Antares Passage E-Book

Michael McCollum

• Herausgeber: JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

After more than a century of isolation, the paths between stars are again open and the people of Alta in contact with their sister colony on Sandar. And yet, the opening of the foldlines has not been the pure blessing the Altans had supposed. The reestablishment of interstellar travel has brought with it news of the encroaching Ryall, an alien race whose goal is the extermination of humanity. If they are to avoid defeat at the hands of the alien forces, Alta must seek out the military might of Earth. The only suitable path, however, requires a journey into the heart of a supernova...

Leseprobe

ANTARES PASSAGE

Copyright © 1987, 1998, 2019 by Michael McCollum

All rights reserved.

Published as an eBook in 2019 by JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.

ISBN 978-1-625674-32-6

Cover design by John Fisk

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.

49 W. 45th Street, 12th Floor

New York, NY 10036

http://awfulagent.com

[email protected]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Foldspace Chart

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

About the Author

Also by Michael McCollum

Antares and Spica Foldspace Clusters

PROLOGUE

THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF A STAR

The star was a relative newcomer to the galactic scene. It had begun life as a vast cloud of interstellar hydrogen which over the millennia had collapsed in upon itself, pulled together by gravitational attraction. As the cloud coalesced, the gas at its center grew hotter. After a while, the interior began to glow with a visible light. Then one day, the temperature at the cloud’s center reached the level where hydrogen fuses into helium. On that day, a new star blazed forth to illuminate the blackness of the interstellar night.

For millions of years the star shone with a luminosity equal to that of several thousand of its lesser brethren. Indeed, the star’s radiance made it a beacon visible across the length of the galaxy. However, such profligacy is not without its costs. Where smaller suns took as long as 10 billion years to consume their available supplies of fusible hydrogen, the giant star managed the same feat in less than a single gigayear. About the time the first apelike prehumans ventured forth onto the savannas of Africa, the star ran low on hydrogen fuel, and as quickly as it had flamed alight, the nuclear fire at its heart was snuffed out.

The end of fusion brought with it a resumption of the contraction that had molded the primordial cloud. As the core fell inward, its temperature rose precipitously. Within seconds, the temperature at the star’s center reached the point where helium fuses into carbon. The nuclear fire flamed anew, this time powered by the helium ash of the previous cycle. Since the new fire was hotter than the old, the star wasted energy even more lavishly than before. It expanded as well, providing a larger surface area from which to radiate the vigorous new energy to surrounding space. Along with the expansion came cooling of the star’s outermost layers, and a change in color. Where before the star had radiated a brilliant blue-white light, its visible surface was now a bright yellow-green color.

The star continued on the quick burning helium-carbon cycle until the time when the first agricultural settlements began to appear on Earth. Then, having depleted its supply of helium, the inner fire failed, triggering yet another cycle of contraction and heating. This time it was the turn of the carbon atoms to provide the star’s new source of energy. Once again, the new fuel produced more energy than previously, forcing the star’s surface to expand to provide sufficient area to radiate the heat. By the time the star stabilized at 400 solar diameters, its hue had shaded down from yellow-green to a deep red-orange.

The star was well into its dotage when the first human telescopes were turned its way. The first starships to arrive at the star made note of this fact a few centuries later when they recorded more neutrinos than expected pouring forth from the star’s fiery interior. It was obvious even then that the star had not long to live. Still, a stellar lifetime is a very long time, and no one truly expected the end to come as quickly as it did.

At 17:32 hours on 3 August 2512, the star exhausted the last of its carbon fuel. Within seconds, the old cycle of contraction and heating began again. This time things were different, however. For now, the star’s core was rich in iron, and iron cannot be fused to produce energy. Rather, fusing iron nuclei rob energy from their surroundings. With its core hopelessly chilled by iron fusion reactions, the star gave up its ages-old fight with gravity. The core began its final collapse.

As billions upon countless billions of tons of matter fell inward, they gave up the potential energy they had stored through the millennia. This “energy of position” reappeared as heat, causing the temperature at the center of the star to rise rapidly toward infinity. Some of this heat was radiated into the middle layers of the star’s atmosphere; which, unlike the core, were still rich in unburned hydrogen. A furious thermonuclear reaction resulted. In the blink of an eye, the star began to produce as much energy each second as it had previously radiated away in its entire lifetime.

The end came quickly as the star exploded in the most titanic explosion ever witnessed by human beings.

CHAPTER 1

It was high noon when the commercial shuttle touched down at Homeport Spaceport. Even so, the Antares Nebula was clearly visible in Alta’s deep purple sky if one knew where to look. It had been three years since the nova had first burned bright in the Altan heavens, and while Antares was no longer the eye-searing spark it had once been, the supernova’s power and its relative proximity assured that it would be visible in daylight for several years to come.

Fleet Captain Richard Arthur Drake unstrapped from his seat and stood to remove his kit bag from the shuttle’s overhead baggage compartment. Around him, four dozen fellow passengers did the same. Then each man and woman queued up in the shuttle’s center aisle and waited patiently for the landing bridge to be maneuvered across the shuttle’s wing and attached to the midships airlock.

