Tomorrow’s Heritage (9 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

ooooooooo

IT must have happened with terrifying suddenness. The shields had held. Section One’s and Section Three’s life-support hadn’t bled away into space. But the planetlike illusion of Goddard’s extended horizon was ruined. Through the transparent part of the buffer, Todd saw space spiders rebuilding. The robots and the human riggers could rebuild bulkheads, radiation shields, and dwellings. The station’s horticulturists could replant trees and grass. But what of the people who had been inside when the missile struck?

Todd had attended a celebration at Mariette’s apartment, not much over three years ago. He had congratulated them on the completion of Section Two and wished them continued success and prosperity.

Good wishes weren’t worth much against missiles.

His thoughts a jumble, Todd walked on toward that gigantic wall. Kevin had let go of his arm, presumably deciding the smaller man wasn’t going to fall on his face if he did. Before Todd could cross the empty zone that led from the last grassy plot to the buffer, Mari and Kevin guided him into Apartment Twelve’s courtyard. More guards. Again they saluted Kevin and addressed him as “Governor.” One of the soldiers cued the service monitors for them, hailing three single-lifters down to ground level for their convenience.

Todd stepped onto one of the little elevators. The safety casing slid shut around him as Mariette got on the carrier next to his. Kevin caught one at the far end of the wall. The miniature platform squeaked loudly when Kevin boarded. Fortunately, Goddard’s metallurgists had allowed for cargo as heavy as McKelvey. The lifter didn’t collapse.

They rode up the side of the building. The smooth ascent gave Todd a widening overview of Section One. He could look across to other apartments and down on the mini-parks and stores. To his right, that ugly barrier soared to the torus’ “sky.” Its top edge was lost in the glow of sunlight filtered in from Goddard’s outer solar collectors.

They alighted at the third-story terrace, where noise assaulted them. Workmen cursed and equipment whined and hammered. The lower stories were solidly faced in lunar clay brick, all doors, windows, and brick terraces fully complete, had been for nearly five years. Up top, there were piles of steel and aluminum and silicate insulation, and a great deal of confusion. It looked as if it would be weeks, if not months, before the apartments would be ready for occupancy.

Another guard was on duty outside the apartment. Kevin returned his salute. “I’ve notified the Planning Group. I’m not on call for the next couple of hours, except for emergencies. I mean that. Let Legislator Mikhail handle things. But if you have to, go Priority Red and grab me, and don’t waste time.”

McKelvey often appeared easy-going, even phlegmatic. But Todd had seen that relaxed amiability disappear in a moment. The guard had, too. He snapped to attention. “Will do, sir. You won’t be interrupted.”

Todd relished the soundproofing inside the apartment. Construction clamor damped to a distant murmur. His sister and Kevin walked by him as he stood just beyond the door, looking around. After so many changes, the apartment was a haven of stability. Kevin and Mariette had changed almost nothing since he had moved in with her a year and a half ago. The place was typical of Goddard, compact but open enough not to feel cramped. The glass, metal, and fabrics were all of local manufacture, produced from lunar raw products shipped to the Colony via the mass driver. Two holo-mode murals divided the sleeping alcove from the living areas, refresher, and food dispenser. The photos reminded a visitor of the occupants’ origins. The picture opposite the entryway was Mari’s favorite aerial view of Saunderhome, drenched in tropical sunight. At right angles to that was a large scene of a brooding, rain-lashed Scottish mountain.

Todd dropped into the nearest chair. The upholstery rustled against his jumper and the fiberglass chair frame. The cloth felt like velvet, but its distinctive underlying texture proved it was Goddard silica fabric. “I hope you don’t mind sleeping on the couch,” Mari was saying. She prowled about fluffing sofa pillows, playing hostess. “We’re a trifle crowded. No guest units available right now.”

“No, not at all.” Todd glanced out the window, remembering how many people had been on the pathways and in the shops, far more than normal. “I was expecting you to be sharing with a family or two, after I saw what happened to Section Two.”

