Firstborn

  “Such as when the Firstborn take another swipe,” Paxton said.

  “Yes. But we need ways to cope with threats without sacrificing our liberties.” She looked around at their faces, open or cynical. “We have no precedent for how a civilization spanning several worlds is supposed to run itself. Maybe the Firstborn know; if they do they aren’t telling. I like to think that this is the next stage in our maturity as a culture.”

  “Maturity? That sounds utopian,” Bill Carel said cautiously.

  Bob Paxton grunted. “Yeah. And let’s just remember that however many heads you Spacer mutants grow, we’re all going to continue to be united by one thing.”

  “The Firstborn,” Lyla said.

  “Damn right,” Paxton said.

  “Yes,” said Bella. “So take us through the new proposals, Bob. The next phase of Fortress Sol.”

  He looked at her, alarmed. “You sure about that, Madam Chair?”

  “Openness, Bob. That’s the watchword now.” She smiled at the others. “Bob and his Committee of Patriots have been working on priorities. Even though their own legal status is under review, following events.”

  Alexei smiled. “Can’t keep you old sky warriors down, eh, Admiral Paxton?”

  Paxton looked ready to murder him. Bella laid a hand on his arm until he had calmed.

  “Very well. Priority one. We need to act now. Between the sunstorm and the Q-bomb we had a generation to prepare. Granted we didn’t know what was coming. But in retrospect we didn’t do enough, and we can’t make that mistake again. The one good thing about the Q-bomb is the way it’s going to mobilize public opinion and support for such measures.

  “Priority two. Earth. A lot of us were shaken up when you ragged-ass Spacers snipped the space elevators. We always knew how vulnerable you were in your domes and butterfly spaceships. We didn’t know how vulnerable Earth was, though. The fact is we’re interconnected to a spaceborne economy. So we’re talking about robustifying Earth.”

  Lyla grinned. “Nice word.”

  “Homes like bunkers. Ground-based power sources, comms links, via secure optic-fiber cables. That kind of thing. Enough to withstand a planetary siege. Parameters to be defined.

  “Priority three. And here’s the key,” Paxton said now, leaning forward, intent. “We got to disperse. We’ve got significant colonies off Earth already. But the wargamers say that if Earth had been taken out by the Q-bomb, it’s unlikely the Spacer colonies could have survived into the long term. Just too few of you, a gene pool too small, your fake ecologies too fragile, all of that.

  “So we have to beef you up. Make the species invulnerable even to the loss of Earth.” He grinned at the young Spacers. “I’m talking massive, aggressive migration. To the Moon, the outer planet moons, space habs if we can put them up fast enough. Even Venus, which was so fucked over by the sunstorm it might be possible to live there. Maybe we can even start flinging a few ships to the stars, go chase those Chinese.”

  “But it won’t work,” Alexei said. “Not even if you have a million people on Venus, say, under domes, and breathing machine air. They’ll be just as vulnerable as we are now.”

  “Sure. So we go further.” Paxton’s grin widened. He seemed to be enjoying shocking them. “Nice to know an old fart like me is still capable of thinking bigger than you kids. What’s the most robust hab we know? A planet.”

  Lyla stared at him. “You’re talking of terraforming.”

  “Making the Moon or Venus into worlds enough like Earth that you could walk around in the open, more or less unprotected. Where you could grow crops in the open air. Where humans could survive, even if civilization fell, even if they forgot who they were and how they got there in the first place.”

  “They’ve been thinking about this on Mars,” Lyla said. “Of course now—”

  “We’ll lose Mars, but Mars wasn’t the only option. In the very long term it’s the only robust survival solution,” Paxton said.

  Alexei looked skeptical. “This is the kind of program space advocates have been pressing for since the days of Armstrong and Aldrin, and never got close to. It’s going to mean a massive transfer of resources.”

  “Oh, yes,” Bella said. “In fact Bob’s view is already widely accepted. And it’s going to start soon.”

  “What is?” Lyla asked, curious.

