Pegasus in Space (41 page)

“The cocoon wouldn’t have stopped you long,” Lance said loyally.

“The anesthetic did,” Peter said with a grimace. “I have bad reactions to drugs. It was Tirla who got moving, got me out, and found out where we were so we could tell the Center. Tirla managed to read enough of their aircraft IDs so that Boris could check who they belonged to.” Peter paused. “One was Flimflam’s, the other registered to the Malaysian ambassador.” Peter let out a long breath before adding, “It was Tirla they beat up. I passed out.”

“All the kids were released?” Lance asked.

Peter nodded. “And that whole ring was busted wide open.”

“With Flimflam on Padrugoi and Shimaz here.” Lance shook his head at the irony. “Crazy universe, isn’t it?”

The mess sergeant arrived with the individual stew pots and the salads.

Suddenly, remembering what Boris had said about Flimflam cooperating
with Shimaz’s relatives, Peter sniffed cautiously at the savory steam rising from his meal. Was it just his imagination or were his guts aching?

Shall I be taster as well, Pete?
Lance asked.

God! I’m getting paranoid
.

A little of that is usually called ‘caution,’
Lance replied.
Mine tastes fine, full of capsicums, but that’s the way I like it
.

Some stew juice spilled on the table as Lance ’ported it out of Peter’s dish.

Clumsy
, Peter chided though he was quite happy to allow Lance the honor.

Hmmm. I’ve saved myself from some weird dysenterious episodes with my taste buds. Same as mine and absolutely no aftertaste. Eat!
“However,” Lance went on aloud, “it’s another area to consider.”
Poisoning is always possible, but it’s the contract cooks on duty right now and I don’t think they’re likely suspects
.

Peter ate hungrily and had two big bowls of the fruit that was on the dessert menu. That seemed to quiet the unusual inner restlessness.

Are you coming back with us, Lance?
he asked as he spooned up the last of the juice.

Naw. Got another month on this contract
. Lance preferred short-term contracts and time back at Adelaide.

Did me being here disrupt your schedule?

Not at all, Pete
. Lance’s smile was broad.
Gave me a nice break from some of the tedious stuff
.

Tell me, can you ‘assemble’ elements at a distance?

Lord no, Pete. That’s your bailiwick
, Lance said without a trace of resentment.

Why?
Peter pressed against Lance’s touch.

Lance shrugged without a touch of rancor.
Because it just is. I see things differently, I guess
.

Peter accepted that with a little smile.
See things differently? Okay, Lance
. “Well, here’s Major Cyberal to take me walkabout,” Peter added.

A
lvin Cyberal had been his guide, with the corporal shadowing them, to all the points he wanted to see. Johnny usually accompanied them, fascinated by the facilities on First Base, exchanging information with
Cyberal on posts where they had both served or visited. Peter did not reveal, or hint even to Johnny, what he now realized: that he could have ’ported accurately on the basis of a clear visual aid. But he’d only known
that
after he’d landed the Limo between the two historic NASA markers, using a photo as his guide. A high-resolution image that he could
see
Of course, many of the security points he’d been taken to on First Base were not rendered in visuals, for security reasons. Having seen them, Peter could now ’port to them. Once seen, never forgotten, a facet of the telekinetic mind. Being
here
, at First Base, visiting sections that other civilians would have been denied, was a personal triumph for Peter, though he was responsible enough to have wished the flight had been trouble-free. Of course, if that had been the case, he might never have had such a remarkable insight.

Peter was delighted to be going to the observatory, especially with Cyberal, who had mentioned an interest in astronomy.

“Installing a telescope on the nearside wasn’t very smart but the early bureaucracy made some pretty stupid errors here that we’re still trying to correct,” Vin said. “You may have read about the panic early this century about possibly harmful asteroids, PHAs, and near earth objects, NEOs.” Peter nodded since those had been mentioned in his astronomy course.” A prime reason for a lunar base was to track them. Still is. Only now First Base has access to the Farside Space Telescopes.

