Odyssey

She missed piloting. The universe had gotten smaller, had narrowed down to a strip of Virginia and the DC area. Her big thrill consisted of going with Tor and Maureen to the seashore.

Occasionally, she wondered whether marrying had been a mistake. She loved her husband, and she adored Maureen, liked nothing better than playing tag with her, than ru

She’d been more alive in those years. Or maybe alive in a different way. Her passions had been stronger, the sense of accomplishment greater. Soaring out across a world no one had ever seen before carried with it an exhilaration that life in a bureaucracy — or, if she dared admit it to herself, in a marriage — could never match.

She’d already bailed out of an administrative job once. A year or so after they’d discovered the chindi, she’d accepted a staff position, a promotion, partly because it was what you were supposed to do. They’d asked her if she wanted to spend the rest of her life in the fleet. The decision had been easy enough because she’d fallen in love with Tor, and no future with him seemed possible without a groundside job.

She’d lasted fourteen months, had tried to find something else that would interest her, had given up and — with his blessing — gone back to piloting for a year or so. Finally, she settled in as assistant to the director of operations. Not long after that she’d gotten the top job.

It paid well. It was challenging. Sometimes, like now, it was even exciting. But she would have given a great deal to have been out on the Salvator with Mac and the others. That was where she belonged.

“Hutch.” The AI’s voice. “Dr. Asquith is calling again.”

Twice in one night. She wondered if he was bored. “Everything okay?” she asked.

“Hutch, I want you to see something.” He told the AI to run a clip. “Rita sent this over. They just received it.” Rita was the duty officer at Union Control.

A man she’d never seen before blinked on. Standing by a viewport, through which she could see a star-strewn sky and a planetary rim. “Sha

Asquith froze the image. “This is from the Galactic,” he said. The hotel that Orion was building at Capella. “My God, Hutch, it’s an attack.”

It wasn’t just another big rock. Think Boston to DC. It was a small planet this time. “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” she said. “When’s it going to get there?”

“Don’t know.”

“Okay, look. It’s not what you think.”

“Why not?” He didn’t sound as if he was in a mood to dispute details.

“The hotel’s being built in orbit at Capella V?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a sterile world. Nobody’s going to bother bombing it.”

He shook his head. “I wish I understood what’s going on.”

The man at the viewport was back. “Got more,” he said. He was heavyset, black skin and beard, about forty, with features that suggested he enjoyed a good time. At the moment he looked scared. “It’s going to take out the hotel.” He was having a hard time keeping his voice calm. “The goddam thing is coming right at us. Dead on. They’re telling me it will miss the planet. But nail us. The bastards are shooting at us.” He stopped a moment. Tried to calm down. “We have a ship on-station, but it’s not anywhere near big enough to get everyone off. Sha

The Orion Tours logo replaced the image.

“My God,” said Hutch. “When’s it going to happen?”

Asquith shrugged. “You know as much as I do. Judging from the way he sounds — ”

“How many people do they have out there? At the construction site?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Okay. I assume Dryden’s asked for help.”

“I haven’t heard from him yet.” He was on his feet, treading back and forth. “That asteroid that passed us a few weeks ago. I wonder if they were behind that, too?”

“It missed, Michael.”

He shrugged again. “So they screwed up that one.”

“Michael, we get Earth-crossers all the time. We just happened not to see it coming. But something with a six-hundred-klick diameter? If the moonriders could move something that massive, could aim it at a moving target as small as a hotel — ” What were they up against?

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“If they have the capability to push around a rock the size of Arizona, why would they bother?”

“What do you mean?”

“If they have that kind of technology, and they wanted to get rid of the hotel, surely they’d have a more sophisticated way of doing it than tossing a small moon at it. Why not just pull up and bomb it? Or use a particle beam? Why on Earth would you throw rocks?”

“I don’t know,” he said. There was a touch of hysteria in his voice. “Maybe when we get closer to them, you can ask.”

ASQUITH GOT DRYDEN on the circuit. Charlie just sat shaking his head. “I can’t believe it. Why would they do something like this? What’s wrong with these creatures?” His voice hardened, and he looked ready to kill.

The commissioner leaned forward. “When’s it going to get there?”

