David Brin - The Heart of the Comet

Joao Quiverian was getting insufferable. He used the full impact of his height, towering over the others, his voice ringing with a hollow, magisterial command.

“We have erred in a way I find unfathomable. This mishap is a direct result of our meddling with what we do not understand, rather than placing our trust in our fellow human beings. Obviously the mech somehow ignited the fusion chamber of—”

“Perdeeyn!” Sergeov swore. “Arcist idiot.”

Quiverian bore on. “— the Care Package. and—”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Carl said sharply. “Shut up, everybody!”

The knot of people turned its attention to him. “Look at these numbers.” He gestured at one of the screens. “That was a full thermonuclear blast. Not a malfunction of the fusion drive.”

Quiverian gaped. “Not… But why would they send to us…”

Sergeov’s blue-tattooed skin creased with a bitter smile. “Not to us— for us.”

Carl nodded. “I think so.”

“A… bomb?” Lani Nguyen asked wonderingly, her almond eyes widening at the thought.

Carl said flatly, “JonVon estimates the yield at several hundred megatons. Plenty of neutrons, gammas— the works. No fusion chamber I ever heard of can go off with anything like that yield.”

Quiverian said slowly, “Then they intended…to…”

“Have us take that package into our ice and then blow it up. Shatter everything inside Halley. Melt away the top kilometer, cave in the shafts everywhere else.” Carl had to control his jittering nervous energy. Back home, in gravity, the muscles were always doing some work just to remain standing, burning away minute tensions. Here, inner demands for action found no expression. You had to focus it all into other avenues-voice, expression, gesture.

“I… find that difficult to believe,” Quiverian said, suddenly uncharacteristically quiet.

“Is typical ,” Sergeov said. “Earthside has been same always. Destroyed Edmund, poof!. Now us.”

Jeffers said sourly, “Yeah, askin’ us for guidance, tellin’ us to lead the package right down Shaft Three. An’ we woulda done it, if it hadn’t been for curiosity, makin’ us send out a mech to see what Daddy’d brought us.” He snorted derisively.

Carl said, “Earthside kept up their story all this time— for three years— when all along they’ve plotted to destroy us entirely.”

“To preserve their holy biosphere,” Saul said mildly as he approached.

Carl raised an eyebrow— How is she? —and Saul nodded reassuringly. Virginia had been unconscious when the med-techs bore her away on a stretcher. Carl felt relief, but in Saul’s quietly pleased expression an unsettling confirmation: Somehow, he and Virginia were back together. The crisis had done that. His own chances— which he now saw he had allowed to build beyond prudent expectations— were zero again. Saul and Virginia seemed able to survive any buffeting that chance could deal them.

“— can expect a full explanation from Earth, I am sure,” Quiverian finished. Carl realized he had missed one of the man’s pontifical declarations.

“What?”

Quiverian’s face knotted with exasperation. “I expect we have been the victims of a political faction. Someone who, under cover of their allotted cargo, included a warhead. This does not mean all Earth is opposed to us. Once we inform high Earth authorities of how this humanitarian gesture has been aborted in a most foul way, I am sure the leadership will take measures to punish and silence this cabal of.”

“Bullshit,” Carl said vehemently.

Quiverian blinked, his lips pursed, but he said nothing. One of his lieutenants began, “Look, you can’t—” but Carl cut him off.

“Look.” Carl said. “they don’t know what’s happened yet, right?”

Jeffers calculated in his head. “Lessee… ’Bout two hours each way light travel time. We should be able to pick up what they were sayin’ when the thing blew.”

Carl nodded. “Let’s pipe into their transmission.”

Carl glanced toward a wall camera and nodded. JonVon was listening, as he suspected, and immediately the room filled with the hiss of solar static. Then a tinny voice said monotonously, “Cannot copy you here emm-dot, Halley.”

Jeffers said, “They’re still sendin’ telemetry for guidin’ it in.”

The voice oscillated slightly, dispersed by its journey of three billion miles. “By our estimates, the package is nearing final matching RPX. Advise you now send it laser marker designation for Shaft Three. Automatic homing will then take over.”

Carl said “They’re still working on their approach.”

A steady blur of static. Then:

“Confirm docking? Negative on auto-servo coupling pip, but we do show counter-comm on reppledex four-over, though. Await that marker pip for none-in.”

The men and women listened to the words from a civilization now as distant in time as it was in space. The mission monitors Earthside, they knew, were trained in the jargon of 2060, to minimize confusions, but still odd terms and mannerisms from the more modern era slipped in. A glance at his thumbnail told Carl that three hours had passed since the explosion. It felt more like a year. He ordered refreshments brought in. The faction leaders listened sullenly, silently.

“Should come anytime now,” Jeffers said.

The wavering voice kept on. “Carrier cinch-by reads nominal. Coded.”

A sudden pause. The sun’s own spiky popping seemed to flood the room, bringing a reminder of the warm regions they had left so long ago, the brooding eternal voice a pressing presence.

Then vague shouts, a commotion. “UV and visible flux! It’s gone off!”

“Too early!” Somebody else cried out. “By my estimate…”

A babble of talk, a distinct thump. “Get away from that! It might’ve already docked, we don’t know.”

An argument, voices shouting one another down. “See if those infect rejects are still transmitting. Goddam, I knew we shouldn’t have safe-armed the bastard.”

Another thump. “Neg, Fred. They’re off the air.”

Faintly, someone yelled, “Those screamers are steam!”

Everyone’s eyes widened s a thin sound came, plainly from somewhere near the speaker— a hearty laugh, a cry of celebration, then the rolling sea-sound of many hands clapping.

The men and women of Halley looked at each other for a long time, silently. There seemed very little to say.

Carl cycled the doors and stepped out through the crystalline refractions of the surface lock. It was eighteen hours later. He had conferred with envoys of various factions, won agreements, soothed as best he could. By all rights he should be holed up in his bunk, getting some rest.

But that would have meant crawling away and licking his wounds, something he might well have done a few decades ago … Now it wouldn’t work, he knew. Too much had happened, too fast. If he brooded over it, he would just get depressed and accomplish nothing.

That was a standard he had slowly learned to impose on himself: What will you have when this is over? Amemory of bitter ruminations, drunken attempts to forget? Recriminations against the hand fate had dealt you? That might satisfy something inside that wanted such sour fruit. But now he knew from experience that he would feel better in the long run if he threw himself into a job, built or fixed or moved something. Let the muscles work their own logic. Then he would be able to sleep, knowing that he had at least gotten something done, kept moving, shown the bastards.

A slight puff of air followed him onto the ice. instant billowing fog. He moved at a steady ground-hugging, ice-gripping lope toward the equator. He could hook on to the cable and jet over, but this way he got more exercise.