David Brin - The Heart of the Comet

“Those kids are bastards, y’know—you’ve got some kinda mass breeding program going, don’t you?” Jeffers asked sharply.

Malcolm reddened. “That’s no business of you Percells.”

“You treat women like breeding stock.”

“ Cut it ,” Carl said firmly. Malcolm was sensitive about the fact that their children were stunted, victims of Halleyform intrusions into the womb and development problems in low-G. They seldom lived long. Reproducing in such a hostile biological environment was simply a bad gamble, and the Orthos had lost.

He let the men stare sourly at each other for a moment and then went on, “We’ve got to do something about the slot problem. The medical inventory is even worse than I’d thought. There aren’t enough fresh crew left. Nowhere near enough to do the remaining work of setting up the Nudge.”

Jeffers asked, “How’s that possible? There’re hundreds.”

“Were hundreds.” In the first ten years they had cycled most of the mission crew through, before they got the green gunk and viroids really under control. If the thawed-out ones got sick—and a lot did—they were popped back into the slots. For replacements they pulled fresh sleepers.

“Killing off normal people, that’s what you were doing,” Malcolm said.

Carl sighed. “Forget that crap. We did what we had to. Orthos got sick fast, that’s all.”

“Not the way I heard it. We.”

Jeffers spat out, “You unfroze twenty years after rendezvous! You know nothin’ about the hard time.”

“I can read records! And the oldsters tell us. I know you unfroze normal people more often than you had to.”

“Because the Ortho faction wanted to keep their numbers up. It was their idea,” Carl explained. “Look, I was there, you weren’t. Until Calciano handed things over to me, every commander was an Ortho. I’m not going to try to crack through that bonehead bias of yours anymore. Just listen, okay?”

Malcolm nodded reluctantly. The man kept a certain tattered dignity about him, despite his grimy uniform and matted hair. Usually he made some show of being clean and neat. The Orthos must be having a hard time of it lately.

There were internal disputes, too. The Ortho-run tunnels had as wide a range of fanatics as the Percell zones, maybe more. Malcolm was hard to take sometimes, but he was the only one all Orthos trusted to speak for them—much the same position Jeffers served among Percells.

Carl could respect Malcolm’s position, but could only pity the stupidity of the people he had to represent. Many Orthos would never compromise with Percells now, after all that had happened, the wasted blood and bile. Very well—but cooperation on some tasks was essential.

We need more help to Hydro, Carl said. “Equipment keeps breaking down and the only way to make up is with labor.”

“You want more work from us?” Malcolm said resentfully.

“Right. But it can’t eat into the Nudge program.”

“Impossible. We’re stretched too far as it is.”

“Orbits wait for nobody,” Jeffers said. “We got to have the launchers ready by aphelion or else there’ll none of us see Earth again.”

Carl nodded. “And I doubt we could survive an extra ten years.”

Malcolm’s lean mouth set in a determined line. “I get it. You want to unslot a bunch of our people, then work them to death.”

“That’s not it at all.” Carl had anticipated this reaction, but not so soon. He’s edgy, suspicious. I don’t envy him, having to deal with Quiverian and Ould-Harrad and the Arcists. Of course, Jeffers doesn’t have it easy either, coping with Sergeov and the radical Percells.

Carl said calmly, “I think we’ll get by if you simply stop trying to produce children. That will free more women to work full time.

“Uh-uh. We got a right to reproduce.”

Carl thought bitterly, Now youunderstand how we felt about the EarthBirth Laws. He put the thought aside—a dim dispute from another life—and leaned forward earnestly. “Look, think this through. We have.”

The hatch clanged. Carl looked up in surprise to see Saul Lintz gingerly making his way into the center of the console banks. “Saul, this is a parley. You’re not invited. And frankly, I think you’re too weak to.”

“Nonsense. I heard where you were and decided to come have a look. You’re the, ah, Ortho leader?” Saul peered at Malcolm as if trying to place him from the past.

As the two made introductions, Carl thought. Could he use Saul to persuade Malcolm? Saul’s prestige in suppressing the Black Year plagues carried weight. How much did Lintz know of what had happened? He would have to step carefully here.

“Oh, I understand the problems,” Saul said to Malcolm. “I tapped into the running inventory, projections, the maintenance programs. What I want to know,” he said carefully, looking at Jeffers and Carl, “is why the Nudge Launchers have been reprogrammed.”

Damn . “It’s preliminary, since only a few of the launchers have been built yet. We’ve sharpened our analysis.”

“No, that’s not it. They’re set to bring us nowhere close to Earth, after the Jupiter slingshot.” Saul looked at Carl steadily.

“Look, I was going to sit down and go over this with you in detail as soon as you—” Carl sighed. “Okay. Here, I’ll play the squirt from Earth, same as we got it years ago. You might as well have the full story.”

It wasn’t hard to find. He had replayed it incessantly, and so had many of the Orthos, he imagined.

The main screen glowed, fluttered. NEWS.

A burly announcer looked mirthful, shrugged comically, and said, “Remember that trag ex-ed on Halley’s Comet? How they went balloka and started checking out from the bugs they found? Well, here’s how they looked when Orbital got ’em in sights again.”

A dry chuckle. The screen showed a silvery profile swimming in blackness—the Edmund.

“Some of the nonbuggy ones jumped into their mother ship and flew home. Only nobody’s nonbuggy out there now, so Fed said—you know what Fed said, right?”

The leering, wide-eyed face of the announcer swelled, smiled broadly with impossibly white teeth, then dwindled as down-tonal sound effects rose and—the screen flared with brilliant blue light.

“Scintillatin’ sendoff, yes! All gone-free for you and me, to keep bugs out of the hurly-clime. Went up clean, too, one big fuse.”

Carl snapped it off. “Welcome to the coming new century,” he said sardonically.

“Good… Lord…” Saul was dazed. His gray pallor slowly reddened and he blinked rapidly. “They… they weren’t going to take any chances.”

Malcolm said bitingly, “Why should they? Even if Earth quarantined the Edmund, how could they be sure?”

Jeffers said levelly, “You sound like you’re agreein’ with what they did.”

“I can understand it.” Malcolm eyed Jeffers with open dislike.

“Only good thing,” Jeffers said cuttingly, “is that Linbarger and those Ortho assholes all bought it.”

Saul gritted his teeth, as if swimming up from some personal memory that had overwhelmed him. Carl suspected which one: the old Zionist associations were broad enough to be triggered by anything like this.

“I expected some strong measures…but to…”

Carl said flatly, “You wanted to know—okay, there it is. We can’t go back to Earth. Ever. They’ll never believe we’re not disease carriers, and they’ll be damned right, too.”

Saul’s eyes seemed to swell in his papery, pale face, sensing possibilities. “Then… where can we…”

“That’s what we have to decide. We’re aiming for a close pass of Jupiter on the inbound, and we can slingshot ourselves just about anywhere from there.”