Drake was of medium height, with a lean, muscular figure. His hair, which he wore in the close-cropped style of a military spacer, was black with a touch of gray around the edges. A tiny network of worry lines emanated from the corners of his green eyes, and a whitish scar cut one of his eyebrows into two unequal sections. As he moved slowly down the aisle, he did so with the smooth motion of one who has learned to maneuver under widely varying conditions of acceleration and gravity.

The crowd was slow to disembark. As each passenger reached the storage lockers just forward of the midships airlock, he or she would stop and sort through the carry-on luggage, blocking the aisle in the process. Normally, Drake would have found his patience running short at the continued delay. Not today. After six months spent breathing the reconstituted effluvium that passed for breathing gas aboard a starship, he was more than happy to merely stand and inhale deeply of the virgin air that wafted in through the open airlock.

Eventually, he found himself across the landing bridge and inside the terminal building. He threaded his way through the waiting crowd and was about to board a slide walk for the main terminal building when a familiar voice called out: “Richard!”

Drake turned at the sound and was nearly overwhelmed by the fragrant bundle of femininity that flew into his embrace. Arms wrapped around his neck and warm lips pressed hungrily against his mouth. He responded in kind for long seconds before breaking free of his assailant with a grin.

“Excuse me, Miss, but do I know you?”

“You’d better know me,” Bethany Lindquist replied with mock severity. “We’ve got a date at the altar, remember?”

“Do we?” he asked. “The last time I asked, you said that you didn’t want to set a date because…”

“You knew what I meant! Now stop teasing me before I forget that you ever asked me.”

“Yes, Ma’am, except as I remember, you asked me.”

“Then your memory is faulty, sir. Now then, aren’t you happy to see me?”

“You know I am, Beth. Here, stand back and let me look at you.” Drake thrust his fiancée out to arms’ length and feasted on the sight of her. Bethany was nearly as tall as he was, with a well-proportioned figure and an easy, graceful stance. Her heart shaped face was framed by shoulder-length auburn hair. Her green eyes had a slight slant to them that complemented her high cheekbones. She was smiling broadly, which produced dimples in her cheeks. After long seconds of mutual inspection, he pulled her close again and sighed. “My God, you’re more beautiful than I remember!”

“Thank you, kind sir. May I say the same about you?”

“You may. How the hell did you know I was coming, anyway?”

“I have my spies.”

“I’ll bet you do. But seriously, how did you know? I didn’t know myself which ship I would be on until a few hours before I left Felicity Base.”

“First of all, they’re holding a Parliamentary briefing concerning the Helldiver Project at the Admiralty tomorrow. I knew you would be attending.”

“That’s supposed to be a secret.”

“Not to me. I’m an invited participant.”

“You are?”

She nodded. “I’m the official representative of the terrestrial ambassador, remember?”

“Ah, yes. Now I remember why we can’t get married. Something about your duty to your uncle…”

“Hmmm, do I detect a hint of annoyance in your tone, m’love?”

“More than a hint,” he muttered.

“How sweet!”

“Don’t change the subject. How did you know I’d be on this shuttle?”

“My uncle told me.”

“How the hell did he know?”

“He has an office on Parliament Hill now. He hears things.”

“He could have been wrong, you know. What if I hadn’t come through that door just now?”

Bethany shrugged. “Then I would have met every arriving ship for the next month if I’d had to.” She snuggled close and kissed him again. “Oh, Richard, it’s so good to have you home!”

“Good to be home,” he replied with his nose nestled in her fragrant hair. After a long moment in which no one spoke, they released each other by mutual consent. Drake sighed deeply and said, “Well, shall we go in search of the rest of my luggage?”

“Suits me,” Bethany replied.

They avoided the slide walk, preferring to walk arm in arm down the long concourse. Drake found himself whistling under his breath. As they walked, he became aware of the warmth of her beside him, and of the general acuteness of his senses. He watched the bustle around him with newly sharpened vision.

Overhead were several large holoscreens. Some were used to display launching and arrival information; others directed travelers to various destinations within the spaceport, while still others displayed the latest news concerning the recently completed election. Drake ignored the latter. He’d had all the “news” he cared for on the long flight down from Felicity Base.

They came to the end of the concourse and turned left into the main section of the spaceport terminal building. A large holocube stood at the point where several slide walks spilled their loads into the cavernous terminal. Inside the cube stood a creature from out of a nightmare.

* * *

The basis for interstellar travel was established by Bashir-ben-Sulieman in 2078. Sulieman, an astronomer working out of Farside Observatory, Luna, spent his life measuring the precise positions and proper motions of several thousand stars. After two decades of work, he reluctantly concluded that existing gravitational theories did not adequately explain the placement of various stars within the galactic spiral arm of which Sol is a member. Sulieman became convinced that space is not only curved locally around planetary and stellar masses as Einstein had maintained, but that it is also folded back upon itself in long lines stretching across thousands of light-years. He theorized that these foldlines originate in the massive black hole that occupies the center of the galaxy, and that they stream outward in complex patterns along the spiral arms. He further theorized that whenever such a foldline encounters a star, it is focused much as a lens focuses a beam of light; and if that focus is sufficiently sharp, a weak spot, or foldpoint, appears in the fabric of the space-time continuum.