“Dr. Pienarr’s ambition is three Darwin-type installations on the Moon,” Vin continued as they walked down the corridor to the astronomy wing on the back of Akahiro Block, “set at three different positions—to have complete observation.” He made a broad gesture with one arm, grinning at Peter for such ambition. “Actually, the first is started, dug into the top of Mount Hawking in the Poincaré Crater range on the farside and accessed by video links from here. Meanwhile he has a director’s use of the Farside scopes, so the old one—a Schmidt-Cassegrain catadioptric—is used more for instruction and tracking the NEOs and PHAs. However, we’re supposed to be looking for a place where you can safely put packages for the doctor.”

“So am I,” Peter replied. He was impressed that he’d be seeing the facility that had linked with the telescope that had discovered the M-5 planet in Altair, over sixteen light-years away, the ultimate destination of the
Andre Norton
. He didn’t need to look that far, not even beyond this system,
to find where he’d have to stand to use his Talent to get colony ships quickly and safely to new worlds.

He chided himself for having such a vaulting ambition. Rather grandiose of you, isn’t it, Peter? Certainly it’s a challenge. But he’d met others, hadn’t he? And succeeded? You only need to stumble once, he reminded himself sternly. But that didn’t mean he shouldn’t TRY, did it?

“You’ve met Captain Opitz and Dr. Pienarr before, haven’t you, Peter?” Alvin Cyberal was saying.

The corporal took her usual stance before the main door to the astronomy office. There was a foyer to the actual workspace and the telescope that was housed in a dome beyond, with the control station and an access airlock for any more radical adjustments and repairs required. These would have to be done in a space suit, so the more delicate manipulations were all handled inside. On the walls of the foyer were prints of views pertinent to First Base, including an old mural of the crew of the
Apollo 12
and one of the Surveyor-type spacecraft. Cyberal pointed to the left of the main entrance, to the wall covered by a huge aerial shot.

“The Subaru Telescope, the one Ajmal admires from the last century. He wants to develop a whole new generation of telescopes for use on moons, including this one,” he said in a low voice, grinning.

“Wasn’t that operational at the beginning of this century?” Peter asked, lowering his tone.

“It first saw light in January 1999.”

Stepping into the main office, Peter saw that the walls were adorned by programmable screens, operated from the rectangle of small ergonomic workstations facing them. Under the screens were cabinets of a type in which crystals storing huge quantities of data were carefully filed along with additional compact devices that he did not recognize but took for astronomical data-recorders. On the far wall, across from the entrance was a wide window of dark glass; beneath it was an elaborate control panel with storage cabinets below. A clearly marked airlock facility undoubtedly gave access to the telescope chamber. A locker to the right of that was plainly labeled “EMU.”

Only one station was occupied. Captain Opitz and Dr. Piernarr looked up when Peter and the major paused on the threshold.

“Ah, Major, Mr. Reidinger,” the blond Opitz said, quickly skirting the desk, while the astronomer moved more slowly to greet his guests. “Let me
give you the safety spiel all visitors get.” Mockingly she changed her voice to a fruity low contralto. “Emergency masks are situated at intervals,” and she pointed to Peter’s right and the one nearest him, “and there are two airlocks, right and left,” and she indicated them. “Don’t try the one on the far wall. That’s the observatory. No air in there.” She had very blue eyes, like Amariyah’s, Peter thought, which the slate-gray fatigues seemed to emphasize, rather than dull. Her uniform fitted her mature form very well.

On the other hand, Dr. Pienarr looked as if he had grabbed the first coverall to hand that morning, evidently from under a pile of heavier objects that had left creases in it. There were coffee stains down the front and on the right cuff. He was balding, with wisps of dark hair across his skull and a thicker mass over each ear in need of trimming. But his hazel eyes were bright and his smile easy, one hand extended.

“I am so very glad to have you in our facility, Mr. Reidinger. Oops, hand-shaking’s bad manners with psychics, I’m told,” and he shoved his right hand into a pocket.

“Not at all, Dr. Pienarr,” Peter said, holding his out. He was pleased with every chance he had to show a new digital dexterity.

“Oh, I say, thanks muchly.” Pienarr’s grip was firm and quick. “Afternoon, Vin. Thought you’d be the guide here. Got those spectroscopy images you wanted. I think,” and he patted the various pockets of his coverall.

“Here,” Simona Opitz said, handing him a thick white envelope.

“Oh, yes, thanks, See,” and the exchange was made with thanks from Cyberal. The captain gave a little smile and executed an about-face, walking briskly to an arc of the workstations on the lower level, where she began to slot crystal data cubes into a reader.

