Even if they could fool Pleiades, and me, into ignoring gigatons of excess mass, they couldn’t have disguised it from the real observers… the other space powers! They all keep watch on every U.S. satellite, as we watch every-
one else up here. They would have spotted any anomaly as big as Manella talks about.
Teresa felt relieved… and silly for not having thought of this sooner. Manella’s story was absurd. Spivey couldn’t have hidden a singularity on Farpoint. Not unless…
Teresa felt a sudden resurgent chill. Not unless all the space powers were in on it.
Pieces fell into place. Such as the bland, perfunctory way the Russians had accused America of weapons testing, then let the matter drop. Or the gentlemen’s agreement about not making orbital parameters public beyond three significant figures.
“Everyone is cheating on the treaty!” she whispered, in awe.
Now she understood why Manella was so insistent on acquiring her help. There might be more of the damned things up here! Half the stations between LEO and the moon might contain singularities, for all she knew! The data in her little recorder might be the key to tracking them down.
The enormity of her situation was dawning on her. Much as she resented the science tribunals for blocking some space technologies, Teresa nevertheless wondered what the world might have been like by now without them. Probably a ruin. Did she then dare help cause a scandal that could bring the entire system crashing down?
After all, she thought, it’s not as if Spivey’s people ignored the ban completely. They put their beast out here, where…
Again she slammed her thigh.
… where it killed friends, her husband… and put the space program back years!
Teresa’s eyes filmed. Her balled fist struck over and over until the hurt turned into a dull, throbbing numbness. “Bastards!” she repeated. “You gor-sucking bastards.”
So it was with grief-welled eyes that Teresa didn’t even notice sudden waves of color sweep the cabin, briefly clothing what had been gray in hues of spectral effervescence, then quickly fading again.
Outside, among the growing girders and tethers, one or two of the workers blinked as those ripples momentarily affected peripheral vision. But they were trained to concentrate on their jobs and so scarcely noticed as the phenomena came and swiftly passed away again.
By Teresa’s knee, however, the little box quietly and impartially recorded, taking in everything the shuttle’s instruments fed it.
PART IV
PLANET
The planet had orbited its sun only a thousand million times before it acquired several highly unusual traits, far out of equilibrium.
For one thing, none of its sister worlds possessed any free oxygen. But somehow this one had acquired an envelope rich in that searing gas. That alone showed something odd was going on, for without constant replenishment, oxygen must quickly burn away.
And the planet’s temperature was unusually stable. Occasionally ice sheets did spread, and then retreated under glaring sunshine. But with each swing something caused heat to build up or leak away again in compensation, leaving the rolling seas intact.
Those seas… liquid water covering two thirds of the globe… no other world circling the sun shared that peculiar attribute. Then there was the planet’s pH balance — offset dramatically from the normal acidic toward a rare alkaline state.
The list went on. So far from equilibrium in so many ways, and yet so stable, so constant. These were strange and unlikely properties.
They were also traits of physiology.
□ For all you farmers out there scratchin’ in the dry heat, tryin’ to get your sorghum planted before the soil blows away, here are a few little har-hars from bygone days. After all, if you can’t laugh at your troubles, you’re just lettin’ em get the upper hand.
“Yesterday I accidentally dropped my best chain down one of the cracks in my yard. This morning I went to see if I could fish it out, but by golly, I could still hear it rattling on its way down!”
Found that one in a book of jokes told by sod flippers here in the Midwest a hundred years ago, during the first Dust Bowl. (And yes, there was a first one. Had to be, didn’t there?) These gems were collected by the Federal Writers Project back in the 1930s… their version of Net Memory, I guess. Here’s some more from the same collection:
“I had a three-inch rain last week… one drop every three inches.”
“It was so dry over in Waco County, I saw two trees fighting over a dog.”
“It’s so dry in my parts, Baptists are sprinkling converts, and Methodists are wipin’ ’em with a damp cloth.”
As I sit here in the studio, spinning the old two-way dial, I see some of you have carried your holos out to the fields with you. I’ll try to talk loud so you can find your set later under the dust!
Well, okay, maybe that one wasn’t so good. Here’s two from the book I guess must be even worse.
“My hay crop is so bad, I have to buy a bale just to prime the rake.”
“This year I plan to throw a hog in the corn trailer and pick directly to him. Figure I shouldn’t even have to change hogs till noon.”
Anybody out there understand those last two? I have free tickets to the next Skywriters concert in Chi-town for the first ten of you to shout back good explanations. Meanwhile, let’s have some zip-zep from the Skywriters themselves. Here’s “Tethered to a Rain Cloud.”
• CRUST
Roland fingered the rifle’s plastic stock as his squad leaped off the truck and lined up behind Corporal Wu. He had a serious case of dry mouth, and his ears still rang from the alert bell that had yanked them out of exhausted slumber only an hour before. Who would’ve imagined being called out on a real raid? This certainly broke the routine of basic training — running about pointlessly, standing rigid while sergeants shouted abuse at you, screaming back obedient answers, then running some more until you dropped. Of course the pre-induction tapes had explained the purpose of all that.
“… Recruits must go through intense stress in order to break civilian response sets and prepare behavioral templates for military imprinting. Their rights are not surrendered, only voluntarily suspended in order to foster discipline, coordination, hygeine, and other salutary skills…”
Only volunteers who understood and signed waivers were allowed to join the peacekeeping forces, so he’d known what to expect. What had surprised Roland was getting accepted in the first place, despite mediocre school grades. Maybe the peacekeepers’ aptitude tests weren’t infallible after all. Or perhaps they revealed something about Roland that had never emerged back in Indiana.
It can’t be intelligence, that’s for sure. And I’m no leader. Never wanted to be.
In his spare moments (all three of them since arriving here in Taiwan for training) Roland had pondered the question and finally decided it was none of his damn business after all. So long as the officers knew what they were doing, that was enough for him.
This calling out of raw recruits for a night mission didn’t fill him with confidence though.
What use would greenies like us be in a combat operation? Won’t we just get in the way?
His squad double-timed alongside a towering, aromatic ornamental hedge, toward the sound of helicopters and the painful brilliance of searchlights. Perspiration loosened his grip on the stock, forcing him to hold his weapon tighter.