John Sandford - Saturn Run

“Thank you. We need to finish our assessment of the damage we have taken. I will call you personally if we have need of your aid.”

Back aboard the Celestial Odyssey , Zhang ordered the contact crew into a conference room, and called First Officer Cui to join them. The video of the encounter with the Americans was already on its way back to Earth, and now he said, “Feel free to speak your minds.”

Cui and Duan glanced at each other—the video of this conference would be on its way to Beijing as they spoke. Zhang said, “I’m serious about that. We need to plan our next move, and I want more than just the thoughts in my own head. We also need the thoughts of our experts back home, and quickly.”

Cui spoke first. “Sir, I think it was a mistake not to push the issue and attempt a landing. I do not think there is any doubt that the Americans were bluffing. They can’t afford to initiate an attack.”

Zhang shook his head. “Officer Cui, I am nowhere so free from doubt as you are. I believe your assessment is correct, but I also believe we both might be wrong. The consequences of an error in judgment are so severe that I want us to pursue all other options before we force a confrontation with the Americans. Be assured, I will force that as our last resort. Not as our first. We explore other options before we risk even the smallest, most unlikely possibility of… an international difficulty.”

“Sir?” Dr. Mo, the biologist, spoke up. “There is a great deal more to this complex than the planetoid that the Americans have sequestered. There are myriad smaller moonlets that are clearly alien constructions, and uncountable numbers of small autonomous spacecraft traveling between them and the rings and the planetoid. The Americans can’t be everywhere at once.”

“True,” interjected Cui, “and the Americans have no force of authority beyond a physical presence. They could order us away, but they would have no means of backing up their order. They would never risk initiating an attack by their ship on ours. Their vessel is obviously fragile, it’s a flying bundle of twigs. Even our light armament could permanently disable it in a matter of minutes. Their poorest tactician would understand this.”

“That, I entirely agree with,” replied Zhang. “Still, they may devise some kind of a response. We may not get more than one chance at this. Do we just pick a target at random? I’d rather spend that chance on better than the flip of a coin.”

“I have a suggestion.” Dr. Gao, the astrophysicist, looked at her data slate. “Our instruments picked up low levels of radiation from many of the moonlets. I mean really low, nothing that would be hazardous to people, not even with prolonged exposure. But the interesting thing is that some of the spectra show a slight energy spike at 511 KV. That means positrons. Antimatter. Not much, just a handful of particles, but something has to be generating those positrons. That technology has to be associated with this antimatter storage that Fang-Castro spoke of. If we should go examine one: it would establish our right to work among the alien artifacts, and there’d be nothing the Americans could do to prevent it.”

Zhang punched through to Comm: “Put a chart of the planetoid and its accompanying fleet on the conference room screen.”

The map popped up a moment later, a complicated skein of artifacts encircling the planetoid, the moonlets flying in a steady formation, other, smaller ones moving between the moonlets and the rings.

“There’s the one we want,” Gao said, tapping one of the smaller vehicles, which was moving toward the nearest of the moonlets.

Zhang turned to the political officer. “Mr. Duan, do you see any aspects of this plan which conflict with our orders from Beijing?”

Duan considered the matter for a double handful of seconds before replying. “Sir, I don’t see anything in this plan that contravenes the Party’s instructions. But I feel I must register an objection to your actions at the planetoid. We had clear instructions not to engage with the Nixon .”

“Which, Mr. Duan, I followed to the letter. I did not engage the American ship directly in any fashion. I tested the waters… and their resolve. The verbal exchanges were meaningless theatrics. We learned what we needed to know without engaging.” He turned to Cui. “Mr. Cui, I want you to work up a list of personnel for the shuttle mission to the moonlet. I want everyone on that trip who could possibly be of any use in investigating the alien technology. If we’re fortunate, this won’t be the only opportunity to study their technology, but we can’t count on that. Assume the worst about the Americans: that is our one and only chance.”

He then turned and spoke directly with the camera that was recording and transmitting the conference. “To you experts in Beijing, I would suggest that the American commander was probably telling the truth, and that her assessment of the balance of power between our two ships was accurate. Therefore, I believe that the Nixon will be leaving in two days. I don’t believe that she was being entirely candid with us: there may be other issues here, but we can’t know what they are, unless there is some special intelligence of which I’m not aware. I believe that there would be some profit in investigating the moonlets, and perhaps some legal precedent would be set by doing such an investigation. However, I will suspend any further action from this ship until we have time to confer with you in Beijing. We have much work to do in repairing this ship, and we will do that, starting immediately. We await your counsel.”

President Santeros: “The goddamn Chinese ought to learn how to speak proper English. I’ve got this Mandarin translator telling me what the chairman is saying, and I have no way of knowing if he’s getting the implications right, and the goddamn Chinese don’t speak in anything but implications.”

Out of sight, behind her, the chairwoman of the Joint Chiefs stuck the knuckles of her fist into her mouth, to keep from laughing. Santeros, who apparently had a monitoring screen in front of her, snapped, “I saw that, White…”

Crow, sitting in the conference room next to Fang-Castro, muttered, “Just tell us what they fuckin’ implied.”

Fang-Castro: “Shhh,” although nothing was outgoing at the moment. It was wall-to-wall Santeros, with a few advisers, from the Oval Office.

“Anyway,” Santeros said, “the Chinese are screaming at us and say that they will gather a coalition of other geopolitical entities to penalize us for this blatant violation of space law. They insist that their crew be given access to the alien primary, and say that they will begin immediate investigations into other alien vessels in the fleet around the primary. However, there’s a goddamn implication that they won’t act until they can get agreement from the other geopolitical entities, and that will take about, mmm, two days…”

Crow said, “All right. We won.”

“…But you better be prepared to get the hell out of the neighborhood. All that stuff about leaving trade points was fine, and helping with repairs, that’s good, but sooner or later, they’re going to find out about the memory modules, and the fact that we’re sneaking away like a thief in the night. Then, the shit’s gonna hit the fan. We gotta hope you can get out of range before that happens.”

Fang-Castro called Zhang. The Chinese comm said, “Our commander has been promoted. You may call him Admiral Zhang now. We will put you through.”

Crow, standing to one side, whispered, “They didn’t want him negotiating with a superior officer. They jumped him two ranks. If he’s a Chinese admiral, he technically outranks you now. He’ll have two stars.”