Twenty years after Sulieman’s revelation, scientists positioned a spaceship within one of the two foldpoints known to exist within the Solar System and released copious quantities of energy in a precisely controlled pattern. The energy release caused the ship to be instantaneously transported along the foldline to the system of Luyten’s Star, some 12.5 light-years distant from Sol.

There was no holding the human race back after that. Over the next several centuries, the leakage of population into space became a flood. The pattern of the migration was determined almost entirely by the shape of foldspace, as the aggregate of foldlines and foldpoints came to be called. While some stars were found to possess only a single foldpoint, others were endowed with two, three, or more. The biggest, most massive stars were found to be especially fertile centers of foldpoint production; and therefore, the systems of these stars became the crossroads of interstellar travel. The red-orange supergiant star Antares was the champion foldpoint producer throughout human space. Its six interstellar portals made Antares the linchpin of a network of related star systems known collectively as the Antares Foldspace Cluster.

When Antares exploded on 3 August 2512, the immediate effects were felt far beyond the confines of the Antares system. The release of so concentrated a burst of energy jolted the very fabric of space-time; and with it, the structure of foldspace for hundreds of light-years in every direction. In some systems, foldpoints underwent radical changes of position, while in others; foldpoints appeared where none had previously existed. In still other star systems, preexisting foldpoints disappeared without a trace.

The F8 dwarf star known as Valeria had been doubly unlucky. Situated 125 light-years from Antares, the Val system was what foldspace astronomers called a cul-de-sac, a star with but a single foldpoint. When Antares exploded, Valeria’s foldpoint had simply disappeared. Thus, it was that the human colony on Valeria IV (Alta to its inhabitants) had found itself isolated from the rest of human space for a century and a quarter. Then, early in the year 2637 (Universal Calendar), Antares had burned bright in the Altan sky, signaling the arrival of the leading edge of the nova shockwave. Simultaneous with the passage of the nova shockwave, Valeria’s foldpoint had reappeared high in the system’s northern hemisphere.

* * *

“What’s this?” Drake asked Bethany, gesturing toward the display.

“Part of the government’s ‘Know Thy Enemy’ campaign,” she replied. “They’ve got them in most public places. Push the button and it will spew out all manner of interesting facts. Here, listen.” As she spoke, she stepped forward and pressed a stud that jutted from the base of the holocube. The image came to life and seemed to peer down at them. At the same time, a sonorous voice began to speak.

“The creature you see before you, sir or madam, is a Ryall, and the mortal enemy of all humanity…”

The image in the holocube was that of a creature designed along the lines of a six-legged centaur. The legs were short, less than half-a-meter in length, and culminated in wide pad like feet. Their shortness was amply compensated for by the creature’s fore body – a vertical torso topped by a long, flexible neck that carried the alien’s head to the height of a man’s. The head was wide at the back, showing considerable cranial bulge, and narrow at the front where a toothy snout jutted forward some fifteen centimeters. The eyes were set wide apart, such that the creature had trouble looking straight ahead. In the hologram, its head was cocked to one side, as though scanning the faces of passersby. The mouth was partially open, showing two rows of conical teeth and a triply forked tongue. On top of the head were two flaps of skin stretched taut by rigid, spike like projections. Of nostrils or any equivalent, there was no sign.

Two heavily muscled arms attached to the fore body at the same point as the neck. The creature’s hands consisted of four slender fingers flanked by two opposable thumbs. At the opposite end of the main body, a meter-long tail dragged the ground. The Ryall’s hide was scaled, the scales shading from gray-green on top to light beige beneath.

The lecturing voice continued. “… Although the Ryall bear a passing resemblance to both terrestrial and Altan reptiles, they are neither. Indeed, they do not fit particularly well into any of our normal taxonomic categories. They are warm-blooded and the females suckle the young – although on a mixture of blood and nutrients rather than milk. In spite of these mammal-like traits, they also lay eggs. Note the vestigial webs between the fingers of each hand, and again between the short digits on the feet. The Ryall evolved as aquatic animals and did not leave the water for the land until quite recently in their past. Experts tell us that they were forced from the water by another sentient race on their home world, a race the Ryall call the swift eaters. It is this incident in their history that we believe makes them so territorial that they have attacked us without provocation. That being the case, the only thing left for us to do is…”

Drake did not wait to find out what the narrator had in mind. He nudged Bethany and said, “Come on, we’ve better things to do than listen to this.”

She glanced at him and smiled slyly. “Maybe we can ask the taxi driver to take a shortcut into town.”

* * *

The return of their star’s foldpoint should have been front-page news throughout the Valeria system. In fact, no one noticed. For a foldpoint is a difficult object to find under the best of circumstances, and after 125 years of isolation, the Altans had stopped looking. Therefore, it came as something of a shock when an unidentified starship materialized high above Val’s ecliptic and immediately began thrusting for deep space.

