A World Between (3 page)

—Carlotta had been tired but exhilarated by the time the last of her guests left; fatigued, talked-out, but emotionally buoyed by how well it had gone, filled with a sense of impending triumph at the thought of what now seemed like her certain election to Parliament when the present administration fell.

Absorbed in political calculations, she walked into the bedroom—and there he was. Stretched out naked on the carefully turned-down bed with a glass of wine in his hand and his red cloak draped with minutely calculated carelessness over his loins, the quintessence of bucko insouciance.

He sipped his wine and stared at her over the rim of the glass. “Are you through conquering the world for tonight, Carlotta Madigan?” he said.

Carlotta choked back a laugh. It was too much, it was like some silly pom opera, and yet... And yet, when he crooked his finger at her imperiously, she went to him* When he kissed her, her lips opened to his, and whatever she had been thinking about was forgotten.

It was the perfect bucko performance, so physically perfect as to seem almost soulless, a pom opera for sure. Afterwards, he propped himself up on one elbow and regarded her with classic insolent smugness.

“Who are you?” Carlotta said softly, playing her own part as the script would have it.

“Royce Lindblad,” he said huskily.

“And what manner of creature are you, O mysterious and masterful stranger?”

“Well, truth be told, I’m an assistant producer for the Web,” he said sharply, abruptly changing verbal tone. “Pom operas for export.” And he broke up into gales of laughter.

“You fucking son of a bitch!” Carlotta managed to shout before she started laughing with him—

White clouds scudded across a clear blue sky over the eastern end of the Island Continent. Far off toward the horizon a single bright blue sail billowed between two forested islands...

Sitting in her lounger, Carlotta smiled almost girlishly. They had spent the rest of that night not making love but talking media and politics, and almost from that moment that had been half of their relationship, she the master, Royce her helpmate.

But she couldn’t look at a sail moving across the open sea without thinking of Royce out there in his boat, that young bucko still. And she couldn’t think of Royce sailing without remembering that first night, for that was the young and ever-ageless part of him that only she and the sea knew, her silly young bucko in the sweetness of the night—

Suddenly all her net console screens went blank and then began strobing in blinding scarlet while the speakers battered her ears with a shrill electronic hooting. A priority security override! What the—

Leaning forward nervously, Carlotta punched the “accept” button, wondering what in hell could have happened.

The strobing of the screens and the alert siren abruptly ceased. The agitated face of a youngish woman appeared on the private govchannel screen.

“Well?” Carlotta snapped. “Who the eff are you? What’s going on?” ,

“Laura Sunshine, Ministry of Media, Web Monitoring Bureau,” the , young woman said in a tightly controlled voice. “We’re getting a tachyon transmission from inside the solar system.”

“What?”
Carlotta grunted, her mind suddenly racing along in high gear. It made no sense. Modulated beams of faster-than-light tachyons were used strictly for interstellar communication—they were the medium of the Galactic Media Web. Tachyon transmission was much too expensive to use for shorter-range communication; besides, Pacifica was the only habitable planet in this solar system.

Therefore, it had to be a starship from outside, and that was truly a historic event The instantaneous tachyon transmissions of the Web held the human worlds together, but physical travel was restricted to sub-light speeds, and the nearest inhabited solar system was a decade arid a half away.

Furthermore, why would a starship wait until it was inside the Pacifican solar system to announce its impending arrival? Most starships carried would-be immigrants, and the standard procedure was to announce intentions from the home planet before the ship left, so that a welcome could be bought with rare items of interstellar trade —Earthside life-form embryos and seeds, unique biologi-cals, secret technologies—coveted by the world at journey’s end. These things were negotiated before-hand, unless—
Oh, no!

“Is this transmission in clear or in code?” Carlotta asked brusquely.

“In clear,” Laura Sunshine said. “And you’re not going to like it.”

“No shit?”
Carlotta muttered sardonically to herself. Then, aloud: “Plug me in, and for God’s sake, scramble this circuit.”

The govscreen went blank for a few moments and then

a new face appeared on it: an older man with long, neat, steel-colored hair, an angular face with hard brown eyes, and a great beak of a nose. He was wearing an all-too-familiar midnight-blue tunic with a high stiff collar edged in silver.

