David Brin - The Heart of the Comet

Sergeov turned to give a gesture. Immediately Carl felt a crump and vibrations beneath his feet. —I just now gave order to blow in the tunnels beneath your dome. Seals you in tight, right? Great, clape!—

Carl shouted, “You idiot.”

Sergeov laughed. —Like the trap, clap?—Then he sobered, smiled. —Without you the others will he less stupid.—

Jeffers broke in, —This’s mutiny, y’know.—

—Self preservation, you mean.—

Carl could hear in the venom of Sergeov’s words a rebuke of his own leadership. The man’s rantings had seemed comic, dumb, set of leftover ideas. But after the Care Package, a lot of otherwise reasonable people had developed a deep hatred of Earthside, and Sergeov had played to that, claiming that the Mars maneuver wouldn’t work.

And that much was true. The Mars plan almost certainly won’t save us. Nothing will, except a change of heart Earthside.

It had seemed to Carl that Sergeov had never proposed any valid alternatives, and nobody could really take the man seriously. Still, by adding together disgruntled spacers and hard-line Ubers, Sergeov might have enough to seize and hold the launchers, if they did it just right…

“You don’t like the Mars targeting?”

—It is emotional drivel. We could not brake in such thin atmosphere, everyone who stops to work it out knows that.—

“We can try. At the very least we’ll slow down some, maybe open up options on the outbound leg of this pass.”

Sergeov laughed, a dry cackle. —Do not give me speeches. Me and my friends—who be real Percells, not renegades who suck up to any Ortho, even sleep with them—we know the astrophysics as well as you, probably better. You think we cannot do simulations? We know danger of hitting Mars. At best not enough air. So only hope remaining is to brake in atmosphere of planet with thick air.—

“Venus! There’s apossible mission there, though it’s on the outbound leg. We’d have to go through perihelion first, and I don’twant to judge how we’ll survive that.”

—No perihelion. Dumb to even think we can ride that.—

“Why not? Listen, Otis, we can talk over a Venus encounter in detail if you want.”

Jeffers gestured to Carl as he spoke. Along the distant line of launchers, figures were throwing makeshift flags over the cowlings: the Uber sign.

—You see we are winning? Da, all in time. If the other launchers do not give up, we will depress the muzzles of ours, fire empty casings, and pound the others to small pieces.—

Jeffers blurted, —You’re fuckin’ crazy , you know that?—

Carl gestured for Jeffers to be quiet. “Jesus, Sergeov, you wouldn’t do that. We need those launchers—”

—To strike Mars. We shall not go crashing into Mars just to keep Earthside happy.—

“What kind of demented logic is that?”

—Clever logic, it is. Earth would like to see us suicide on Mars, end HalleyLife. What proof shall you need, after they showed how much they care?—

The sneering reference to the Care Package hurt, because Carl knew it was true. The crew had been bitter about that, and this mad rebellion was the outcome. Most spacers, notably the Blue Rock Clan of Hawaiians, stood behind Carl. But Sergeov had undoubtedly recruited among Percells, and Carl wouldn’t be surprised if there were even some Orthos helping him.

—We hit planet with atmosphere, but not Venus.—

Carl felt a chill. “So where do you want to go, Otis?”

—Is obvious. Earth.—

“Good God! That’s.”

He was about to say, That’s impossible, but then he recalled the mission options outlined long ago. The expedition had first planned on an inward-passing flyby of Jupiter, altering Halley’s orbit until rendezvous with Luna was fairly inexpensive in fuel for the Edmund. That required a delta-V of 284 meters per second, a hefty velocity change.

Since the Arcist rebellion had deprived them of the south pole, they had opted to use launchers at the equator for the less effective swing past Mars; that required a velocity change of only fifty-nine meters per second. The energy required scaled as the square of delta-V, which meant that a maneuver by Mars, with a grazing brake in its atmosphere, took only four percent of the original mission energy requirement. They had been investing launcher time in just that maneuver for years now.

But he had forgotten another maneuver they could make from a steady equatorial push. Earth…

“I can’t remember the numbers, but look, we can’t.”

—I refresh you. Only takes sixty-three meters per second delta-V. Only slightly more push than we now give. And direction is nearly the same as Mars suicide! My crews, they now swing launchers a little. Only five degrees in declination, one hundred degrees in right ascension. You follow? Means—

“Yeah, I get it.” He’s really crazy. How do I handle him? “Okay, we can hit Earth. So what? They’ll cream us before we even get close.”

Sergeov’s dry crackle rang over the comm. Carl waited out the airless, manic laughter, telling himself, Don’t blow it. Keep him talking. Maybe somebody from below will round up some industrial lasers, circle round them, cut them off—

But he knew the chances were slim. Sergeov had played it just right, waited until Jeffers—Carl’s right arm—was trapped in the dome, too. Virginia couldn’t get control of her mechs. And as a bonus, they’d killed Saul, who might’ve rallied many people who simply wanted to survive…

—Earth will not cream us. Not if we threaten to seed them with the plagues.—

“You’d threaten that?”

—Smell the fire, Meyer. Orthos blow Edmund, send Care Package. What they deserve?—

“They’ll still.”

—We make atmospheric brakes, jump off. Halley goes on. We shall make deal to not seed Earth with Halleyforms, then Earth send us to Diemos. We live there, start terraforming planet.—

Jeffers muttered, “Well, at least that part makes sense.” He looked up guiltily as Carl shot him a glance.

Sergeov heard him. —Better to dream than nightmare, eh?—

Carl tried to think. Lani stood at his side, a hand on his shoulder, mute comfort.

“Earth’ll take no chances on getting soaked with Halleyforms. They’ll nuke us,” Carl said.

—No launches! We will have standby rockets, warheads of Halley-Life. Earth launch, we launch.—

Carl saw Jeffers’s expression. Sergeov’s mad scenario was all too seductive. The aerobrakes would take a lot of mech-manufacture, but that had already been designed and scheduled for the Mars maneuver.

“I don’t think you can sell this.”

—No need sell. Time to smack, Jack. You agree or we cut dome into little pieces.—

“The others won’t go along with this.”

—What others? Ortho others? They want to live, same as Percells.—

“But this endangers Earth! Any aerobrake will bring Halley Core close enough to dump some ice into the upper atmosphere. The bioforms could make it down to the surface anyway!—”

—Earthers shall have to take chance. Most of us now say piss on Earthers.—

Carl paced, oblivious to the string eyes of the dome crew, to Jeffers’s persistent gnawing at his own lip, to Virginia’s blank stare. Lani watched him pensively. He had to think, and yet his mind was a whirl of conflicting emotions. The Earth maneuver at least held out the promise of hope, of living…

“Look, you ought to have a referendum on this. The whole crew.”

—Clape, ape. No voting. You forget, we have launchers.—

“There’ll be a sizable minority, maybe even a majority, that’ll oppose you.”