“We don’t know yet. Hartigan forgot to tell us when. We’re waiting to hear now.”

“How many people you have out there?” asked Hutch.

He consulted a display. “Thirty-three. We can put eleven of them on the Lin-Kao. But that’s all we have.” He looked away. “Wait a minute. We’re getting something now.”

Charlie relayed it for them. It was the man by the viewport again. Presumably Hartigan. “I’m going to start moving people over to the Surveyor,” he said. “The Lin-Kao will have time to make two flights. So I can get most of them off that way.”

The Surveyor was an historic ship, now maintained at Arcturus as a museum. It was, with luck, a day and a half away from the Galactic. “So we’ve got at least three days,” said Hutch.

Capella V struck her as an odd location for a vacation site. It would be about five days’ travel time from Earth, a bit far, she thought. She recalled that there’d originally been talk of constructing it at Romulus/Remus in the Vega system.

In any case the Salvator was in position to help. “Good thing,” Peter said when she contacted him. “Union doesn’t have anything ready to go.”

“That can’t be right,” said Hutch.

“It’s true. The place is empty. Usually we have seven or eight ships in port. I’ve called around. There are a couple coming in, but nothing close enough that they can help.”

“And nothing that can be diverted?”

“Negative.”

VALYA WAS FORTUITOUSLY on her way to the same Surveyor museum at Arcturus. She might even be there already. Hutch punched the ship’s name and location into her databank and transmitted to Asquith’s screen. He saw it, and nodded. “Charlie,” he said, “the Salvator is in range. You want us to send it over?”

“How many can they take on board?” asked Dryden.

Asquith looked toward Hutch. Silently, she said seven.

“Seven,” he said.

“Okay. Yes. Please do. I appreciate this, Michael.”

Asquith’s demeanor had changed. He’d begun to enjoy himself, playing the man of action. “Okay, Hutch,” he said. “Get in touch with Valya and get them started.”

An hour later, toward the end of the evening, she got still another call from the commissioner. “It’ll hit Thursday morning,” he said. “We’ve got almost five days.”

More like four and a half. “When Thursday morning?”

“Around ten, our time.”

The Salvator would have to make two flights. There’d be time, but not much to spare.

Do we have an obligation to protect a living world from arbitrary attacks? Probably not. What moral or legal code is applicable? Certainly none that I know of. Do we risk embroiling ourselves in a confrontation with a species whose capabilities may be far greater than our own? It would seem so. It forces us to the conclusion that the prudent action is to stand aside. Let the gremlins do what they want, while we collect as much information about them as we can.

But another question remains to be asked: If we allow these intruders to inflict heavy damage on a biosystem for no definable reason, to kill off whole species, will that not say a great deal about who we really are? And what matters to us? How would that match up with our image of ourselves? Would we be prepared to live with it?

— Charles Dryden, interview on the Black Cat Network, Saturday, April 25

MOTION TO MOVE HELLFIRE TRIAL QUASHED

Sikonis: Defendant Can Get Fair Trial in Derby

NEAR-MISS ASTEROID SPOTTED 80 YEARS AGO

Research Shows They Thought It Might Hit Earth

Warning Promulgated, Then Forgotten

“It Couldn’t Happen Today,” Says White House

chapter 27

The invention of the printing press probably marks the begi

— Gregory MacAllister, “Fire in the Night”

Three brilliant stars illuminate Earth’s northern skies: Vega, Capella, and the brightest, Arcturus. It is the most distant of the three, thirty-seven light-years from Sol, an orange class-K giant. It became famous when its light was used to open the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. That light had left the star only a few years after the time of the previous Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. It is bright and it is big: 113 times as luminous as the sun. Twenty-six times as wide. It has exhausted its supply of hydrogen and is burning helium.

Its name comes from the Greek word arktos, for bear. Surface temperature is just under 4,300 degrees Kelvin. Evidence suggests that Arcturus originated in a small galaxy that merged with the Milky Way approximately seven billion years ago. Its planetary system consists of two gas giants and a terrestrial. The terrestrial lies in the center of the biozone. It has oceans and all the ingredients for life, but like so many other places, it remains barren.