Despite their surprise, the Altans lost no time in dispatching a ship to investigate. What it discovered was a battered warship bearing the markings of the Grand Fleet of Earth, and a crew of corpses. Somewhere in its travels, the Earth fleet blastship had been badly mauled in battle and abandoned by its surviving crewmembers. After that, it had jumped blindly from foldpoint to foldpoint under the control of a radiation-damaged autopilot, eventually ending up in the Val system.

With evidence of fighting beyond the foldpoint, the Altans had hurriedly organized an expedition to scout the situation. The expedition’s first destination had been the Napier system and the colony world of New Providence. It had been from New Providence that Alta had originally been colonized. What the Altan expedition found was an ancestral home abandoned by its inhabitants. It had not been difficult to discover the reason. All the while the Altan ships were in the system, their outside radiation monitors had chattered wildly. New Providence and the whole Napier system had been made uninhabitable by the radiation from the nearby Antares Supernova.

The discovery that New Providence was a dead world had saddened, but not surprised, the Altans. A number of astronomers had warned them that the fifteen light-years that separated Napier from Antares was insufficient to protect the system from the full fury of the supernova. What had surprised the Altans was the condition in which they found most of New Providence’s cities. The steady rain of high-energy photons and charged particles was deadly to all forms of life, but should not have materially affected the concrete, stone, and steel that comprises a city. The Altans had expected to find a world of abandoned, but pristine, municipalities.

What they found instead were horizon-to-horizon ruins bearing the unmistakable signs of nuclear bombardment. Shocked at the sight of widespread destruction, the Altans had dug through the ruins, searching for clues to what had precipitated the fighting. What they found had been the biggest surprise of all. For, contrary to the explorers’ expectations, the New Providentials had not fallen to fighting among themselves. They had been attacked by a race of centauroid aliens, the Ryall.

Shortly after learning of the aliens’ existence, the Altan expedition had departed the Napier system for the neighboring system of Hellsgate. New Providence had established a second interstellar colony in the Hellsgate system. According to the records, the Altans found in the ruins, it had been to this second colony that New Providence’s refugees had fled.

The Altan ships had entered the Hellsgate system and quickly made contact with the inhabitants. They discovered that Sandar (the colony planet in the system) had been at war with the Ryall for more than a century. Before the Altans were finished, they were given the opportunity to view the war at first hand!

* * *

Richard Drake was jolted awake by a low-pitched hooting from somewhere outside. His first thought was that it was the cry of a night hunting calu beast. Then, as he came more awake, he remembered that there had not been a calu sighted in Homeport in more than a century.

“What is that?” he asked softly in the blackness.

Bethany stirred beside him, stretching as she came awake. After a moment’s silence, she said, “I must have fallen asleep. What time is it?”

Drake glanced at the disembodied red numerals that floated in the darkness where he remembered the nightstand to be. “Nearly twenty hundred. What’s that noise outside?”

Bethany sat up in bed and listened. “Oh, that’s just the space raid siren. They announced a drill this morning on the news.”

“How do you know it isn’t a real raid?” he asked.

“Hmmm,” she responded. “You don’t think the Ryall would have the bad taste to launch an attack during a scheduled drill, do you?”

He laughed. “I’m sure they would if they could. However, they would have to get past the Sandarians first. Since we haven’t heard of any major Ryall successes in the Hellsgate system, I think we’re safe for the time being.”

“Depolarize the window, Richard. I want to let the night in.”

“Where’s the control?”

“On the nightstand, beside the clock. The large round knob next to the light switch.”

Drake fumbled for the control, found it, and turned it full in the clockwise direction. As he did so, one whole wall of the bedroom disappeared as the floor-to-ceiling window went from 100% opaque to fully transparent.

Beyond the window lay a clear, calm night. Across the Tigris River, the lights of Homeport shone brilliantly in subdued colors, while Antares hovered low in the western sky. The nova shed a light the color of a mercury vapor lamp and suffused the countryside with a pale silver glow. Directly in front of them, nova light reflected from the surface of the river to produce a broad band of silver across which a small pleasure boat moved upstream in silence.

Bethany rolled onto her stomach and propped her head on a pillow. “Isn’t the night beautiful, Richard? Look what the nova’s done to the river!”

Drake reached out and let his fingertips trace the soft curves of her spine. “You’re the one who is beautiful.”

In the distance, the soft ululation of the siren slowly drifted down toward the limits of audibility.

“I guess that’s it,” she said. “I wonder how much use these drills will be if we’re ever raided for real?”

“Not much,” he replied. “They’re mostly to get people in the proper mood. If you are rousted out of bed in the middle of the night to seek shelter, you’re more likely to put up with the extra inconveniences a war economy requires.”

“I always suspected as much. Not to change the subject, but are you hungry?”

“Famished,” he replied

“Then opaque the window and turn on some lights. I will make us a snack. We can eat out on the balcony and watch the nova set.”

“If that is your wish, my love.”

“It is. Hurry, it will be down in an hour.”

