Arthur Clarke - Firstborn

It still hurt to be returned to a full gravity. “It gets tougher every damn time. Thales, remind me to order an exoskeleton.”

“I will, Bella.”

She clambered down to the runway. The day was bright, the sun low, the air fresh and full of salt. She checked her watch, which had corrected itself to local time; she had landed a little before ten a.m. on this crisp December morning.

She glanced out to sea, where a fine vertical thread climbed into the sky.

Thales murmured, “Just an hour to the Q-bomb pass, Bella.

The astronomers report no change in its trajectory.”

“Orbital-mechanics analyses are all very well. People have to see it.”

“I’ve encountered the phenomenon before,” Thales said calmly.

“I do understand, Bella.”

She grunted. “I’m not sure if you do. Not if you call it a ‘phenomenon.’ But we all love you anyhow.”

“Thank you, Bella.”

A car rolled up, a bubble of glass, smart and friendly. It whisked her away from the cooling hulk of her shuttle, straight toward the looming bulk of the Vehicle Assembly Building.

At the VAB she was met by a security guard, a woman, good humored but heavily armed, who shadowed her from then on.

Bella crossed straight to a glass-walled elevator, and rose quickly and silently up through the interior of the VAB. She stared down over rockets clustered like pale trees. Once the rocket stacks of Saturn s and space shuttles had been assembled in this building.

Now a century old and still one of the largest enclosed volumes in the world, the VAB had been turned into a museum for the launchers of the first heroic age of American manned space exploration, from the Atlas to the shuttle and the Ares. And now the building was operational again. A corner had been cleared for the assembly of an Apollo — Saturn stack: a new Apollo 14, ready for its centennial launch in February.

Bella loved this immense temple of technology, still astonishing in its scale. But today she was more interested in who was waiting for her on the roof.

Edna met her as she stepped out of the elevator car. “Mum.”

“Hello, love.” Bella embraced her.

As Bella and Edna walked the security guard shadowed them, and a news robot rolled after them, a neat sphere glistening with lenses. Bella had to expect that; she did her best to ignore the silent, all-encompassing scrutiny. It was an historic day, after all. By scheduling the Bimini switch-on today, she had meant to turn Q-day into one of celebration, and so it was turning out to be — even if, she sensed, the mood was edgy rather than celebratory right now.

The tremendous roof of the VAB had long since been made over as a viewing platform. Today it was crowded, with marquees, a podium where Bella would be expected to make a speech, people swirling around. There was even a small park, a mock-up of the local flora and fauna.

Two oddly dressed men, spindly, tall, in blue-black robes marked with golden sunbursts, stared at a baby alligator as if it were the most remarkable creature they had ever seen, and perhaps it was. Looking a little uncertain on their feet, their faces heavily creamed with sunscreen, they were monks of the new church of Sol Invictus: missionaries to Earth from space.

Edna walked with the caution of a space worker restored to a full gravity, and she winced a bit in the brilliant light, the breeze, the uncontrolled climate of a living world. She looked tired, Bella thought with her mother’s solicitude, older than her twenty-four years.

“You aren’t sleeping well, are you, love?”

“Mum, I know we can’t talk about this right now. But I got my subpoenas yesterday. For your hearing and my own.”

Bella sighed. She had fought to keep Edna from having to face a tribunal. “We’ll get through it.”

“You mustn’t think you need to protect me,” Edna said, a bit stiffly. “I did my duty, Mum. I’d do the same again, if ordered.

When I get my day in court I’ll tell the truth.” She forced a smile.

“Anyway the hell with it all. Thea’s longing to see you. We’ve made camp, a bit away from the marquees and the bars…”

Edna had colonized an area of the VAB roof close to the edge.

It was perfectly safe, blocked in by a tall, inward-curving wall of glass. Edna had spread out picnic blankets and fold-out tables and chairs, and had opened up a couple of hampers. Cassie Duflot was already here, with her two kids, Toby and Candida. They were playing with Thea, Edna’s daughter, Bella’s four-year-old granddaughter.

In this corner of the VAB roof it was Christmas, Bella saw to her surprise. The kids, playing with toys, were surrounded by wrapping paper and ribbons. There was even a little pine tree in a pot. An older man in a Santa suit sat with them, a bit awkwardly, but with a grin plastered over his tired face.

Thea came running. “Grannie!”

“Hello, Thea.” Bella submitted to having her knees hugged, and then she bent down and cuddled her granddaughter properly. The other kids ran to her too, perhaps vaguely remembering the nice old lady who had come with a memento to their father’s funeral. But the kids soon broke away and went back to their presents.

Santa Claus shook Bella’s hand. “John Metternes, Madam Chair,” he said. “I flew with your daughter on the Liberator. ”

“Yes, of course. I’m very glad to meet you, John. You did good work up there.”

He grunted. “Let’s hope the judge agrees. Look, I hope you don’t think I’m butting in — I can see there’s a family thing going on here—”

“I forced him down for some shore leave,” Edna said, a bit acidly. “This weird old obsessive would sleep on the Liberator if the maintenance crew would let him.”

“Don’t let her bug you, John. It’s good of you to do this. But —

Christmas, Edna? It’s only the fifteenth of December.”

“Actually it was my idea.” Cassie Duflot approached Bella. “It was just that, you know, we still aren’t sure how today is going to turn out, are we?” She glanced at the sky, as if seeking the Q-bomb.

“I mean, not really sure. And if things were to go wrong, badly wrong—”

“You wanted to give the kids their Christmas anyway.”

“Do you think that’s odd?”

“No.” Bella smiled. “I understand, Cassie.”

“It does make it a hell of a day,” Edna said. “And what’s worse, if the world doesn’t get blown up today, we’ll have to do it all again in ten days’ time.”

“You attracted quite a crowd for your launch, Bella,” Cassie said.

“Looks like it—”

“Mum, you haven’t seen the half of it yet,” Edna said. She took her mother’s arm again and walked her toward the glass-walled lip of the building.

At the roof edge Bella was able to see the ocean to the east, where the low sun hung like a lamp, and the coast to north and south, her view stretching for kilometers in either direction.

Canaveral was crowded. The cars clustered along the shoreline, and were parked up as far as the Beach Road to the north, and to the south on Merritt Island and the Cape itself, carpeting the old industrial facilities and the abandoned Air Force base. Everywhere, flags fluttered in the strong breeze.

And out at sea she saw the gray, blocky form of a reused oil rig.

Rising from it was a double thread, dead straight, visible when it caught the light.

“They came for the switch-on,” Edna said. “You always were a showman, Mum. Maybe politicians have to be. And reopening America’s elevator today is a good stunt. People feel like a party, I guess.”

“Oh, it’s more than just another space elevator. You’ll see.”