“I am Dr. Roger Falkenstein of the Transcendental Science Arkology
Heisenberg ”
the man said in a cool, measured voice. “We are entering your solar system and will make orbit around Pacifica in twenty days. Our mission is peaceful and will greatly benefit your people. We intend to establish an Institute of Transcendental Science on Pacifica. As Managing Director of the
Heisenberg
, I request permission to land on your planet and open negotiations with your government.”

The screen went blank for a moment and then Falkenstein reappeared. “I am Dr. Roger Falkenstein of the Transcendental Science Arkology
Heisenberg
. . The damned thing was a continuous tape-loop.

Angrily, Carlotta unplugged it and plugged in Laura Sunshine. “That’s the whole thing?” she asked.

“That’s it, they’re transmitting it continuously,” Laura Sunshine said. She grimaced nervously. “The Pink and Blue War?”

“Looks like it, doesn’t it?” Carlotta said grimly. “Hold this circuit and plug into planetary observation. I’ll see if we can get a visual.”

She plugged in the planetary observation system and got a dark-haired young man on the obscreen. “This is the Chairman,” she said. “Scramble this circuit. Scramble another circuit to Laura Sunshine, Ministry of Media, Web Monitoring Bureau.”

“Huh?” The young man gaped at her quizzically.

“Just do it,” Carlotta snapped. “And remember, this is priority security, not a blatt to anyone.” When the circuits were safely scrambled, she said: “We’re getting tachyon transmission from a ship inside the system.” She didn’t bother to allow the ob-tech a moment to digest that. “Laura will give you the coordinates. I want you to lock a long-range orbiting scope on the beam and give me a visual at max magnification,
and keep all relevant circuits scrambled”

A few moments later, a hazy object swam across the obscreen: a silvery cylinder against a black backdrop of space and hard pinpoint stars. A thin blue fusion-flame spouted from the near end of the thing, nearly transparent, but unwavering and perfectly conical. The ship was surrounded by a rainbow aura, as if its image were imperfectly electronically superimposed on the starfield, or as if it were surrounded by some unknown kind of energy field.

“Can you give me some kind of speed estimates?” Carlotta asked.

“It’s moving at about a tenth the speed of light now,” the voice of the ob-tech said uncertainly. “But... but it’s decelerating at about ten gravities... that’s ... no one inside could survive... it’s impossible...

“Not for
those
buggers,” Carlotta muttered. “They don’t know the meaning of the word.” Then, crisply: “Okay, keep the scope locked on, keep it on this circuit, keep the circuit scrambled, and keep your mouth shut”

“Now what?” Laura Sunshine asked.

Carlotta pondered the haloed image of the
Heisenberg
for a long silent moment Sit on it? Release it to the general news channels? Announce it via the gov news channel?
What?
Once the damned thing went into orbit, nothing could keep the knowledge from becoming public. If I try to sit on it till then, I’ll face a vote of confidence for concealing information. But if I release the news now, before we formulate a policy, we’ll have to come up with some kind of policy in the middle of a planetwide shouting match. Damn! Either way, it was going to be political circus-time!

I’d better not make a move without Royce, Carlotta realized. He’s supposed to be the expert at this kind of thing. And where the hell is he now? Out there on his boat with nothing but a clear com-channel, communing with the drooling boomerbirds! I
told
him he should put a scrambler on the
Davy Jones,
but no, my young bucko has to have his place to unplug!

“Answer their transmission,” she told Laura Sunshine. “Audio only: Transmission acknowledged. Request you maintain silence until further contact’ Send that six times, cease transmission, keep this circuit open, and keep your fingers crossed.”

Carlotta frowned at the image of the
Heisenberg
for another quiet moment. Here comes the Pink and Blue War, she thought. Why did it have to happen to
me?
Then, petulantly, she plugged in the
Davy Jones.