Drake rolled over and reset the window control, followed by the overhead lights. They dressed quickly. Bethany busied herself in the kitchen while he set the table on her balcony. Fifteen minutes later, they were enjoying a late supper of roast beef, cril greens, and coffee. The coffee was nothing like the bitter Earth original, but rather an Altan product that the founders of the colony had decided was the closest local substitute. As they ate, they watched Antares sink toward the western horizon.

They watched in silence for long minutes before Drake turned to Bethany and asked, “Will you marry me?”

“It seems to me that I’ve answered that question more than once,” she replied.

“No,” he persisted. “I don’t mean marry me someday. I mean marry me now, this very minute! We’ll call up city hall and register our vows, then roust the nearest city magistrate out of bed.”

“We shouldn’t have to roust anyone out. It’s only 20:30 hours.”

“Even better. We’ll have the whole thing over in an hour.”

Bethany caressed his cheek with her hand. “I’ll do it if you insist, Richard, but I would rather wait. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it these last six months, and I’ve decided I want a big church wedding.”

He shrugged. “Fine. I’ll see if I can’t reserve a church for next weekend. Surely, the boss will give me the time off if I tell him why I want it. You can invite your uncle and friends, and I will invite everyone at the Admiralty who has ever spoken to me. We will even throw in fifty or so strangers to fill out the crowd. I guarantee a minimum attendance of two hundred!”

She laughed. “You don’t understand, Richard. I don’t want a big wedding in a church. I want a wedding in a big church!”

“You’re right, I don’t understand you.”

“It’s simple really, darling. I have decided that I want to be married in Notre Dame Cathedral. You know, the one in Paris, France.”

“You want to be married on Earth?”

She nodded. “I thought it would be a nice touch.”

“I’m not sure Notre Dame exists any longer.”

She shrugged. “Then Westminster Abbey, or St. Peter’s Basilica will do just as well. Or even the Little Chapel by the Road. Just as long as we’re married on Earth.”

“Has it occurred to you that we may never find Earth again?”

“I have confidence, Richard. We’ll find it because we must.” Bethany got up and stretched. “Now then, if you are through eating, sir, I think it’s time we went back to bed.”

“What about the nova? There are still fifteen minutes before it sets.”

“We can see Antares anytime, and it isn’t every night a woman receives a proposal of marriage.”

“Or avoids it so skillfully,” he said, glancing one last time at the setting star. When he turned his attention back to the table, he discovered that he was speaking to an empty balcony. Lifting a napkin from his lap, he dropped it on the table, stood, and followed her inside.

CHAPTER 2

Except wind stands as never it stood.

It is an ill wind that blows no one good.

–Thomas Tusser, 16th Century Poet

There had not been a single inhabitant of Alta – or of the entire Valeria system, for that matter – whose life had not been drastically changed by the Antares Supernova. When the nova first burst bright in the Altan sky, it had transformed the darkness of Alta’s night into an eerie daylight as it flooded land and sea with harsh blue-white radiance. Most Altans had been initially enchanted by the phenomenon, although mothers had often complained that their children refused to sleep with the nova light peeking around the edges of their curtains.

Then had come word of the restoration of the foldpoint. The news had been greeted with universal joy as the pent-up frustrations of The Long Isolation were released. The celebration had gone on for days and a new spirit of enthusiasm and hope had surged throughout the system. For months, it had seemed that Alta was on the verge of prosperity unknown in its history.

Slowly the nova had faded from its period of maximum brilliance. While it did so, Alta had eagerly awaited the return of its expedition to the Napier and Hellsgate systems. The day had finally come when the first of the expedition’s ships returned home, bringing with it news of the Ryall threat. The public mood had shifted almost overnight. Optimism turned suddenly to horror; enthusiasm was quickly transformed into fear. Night after night, the news services vied with each other to broadcast the most graphic views of the destruction of New Providence’s cities. No longer was the supernova regarded as Alta’s personal good luck charm. For most Altans, Antares had become the visible symbol of an uncertain and dangerous future.

If there was anyone who still had reason to be thankful for the nova in Alta’s sky, that man was Clarence Whitlow. Whitlow was the hereditary terrestrial ambassador to Alta, the fifth member of his family to hold that post. It was the job of the hereditary ambassadors to act as though nothing had changed when the supernova isolated Valeria from the rest of human space. As far as Whitlow and his predecessors were concerned, it was their job to represent Earth’s interests on Alta. The fact that they had had no instructions from home in 127 years was a matter not worthy of comment.

To Clarence Whitlow had fallen the lonely task of keeping an important tradition alive. That tradition held that Alta was part of a larger whole, a community of worlds built on the twin principles of tolerance and mutual respect. For thirty years, he had lived the fiction that Earth was still a factor in the affairs of Alta. It was a fiction that made him a comical figure to his friends and neighbors. As for official Homeport, save for a small yearly stipend voted by Parliament, he had been virtually ignored during his time as terrestrial ambassador.

