Harry Turtledove - Second Contact

Somebody stuck his head into the compartment where Johnson was rubbernecking: Danny Perez, one of the radiomen who’d helped show the world a sardonic face while the space station stayed in orbit. “It’s pretty, all right,” he said now, “but I wouldn’t get real excited about it. It’s not like we’re going back.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s what everybody’s been saying since we left,” Johnson answered. “I’ll be damned if I signed up to go rock-hunting a couple of hundred million miles from home, though.”

“Sir, when you came looking around, you signed up,” Perez said, snotty and deferential at the same time. “Now you’re here for the duration, just like the rest of us who really did volunteer.”

“Thanks a lot,” Johnson said, which only made the radioman laugh. “Christ, I still don’t see why you guys had to keep this place as secret as you did.”

“Don’t look at me. I just work here.” Perez grinned, his teeth very white in his swarthy face. “You want to know that kind of stuff, the only one who can tell you is General Healey.”

“I don’t think I want to know that bad,” Johnson muttered, at which Perez laughed again and zoomed away.

But, less than an hour later, the intercom blared forth the news that Healey wanted to see Johnson. One thing the crews that built the Lewis and Clark had done: they’d put handholds everywhere. Johnson swung along corridors the way Tarzan dreamt of swinging through the trees. And if he missed one hold, he didn’t have to worry about falling into a river full of crocodiles. All he had to do was let momentum carry him along till he latched onto another.

And so, much sooner than he wanted, he found himself back in the office to which Alan Stahl had guided him. Brigadier General Charles Healey, belted into a chair, looked no friendlier now than he had then. Fixing Johnson with a cold, gray-eyed glare, he said, “How are we going to make you useful, Johnson?”

“Sir, you already know I’ve got a lot of time in space,” Johnson began.

“So does everyone else aboard the Lewis and Clark ,” Healey said.

“Yes, sir, but I’ve got piloting experience,” Johnson answered. “Most people”- including you, you son of a bitch — “are just passengers.”

Healey’s scowl got even chillier. “You have piloting experience with rockets, not under continuous acceleration.”

“Sir, I have piloting experience with aircraft under continuous acceleration-everything from a Stearman trainer up to an F-83-and on Peregrine , too,” Johnson said. “One more kind of piloting won’t faze me, not after better than twenty years of flying.” He fiddled with the belt on his own chair, across the desk from Healey’s.

“Lieutenant Colonel, I only wish there were some way I could make you spend your whole tour aboard the Lewis and Clark breaking rocks,” Healey said. “As best I can see, you came aboard this ship with the deliberate intention of spying on it. You had already attempted to gather information you were not authorized to have, and your visit was most likely more of the same.”

He was right, of course. Johnson was damned if he’d admit as much, though. “Sir, I can’t help it if Peregrine ’s motor picked exactly the wrong minute to go on the blink.” He’d said the same thing so many times, he needed a distinct effort of will to recall that he’d made the motor go on the blink.

“You’re a liar. Coincidences are never that convenient, not unless they’re arranged,” Brigadier General Healey said. Johnson said nothing at all. With any luck, Healey would have a stroke on the spot. He was certainly turning purple. Fixing Johnson with the evil eye again, he went on, “If I could prove you’re a liar, you’d go out the air lock, Lieutenant Colonel, and your next of kin would get your death benefits.”

He wasn’t joking. A chill went up Johnson’s spine. Maybe Healey would have been able to get authorization from Kitty Hawk or Little Rock for an unfortunate accident. Maybe he wouldn’t have bothered with authorization. Maybe he would have just… taken care of things.

He kept on looking at Johnson with deep discontent. “But I can’t prove that, dammit-so you get to keep breathing. And, since you get to keep breathing, you’re going to have to make yourself useful. Maybe you will end up in pilot training. I can’t say for sure yet. I still have to do some more checking on you.” By the way he said it, he’d end up knowing what Johnson had thought of his fourth-grade teacher.

“May I ask a question, sir?” Johnson asked.

“You may ask. I don’t promise to answer,” Healey said. “A lot of questions you’re probably thinking about, I almost promise not to answer.”

I won’t lose my temper, Johnson told himself. And he didn’t, though holding it wasn’t easy. He said, “Sir, all I want to know is, what are we really going to be doing out in the asteroid belt for the rest of our lives? Going out there is one thing. Staying out there… that’s something else.”

“Have you asked other people?” Healey demanded. “What have they said?”

“They’ve said to ask you,” Johnson answered, “and so that’s what I’m doing.”

For the first time in their brief, stormy acquaintance, Healey looked pleased. “Good,” he said. “You can see by this that no one here is much inclined to trust you any further than I do.”

“Yes, sir,” Johnson said with a sigh. He had seen that. He didn’t like it for beans. Again, he managed to forget almost completely that he had approached and boarded the Lewis and Clark intending to snoop. “And so, sir, I am asking you,” he repeated. “I’m not going anywhere now-it’s an awfully long walk home.” The images of crescent Earth and moon hanging together in space sprang into his mind again. How soon would they stop being crescents and turn into nothing but stars?

“We are going out to become a base for American prospectors, you might say, in the asteroid belt,” Healey told him. “You’ll have gathered that for yourself, I shouldn’t wonder. All sorts of useful minerals among the asteroids-all we have to do is find them. Ice, too, or so it seems, and where there’s ice, there’s hydrogen and oxygen-rocket fuel and stuff we can breathe. Doesn’t that make sense to you?”

“Yes and no, sir,” Johnson answered. “Yes because I want us to go out into space as much as the next guy does. We need to be there, and this is an important step. I understand that. I don’t understand why we’re never going home, and I don’t understand why we kept the Lewis and Clark secret for so long. We could have told the Lizards what we were up to. They wouldn’t have tried to stop us. They would have just laughed. They’re not interested in anything but Earth.”

“You have a touching faith in them, Johnson,” Healey said. “Some of us are less trusting-of them, of you, of things in general.”

“I’ve noticed that,” Johnson said, as dryly as he dared. “Trouble is, the Lizards noticed it, too. So did the Germans and the Russians.”

“Hell with ’em,” Healey said. “Where we’re going, they’ll have the devil’s own time spying on us. As far as the Russians are concerned, we’re gone-they don’t have the capacity to come after us and look. The Lizards can, of course, but they won’t bother. You said it yourself: they think we’re nuts for going out there.”

Johnson wasn’t so sure he didn’t think the Lewis and Clark and her crew weren’t nuts for going out into deep space the way they were doing it, but he didn’t mention that. He did say, “The Lizards probably won’t send a piloted ship out to look at us, sir, but they could easily send a reconnaissance probe like the one I was looking over when my motor failed-I was in the neighborhood for a reason, you know.” He’d set it up that way. If he hadn’t set it up that way… If I hadn’t set it up that way, I’d probably be dead, he thought, and another chill went through him.