Kaufman said, “Thank you, sir.” He was careful not to look at Grafton. But he risked a question … “And if I may ask, sir … Ms. Grant? Are the charges against her dropped, as well?”
“Ms. Grant is a civilian; she is beyond my jurisdiction. The matter is still pending,” Stefanak said, and everyone in the room knew that the charges against Marbet would also disappear. You didn’t aspire to be dictator without extensive political control.
Kaufman said, “Thank you, sir.”
“Now. Dr. Capelo … your questions. Fire away.”
Capelo had had time to regain his equilibrium. “What are you going to do with my artifact?”
Stefanak smiled at the pronoun, which Kaufman knew had been deliberate on Capelo’s part, but didn’t comment on it. “We’re going to take it to the Solar System, install it somewhere secure and classified, and activate setting prime eleven, thereby protecting all of the Solar System from Faller attack.”
Somewhere secure and classified. My God, Kaufman thought, Stefanak will control it completely. No one will dare cross him—he’ll hold an undefeatable Excalibur, one that could become a doomsday machine if he chose. He will be dictator.
And he, Lyle Kaufman, trained diplomat, had not seen it until just this moment. Seduced by the science and the weaponry, he had not looked at all at the politics.
“I see,” Capelo said, with shades of meaning. “So you won’t take it to the Faller system, activate it at setting prime thirteen, and fry their entire home system?”
“You’ve told us that’s not possible without disastrously affecting the fabric of spacetime itself.”
“What if I’m wrong?”
“We hope you’ll continue to refine your theory, becoming more sure.”
“What if I’m wrong about what setting prime eleven does?”
“Same answer,” Stefanak said. He appeared to be enjoying himself.
“What if as I ‘refine my theory,’ and others do, too—I am going to be allowed to publish?”
“Certainly.”
“But you know the Fallers most likely monitor whatever of our electromagnetic spectrum they can. They may be able to decipher our breakthroughs.”
Kaufman, too, had wondered about this. He listened intently for Stefanak’s answer.
“Let them. My scientific advisors are convinced their approach to science is so different from ours that they’ll find translation and imitation very difficult.”
Probably true,” Capelo admitted. “So what if, as I ‘refine my theory’ and others do the same, major errors are uncovered?”
“We’ll correct for them. Dr. Capelo, I’m a soldier, not a clothing designer. I expect major errors, and I expect to have to correct for them. War is like that.”
“And just how do you expect to ‘correct’ for the destruction of spacetime if two artifacts are activated at setting prime thirteen in the same star system?”
“Don’t you think the original engineers thought of that and built in failsafes?”
“I have no idea. And neither do you.”
“True enough. But I don’t anticipate ever using setting prime thirteen, Doctor. It would constitute an unacceptable risk.”
Capelo sat thinking. Finally he said, “You wouldn’t have to take any risk. You don’t actually have to activate the artifact at all, you know. You merely have to convince people, humans and Fallers, that you activated it. The effect would be the same, unless the bastards are stupid enough to actually bring their artifact to our space and call your bluff.”
Stefanak said nothing. He went on smiling, huge legs crossed carelessly at the knee, relaxed and comfortable.
Capelo laughed, the short harsh sound Kaufman had heard a hundred times.
“All right, General. I’m not a soldier. But I have one more question, and it’s a soldier’s question. I called up all the battle data in the ship’s library since the Faller skeeters first turned up protected by disrupter-beam shields. I don’t have the classified material, of course, but you know those war correspondents—their robots go practically everywhere and cover practically everything. Then I wrote a program to compare that data to probable tunnel system use and maximum skeeter flying time. And I found something very interesting.
“The two can be made to coordinate such that a single Faller artifact could have been transferred from ship to ship and still cover every place the beam-disrupter shield turned up. They haven’t cracked the engineering at all, have they? They only possess one artifact, just like we do.”
Lieutenant Framingham gasped. Kaufman could feel his own face stretch in surprise. For the first time, Stefanak looked discomforted. No one spoke; no one dared.