  “You’ll see. Leave me one last surprise…”

  “We’re serious about this,” Bob Paxton said, challenging, authoritative. “As serious as I’ve been about anything in my entire life. To gain access to the future, we have to secure the present. That’s the bottom line.”

  They fell back to talking over details of Paxton’s vision, arguing, fleshing out some aspects, rejecting others. Soon Paxton cleared the tabletop of its colorful sunstorm factoids and started to make notes.

  Bella murmured to Athena, “Looks like it worked. I would never have thought I’d see the likes of Bob Paxton and Alexei Carel working together.”

  “We live in strange times.”

  “That we do, Athena. And they get stranger all the time. Anyhow it’s a start.” She glanced at her watch. “I hate to do it, but I ought to go check through my messages. Athena, will you bring them coffee? Anything they want.”

  “Of course.”

  She pushed herself out of her chair and drifted off the bridge, heading for the shuttle and her secure softscreens. Behind her the conversation continued, animated. She heard Alexei say, half-seriously, “I tell you what will unite us all. Sol Invictus. A new god for a new age…”

  54: Q-DAY

  December 15, 2070

  The shuttle landed Bella at Cape Canaveral.

  Thales spoke to her. “Welcome home, Bella.”

  Bella, bent over her softscreen, was startled to find she was down. All the way from L1 she had been working her messages, and monitoring the progress of the two great events that were due to take place today: the switching-on of the Bimini, the new space elevator system in the Atlantic, and the closest approach of the Q-bomb to the Earth. Both were on schedule, as best anybody knew. But it was hard not to keep checking.

  The wheels stopped rolling, and the shuttle’s systems sighed to silence.

  She shut down her softscreen and folded it up. “Thank you, Thales. Nice to be back. Athena sends her regards.”

  “I’ve spoken to her several times.”

  That made Bella oddly uneasy. She had often wondered what conversations went on between the great artificial intelligences, all above the heads of mankind. Even in her role as Council Chair, she had never fully found out.

  “There’s a car waiting for you outside, Bella. Ready to take you to the VAB, where your family is waiting. Be careful when you stand up.”

  It still hurt to be returned to a full gravity. “It gets tougher every damn time. Thales, remind me to order an exoskeleton.”

  “I will, Bella.”

  She clambered down to the runway. The day was bright, the sun low, the air fresh and full of salt. She checked her watch, which had corrected itself to local time; she had landed a little before ten A.M. on this crisp December morning.

  She glanced out to sea, where a fine vertical thread climbed into the sky.

  Thales murmured, “Just an hour to the Q-bomb pass, Bella. The astronomers report no change in its trajectory.”

  “Orbital-mechanics analyses are all very well. People have to see it.”

  “I’ve encountered the phenomenon before,” Thales said calmly. “I do understand, Bella.”

  She grunted. “I’m not sure if you do. Not if you call it a ‘phenomenon.’ But we all love you anyhow.”

  “Thank you, Bella.”

  A car rolled up, a bubble of glass, smart and friendly. It whisked her away from the cooling hulk of her shuttle, straight toward the looming bulk of the Vehicle Assembly Building.

  At the VAB she was met by a security guard, a woman, good humored but heavily armed, who shadowed her from then on.

  Bella c
rossed straight to a glass-walled elevator, and rose quickly and silently up through the interior of the VAB. She stared down over rockets clustered like pale trees. Once the rocket stacks of Saturns and space shuttles had been assembled in this building. Now a century old and still one of the largest enclosed volumes in the world, the VAB had been turned into a museum for the launchers of the first heroic age of American manned space exploration, from the Atlas to the shuttle and the Ares. And now the building was operational again. A corner had been cleared for the assembly of an Apollo–Saturn stack: a new Apollo 14, ready for its centennial launch in February.

  Bella loved this immense temple of technology, still astonishing in its scale. But today she was more interested in who was waiting for her on the roof.

  Edna met her as she stepped out of the elevator car. “Mum.”

  “Hello, love.” Bella embraced her.