“Now,” and Pienarr rubbed his hands together, “what would you like to see? We have several projects at the moment. We always do. The SPOT …”

“The what?” Peter asked politely, not recognizing the acronym.

“SPOT,” Pienarr repeated as if to an inattentive student, “the Solar Polar Ozone-finding Telescope.”

“I didn’t realize that it was operational,” Peter said, retreating from that gaffe. The major hadn’t mentioned that in his rundown of the observatory’s connections.

“Oh, yes, five years now.” Pienarr’s manner was as if he expected criticism. “Well, with all the zodiacal dust, we had to do something to avoid the
extinction that bollixed clear shots of some of the more interesting nebulae. Hubble did well enough in its day with detail down to less than one hundred milliarcseconds across. YEAST improved on that, of course, but SPOT frees us from the interplanetary dust within our own system. But importantly, it checks ozone layers of any likely planet for free oxygen in the atmosphere. It’s a well-trained telescope.”

Peter struggled to translate the acronyms from his earlier Teacher astronomy studies. He saw Cyberal’s lips twitch.

“SPOT’s a Sirius one, you see,” Cyberal murmured close to Peter’s ear, and then turned back to Pienarr with a carefully attentive expression.

Peter cleared his throat hastily to stifle a groan over the pun.

“Oh, yes,” said Pienarr, “we spent over a year investigating the Dog Star.”

Peter determinedly recalled scanning the technical arguments about where to place the newest generation of space telescopes after YEAST—just beyond the heliopause or in an orbit around the sun, highly inclined to the plane of the ecliptic where all the planets lie. The Solar had won since it was easier to achieve a polar orbit by sending the ferrying spacecraft to Jupiter and using Jupiter’s gravitational pull as a slingshot.

“We have several hours on SPOT today for our latest project,” Dr. Pienarr said smugly, and pointed to the workstation to which Simona had returned. “Simona is reducing our last spectrophotopolarimetric data of a likely star system within the constellation Aquila.” Columns of figures now came up on the wall screen facing Simona Opitz. “Likely in that the G-type primary might have satellites so we’ll also check ozone layers for free oxygen. We need a completely sampled coronographic image of the system. Now Farside Number One is looking for space ice,” and he gestured to another workstation on the upper level.

“Space ice?”

“Yes, you know, frozen water, even possibly the water that was once used by a higher life-form than that which we found on Mars. One would have to purify such ice but even if it is only good for irrigation, it’s a very valuable commodity.” Dr. Pienarr gave Peter a telling glance for his surprise at such basic husbandry in space. “Well, that’s what Farside Number One is doing, you probably passed it to starboard,” he cocked his head inquiringly.

“We did,” Peter admitted, and diplomatically said nothing else.

“Farside Number Two is doing a survey of the M-type asteroids of the Patroclus group,” Ajmal said, very pleased. “Space Authority has been nagging us for details so they can begin mining operations. Certainly would increase resources.”

“Won’t that cause problems.” Vin Cyberal asked.

“Not unless they had to be moved,” Ajmal said.

Moved, Peter echoed in his thoughts. “You could move an asteroid?”

“Are you asking if
you
could, telekinetically?” Ajmal asked, his eyes twinkling.

Peter laughed not only as an answer to the astronomer, but also to relieve his startled reaction to the very idea. Not that he thought he was likely to do so. Could he?

“Technically,” Pienarr continued, and Cyberal grinned at Peter,” I suppose that could be done with the newest rockets SA has developed. Attach ’em, blast it out of its current orbit. God knows there’re enough asteroids.

“That’s another problem we monitor—generally on FST Number Three,” and Ajmal waved toward the workstation diametrically opposite them. “Then, on that scope,” and he gestured almost contemptuously to the rear wall, and the window that looked onto the Schmidt-Cassegrain, “we constantly track NEOs and the PHAs. There were several close ones in the late twentieth century—1989CF, 1997XF 11, and most particularly 1999 AN 10. Do you know what NEOs are?” His eyes fixed on Peter as a teacher’s will on a student suspected of ignorance.

“Yes, I do,” Peter replied easily. “Wasn’t it First Base that identified the very close crossing of the 1998HH 49 in 2028?”