Finally, the general said, “You’re a very intelligent man, Dr. Capelo. Pity you didn’t choose to become a soldier.”
“I’d have made a rotten soldier.”
“Perhaps you’re right. How good a patriot are you?”
Capelo laughed again. “Do you mean, will I tell anyone about this conjecture? Publish it? Make it part of my daughter’s armor? No. I want to see us win the war, General, as much as you do. Maybe more, because I’m not a soldier, and I have nothing to gain from success in battle and even more to lose than I already have. As long as you’re not going to prosecute me for treason, or breaking-and-entering, or any other stupid charge, you have my silence on everything that you tell me is classified. I already have heavy-duty security clearances, you know.”
“I know.”
“And Marbet Grant?” Capelo asked.
“Much lighter security clearances. But I suspect she, too, will remain silent about anything that happened aboard this ship.”
“In return for her freedom.”
Stefanak had resumed his easy smile. “I told you—Ms. Grant is a civilian. All I can do is present her case as I see it to the proper authorities.”
“Yes,” Capelo said sardonically, “only that.”
“Are we finished here yet, Doctor?”
“As finished as something like this can be.”
Stefanak stood. Capelo rose, too; it was impossible to stay seated when that overwhelming presence did not. Stefanak held out his hand. “Good-bye, Doctor Capelo.”
“Good-bye, General Stefanak.”
“Colonel Kaufman,” Stefanak said, “General Gordon will stay behind on this ship to debrief you. I must leave immediately. Gentlemen, madam.” He saluted the officers, who responded with the hypercorrect fervor of Academy cadets. Stefanak left, trailing Grafton behind him like a flyer behind a war cruiser.
Rulanov, Ramsay, and Framingham seemed eager to leave as well. They marched stiffly out the door. Capelo followed, saying, “I have to tell my girls I’m not going to jail. They’ll be glad to get home to Earth, I think. Good luck, Lyle, you deserve it.”
In a few moments the room contained only Kaufman and Gordon. The silence felt unnatural to Kaufman, after so many jolts. Like the suspended moment after a Marsquake.
Gordon grinned. “I told you that you were the right man for this job, Lyle.”
“The … right man?”
“Certainly. It doesn’t matter that you got everybody connected with it arrested, and the prisoner of war killed. Oh, it does matter, actually, you know that. Your career in the military is over. You know too much. More important, Stefanak will need a scapegoat for those closed, classified SADC sessions in which he explains how we lost the alien POW we never officially had. He’ll be grateful to you, Lyle, and a bit nervous about you, and he’ll stick you behind a desk way out on some remote battle station served by one space tunnel and hope to never lay eyes on you again. Probably after first sweetening the assignment with a promotion and a medal. And if you ever move against him in any way, you’ll be dead.”
“I know,” Kaufman said.
“I’m sorry. But you were still the right man for the mission. You got the job done, Lyle, and done as well as anyone in the galaxy could have done it.”
“Thank you, sir. I’m just another
casualty of war, is that it?”
“Yes. Capelo and Stefanak will get the glory of protecting the Solar System. But because of you, the war may yet be won. Is it enough?”
“No,” Kaufman said, but he knew, as did Gordon, that it would have to do.
EPILOGUE
LUNA CITY, JULY 2167
While he waited for the elevator that would take him down to the living levels of Luna City, Kaufman studied the park. He hadn’t seen it since he’d recruited Marbet Grant for the World mission well over a year ago. The park hadn’t changed. It still looked dark to him compared to Martian parks. On Mars, the sky had a pinkish light, its intensity depending on the day’s dust count. Here, the only light was artificial, unless you counted either the stars shining coldly through the piezoelectric dome or the earthlight from the monstrous blue-and-green world suspended above. Or maybe, on Luna, this was the world and Earth qualified as a moon. It all depended on how you looked at it.
