr.

Shaw, Captain Lee."