  As Bella and Edna walked the security guard shadowed them, and a news robot rolled after them, a neat sphere glistening with lenses. Bella had to expect that; she did her best to ignore the silent, all-encompassing scrutiny. It was an historic day, after all. By scheduling the Bimini switch-on today, she had meant to turn Q-day into one of celebration, and so it was turning out to be—even if, she sensed, the mood was edgy rather than celebratory right now.

  The tremendous roof of the VAB had long since been made over as a viewing platform. Today it was crowded, with marquees, a podium where Bella would be expected to make a speech, people swirling around. There was even a small park, a mock-up of the local flora and fauna.

  Two oddly dressed men, spindly, tall, in blue-black robes marked with golden sunbursts, stared at a baby alligator as if it were the most remarkable creature they had ever seen, and perhaps it was. Looking a little uncertain on their feet, their faces heavily creamed with sunscreen, they were monks of the new church of Sol Invictus: missionaries to Earth from space.

  Edna walked with the caution of a space worker restored to a full gravity, and she winced a bit in the brilliant light, the breeze, the uncontrolled climate of a living world. She looked tired, Bella thought with her mother’s solicitude, older than her twenty-four years.

  “You aren’t sleeping well, are you, love?”

  “Mum, I know we can’t talk about this right now. But I got my subpoenas yesterday. For your hearing and my own.”

  Bella sighed. She had fought to keep Edna from having to face a tribunal. “We’ll get through it.”

  “You mustn’t think you need to protect me,” Edna said, a bit stiffly. “I did my duty, Mum. I’d do the same again, if ordered. When I get my day in court I’ll tell the truth.” She forced a smile. “Anyway the hell with it all. Thea’s longing to see you. We’ve made camp, a bit away from the marquees and the bars…”

  Edna had colonized an area of the VAB roof close to the edge. It was perfectly safe, blocked in by a tall, inward-curving wall of glass. Edna had spread out picnic blankets and fold-out tables and chairs, and had opened up a couple of hampers. Cassie Duflot was already here, with her two kids, Toby and Candida. They were playing with Thea, Edna’s daughter, Bella’s four-year-old granddaughter.

  In this corner of the VAB roof it was Christmas, Bella saw to her surprise. The kids, playing with toys, were surrounded by wrapping paper and ribbons. There was even a little pine tree in a pot. An older man in a Santa suit sat with them, a bit awkwardly, but with a grin plastered over his tired face.

  Thea came running. “Grannie!”

  “Hello, Thea.” Bella submitted to having her knees hugged, and then she bent down and cuddled her granddaughter properly. The other kids ran to her too, perhaps vaguely remembering the nice old lady who had come with a memento to their father’s funeral. But the kids soon broke away and went back to their presents.

  Santa Claus shook Bella’s hand. “John Metternes, Madam Chair,” he said. “I flew with your daughter on the Liberator.”

  “Yes, of course. I’m very glad to meet you, John. You did good work up there.”

  He grunted. “Let’s hope the judge agrees. Look, I hope you don’t think I’m butting in—I can see there’s a family thing going on here—”

  “I forced him down for some shore leave,” Edna said, a bit acidly. “This weird old obsessive would sleep on the Liberator if the maintenance crew would let him.”

  “Don’t let her bug you, John. It’s good of you to do this. But—Christmas, Edna? It’s only the fifteenth of December.”

  “Actually it was my idea.” Cassie Duflot approached Bella. “It was just that, you know, we still aren’t sure how today is going to turn out, are we?” She glanced at the sky, as if seeking the Q-bomb. “I mean, not really sure. And if things were to go wrong, badly wrong—”

  “You wanted to give the kids their Christmas anyway.”

  “Do you think that’s odd?”

  “No.” Bella smiled. “I understand, Cassie.”

  “It does make it a hell of a day,” Edna said. “And what’s worse, if the world doesn’t get blown up today, we’ll have to do it all again in ten days’ time.”

  “You attracted quite a crowd for your launch, Bella,” Cassie said.

  “Looks like it—”

  “Mum, you haven’t seen the half of it yet,” Edna said. She took her mother’s arm again and walked her toward the glass-walled lip of the building.