The coming of the nova had changed all of that. Among the ships trapped in the Val system in 2512 were three heavy battle cruisers of Earth’s Grand Fleet. Part of the agreement by which the first terrestrial ambassador had ceded these three ships to the fledgling Altan Navy had been that all succeeding terrestrial ambassadors would have a say in their use beyond the Val system. To enforce the agreement, Whitlow’s great-great-grandfather had retained certain security codes needed to operate the cruisers’ jump engines. Clarence Whitlow, in turn, had used his possession of these codes to force a promise from Parliament that he would be consulted on all matters of interstellar policy. They had further agreed that Whitlow would have the right to send a personal representative along on any future interstellar expeditions.

For Clarence Whitlow, at least, the Antares Supernova had been an unmixed blessing.

* * *

Clarence Whitlow stood behind his oversize, onyxwood desk and stared out the window that adorned one wall of his office. Whitlow was a frail, white haired man who walked with a noticeable stoop. The stoop was the result of a progressive bone disease that the doctors had been able to arrest, but not to cure. His bent posture, along with his soft features, had led many an opponent to underestimate him over the past three years. Those who had done so had found that an iron will resided inside the stooped form.

Whitlow let his gaze sweep across the scene in front of him. Across a wide tree-lined boulevard was the black cube that housed the Altan Industrial Council. Next to it, in a structure every bit as imposing, was headquartered the Free Labor Association. On either side of the two were other buildings, each of which held the legions of special pleaders that have congregated around governmental centers since the days of Babylon. If Whitlow looked over the tops of the buildings of Lobbyist Row, he could just make out the ugly pile of stone and mortar that was the home of Alta’s Parliament.

Not for him this morning were the foreground details of government, however. Instead, he lifted his gaze above the concrete-and-marble of the government district, past the panorama of Homeport itself, to the azure mountain range that bulked up in the distance. To Whitlow’s eyes, the Colgate Mountains were the most beautiful on Main Continent; and that, as much as their proximity to the capital, had been the reason he had chosen to make his home in their foothills for most of his life. There had been many times over the past three years when he had wished that he was back in the mountains tending his roses.

Clarence Whitlow was jolted from his reverie by the sudden buzzing of the intercom on his desk. He passed a hand through thinning white hair and returned to his seat. Leaning forward, he keyed the intercom to life.

“Yes, Miss Preston?”

“Your niece is here, Mr. Ambassador.”

“Send her in!”

The office door opened almost immediately and Bethany entered. He could see by the broad smile on her face that her mission to the spaceport the previous day had been successful.

“I take it that you found your young man,” he said.

“Yes, Richard came in on the noon shuttle.”

“I told you that he would.”

“Just how did you know?” Bethany asked.

Whitlow shrugged. “I keep my eyes open and I see things. I listen carefully and I hear things.”

“Have you heard anything about today’s conference?”

“Ostensibly, it’s to be a classified briefing for newly elected Members of Parliament.”

“What does ‘ostensibly’ mean?” Bethany asked.

“I only note that they’ve had other Parliamentary briefings, and to my knowledge, neither the prime minister, nor Jonathan Carstairs, nor Richard Drake have been in attendance.”

“You’re implying that it’s something more?”

“I hear rumors.”

“What rumors?”

“That they may be about ready to make the decision to commit to a launch date. If so, it’s about time!”

Bethany nodded. “I understand Jonathan Carstairs has actually developed a nervous tic over what Helldiver has cost to date. It would be embarrassing to explain to the taxpayers how the Navy invested all that money, then wasn’t allowed to go.”

“I hope you’re right, Bethany. The sooner they launch, the sooner my accumulated dispatches will be delivered to an authorized representative of the Interstellar Council on Earth.” 

“Have you given any thought to what will happen then?” Bethany asked.

“I suppose I’ll retire. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “It’s just that we’ve been working toward this goal for so long, I often wonder what will become of us when we finally succeed. Do you suppose the IC will confirm you as ambassador once we’ve made contact?”

Whitlow’s expression flickered through a series of emotions before he answered. “Of course not! What a silly thing to say.”

“I don’t think so,” his niece said. “You’ve served them faithfully all these years. Why wouldn’t they keep you on?”

“Because, my darling child, you and I both know that I’ve only been playing a role these past three decades. It is the ideal of Earth that I have attempted to safeguard, not the reality. That ideal has been important to us. It has helped our people through the long years of isolation and exerted a moderating influence over our government. So long as the prime minister and Parliament are reminded that they may someday have to answer to a higher authority, they are restrained from some of the excesses that have plagued other governments throughout history.

“But let us not mistake my playacting for reality, Beth. I may possess the title of terrestrial ambassador, but I can never be the true representative of Earth. I am no less a colonist at heart than you. If Earth is at war with the Ryall, then they will need one of their own here in Homeport to look after their true interests. Have no illusions about it. They will turn me out to pasture in a moment.”

“Then why should we be loyal to them?”

“Because I gave my word to my father on his deathbed. I promised that I would do my very best for Earth. I have followed that credo for thirty years, and I do not propose to stop now.” Whitlow stared at his niece’s dour expression. “Besides, I’m looking forward to retirement. It will give me a chance to raise my roses.

“Enough of this. What did you and Richard do after you met him at the spaceport?”

