But the transmitter was closer yet. "This demo had better work!" I muttered as I oriented on the seemingly tiny aperture of the tube and maintained acceleration. Because if it didn't, and we were not sent out at light speed, the torpedo would take us out at its speed.
I won the race to the transmitter. Our ship plunged into the tube—and out the other side.
"Oh, no!" Spirit breathed. "They didn't transmit us!"
But in a moment I knew she was wrong. "Look at the environment!" I exclaimed. "The light ambience is only a quarter what it was. This is Uranus orbit!
"But we didn't take any three hours!" Forta protested.
"We took it; we simply weren't aware of it. There is no time at light speed, as far as we're concerned; it's like being in suspended animation."
"Of course," Forta agreed after a moment. "Silly of me to forget." In this manner she dismissed the magnitude of the accomplishment we had seen: successful light-speed travel. It had worked! Man could now travel to the stars, with no more apparent time lapse than we had experienced. We could colonize the galaxy!
Now we saw the escort ships of the Uranus nations arriving. We were definitely there!
In a moment we were in video touch with them, and I was repeating what was obvious: we had arrived in good form and, no, we had not been rendered into zombies. The mechanism was viable.
"But how is the tiger?" a reporter asked.
We checked. Smilo looked spacesick, but he was intact. "We had a little complication at the other end," I explained. "Smilo wasn't anchored, and he took a beating. But cats are tough. I'm sure he'll be available for interviews in due course."
The reporter laughed, and so did we. It was a great feeling.
But our relaxation was premature. A ship with the emblem of Helvetia was approaching. Spirit and I accepted this with equanimity, because Helvetia, colonized by the historic Switzerland, was to be our host country during our stay at Uranus.
Uranus, you see, is more fragmented than is Jupiter or Saturn. It equates to the ancient Europe, and has many languages and cultures, and a turbulent history. Because it would have been confusing to have all the political entities of Earth represented by identical names in their colonies, the colonies assumed names of their choosing, and these were generally based on long-standing cultural affiliations. On Earth of twenty-five centuries ago, the territory later to be known as Switzerland was occupied by the Helvetian people, and so this was the name selected for their colony on Uranus. They have maintained their policy of nonviolence, and their interest in technology and finance; Helvetian equipment is some of the finest in the System, and their city of Rich is perhaps the leading financial center of Uranus. (Cities tend to be abbreviated forms of their counterparts on ancient Earth, so Rich derives from Zurich appropriately.) At any rate, we felt quite comfortable about accepting the hospitality of Helvetia, though this was our first visit to Uranus.
"I smell a rat," Forta said.
I glanced at her. "You don't like Helvetia?"
"I like it well; I have been here before. But Helvetia has no ships of that class in its Navy."
"Why not?" I asked. "Historically, on Earth, the region was landbound, but there is no such thing in the System. Helvetia can have any navy it can finance—and it is a rich little nation."
"Isn't that a cruiser?" she persisted. "A ship of war?"
"She's got a point, Hope," Spirit said. "Why should a peaceful nation support a war vessel?"
"They don't support any warships," Forta said. "It's policy, not finance. That ship can't be theirs."
"We can verify its credentials in a moment," I said, reaching for the communications panel.
Spirit's hand intercepted mine. "If that ship is a ringer, it will blast us out of space the moment we try to verify it. Our assassins are fanatics."
"But if we don't go with it, it will realize that we know," I said. "And if we do go with it—"
"The tube," Forta said tightly. "Will it—?"
"Titan personnel operate that tube," I said. "Let's see how smart they are." I spoke casually, but we all knew that we were in trouble.
I touched the communications panel. "Glad to see you, Helvetia," I said, addressing the cruiser. "Bear with me a moment; I want to fetch something at the tube." And I cut my drive, going into free-fall, turned my ship about, and accelerated back toward the tube. Of course this meant I was still traveling the way I had been going; it would take a few minutes for our drive to reverse our course. But since the cruiser had been matching our velocity, this had the effect of making us draw away from it.
The cruiser did not reply. It simply matched our velocity again, performing a similar maneuver and accelerating to compensate for our change. It was not about to let us get away.
I goosed the drive, increasing our gee. Smilo gave a growl, not liking this. The cruiser matched us again. There was no longer doubt in my mind; that ship was stalking us, determined to keep us within the range of its weapons so that it could take us out anytime. Because a cruiser is a major ship, worth a lot of money to someone, it was not eager to become a suicide mission; it preferred to wait for opportunity or necessity to deal with us, always hoping that we would finish our minor errand and then dock with it, the four of us walking quietly into its trap like flies into the web of a spider. Then we would disappear, and so would the cruiser, and the powers of Uranus would be left with a mystery, and no Tyrant to meet with.
I guided our ship straight toward the tube. "Minor matter," I transmitted to the tube personnel. "You know what I want."
There was a pause. Then the Rising Sun technician came on my screen. "As you wish, Tyrant," he said politely.