“We volunteered to share,” Kevin said, “but they didn’t assign anyone to our apartment.” That fact bothered the big man, as if he felt guilty but was helpless to rectify the situation. Todd thought of the guards’ saluting Kevin and everyone’s treating him with deference. Maybe rank had its privileges, and that’s why the housing programmers hadn’t taken up Kevin’s offer. A governor, after all, must have some dignity and not be forced to double up his housing like an ordinary citizen. If that was the way it was, Kevin was uncomfortable with those privileges.

“I invited myself,” Todd said lightly. “The couch will be a lot softer than sleeping on the lab floor.”

“You
did
used to go to sleep there, didn’t you?” Mariette laughed. “After you tried to stay awake until all hours watching Dad’s experiments. You were crazy. Still are.”

“Something to eat, drink?” Kevin asked, waving at the dispenser alcove.

“Talk.”

“Well,
I
want something,” Mariette announced. She marched into the little room and cued her selections loudly.

Kevin seemed amused by her behavior. He dragged a chair up alongside Todd’s and sat down, waiting, not putting forward any information. Todd sighed in exasperation. This was going to be hard work. “Questions: What’s this about your being governor? And since when does Goddard have combat-equipped ‘Defense Units,’ or civilians wearing side arms? Those were practically drill teams I saw outside. What happened to the Colony Planning Group? Did you get rid of your elected representatives, or what?”

“The Planning Group is still running things. It’s still a democracy,” Kevin said a bit testily. “But things have changed since you were here in September.”

“That’s obvious! Pat would love to know how you got promoted from liaison officer to governor in a mere two months. At that rate, he should have won the P.O.E. Chairmanship a week after he started to campaign.”

Todd’s sarcasm brought angry curses from the dispenser alcove. Mariette took out her spleen on the equipment rather than on her brother. Then she came back to the living area and slapped tumblers of amaranth liquor down on the serving tables, splashing some of the contents. Kevin grinned and picked up the glass nearest him, sipping the dark liquid. “Mari, he has no way of knowing. Let me tell him, since you promised him some answers.”

Grudingly, Mariette nodded. She sat on the edge of the fiberglass bench beneath the holo-mode mural of Saunderhome. The backdrop of waving palms and white sand highlighted her beauty, but she was unaware of the effect. She watched Kevin intently.

The big man stared into nothing for a while. “Todd,” he finally began, “it’s not a military coup. I can tell that’s what you’ve been thinking. I didn’t want the job. The Planning Group and Goddard’s citizens insisted I take it. I agreed, as long as they understood that it’s temporary. I’ll hold office only during the present danger.”

“The present danger,” Todd muttered, considering the term.

“The Colony needs defense coordination, and it needs it fast. The station was never set up to cope with hostile assaults. My people are helping train the citizens to protect themselves, and to protect the Colony, if worse comes to worst. I repeat, the position is strictly temporary,” Kevin said firmly.

“Forgive me if I harbor a doubt regarding that. Temporary governorships or kingships have a way of becoming permanent.” Kevin looked sour, but he didn’t argue the point further. Todd’s mouth was dry. He took a swig of the amaranth and grimaced. The Colony’s home-brewed alcohol was a taste he had never acquired. It left a raw streak down his gullet. He pushed the tumbler out of easy reach, lest he absentmindedly drink more. “Okay. I’ll accept a beefed-up security force and a citizen army, some sort of civil defense. But the way they’re training . . . are you expecting a boarding party? I’ll agree, after what happened to me out in orbit, you need
something
.”

Kevin’s bright blue eyes shone with a fighter’s anger. “We had to act first and discuss whether it was overreaction later. We’ll show you why. Defense posture had to go into high gear.”