Bethany brightened. “First we took a taxi to the Admiralty so Richard could check in with the first admiral. After that, we had a late lunch at the Mandarin Orange down by the river.”

“How was the food?”

“Excellent! The alos sprouts were done just the way you like them. You should try it sometime.”

“Perhaps you would consent to be my guide some day when you aren’t busy.”

“Sure.”

“Ah … was that all?”

Bethany felt her face redden. She and Richard had gone straight from the restaurant to her apartment, where they had made love until nightfall. That she would be intimate with her fiancé after six months of separation should not have surprised anyone. Still, it was uncharacteristic of her uncle to ask such a question. She avoided a direct answer by saying: “Richard asked me to marry him again.”

“I would have thought once enough.”

“We decided that we would have the ceremony on Earth,” Bethany replied with a grin. “In a cathedral if we can arrange it.”

Her uncle did not react as Bethany expected. Instead of congratulating her, he said, “That brings up a point which I’ve been meaning to discuss with you. I’ve been considering finding someone else to represent me on the Helldiver Expedition.”

“WHAT?”

“I’ve even thought of going myself.”

“You can’t, Uncle! Your heart would never stand up to the acceleration. Besides, what is wrong with me representing you? I’ve done it before and you didn’t seem to have any complaints.”

“You weren’t engaged to Captain Drake before.”

“What has that to do with anything?”

“A great deal, Beth. Do not get me wrong. No one was happier than when you returned from Sandar and announced your engagement to Richard Drake. He is, if you will pardon my saying so, a distinct improvement over your last fiancé. However, he is also the commander of the Altan contingent to the Helldiver Fleet. That means that he represents the interests of the Altan government. If you are to go along as my representative, then you must represent Earth. Make no mistake about that. Your first duty will be to the Interstellar Council.”

“I understand that perfectly.”

“I wonder if you do,” Whitlow said. “Have you considered that a situation may arise where you will find yourself at odds with your husband-to-be?”

“I would think, Uncle, that with the Ryall running around loose, the interests of Alta and Earth are the same.”

“They probably are. However, you are ducking the question, which is that they may not be. I must know that you will serve Earth first and Richard Drake second. Either that or I will find someone else to represent me. Can you assure me that you will be my honest advocate?”

Bethany hesitated for an uncomfortably long time. To Whitlow who had raised her, the inner turmoil was obvious. Finally, she said, “I think I can do it, Uncle. I hope and pray the situation will never arise; but if it does, I believe I can be sufficiently objective to think of Earth first.”

Whitlow nodded. “Good enough for now. However, should today’s conference result in a green light for Helldiver, I will expect your absolute pledge of loyalty. Anything less, bad heart or no, I will go in your place.”

* * *

The Admiralty building had been built in the earliest days of the Altan colony. It had originally been designed as the central government’s embassy and ambassadorial residence on Alta. Granville Whitlow, the terrestrial ambassador at the time of the nova, had ceded the building and grounds to the colonial government at the same time he had turned over the battle cruisers. For a century and a quarter, the building had housed the headquarters of the Altan Space Navy.

Richard Drake stepped from the taxi that had brought him from Bethany’s apartment. He bounded up the steps past the Marine guards who flanked the main entrance, and entered through the three-meter high armor plated doors at the front entrance. He marched briskly across a marble floor that still bore the stylized outline of Earth in its surface and presented his identification to the Marine sergeant who sat in a glass cage just inside the entrance. When the computer in the sub-basement concluded that he was indeed who he said he was, the sergeant directed him toward a bank of public lifts to his right.

“Fleet Captain Drake!”

Drake turned at the hail to find Commodore Douglas Wilson striding toward him. Wilson was the first admiral’s adjutant and chief of staff. “Good morning, sir.”

“Morning,” Wilson replied. “Ready for the big day?”

Drake nodded. “If this is it, I am.”

“Should be,” Wilson replied. “The Prime Minister’s attending the conference, and you can bet he wouldn’t be wasting his time if he weren’t ready to give us the go ahead.”

“What about the Conservative Alliance? Are they ready to give us their blessing?”

Wilson nodded. “Their leadership is, finally! Some of their newly elected rank-and-file types have been making troublesome noises. We will be briefing them. They’ve heard rumors about Helldiver and now want to see what it’s all about.”

“Do you think they’ll come around after they know the facts?”

Wilson shrugged expansively. “Who can tell with politicians? However, enough of this political talk. How go things at Felicity Base?”

“We’re in pretty good shape. Discovery is in the final phases of checkout, Dagger isn’t far behind, and City of Alexandria should begin systems integration testing sometime tomorrow.”

“What about the tankers?”

“They’re about on a par with Alexandria. All testing on the new generators should be completed within ten days. We could launch thirty days after that.”

“Hmmm,” Wilson mused. “I wonder how the Sandarians are doing.”

“From what I hear,” Drake replied, “they’re ahead of us.”

The two of them took the lift to the sixth floor where the Admiralty’s main conference room was located. The conference room was some ten meters square. At its center was a rectangular arrangement of tables covered with white tablecloths. The room was windowless. To make up for that, a large holoscreen had been affixed to each wall. At each place around the table stood a nameplate, a water glass, three pens, and a yellow pad of writing paper. Pitchers filled with water had been located at strategic locations. The only electronics in evidence were the controls used to operate the holoscreens.

