David Brin - The Heart of the Comet

The words hung in the chilly air, above the hum of the air fans.

And Saul saw glowing belief on many faces present. Carl Osborn’s heroic jaw jutted in dedication to his captain’s goal.

Well, maybe it’s partly stubbornness, too, Saul thought sardonically. When Carl played chess, it was with a methodical tenacity that admitted no defeat until the bitter end. But no, Saul thought, looking at the light in the young man’s eyes. He believes in Miguel’s dream. And I guess I do too.

The feeling was obviously shared by a lot of the spacers, both Percell and Ortho. This was the passion of those who longed for Plateau Three… the stepladder to the sky.

Still, there were others. They kept quiet, but one could read the signs. This crew, after all, had not been recruited entirely from the ranks of idealists.

Why did a man or woman volunteer to go into dangerous exile, far from everything familiar? For many, including Saul, the choice had not been altogether voluntary.

He saw Marguerite van Zoon, standing beside Akio Matsudo at the entrance to F Tunnel and the new infirmary. The French Imperium had given her the option of “volunteering” for this mission or seeing her entire family imprisoned for lese-majeste.

Saul had last heard that her husband had gone to Indonesia and slotted himself to await her return. It was some small solace, he supposed.

And then there was Lieutenant Colonel Suleiman Ould-Harrad. Powerful family ties had gotten him into this mission, instead of a Mauritanian dungeon. But the black spacer seemed less than happy to be here. He stood over to the right, with Joao Quiverian and some other folk from the equatorial lands of the Arc of the Living Sun.

Percells and Orthos, Northerns and Arcists, liberals, moderates, and even a few fanatics; Saul was certain it was pretty much the same among those still in slots. Cruz and Oakes were inspirational leaders, and they would get the best out of the colonists, but Saul did not expect this long voyage to be entirely trouble-free.

Nothing ever is, Saul. Exile is not the same as escape.

Captain Cruz continued with a hearty tone.

“And now I have a surprise for all of you. Many of us had high hopes for great scientific advances on this voyage, but I’d wager none of you expected that within weeks of arriving we would already have written a new chapter in the annals of human discovery.’

Saul saw the audience stir. People looked at one another. A wave of shrugs and confused looks showed that the secret had held for the last three days of frantic tests, experiments, and double-checks.

Saul took out his handkerchief and blew as quietly as the nose his parents had given him would allow. He knew it might be his last chance for a while.

Cruz grinned at his audience, milking the suspense for all it was worth. He held up his hands and the crowd quieted again.

“I certainly don’t want to hog the show, or steal anyone’s day in the limelight…”

Oh, no, Saul thought. He had asked Cruz not to do this.

“… So let me just call up the man who has made this epochal discovery, whose name will, within a week, be the toast of the solar system. Come on up here, Saul Lintz, and tell us what you’ve found!”

Sigh.

Saul pushed off from the packing crate as scattered applause rose from various parts of the hall. After the first stumble caused him to drift above the floor for a few seconds, he had to endure being passed from hand to hand by those more experienced in microgravity.

Along the way he saw that much of the applause came from certain groups— Matsudo and Malenkov, who had helped in the analyses, from the Hawaiians up in front, from some of the Percells…

There were some among the African and Latin contingents who looked aside and lowered their arms, unable, like him, to forget Jerusalem.

Someone put her hands under him and pushed hard. He went sailing, without a bit of spin, in a smooth arc that landed him right beside Dr. Bethany Oakes. Good shooting, he thought as the small woman swung him around to face the audience.

“Don’t worry, Saul,” Cruz whispered to him. “You’ll get your space legs yet. Your problem is you’ve spent too much time in that damned wheel.”

Saul shrugged. “Some of us are too old to change, Mike.”

Cruz laughed and gestured that the “floor” was his. Saul gingerly slid a foot forward. He looked out over the assembly.

“Um, I’m sure you’ll all recall…”

“Louder, Saul!” a thickly accented voice called out from the back of the hall. “You don’t have to whisper to prove to us you’re not a loudmouthed Levite!”

Gasps rose from the crowd and several dark faces seemed suddenly to go pale. Saul recognized Malenkov’s shout and wave from the back of the room. The grinning Russian bear had the tact of a tornado, but Saul smiled.

“Sorry. I’ll try to speak up.

“I was about to say that I’m sure you’ll all recall the fantastic array of organic compounds that the expedition to comet Encke found while they were testing out the techniques needed for this mission. Many of those compounds were totally unknown until then, and led to some revolutionary changes in industrial chemistry.

“In fact, one of our lesser goals here is to see if nature has cooked up any more wonderful polymers and agglutinates for us, perhaps as valuable as Enkon and Stannous-Clathride have become.”

Directly below the platform, Joao Quiverian frowned. He had discovered those compounds, on that earlier mission, so in a way he was responsible for some of the motivation to explore and “exploit” comets.

“But one of the most exciting discoveries at Encke was that the core of that aged, nearly dead comet contained an abundance of chemicals best called ‘prebiotic’… accumulations of purities, pyrimidines, phosphates, and amino acids nearly identical to the sort of mixture modern biologists believe made up the primordial `soup’ that led to life on Earth. It was hoped, when we set off on this trip, that by studying a large, younger comet, we might, well, shed some light on the way things were on our homeworld four billion years ago, when we all began.”

Saul cleared his throat, and hoped the raspiness in his voice would be attributed to general hoarseness and excitement. Ten rows back or so, among the colorful Hawaiians, he saw Virginia Herbert smiling up at him. The admiration in her eyes was pleasant, if a bit disconcerting.

Down, boy. Don’t imagine more’n is there. No doubt she looks on you as some sort of surrogate dad.

“Well,” he resumed. “Dr. Malenkov and Dr. Quiverian and I have studied one of the latest cores collected by Dr. Otis Sergeov—”

“Don’t be modest, Saul.” Malenkov interrupted again. “You did it! You get the blame!”

This time, at least, people laughed and applauded. Saul smiled. Thanks, Nicholas. Deep inside he wondered if the Russian wasn’t really right… if blame might someday be the right word. Look at what had happened to Simon Percell, whose name should have gone down alongside Galen’s and Schweitzer’s. Dame Fame was a fickle bitch.

“… Uh, well, with the help of those gentlemen I was able to isolate…”

Oh, come on, Saul, he chided himself What would Miriam think if she had lived to see you now, standing here stammering, when you have a chance to make an announcement like this!

Saul straightened his back, almost losing his footing in the process. He looked out at the audience and borrowed one of Miguel Cruz’s gestures, spreading his hands apart.

“The signs are strong. The specimens are unambiguous. No contamination could explain what we have found. We’ve worked for a week to be certain it is nothing brought from Earth.