Roger Allen - The Ring of Charon

The probe was sure to have a limited lifespan. Earth would have to get its highest priority information beamed back to the probe and fast .

He stared unseeingly at the display screens and slumped back in his chair. Think. Clear your mind and concentrate . A mug of coffee appeared unbidden at his elbow, and he muttered a distracted “thank you” to the unseen person who delivered it. He took a first thoughtful sip of the coffee, still not even really aware that it had been given to him.

All right, then. Assume the enemy was going to destroy the probe in the next five minutes, so that he would have only one chance to report on Earth’s situation. What did the Solar System need to know first? Hell, that was obvious.

The Sphere. The Sphere was literally and figuratively at the center of all this. But explaining the situation would take time—and that would delay the first message. Second things first then. Just dump everything that they had, in whatever order they could, while drafting a proper message.

He pressed a key on his comm panel. “Todd, locate all the science summaries since the Big Jump and start transmitting them at the coordinates and frequencies listed on status page four. Send it priority two. I’ll be sending a priority one in a few minutes.”

He pulled a keyboard out and started to write. What was the first thing to say? “Earth,” he began, “has survived. We have been captured and placed in a huge artificial multistar system dominated by a Dyson Sphere. Many deaths and injuries were caused by loss of space infrastructure and orbital destabilizations. Night sky from this location reveals few stars outside Multisystem, apparently due to shell of obscuring dust. Efforts to locate the Sun in the sky therefore not yet successful, Earth’s location relative to Solar System unknown. Distance from Earth unknown, but, as observations from the Solar System never located this remarkable star system, we can base a distance estimate on how far away one would have to be not to detect the Multisystem. On that basis, range estimated to be at a minimum of several hundred light-years, with no Upper limit. Perpetrators of Earth-theft unknown. Purpose of Earth-theft unknown…”

Arrangements were not yet complete. The Sphere had not done all that needed doing to see after its new charge. The captured world was still exposed to some slight dangers, some unlikely hazards.

One of those dangers seemed to have been realized. An object, of fair size, had appeared through the wormhole link to the planet’s old system. It was not unheard of for debris to fall through a wormhole, but this was an unusually large fragment, and falling straight toward the newly acquired world at some speed. Though there was no real danger, the Sphere never took unneeded chances.

Another world was near enough to divert one of its Shepherds to meet the danger. The Sphere contacted the nearby world’s Keeper Ring and ordered the diversion. Almost immediately, a Shepherd swung out of its orbit and toward the intruder.

The Sphere noted another, larger object departing the vicinity of the new world, indeed headed for a close pass of the nearby planet that was providing the Shepherd.

But the large debris fragment was not on a collision course. If, somehow, the situation changed, then the planet’s Shepherds could handle the problem. The Sphere directed its attention elsewhere, checking again on the far-off danger that threatened the Sphere.

Far off, yes. But slowly getting closer. Disaster was yet decades off. But every moment of that time would be needed in order to avert disaster.

Every moment. The Sphere sent yet another message-image to the new system’s Caller, urging it on to greater speed .

The Anthony’s arrival was reported to the Terra Nova just as Dianne Steiger headed to her cabin for the evening. There was little the Nova could actually do, other than download the probe’s data and distribute it to the science staff.

Captains were supposed to delegate authority. Dianne decided to let her subordinates handle that job for her.

Dianne Steiger slept best in zero gee, and now was a time when she needed that sleep. It had been a busy time, getting the Nova launched, and she was exhausted. She was asleep the moment she slid between the sheets.

Five seconds or five hours after she lay down, a buzzer sounded by her bedside and she snapped to sudden wakefulness. She fumbled for the unfamiliar controls, got the lights on, and found the intercom switch. “Steiger here.”

“Ma’am, LeClerc here.” A tiny viewscreen popped on, and showed LeClerc’s earnest young face. “Sorry to disturb you, but this seemed important. We’ve got something on the radar plot board. One of the COREs just boosted for Earth.”

Dianne blinked and sat bold upright. “Say again. Our fusion core did what !”

“Sorry ma’am. I meant one of the radio sources orbiting the Target One planet. One of the COREs. One just broke orbit and started heading toward Earth. Boosted at an incredible rate, thirty gees at least, and then shut down. Ah, stand by, computer’s giving me a refined trajectory. Make that headed close to Earth. I read it now as intercepting that probe, the Saint Anthony . Here’s the plot.” LeClerc’s face vanished, to be replaced by an orbital schematic.

Dianne peered at it and swore. “Oh, hell. The party’s over. How long until intercept?”

“Forty-eight hours, four minutes. Though we still need to refine that a bit.”

“How close a pass will we get with the CORE?”

“Won’t come within ten thousand kilometers of us, according to the current track.”

A stray thought popped into Dianne’s head. “Wait a second. I ordered passive-only detection. How are you tracking the CORE at this range?”

“Hard not to track it, ma’am. These damn CORE things absolutely glow in radio frequencies. Bright enough that they seem to jam out all the natural radio sources.”

“Very well. Make sure Earth knows what’s happening, so they can use those forty-eight hours. Any theories on why the things didn’t come after us?”

“No, ma’am. Unless maybe they’re just waiting until we get closer.”

“ ‘That’s not very comforting. Thank you, LeClerc. You did right to wake me. Stay on top of it.”

As if any human being could stay on top of what was going on in a place like the Multisystem.

Tyrone Vespasian caressed the Nenya’s controls. It had been too long since Vespasian had done anything but watch others go into space. He was more than pleased that he had convinced Daltry his piloting skills were sharp, and that the Gravities Research Station would have use for his knowledge of the Earthpoint wormhole’s behavior.

His face darkened. There was another, truer reason for his flying off to Pluto. With Lucian gone, he had to get off the Moon, run away from his pointless guilt, his sense of loss.

He couldn’t have done anything to prevent Lucian’s dying. But there should have been something. And by piloting this craft, by tending to the still-weakened Larry Chao, perhaps he was performing penance.

Larry. He was back there, in his cabin. There was a boy who had seen more than his share.

And done more. One 25-year-old kid pushes one button, and the history of humanity is changed for all time.

He checked his gauges carefully, and made sure the Nenya was holding together. If these gravity geniuses didn’t get back to Pluto, history might end altogether.