We oriented on the tube and accelerated right for its aperture. Because this was a pilot model, it wasn't trim; it was oversized, with clumsy-seeming attachments. Later generations would be sleek and trim, instead of big enough to handle the proverbial barn. The pursuing ship closed on us, perhaps becoming nervous about our destination. If we transmitted back to Saturn—
By the time we entered the tube, the cruiser was almost on our tail. We shot through, and out the other side. The cruiser entered right behind us, barely squeezing in—and disappeared.
We experienced an abrupt jolt, as though a star had just gone nova behind us. Our tail section heated and melted, and our drive cut out. We were boosted forward, but we were dead in space. Smilo took another bad fall.
But ships were constructed for exactly this type of acceleration. Our drive was gone, but our hull was intact and our cabin power remained on. We had survived.
"What was that?" Forta asked. Her bun of hair had come apart, and she looked disheveled.
"We may have been struck by a laser," I said, "or the equivalent."
"Oh—they fired at us!" she said.
"Perhaps," Spirit agreed.
"Where are we?" Forta asked nervously.
"Right where we were," I said, checking out the equipment to ascertain whether we retained communication. "The tube did not activate, for us."
"Then where is the other ship?"
I smiled grimly. "That may be difficult to determine. You see, the tube did activate for it."
"You mean it's a light beam, on its way to Saturn?"
"It's a light beam," I agreed. Spirit caught my eye, and I said no more.
"So it was transmitted while we were not," Forta said, amazed. "But how—"
"The Rising Sun personnel understood our wish," Spirit told her. "Our wish was to be free of pursuit."
"How clever!" Forta said.
Spirit and I were veterans of the Jupiter Navy and of combat in space. We had never liked destruction and killing, but we had been hardened to it in war. It was war we were in now, as anonymous forces sought to assassinate us to prevent us from making our play to unify the planets around the galactic project. The personnel of that ship had been ordered to kill us, quietly if possible; we had had to take them out. We had done so.
The face of the Rising Sun technic
ian came on our screen. "Are you satisfied, Tyrant?" he inquired.
"Quite," I agreed. "Shall we agree that this matter is finished?"
"Agreed, sir," the tech said.
"We appear to have suffered some damage," I continued. "Possibly from a laser attack. Please request assistance for us."
"A laser," the tech agreed. "We shall see to it, sir." He clicked out.
"Damn good personnel," Spirit murmured.
"They are highly trained, of course," Forta said.
We did not comment, but that was not what Spirit had meant. The Rising Sun tech had shown very special judgment and discipline, and our interchange had been more significant than either party cared to advertise.
You see, Rising Sun was forbidden by treaty to produce weapons of war. The light-projection project was considered to be technology of peace, but it had certain difficult philosophical aspects. If a ship was transmitted to another tube, this was a peaceful operation. But suppose a ship was transmitted—and there was no receiving tube? Or the beam of light was deflected on the way? Then there would be no reconversion, and that ship would probably never manifest in solid state again. When that happened, was the tube a weapon instead of a tool?
The Rising Sun personnel had understood me. They had let our ship pass through untransmitted. They had activated the system for the following ship, so that it became light and beamed forward at light speed. Thus it had been removed from this scene, and could no longer threaten us.
But it had entered the tube immediately after us. Our vessel had blocked its forward path. When it became light, it had struck us. Probably most of it had passed around us, but that center section that overlapped us had melted our tail. It takes a lot of light to equal the mass of any part of a ship. That part of it would never arrive at the receiving tube—if, indeed, that tube even remained in place, let alone tuned for reception. Since this had been an unplanned transmission, the Saturn tube had no reason to be activated, and no light-speed message to it could reach it before the ship did.
That ship was dead. Spirit and I knew it, and the personnel of the transmission tube knew it. Forta didn't know it, and perhaps it would be some time before the rest of the System caught on. The tube had just been used as a weapon. Did that put Rising Sun in violation of its treaty? I thought not, as its personnel were only obeying my directive, and in any event, they were only employees of the Union of Saturnine Republics, which was not bound to peace. But it could make an ugly case. So we had tacitly agreed that nothing untoward had happened. That the enemy ship had lasered us just before it transmitted, and subsequently suffered an unforeseen accident. It was a temporary conspiracy of silence.
But they certainly were good men. They were civilians, but they had acted with military judgment and dispatch and discretion. I could now appreciate why Rising Sun had been such a formidable adversary, back in the days when it was warlike.
This had been more of a demonstration than we had planned on—but a most effective one.
Chapter 10 — PERSUASION
We transferred to a legitimate Helvetian vessel and were brought to the planet of Uranus in proper style. Uranus was smaller than Saturn, its diameter less than half and its mass somewhat over a seventh. Of course every other body in the immediate Solar System (that is, excluding Nemesis, which is really a companion star, rather than a satellite) is minuscule compared to Jupiter, whose mass is greater than all the rest of the System combined. Still, Uranus was a giant compared to Earth, being over fourteen times its mass. Its surface gravity was actually less than that of Earth, but its escape velocity twice Earth's. People assume that the two should vary together, but this is not so; Uranus' far greater mass brings up the escape velocity, while its lower density brings down the gee. Saturn is similar in this respect, also having a lower surface gee than Earth.
