Arthur Clarke - Firstborn

Alexei smiled. “I’m afraid so.”

And there, Bella knew, was the subtext in the conversation between Earth and Spacers. If the mother world released her grip, she would lose her children forever.

Bob Paxton grunted. “Christ, I feel like blubbing.”

“All right, Bob,” Bella said. “Look, it’s a serious point. One of my last executive orders will be to initiate a new constitutional convention for all of us — Earth and the whole solar system—

based on recognized human rights precedents. We do not want a world government, I don’t think. What we do need are new mechanisms, new political forms to recognize the new fluidity. No more power centers,” she said. “No more secrets. We still need mechanisms to unify us, to ensure justice and equality of resource and opportunity — and fast-response agencies when crises hit.”

“Such as when the Firstborn take another swipe,” Paxton said.

“Yes. But we need ways to cope with threats without sacrificing our liberties.” She looked around at their faces, open or cynical.

“We have no precedent for how a civilization spanning several worlds is supposed to run itself. Maybe the Firstborn know; if they do they aren’t telling. I like to think that this is the next stage in our maturity as a culture.”

“Maturity? That sounds utopian,” Bill Carel said cautiously.

Bob Paxton grunted. “Yeah. And let’s just remember that however many heads you Spacer mutants grow, we’re all going to continue to be united by one thing.”

“The Firstborn,” Lyla said.

“Damn right,” Paxton said.

“Yes,” said Bella. “So take us through the new proposals, Bob.

The next phase of Fortress Sol.”

He looked at her, alarmed. “You sure about that, Madam Chair?”

“Openness, Bob. That’s the watchword now.” She smiled at the others. “Bob and his Committee of Patriots have been working on priorities. Even though their own legal status is under review, following events.”

Alexei smiled. “Can’t keep you old sky warriors down, eh, Admiral Paxton?”

Paxton looked ready to murder him. Bella laid a hand on his arm until he had calmed.

“Very well. Priority one. We need to act now. Between the sunstorm and the Q-bomb we had a generation to prepare. Granted we didn’t know what was coming. But in retrospect we didn’t do enough, and we can’t make that mistake again. The one good thing about the Q-bomb is the way it’s going to mobilize public opinion and support for such measures.

“Priority two. Earth. A lot of us were shaken up when you ragged-ass Spacers snipped the space elevators. We always knew how vulnerable you were in your domes and butterfly spaceships.

We didn’t know how vulnerable Earth was, though. The fact is we’re interconnected to a spaceborne economy. So we’re talking about robustifying Earth.”

Lyla grinned. “Nice word.”

“Homes like bunkers. Ground-based power sources, comms links, via secure optic-fiber cables. That kind of thing. Enough to withstand a planetary siege. Parameters to be defined.

“Priority three. And here’s the key,” Paxton said now, leaning forward, intent. “We got to disperse. We’ve got significant colonies off Earth already. But the wargamers say that if Earth had been taken out by the Q-bomb, it’s unlikely the Spacer colonies could have survived into the long term. Just too few of you, a gene pool too small, your fake ecologies too fragile, all of that.

“So we have to beef you up. Make the species invulnerable even to the loss of Earth.” He grinned at the young Spacers. “I’m talking massive, aggressive migration. To the Moon, the outer planet moons, space habs if we can put them up fast enough. Even Venus, which was so fucked over by the sunstorm it might be possible to live there. Maybe we can even start flinging a few ships to the stars, go chase those Chinese.”

“But it won’t work,” Alexei said. “Not even if you have a million people on Venus, say, under domes, and breathing machine air.

They’ll be just as vulnerable as we are now.”

“Sure. So we go further.” Paxton’s grin widened. He seemed to be enjoying shocking them. “Nice to know an old fart like me is still capable of thinking bigger than you kids. What’s the most robust hab we know? A planet.”

Lyla stared at him. “You’re talking of terraforming.”

“Making the Moon or Venus into worlds enough like Earth that you could walk around in the open, more or less unprotected.

Where you could grow crops in the open air. Where humans could survive, even if civilization fell, even if they forgot who they were and how they got there in the first place.”

“They’ve been thinking about this on Mars,” Lyla said. “Of course now—”

“We’ll lose Mars, but Mars wasn’t the only option. In the very long term it’s the only robust survival solution,” Paxton said.

Alexei looked skeptical. “This is the kind of program space ad-vocates have been pressing for since the days of Armstrong and Aldrin, and never got close to. It’s going to mean a massive transfer of resources.”

“Oh, yes,” Bella said. “In fact Bob’s view is already widely accepted. And it’s going to start soon.”

“What is?” Lyla asked, curious.

“You’ll see. Leave me one last surprise…”

“We’re serious about this,” Bob Paxton said, challenging, au-thoritative. “As serious as I’ve been about anything in my entire life.

To gain access to the future, we have to secure the present. That’s the bottom line.”

They fell back to talking over details of Paxton’s vision, argu-ing, fleshing out some aspects, rejecting others. Soon Paxton cleared the tabletop of its colorful sunstorm factoids and started to make notes.

Bella murmured to Athena, “Looks like it worked. I would never have thought I’d see the likes of Bob Paxton and Alexei Carel working together.”

“We live in strange times.”

“That we do, Athena. And they get stranger all the time. Anyhow it’s a start.” She glanced at her watch. “I hate to do it, but I ought to go check through my messages. Athena, will you bring them coffee? Anything they want.”

“Of course.”

She pushed herself out of her chair and drifted off the bridge, heading for the shuttle and her secure softscreens. Behind her the conversation continued, animated. She heard Alexei say, half-seriously, “I tell you what will unite us all. Sol Invictus. A new god for a new age…”

December 15, 2070

The shuttle landed Bella at Cape Canaveral.

Thales spoke to her. “Welcome home, Bella.”

Bella, bent over her softscreen, was startled to find she was down. All the way from L1 she had been working her messages, and monitoring the progress of the two great events that were due to take place today: the switching-on of the Bimini, the new space elevator system in the Atlantic, and the closest approach of the Q-bomb to the Earth. Both were on schedule, as best anybody knew. But it was hard not to keep checking.

The wheels stopped rolling, and the shuttle’s systems sighed to silence.

She shut down her softscreen and folded it up. “Thank you, Thales. Nice to be back. Athena sends her regards.”

“I’ve spoken to her several times.”

That made Bella oddly uneasy. She had often wondered what conversations went on between the great artificial intelligences, all above the heads of mankind. Even in her role as Council Chair, she had never fully found out.

“There’s a car waiting for you outside, Bella. Ready to take you to the VAB, where your family is waiting. Be careful when you stand up.”