Drake found his nameplate to the left of one bearing the name of First Admiral Dardan. Commodore Wilson took the seat on the Admiral’s right. Bethany and her uncle were already down the table on the opposite side. Drake smiled at his fiancée and received only the most cursory of smiles in response. He quickly ran through their conversation at breakfast, wondering what he had done or said that might have made her mad. She had been in good spirits when she had left for her uncle’s office that morning. Unable to come up with a cause for her apparent shift in mood, he put the subject from his mind. If he had done something to offend her, she would let him know soon enough.

Drake let his gaze sweep the table. Opposite him were several members of Parliament who were unfamiliar to him – which meant that they had been elected since the period four years earlier when he’d served as Parliamentary liaison officer for the Navy. On his side of the table were several of the prime minister’s aides, including Stanislaw Barrett. Across the table were several people from Homeport University.

He had just completed his inventory of the attendees when a voice from behind him said: “All rise for the Honorable Gareth Reynolds, Prime Minister of the Altan Republic; the Honorable Jonathan Carstairs, Leader of the Loyal Opposition; and Admiral Luis Dardan, Commander of the Altan Space Navy.”

The three men entered the room single file and then fanned out to take their individual seats. The others present stood respectfully until the prime minister had seated himself before returning to their own seats with considerable scraping of chairs. The prime minister waited for the noise to die down, then picked up an onyxwood gavel and banged it on the table. When the room had drifted into silence, Gareth Reynolds began to speak.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We are here today because several members of Parliament have requested a policy review on the program we all know by the code name Project Helldiver. It is the opinion of these petitioners that we were hasty in our approval of this effort two years ago when we signed the Sandarian Treaty. Since the project is nearing completion of Phase I and will shortly be ready for space, I propose to go beyond the question of policy, and make this meeting a full program readiness review. By that, I mean that we will discuss whatever needs discussing to determine whether we launch Helldiver on schedule, delay its departure, or cancel it altogether.

“We will begin with several presentations. I do not expect everyone to agree with everything they hear, nor do I ask anyone to surrender his or her right to voice an objection. However, I do ask you to hold any such remarks until after the speakers have finished. Also, when you rise to speak, please state your name and organization clearly for the record. Finally, I remind you that everything discussed here today is classified as an Altan state secret. What you hear here, stays here!

“Anyone have any questions? … If not, we will begin with Doctor Nathaniel Gordon, who will review our situation with regard to the current structure of foldspace. Doctor Gordon, you have the floor!”

CHAPTER 3

Nathaniel Gordon was a small man with nervous hands and a tendency toward pedantry. He stood at his seat, bowed formally in the direction of the prime minister, and said loudly: “Dr. Nathaniel Gordon, University of Homeport, Department of Foldspace Astronomy and Physics. May I please have the lights down?”

As the conference room sank into gloom, the holoscreens mounted high on each of the four walls lit to show a complex three-dimensional diagram. The figure on the screens was a rough ellipsoid shape composed of two hundred small white spheres connected in a seemingly random pattern by a series of curved red lines. It had the look of a child’s construction set or of a complex organic molecule model. Close by each of the spheres were small golden pyramid-shaped markers. Upon closer examination, it became apparent that the red connecting lines did not actually touch the spheres, but rather, terminated in every case at the golden markers.

“Before one can fully appreciate what the Helldiver Project proposes to accomplish,” Gordon began, “it is necessary to understand the effect the Antares Supernova has had on the structure of foldspace. The figure on the screens is undoubtedly familiar to many of you. It is a somewhat stylized diagram showing the major foldline links within human space – what we astronomers call a Foldspace Topology Chart, or FTC for short. This particular FTC represents the situation before the Antares Supernova of 2512. The small white spheres are stars, the red connecting lines are active foldline links, and the gold-colored triangles are charted foldpoints.

“The first thing one notices about this FTC is that fewer than five percent of all the stars in human space are charted. That is because the number of stars that possess foldpoints is less than one in twenty. Another point to note: It is the pattern of foldline connections between the stars, not their actual positions in space that is important.

“This is sometimes a difficult concept for laymen, so forgive me if I dwell on it a bit. Take the example of our own closest neighbor, the M2 dwarf star, Reglati-Sera. Even though Reglati is but three light-years distant from us, no human being has ever visited it. That is because Reglati-Sera belongs to the 95% of stars that do not possess foldpoints. Thus, in a very real sense, Valeria’s closest neighbor is not Reglati-Sera at all; but rather, Napier, from whence our ancestors came. The two systems are separated by 110 light-years through normal space, but only by a few billion kilometers via foldline link.”

Gordon manipulated the screen control in his hand, and another FTC of considerably less complexity replaced the diagram. The stars were far less densely packed and the scale was such that it was now possible to read the names of individual stars. At the center of the screen was a star around which were clustered six small golden triangles. Floating nearby were a series of green, glowing letters that spelled out: ANTARES.