The most remarkable thing about Uranus is its orientation in space. It is tilted by close to a right angle, so that its poles are in the sun's ecliptic. It is as though the planet has fallen over, and all its rings and satellites fallen with it. This means that in the course of its eighty-four-year revolution about the sun the North and South Poles take turns pointing toward the sun, making for days and nights about forty-two years long. It also rotates backwards—they call it retrograde—so that the sun would seem to rise in the west, to a person on the equator, if it rose at all. That depends on the season, of course. The truth is that for those who live in the interior of a bubble in the atmosphere, with artificial light, it really does not make a lot of difference.
As we came in we saw the relatively calm atmosphere, clear to an amazing depth. One would have thought that there would be terrible turbulence, considering the oddities of the planet's situation in space, but this was not the case. It reminded me of a deep ocean, for the large amount of methane provided a greenish hue. It seemed very pretty to me, as planets go. The atmosphere rotates in about twenty-four hours, making it very similar to Earth in this respect, though the planet itself is faster. Since the city-bubbles are in the atmosphere, that is what counts, for human beings.
We came down to Helvetia. Its bubbles floated slightly higher than the majority, and their wind current differed accordingly from those of the majority, so they were relatively isolated geographically. It seemed that the Helvetians liked to live in the mountains, as it were. This perhaps complicated their operations slightly, but did give them a certain independence, and that seemed to suit them.
The city-bubble that was to be our base of operations was Eva, long known as an interplanetary meeting place. I had half expected to spy the citizens going about in colorful shorts and hats, but in truth they were almost indistinguishable from residents of Saturn or Jupiter, except for their language. Helvetia had three or four official languages: French, German, Italian, and Romansch. I believe the majority spoke German, but Eva was in the French section. None of these did Spirit and me much good, our languages being Spanish and English. Fortunately many of the residents of Eva also spoke one or both of our tongues, and in any event we had Forta. She spoke German and French, and was able to translate the others with her equipment. She was the right person to have along.
I don't care to dwell on the rituals of introductions and arrangements; suffice to say that the process I dismiss here actually required months, because of the bureaucratic mechanisms and protocols entailed. Uranus was a nest of rival systems, each seemingly trying to upstage the others or to gain special advantage for itself. Most of its component nations had formed the Uranian Common Market, which meant that tariffs and other impediments to trade were lowered between members, and this seemed to have a beneficial effect on their separate fortunes, but many problems remained. I felt as if I had stepped into a nest of scorpions. All were impressed with our demonstration of the feasibility of light-speed travel; each wanted all the benefits for itself, and none wanted to pay for them. I could not address the planetary leaders in a single group, obtain their commitment to the project, and be on my way; I had to hold a private audience with each leading executive, who was noncommittal until he knew of the positions of the others. What had been intended as a one-week stay stretched out into months, with no end in sight.
I was never a phenomenally patient man, and age had not softened me. In those early days of frustration I was building up an unhealthy head of pressure. Spirit encouraged me to become a tourist, visiting the attractions, but though I am capable of appreciating such things, my ire at the waste of my time made me an inadequate tourist. I'm afraid the Eyeful Tower was wasted on me, however remarkable it may be as a structure in orbit.
One day Spirit went out on some routine matter, and I settled down with a helmet and holo chip, seeking diversion. Unfortunately, all that was readily available was the normal entertainment fare: feelie sex. This reminded me of what I was missing in that department. I preferred the real thing to a creation of the helmet, and what could I do about that? Phone for a professional girl? That had never been my way. Disgusted, I removed the h
elmet.
A young, buxom Hispanic woman walked in. My first reaction was alarm: This suite was supposed to be secure against intrusion. My second was amazement: This was a phenomenally attractive creature, by my definition. My third was shock: I knew this girl! She was Juana, my first Navy love. And my fourth was disappointment: I realized that this was Forta Foundling, doing a mime.
She was good at it, though. Obviously Spirit had coached her on it, for this was Juana as I remembered her forty years ago, before advancing age plumped her out. Not perfect, of course, for Spirit could neither have noted nor conveyed all of the special things I knew about Juana. But close enough to be quite intriguing.
I was interested in the technical aspect. Forta was tall and slender and somewhat angular, yet this creature seemed shorter and full-fleshed and rounded. I realized that some of it was Forta's genius with the signals; a thin body that sent plump signals did appear rounded. I had not before realized the extent to which this could be true. Obviously Forta had rehearsed plump signals, and applied them to this characterization. But it was more than that; a considerable amount of that flesh was genuine. How could that be?
I concluded that I had not really been looking at Forta. She had worn an angular style of clothing, perhaps projecting that quality when it wasn't really hers. Now she was projecting the opposite, in effect doubling the distance. However she did it, she was expert at the illusion.
Now I studied her face. It was a mask, of course, cleverly done but not truly alive. She had trained her hair down and around it to conceal the border, and it was flexible and thin, so that it moved with her own expression. The eyes and mouth were especially lifelike; I realized that they had to be her own, buttressed by makeup. I looked, but I could not see the line of mergence between the mask and her true features; there seemed to be none. She must have used foundation creme or something to flesh out her features where the scars would show, and contact lenses to modify her eyes. Oh, she knew her business, without doubt!