2

A
FEW STRAY DROPS OF RAIN STUNG ROYCE’S BARE BACK,
whipped almost horizontally by the wind of the darkening storm behind him, but the boomerbirds had not yet abandoned the sky for the surface of the sea, and the first little islets of the chain leading to Lorien were already passing off to starboard. It might be a close thing, but he reckoned that he would be able to make it home without resorting to power. —

The wind suddenly gusted a few points further south, scattering the flock of boomerbirds for a moment and rippling the mainsail of the
Davy Jones.
The boomerbirds honked their indignation as they formed up again, and Royce adjusted the angle of his boom slightly, offsetting the change with his tiller so as to maintain his present course. Funny how a storm that drove the boomerbirds from the sky would drive human sailboats into the air, as if there were some strange reciprocal relationship between the humans and the native Pacifican life-forms—

Suddenly the com-terminal built into the control console at the front of the cockpit began chiming at him insistently.

“Arrr...oyce grunted irritably as he leaned forward and punched the “accept” button. Carlotta’s face appeared on the screen, tense and impatient.

“What is it?” he said. “Can’t it wait? I should be home in half an hour if the wind holds.”

“No, it can’t wait,” Carlotta said brusquely. “It can’t wait at all. And forget about your precious wind and torch back here as fast as you can,”

“What’s the hurry?” Royce asked. “What’s so cosmically important that a half-hour’s going to make a difference?”

“I can’t tell you.”

"Why
can’t you tell me?”

“Because you’re too godzilla-brained to install a scrambler on that damn boat of yours and this is a priority security matter, that’s why!” Carlotta snapped. “Now stop talking and get moving!”

“Hey .
. .”

Royce watched Carlotta pause to cool herself before she spoke again. This
must
be serious! he thought. “I’m sorry, Royce,” she said much more quietly, “but this is really serious and I need you here five minutes ago.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll be there before your blood pressure can drop five points.”

“Thanks, bucko,” Carlotta said with the faintest trace of warmth, and unplugged from the circuit.

„ Royce slid his seat forward on its rails a meter or so in order to reach the flight controls more easily. He threw a switch and electric winches quickly sucked the sails into the hollow mast. He activated the float units, and pulsed fusion engines beneath the waterline lifted the
Davey Jones
two meters into the air, clear of the wavecrests. He set the thruster at minimum throttle and the boat was under power, skimming along above the surface of the sea at 30 kph. He punched a button and mast, boom, and rudder were retracted into the aerodynamically smooth hull of the boat. He threw another switch, and the gunwales of the open cockpit extruded a clear microglass canopy over him. Now the
Davy Jones
was ready to jump.

Royce set the autopilot for Lorien, set the speed for max, and waved goodbye to the boomerbirds. “Watch your tailfeathers!” he said, and gave the con over to the automatics.

The hum of the fusion engines rose a little louder and the
Davy Jones
shot a hundred meters straight up, scattering the outraged boomerbirds again. At the apogee of the lift, the fusion thruster accelerated rapidly to 1000 kph, slamming Royce against the back of his seat.

The boat climbed rapidly at a forty-five-degree angle, and the islets below dwindled to green specks on a flat plane of azure glass. Almost before Royce could look down through the canopy at the dwindling world below, the boat nosed over and descended to a hover two meters above the sea, not a quarter of a kilometer west of the narrow mouth of Lorien’s lagoon.

That boomin’ autopilot sure cuts it close! Royce thought as he cut out the automatics, turned on the thruster, and steered the boat for the lagoon, zipping along at a good 80 kph above the chop.

In a few minutes, he was pulling up beside Carlotta’s boat, the
Golden Goose
, in the docking area under the veranda of the house. Another minute, and the boat was secured, and he was dashing two steps at a time up the gangway topside.

Rugo, their fat brown bumbler, met him at the top of the gangway—a rotund, waddling bundle of self-centered affection. He rubbed up against Royce’s leg, regarded him with great soulful violet eyes, and nuzzled the bottom of his buttocks with his soft yellow beak. “Sorry, Jocko,” Royce said, ruffling the bumbler’s furlike feathers as he gently nudged the creature aside, “we appear to have a planetary crisis going, and mommy needs daddy.”

“Whonk!"
Rugo exclaimed with skeptical indignation as* Royce pushed by him. Through the glass doors, Royce saw that Carlotta was waiting for him in his own netshop, sitting on the edge of one of the loungers, so intent on the screens that she appeared not to have yet noticed his arrival.