As in his last visit, the fenced play yard held squealing toddlers and their caretakers, toddlers who could jump almost as high as the top of their very high slide. The scientific experiments under clear plastic domes still dotted a restricted area, which was still not restricted very much. There was little crime in Luna City’s carefully pre-selected population. On benches set between beds of flowers genemod for the low light, people talked or star-gazed or kissed.
The flowers didn’t remind Kaufman much of World. These were too small, too subdued, to evoke World’s riot of glorious blossoms.
The elevator came, and he stepped inside.
At H Level, he stepped into a wide corridor curving away at both ends. A small tram said cheerfully, “Hello! I make a circuit of this residential level every ten minutes, stopping whenever you instruct me to do so. Or, if you prefer, you can walk. All entrances to residential clusters are found on or just off this main circular corridor.”
“I’ll walk,” Kaufman said, and the tram fell silent.
The corridor was utilitarian, except for soft patterns of lights playing over the walls. The doors opening directly off the corridor, numbered consecutively, were as plain as the walkway. Evidently Lunarians saved their decoration for their residences.
The tram passed him, carrying an elderly lady. Two walkers nodded to him pleasantly without interrupting their conversation. In fifteen minutes he reached Marbet’s cluster. In another five he stood in front of her apartment door.
She opened it even before he signaled; she’d been watching for him. “Lyle! Hello!”
“Hello, Marbet,” he said, and wondered if it had really been more than a year, and then how he had let it be more than a year. Not that he’d had much choice. She looked as unchanged as the park above, no older, her auburn curls as bright and her genemod-green cat’s eyes as startlingly vivid. She wore a long tunic of some fine, ivory-colored material that floated around her, and a dramatic gold necklace.
“Come in. What can I give you to drink? A fizzie? Some wine? I have wine from Chile.”
“Sounds expensive. A fizzy is fine. You look wonderful, Marbet.”
“Thank you. You look tired.”
“I am.”
He’d forgotten how it felt to be with her: that strange combination of ease and stimulation, laced with discomfort about what she might be reading from his face, his body, the tone of his voice. Had she decorated her home to offset that discomfort, making it as welcoming and reassuring as possible? Large comfortable pillows, bright floral fabrics, soft lighting and minimal clutter. A room to relax in. In these surroundings, his dress uniform felt stiff.
He said, “What have you been doing?” She hadn’t appeared lately in the newscasts; he’d had a search program scan Mars’s central library.
“A few small jobs on Earth, mostly private businesses wanting intelligence during negotiations. Nothing very compelling lately, I’m afraid. Have you heard about Tom?”
“Capelo? No, what?”
“He’s back at Harvard, expanding his probon theory, and his papers are making all sorts of waves in the physics world. But you already knew that. The news is that he’s getting married.”
Kaufman almost sputtered into his drink. “Tom?”
“Yes. It seems he met her at some sort of physics conference and fell like a ship into a black hole. He comlinked me last week. I was as surprised as you look.”
“I thought he’d mourn his dead wife forever.”
“Nothing as unpredictable as people. Quantum particles are nothing compared to us. Although actually, I think something else happened with Tom. I think he exorcised something out there on the World mission. It made him open again to caring for someone else besides his daughters. Who apparently are delighted with their new stepmother, Tom says.”
“I wish him all happiness,” Kaufman said.
They sat quietly, drinking their fizzies, each contemplating the strange places in the human soul. Kaufman was more at home with such contemplations than he’d once been, he thought wryly. Although not as a result of any exorcism. Kaufman said finally, “The artifact’s been a great success. Hidden somewhere in the Solar System, ‘safeguarding the cradle of humanity,’ as the flimsies say.”
Marbet said, “Do you think it’s actually activated at setting prime eleven?”
“Who knows? Tom showed us that if it is, it’s undetectable unless someone brings in another one and tries to fry Sol. Unless that happens, we’ll never really know if it works or not. It’s like that old joke about the witch doctor who gives the explorer a charm against ferocious man-eating tigers. The guy says, ‘But there aren’t any tigers on Mars,’ and—”
“—and the witch doctor says, ‘See? It’s working already.’ Lyle, that joke’s ancient.”