Mariette had been lacing and unlacing her long fingers. Now she reached for a nearby view monitor, swiveling the screen so that Todd and Kevin could see it easily. “Computer, this is Mariette Saunder, Torus Section One, Unit A-Three, Apartment Twelve. Code Clearance Zero Zero Eighteen Dash Six. Replay October nine missile attack. Exterior scans. Final five minutes. Put on scrambler lock, for viewing at this monitor only. Run.”

Todd saw a missile approaching Goddard’s long-range cameras, coming at incredible speed. Collision systems going to full alert. Tracking plotting and following and trying desperately to outguess the hostile’s changing vector. Claxons rang while numbers flickered across the techs’ screens. Hair prickled on Todd’s neck as, in the center of the monitor, a fast-moving dot grew rapidly into a cylindrical shape.

Shining, inexorable, bringing death and destruction.

“We weren’t prepared,” Kevin said with surprising calm. “We
thought
we were. We had had advance warnings. Our planetside allies have their spies, and they told us something nasty was likely to happen. We figured it would be another attempt to sabotage our shuttles or sats. We thought if they fired anything at us, it’d be small enough for us to handle. Nobody expected the warheads to be that effective or their jammer overrides so good.”

Todd was hypnotized by the playback. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. There were silvery darts at the edges of the screen now. Ships from Goddard. Not the superfast military craft which had come to his and Gib’s rescue. He could tell without reading the dancing figures that the little ships would never be able to reach the missile in time to do any good.

“That first attack taught us some lessons.” Mariette’s voice shook. “We did confuse their guidance frequencies a trifle, though.”

“Yes,” Kevin said. “A slight diversion, enough to put it off target.” He had forgotten his drink. “We got lucky, or the outcome would have been much worse.”

The playback wasn’t holo-mode, but it was far too realistic, anyway. Todd gripped the chair arms, his knuckles whitening. It was difficult to convince himself this was merely an image. His heart was starting to race just as it had when the missile had homed in on him.

“It dodged our outlying detectors,” Kevin said. “Terrific masking devices they’ve got, Todd. The best military developments. They’ve made some modern improvements on your father’s original telecom patents, the ones the brass bought up during the Satellite Wars. We had to catch up fast, so we borrowed.”

“From Lunar Base Copernicus.”

“You named it. I am a liaison officer. Thank God the Base is on our side. The next hostile didn’t get through so easily.”

Todd tried to pry his fingers loose from the chair arm. Our side. He had warned Pat. The lunar science and military bases had suffered fund cuts in much the same way Goddard had. The results had been predictable. Starving economically, united by their common space environments, Goddard and the military base on the Moon had joined forces. The base was giving Goddard classified weapons and ships, probably lending trained pilots and other personnel to boot. Allies, against their enemies on Earth.

On the monitor, the hostile loomed in the exterior scans. Mari’s electronic servants showed him the last seconds before impact. The missile hurtled in, its apparent size exploding awesomely until it filled the entire screen.

No zoom focus. Real-size factor.

Involuntarily, Todd flinched. Pointless. This had taken place nearly two months ago. It was all over. If he had been in Section Two of the station . . .

“Explosive decompression,” Todd whispered.

“Not quite,” Kevin corrected him. “Close, though. The sheer size of the torus, and the meteor strike buffers, helped. And if it hadn’t been for our outer radiation shield of lunar soil, that damned thing would have ripped the whole section to bits and fried us all. It was bad enough as it was.” He sighed tiredly and went on. “The bastards programmed the strike during Section Two’s nocturnal hours. Some people never had a chance to get moving. I mean, that missile came in on burn mode all the way, Todd. They wanted us dead. And they used a hell of a propulsion system to do the job—top-quality military hardware. Killed fifty-eight people outright and put another one hundred and six in Sickbay. Some of them are still there. Four Planning Group members were killed or hurt. That’s when we woke up. The Group ordered a total Colony meeting and an election to fill the vacant offices temporarily. That’s when they slapped this governorship on me. I barely got us organized when the second missile came in a few weeks later.”