  At the roof edge Bella was able to see the ocean to the east, where the low sun hung like a lamp, and the coast to north and south, her view stretching for kilometers in either direction. Canaveral was crowded. The cars clustered along the shoreline, and were parked up as far as the Beach Road to the north, and to the south on Merritt Island and the Cape itself, carpeting the old industrial facilities and the abandoned Air Force base. Everywhere, flags fluttered in the strong breeze.

  And out at sea she saw the gray, blocky form of a reused oil rig. Rising from it was a double thread, dead straight, visible when it caught the light.

  “They came for the switch-on,” Edna said. “You always were a showman, Mum. Maybe politicians have to be. And reopening America’s elevator today is a good stunt. People feel like a party, I guess.”

  “Oh, it’s more than just another space elevator. You’ll see.”

  “New ways forward, Mum?”

  “I’ve just come down from a conference with Bob Paxton and others on new deep-defense concepts. Big concepts. Terraforming programs, for instance.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No. Just thinking big. That’s what cutting your teeth on the shield does for you, I guess. And I must talk to Myra Dutt sometime.” She glanced at the sky. “We have to do something about Mir—this other place Myra’s mother went to. They’re humans in there too. If we can speak to them, as Alexei Carel claims they have been able to on Mars, surely we can find a way to bring them home…”

  There was a stir. Bella was aware of people approaching her, hundreds of eyes on her on this roof alone, and that cam robot whirled and glistened at her feet, puppylike. Even those monks by the alligator pond were staring at her, grinning from ear to ear.

  She looked at her watch. “I think it’s time.”

  “Mum, you’re going to have to say something.”

  “I know. Just a minute more.” She looked out to sea, to the shining vertical track of the elevator. “Edna, call the kids so they can see.”

  The children came to join them, clutching their presents, with Cassie and John Metternes, who hoisted Thea up onto his shoulders.

  A flare went up from that oil rig, a pink spark arcing and trailing smoke. Then there was motion along the track of the elevator, shining droplets rising up one of the pair of threads. A ragged cheer broke out around them, soon echoed among the wider throngs scattered across Canaveral.

  “It’s working,” Bella breathed.

  “But what’s it carrying?” Edna murmured, squinting. “Magnify…Damn, I keep forgetting I’m in EVA.”

  “Water,” Bella said. “Sacks of seawater. It??
?s a bucket chain, love. The pods will be lifted to the top of the tower, and thrown off.”

  “Thrown where?”

  “The Moon, initially. Later Venus.”

  Edna stared at the elevator stack. “So where’s the power coming from? I don’t see any laser mounts on that rig.”

  “There aren’t any. There is no power source—nothing but the Earth’s rotation. Edna, this isn’t really an elevator. It’s a siphon.”

  Edna’s eyes lit up with wonder.

  The orbital siphon was an extension of the space-elevator concept that derived from the elevator’s peculiar mechanics. Beyond the point of geosynchronous orbit, centripetal forces tended to throw masses away from the Earth. The trick with the siphon was to harness this tendency, to allow payloads to escape but in the process to draw more masses up from Earth’s surface. Essentially, the energy of Earth’s rotation was being transferred to an escaping stream of payload pellets.

  “So you don’t need any external energy input at all,” Edna said. “I studied this concept at USNGS. The big problem was always thought to be keeping the damn thing fed—you’d need a fleet of trucks working day and night to maintain the payload flow. But if all you’re throwing up there is seawater—”

  “We call it Bimini,” Bella said. “It’s appropriate enough. The native Americans told Ponce de Leon about a fountain of youth on an island called Bimini. He never found it, but he stumbled on Florida…”

  “A fountain of youth?”

  “A fountain of Earth’s water to make worlds young again. The Moon first, then Venus. Look, Edna, I wanted this as a demonstration to the Spacers that we’re serious. It will still take centuries, but with resource outputs like this, terraforming becomes a practical possibility for the first time. And if Earth lowers its oceans just a fraction and slows its rotation an invisible amount to turn the other worlds blue again, I think that’s a sacrifice worth making, don’t you?”