“But applicable. All you can do is figure the probabilities that the artifact is guarding Sol.”
“Probability sun,” Marbet said.
“Exactly.”
“What about you? What have you been doing?”
He said, “I’ve resigned from the military, Marbet, effective next week. I’m on my way to debriefing on Mars.”
“I know.”
“How? How could you know I’m on my way to debriefing?”
She laughed. “I didn’t know that part But I did know you’ve resigned. It’s in the way you wear your uniform now … I can’t explain in words.”
“They stuck me out in Ariel System, at the ass-end of the galaxy. You think World was isolated … I commanded a space station.”
“And you hated it.”
“And I hated it. So I’ve resigned, honorable discharge, out as soon as I debrief.”
She set down her fizzy on a small table woven of some strong grass, or of something that looked like grass. “Mars is between here and the space tunnel. You’ve taken a long detour for somebody who’s on his way to a debrief on Mars.”
“Yes. I was hoping I could persuade you to go with me.”
“To where?”
He breathed deep. This was it. Although being Marbet, she might already know. “Back to World. A private expedition, privately funded. To search for Ann Sikorski and Dieter Gruber, if they’re still alive, and bring them home. If they want to come.”
“To bring home Ann and Gruber? Is that really the reason?”
He said, “It’s a reason.”
“Lyle,” she said softly, “it isn’t your fault. Whatever has happened to World, it isn’t your fault. You had no choice.”
“I know. But it’s odd, isn’t it? Most of the world’s Prometheuses have destroyed worlds by bringing new technology: fire, bombs, whatever. I destroyed one by removing technology.”
“But, Lyle—”
He didn’t want to talk about it any longer. He interrupted Marbet. “Will you go with me? To Mars and then back to World?”
“Yes. I’ll go with you.”
He sipped his fizzy. Eventually he said, “Did you know I was going to ask that?”
“Lyle, a Sensitive is not clairvoyant. No, I didn??
?t know you were going to ask that.”
“Good,” he said, put down his drink, and took her hand.
* * *
Enli and Essa sat outside their house in the cool evening air. Enli was cross. How had she become responsible for Essa, anyway? And why? The girl would wilt anyone.
“Essa, did you hear what I said? His mother is taking Serlit away from here because of you. He’s too young for … for that kind of mating play, and you know it, and you did it with him anyway.”
“He liked it,” Essa said, unperturbed.
“I’m sure he did. But he’s still too young, not even past his youth-planting ceremony. Shared reality…” She stopped. The words had just slipped out. Even after so long.
Essa ignored Enli’s crossness. “Look at the stars come out, Enli. They’re so bright ’cause Ral is the only moon up and it’s only part curvy. Look at that bright one just above the top of the stockade.”
“Essa—”
“I’m going to the stars one day. I am. Pek Sikorski says there are other Worlds out there, and she saw them in a big metal flying boat. I will, too.”
“You won’t go anywhere if you don’t behave.”
“Listen! Pek Ramul’s starting!”
The sounds of the pipe drifted in from the green, signaling the start of the dancing. Essa leaped up and ran off. Enli scowled. Such a girl! And O, Enli was too tired to go after her tonight. Calin was on guard duty—there had been some more threats from Gofkit Firtoe—and Enli had cooked for both her family and for Ann, who had a flower sickness and was isolated in her hut in atonement. Since trade with the capital had stopped (Gofkit Shamloe had nothing to trade), there was no more antihistamine. Dieter was off on a foraging trip and Ann was worried about him, and worry only made flower sickness worse. Added to all that, the little one kicked hard inside Enli’s belly, and her back hurt.
Nonetheless, she lumbered to her feet and went after Essa. It was a lovely night. Enli stopped to sniff the sweet warm air. Slowly, a blossom unfolded inside her, its petals delicate and perfumed and blessed as a perfect allabenirib. She felt the blossom bud, open, fully flower.
Happiness.