The screen went blank. Todd massaged his temples. He was dizzy, and not from Coriolis effect.

“Second missile? My God. Slow down and give me a chance to take all this in. For starters, why haven’t you broadcast this? Earth has to know. They’d be as horrified and angry as I am. And why haven’t you taken the injured planetside? Surely Goddard’s Sickbay isn’t equipped to handle injuries of this nature . . .”

“They refused,” Mari said simply, sounding surprised that Todd had asked the question.

“What? And you went along with their decision?’ Todd gasped in outrage. “Critically wounded people! How in the hell could they make rational judgments about their treatment? Mari, what’s the matter with you and Kevin? You know they could get better medical care on Earth!”

“We don’t agree.”

“And for terminal cases, you could have arranged for cryo preservement in our own Antarctic Enclave—”

“
No!
” Mari’s color was very high, her sharp features taut with defiance. “No! If they’re going to die, they want to go clean, the way
we’d
want to. We’re fellow Colonists. We’re damned if we’ll send any of our people to the Pole. They’d just love to get a few more of us into that frozen limbo and dispose of us, just like they’re picking off our planetside allies.”

Invisible hammers were pounding Todd’s skull. “You’re not making any sense. What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means our allies go to SE Antarctic Enclave and disappear—that is, if their enemies don’t simply assassinate them instead.”

“Disappear? Confinees are cryogenically preserved, for God’s sake! You know that. Get off this paranoia track!”

“They’re
dead!
Not figuratively, not cryogenic sleep— dead! Killed in their own countries, or sent to the Enclave and conveniently allowed to die.”

Todd looked from one to the other, stunned. “How can you believe that? Dad set up the Enclave, remember? Its purpose is to save lives, not take them. The P.O.E.’s Human Rights Committee watchdogs tour there twice a year—you can see
anyone
, criminal or would-be saint, who’s preserved there, any time, via holo-mode relay. The Enclave’s neutral territory, strictly protected by the P.O.E. There’s no ‘enemy agent’ involved, dammit. It’s an altruistic gift from the family, and it costs Saunder Enterprises plenty to maintain, too.”

“It’s a sham,” Kevin said quietly. As Todd started to argue, the young governor softened the accusation. “Maybe not the whole Enclave. We’re not sure. Probably it does fine by the famous artists and musicians and philosophers, the non-political confinees. But
our
people, dissidents and rebels, like those Pat’s arbitration committee just shipped from the Trans-Pacific, they’re getting a one-way ticket. I don’t care how glorious a future the Earth Firsters deliver if they live up to their promises—those people aren’t going to be revived, ever. They’re gone.”

Todd rubbed his temples harder, his head throbbing. “Look, you seem to forget I helped set up the Enclave, too. I worked with Dad. I was on the board of directors. Okay, I was a kid, getting in on a courtesy pass because I was Dad’s ‘aide.’ But I was there. I know how it operates. It’s a genuine, workable facility. We proved that with a successful revival of that criminal volunteer before we ever started building—”

“And you haven’t been on the board of directors for what—eight years?” Mari cut in. Todd had to think back, realizing she spoke the truth. “You don’t know what’s going on there, do you? How long since you’ve been to the Enclave?”

“It’s restricted territory, P.O.E. franchise; only Enclave personnel and the Human Rights Committee are permitted access. Not even the P.O.E. Chairman can go there if he isn’t also a member of the Human Rights Committee . . .”

“And who’s on the Committee? Anyone you ever heard of? Do you know if they’re trustworthy? Or do you just take P.O.E.’s word for it?” Mari demanded. She added with a vicious snarl, “Or Earth First Party’s word for it, that is.”

“Mari . . .”

“Don’t tell us any lies about the Human Rights Committee,” Kevin said, stopping Todd. “We don’t trust it. The truth is, there are damned few planetsiders we
do
trust any more.”

“Does that mean you don’t trust me, either?”