Vacuum Diagrams

Lvov was baffled. “What are you talking about? What about the eggs? Why would we lie about this? Besides, we have the desks — records.”

“Data desks can be lost, or wiped, or their contents amended.”

Lvov wished she could see Cobh’s face. “Why would we do such a thing?”

“Think it through. Once Earth hears about this, these flake-spiders of yours will be protected. Won’t they?”

“Of course. What’s bad about that?”

“It’s bad for us, Lvov. You’ve seen what a mess the Poole people made of Charon. If this system is inhabited, a fast GUTship won’t be allowed to come for us. It wouldn’t be allowed to refuel here. Not if it meant further damage to the native life-forms.”

Lvov shrugged. “So we’d have to wait for a slower ship. A liner; one that won’t need to take on more reaction mass here.”

Cobh laughed at her. “You don’t know much about the economics of GUTship transport, do you? Now that the System is criss-crossed by Poole wormholes, how many liners like that do you think are still ru

“On the other side of the System.”

“Right. There’s no way either of those ships could reach us for, I’d say, a year.”

We only have a month’s supplies. A bubble of panic gathered in Lvov’s stomach.

“Do you get it yet?” Cobh said heavily. “We’ll be sacrificed, if there’s a chance that our rescue would damage the new ecology, here.”

“No. It wouldn’t happen like that.”

Cobh shrugged. “There are precedents.”

She was right, Lvov knew. In the case of the “tree stump” life-forms discovered on a remote Kuiper object, the territory had been ring-fenced, the local conditions preserved, once life — even a plausible candidate for life — was recognized.

Cobh said, “Pan-genetic diversity. Pan-environmental management. That’s the key to it; the public policy of preserving all the species and habitats of Sol, into the indefinite future. The lives of two humans won’t matter a damn against that.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“That we don’t tell the i

Lvov tried to recapture her mood of a few days before: when Pluto hadn’t mattered to her, when the crash had been just an inconvenience. Now, suddenly, we’re talking about threats to our lives, the destruction of an ecology.

What a dilemma. If I don’t tell of the flakes, their ecology may be destroyed during our rescue. But if I do tell, the GUTship won’t come for me, and I’ll lose my life.

Cobh seemed to be waiting for an answer.

Lvov thought of how Sol light looked over Pluto’s ice fields, at dawn.

She decided to stall. “We’ll say nothing. For now. But I don’t accept either of your options.”

Cobh laughed. “What else is there? The wormhole is destroyed; even this flitter is disabled.”

“We have time. Days, before the GUTship is due to be launched. Let’s search for another solution. A win-win.”

Cobh shrugged. She looked suspicious.

She’s right to be, Lvov thought, exploring her own decision with surprise. I’ve every intention of telling the truth later, of diverting the GUTship, if I have to.

I may give up my life, for this world.

I think.

In the days that followed, Cobh tinkered with the GUTdrive, and flew up to the Interface to gather more data on the Alcubierre phenomenon.

Lvov roamed the surface of Pluto, with her desk set to full record. She came to love the wreaths of cirrus clouds, the huge, misty moon, the slow, oceanic pulse of the centuries-long year.

Everywhere she found the inert bodies of snowflakes, or evidence of their presence: eggs, lidded burrows. She found no other life-forms — or, more likely, she told herself, she wasn’t equipped to recognize any others.

She was drawn back to Christy, the sub-Charon point, where the topography was at its most complex and interesting, and where the greatest density of flakes was to be found. It was as if, she thought, the flakes had gathered here, yearning for the huge, inaccessible moon above them. But what could the flakes possibly want of Charon? What did it mean for them?

Lvov encountered Cobh at the crash scar, recharging her suit’s systems from the life-support packs. Cobh seemed quiet. She kept her face, hooded by her face plate, turned from Lvov.

Lvov watched her for a while. “You’re being evasive,” she said eventually. “Something’s changed — something you’re not telling me about.”

Cobh made to turn away, but Lvov grabbed her arm. “I think you’ve found a third option. Haven’t you? You’ve found some other way to resolve this situation, without destroying either us or the flakes.”

Cobh shook off her hand. “Yes. Yes, I think I know a way. But—”

“But what?”

“It’s dangerous, damn it. Maybe unworkable. Lethal.” Cobh’s hands pulled at each other.

She’s scared, Lvov saw. She stepped back from Cobh. Without giving herself time to think about it, she said, “Our deal’s off. I’m going to tell the i

Cobh studied her face; Cobh seemed to be weighing up Lvov’s determination, perhaps even her physical strength. Lvov felt as if she were a data desk being downloaded. The moment stretched, and Lvov felt her breath tighten in her chest. Would she be able to defend herself, physically, if it came to that? And — was her own will really so strong?

I have changed, she thought. Pluto has changed me.

At last Cobh looked away. “Send your damn message,” she said.

Before Cobh — or Lvov herself — had a chance to waver, Lvov picked up her desk and sent a message to the i

“It’s done,” she said at last.

“And the GUTship?”

“I’m sure they’ll cancel it.” Lvov smiled. “I’m also sure they won’t tell us they’ve done so.”

“So we’re left with no choice,” Cobh said angrily. “Look: I know it’s the right thing to do. To preserve the flakes. I just don’t want to die, that’s all. I hope you’re right, Lvov.”

“You haven’t told me how we’re going to get home.”

Cobh gri

“All right. You’re doing fine. Now let go of the scooter.”

Lvov took a deep breath, and kicked the scooter away with both legs; the little device tumbled away, catching the deep light of Sol, and Lvov rolled in reaction.

Cobh reached out and steadied her. “You can’t fall,” Cobh said. “You’re in orbit. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Lvov grumbled.

The two of them drifted in space, close to the defunct Poole wormhole Interface. The Interface itself was a tetrahedron of electric blue struts, enclosing darkness, its size overwhelming; Lvov felt as if she was floating beside the carcass of some huge, wrecked building.

Pluto and Charon hovered before her like balloons, their surfaces mottled and complex, their forms visibly distorted from the spherical. Their separation was only fourteen Pluto-diameters. The worlds were strikingly different in hue, with Pluto a blood red, Charon ice blue. That’s the difference in surface composition, Lvov thought absently. All that water-ice on Charon’s surface.

The panorama was stu

Cobh had strapped her data desk to her chest; now she checked the time. “Any moment now. Lvov, you’ll be fine. Remember, you’ll feel no acceleration, no matter how fast we travel. At the center of an Alcubierre wave, space-time is locally flat; you’ll still be in free fall. There will be tidal forces, but they will remain small. Just keep your breathing even, and—”