Bob Shaw - The Ceres Solution

“How?”

“Through Denny Hargate, of course. I’ll go after him and fetch him back to Earth. In all probability he’s already dead, but if he’s still alive he can testify for himself. Either way you’ll have your evidence.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, exasperated. “Now you’re being ridiculous.”

“Don’t dismiss it like that,” he said quickly. “All you have to do is tell me where to find the Bureau’s east coast node, and I promise you I’ll bring him back. Why are you shaking your head?”

“E for effort,” she replied, borrowing a Terran expression, “but I’m not talking. I’ve already let Vekrynn down once and I’m not doing it again.”

“I thought we had established that your true loyalties are with Helping Hand.”

“Is that what you call yourselves? Helping Hand?”

“Yes. It doesn’t sound sinister enough for the Bureau’s propaganda, so they refer to us as 2H. But that’s what we’re doing here on Earth, Gretana—we’re giving these people the helping hand they need.”

“By sabotaging the space colony?”

“There was a good reason for that,” Lorrest said. “It was part of the plan.”

“Oh, yes. The plan you’re not allowed to divulge, but when it comes to a head everybody in the world will know about it.” Gretana smiled faintly, remembering her resolve to be coolly unconcerned. “You don’t seem to have any idea how crazy that sounds—and you’re still demanding everything and giving nothing in return.”

“Only for your own good.” Lorrest walked to the other end of the kitchen and stood for a moment facing the window, and when he turned his face was troubled and irresolute. “Can I trust you, Gretana?”

I can show Vekrynn I’m not a fool , she thought, hiding a powerful surge of excitement. The thing is not to appear too eager…

“I thought I was the specialist in corny dialogue,” she said. “Does anybody ever admit to being untrustworthy?”

“You’re learning,” Lorrest replied, and when he spoke again his voice was subdued. “We’re going to…”

“Yes?”

He made an unconvincing attempt to grin. “We’re going to destroy the Moon.”

Gretana had never acquired a taste for neat brandy, but the shock it administered to her tongue was oddly comforting, a sensual link with the humdrum world. She took repeated sips from her glass, all the while keeping her gaze on Lorrest. He had tucked his left arm inside his jacket just above the first button, improvising a sling, and now was seated at the dining table. He had taken only one drink from his glass and was flicking its rim with a fingernail, producing ringing sounds which turned the surface of the liquid into an oscilloscope of transient bright circles. His expression was one of tiredness and elation.

“We’re very lucky on Mollan, never having contracted religion,” he said, “but as a result we’re linguistically deprived. I mean, the word you’re looking for now is blasphemous— you feel that what we’re about to do is blasphemy—but, being a godless Mollanian, you don’t have access to the appropriate expression.”

“I can think of others just as appropriate,” Gretana countered. “How about wild, insane, hare-brained…?”

“You’re not doing too well—those mean more-or-less the same thing, and they don’t really express your gut-feeling that it’s terribly wrong for mere human beings to start meddling with the Grand Scheme.”

“How about impracticable? Or improbable?”

“The plan is practicable, even with 2H’s limited resources.” Lorrest’s tone was becoming surer. “There’s a minor planet in this system, name of Ceres, with a diameter of about seven hundred kilometres. I presume you’ve heard about its disappearance?”

“Yes, but…What has that to do with the Moon?”

“We put a bank of mass displacement units on Ceres and drove it out of orbit. It’s on its way to the Moon right now, accelerating all the way, and in two days from now there’s going to be one hell of a collision.”

Objections swarmed in Gretana’s mind, reinforcing her instinctive rejection of what she had heard. “I don’t understand. It said in the news that Ceres had ceased to be visible, but if has only been moved…”

“We screened it. Optically, magnetically, gravitationally—every way you could think of—to stop the Bureau using deflectors on it when they deduce what’s going on.”

“They’ll find it,” she asserted, her confidence springing from faith in Warden Vekrynn’s omnipotence rather than any appreciation of the technical problems involved.

“No doubt,” Lorrest said. “The Bureau will compute its rough position, then they’ll find some way to deactivate our screens and make the asteroid visible—but it will be close to the Moon by that time, and we’ve taken steps to make sure their deflectors won’t be effective. Fireworks night will go ahead as planned.”

“I can’t imagine the Moon just breaking up.”

“It won’t happen immediately.” Lorrest spoke as though explaining some minor mechanical process. “It won’t be a head-on collision, you see. What we’ve got to do is strike the Moon a glancing blow at a precisely calculated angle and start it spinning fast. Very fast. The rotation will set up gravitational stresses in the Moon and tear it to pieces, and the pieces will go on spinning and breaking up into smaller pieces and scattering themselves. According to our calculations, the end result will be a whole swarm of little moonlets strung out along the Moon’s orbit. All the second-order and third-order forces will be pretty well neutralised, especially gravity, which is why we had to force an evacuation of the Aristotle colony. The Lagrange points will have ceased to exist, and for a while there’s going to be enough chaos on Earth without a runaway space colony to worry about.”

“What sort of chaos?”

“Well, for example, there’ll be no more lunar tides. All tidal energy schemes will have to be abandoned, coastlines are going to change, major sea ports are going to silt up.”

Gretana gave an uncertain laugh. “Helping Hand!”

“Exactly. And having demonstrated in an impressive manner that we exist and mean business, we’re going to come out in the open. We’re going to put ships into Earth orbit, make direct contact with heads of state, help to stabilise the world situation until the new generations of Terrans appear—the ones who haven’t had their genetic blueprints distorted.” Lorrest raised his brandy glass as though proposing a toast. “You’re lucky, Gretana—you’re going to witness the birth of a new world.”

“And how many of the people who actually inhabit this world are going to be unlucky?”

Lorrest frowned. “Meaning?”

“The period of chaos…culture shock…reduced energy supplies…food and commodity shipments disrupted…How many Terrans are going to die as a result?”

“You can’t look at it like that,” Lorrest said impatiently. “If we do nothing the whole bloody lot are going to die sooner or later. Sooner, if you ask me.”

“What if I don’t ask you?” She kept her voice level. “What if I don’t regard you as any kind of authority?”

Lorrest slammed his glass down on the table, spilling some of its contents. “Igetit—you’re not going to give me the nodal point.”

“I never said I would.”

“You are learning, aren’t you?” Lorrest stood up, his face hardening as she had seen it do before, losing all trace of its characteristic amiability. “What next? A quick jaunt to Station 23 to report me to Vekrynn?”

“No, I’m prepared to keep this to myself—as long as you never come near me again,” Gretana said, and to give the lie more credence added, “Besides, I have no intention of leading you straight to the node.”