A light carbon-dioxide and water-ice fog hung in a metre-thick stratum at just about chest height, so, as she stepped outside, it seemed she was forging her way through a white sea. The fog was even then visibly lifting, and by the time she reached the fallen building it had risen up as far as her helmet. She set to work at once, digging out to a good depth around the corpse, in readiness to try lifting it. However, before she could do that, her head-up display warned her that her oxygen bottle was nearly depleted. Reality hit home hard and her earlier optimism evaporated like the rising fog layer all around her. Perhaps, she considered, it was just that kind of optimism that Rhone distrusted in her.
She kept working around the corpse, loosening the regolith, occasionally slipping the pick underneath the body to try and lever it up. She ignored the regular warnings until she was panting, eking every last molecule of her oxygen supply, then she switched over to Lopomac’s bottle and checked its reading. Unless she found something else here, she had just eighteen hours of life left. Var began levering at the corpse again, not so tentative now because what did it matter if she damaged it?
With a crackling sound that turned tinny in the thin air, and a big puff of vapour, the corpse lifted from the waist. She realized she must have snapped the desiccated flesh and spine inside the suit for it to be able to fold up that way. She must also have fractured a decayed suit seal to let out that puff of vapour, which was encouraging, since it meant the suit had remained pressurized. She dropped the pick and took hold of the corpse in both hands, forcing it up and back until it was resting against the rubble slope, unnaturally bent at the waist. Caked in compacted regolith, the flat oxygen bottle was now visible to her.
Var dropped the pick and knelt down before the bottle. She half-expected to need further tools, but the bayonet hose fittings popped out easily releasing a little puff of vapour. She then pulled the bottle from its velcro backing and rested it in her lap. Next she disconnected her hoses from the bottle she had taken from Lopomac and plugged them into the new acquisition. She gave it a moment, then using her wrist panel summoned the head-up display and checked numbers. She had just acquired another ten hours of air.
This now meant she would run out of suit power before she lacked air. The power in the building, from the solar panel, would help her in some way, but suit heating tended to eat up watts, despite the insulation. Var returned her attention to the corpse, but realized she would have to unearth more of it to get to the utility belt where any super-caps might be found.
She stood up and started digging again.
Earth
Serene glared at the images on her screen. When she had told Ruger and Scotonis that they must hurry to Argus Station because it seemed some sort of inertia-less drive was being developed there, she had felt like a fraud. She felt like a fraud now, and long moments of introspection occurring while she watched this video clip, again and again, had presented her with an uncomfortable result. She had found a reason to influence events far away from her, and she had influenced them, because she could – because she simply enjoyed exercising power. Those were her prime reasons for telling them that they must not change course. The possibility that this Jasper Rhine could develop an inertia-less drive aboard Argus had been remote, theoretical, producing a reason to throw her weight around but no reason for alarm.
But now she was alarmed. This was a game changer.
She abruptly changed the view and gazed at a massive modern factory complex shimmering in South African heat haze. Over to one side, a shanty town had been bulldozed aside, its debris forming a small mountain range, and in the cleared area new buildings were going up fast. Amidst them was something that looked like a sports stadium, but only if those sports involved games with particle accelerators, fusion reactors and giant silos filled with liquid mercury. Professor Calder had already taken a huge bite out of his budget.
Serene’s gaze now strayed to a flashing icon at the bottom of her screen. Calder had received her latest message and was ready to speak to her. She instinctively wanted to keep him waiting, but felt the situation was too critical to waste time on playing minor power games.
‘Professor?’ she said, responding at once.
‘Ma’am,’ he replied with a respectful dip of his head.
‘You’ve been analysing the video and data feeds from the Scourge,’ she said. ‘You’ve seen that there is indeed an inertia-less drive aboard Argus. How far along are you?’
‘My initial tests look promising,’ he replied, ‘but building such a drive will have to be conducted offworld. In a way they were lucky, because they had the structure in which to build a wide enough vortex ring, and they already had the required EM field-generating capability.’
‘How long?’
‘We could begin building some elements of the drive at once,’ he replied. ‘How long thereafter it would take to get ourselves a working drive just depends upon how much in the way of resources you are prepared to dedicate to this.’
Serene gazed at him steadily for a moment, but he showed no signs of getting nervous about that scrutiny, so she continued, ‘If the Argus Station escapes, and retains its ability to travel as fast as it has, all Earth’s offworld stations, factories and satellites will be at risk.’
‘Agreed.’
‘That damned thing could attack with little or no warning, and we know it now has some lethal weaponry. We certainly have weapons up there that could damage it, but this means they will have to be permanently manned and ready to respond instantly.’
‘That is presupposing it uses its weapons,’ Calder noted.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It doesn’t even need its weapons,’ he explained. ‘You saw what happened to the asteroid it struck?’
‘I saw.’
‘The warp-bubble interface creates tidal forces you would generally only find near to a fast-spinning black hole. If they solve their obvious navigational problems, all they would need to do is plot a course right through any orbital installations, and afterwards there would be nothing left.’
It was at this moment that Serene understood for the first time the meaning of the words ‘cold sweat’. That reaction, however, made her tighten her control on herself.
‘At present,’ she said carefully, ‘we have three ships being constructed – I mean the new-design Mars Travellers. They will be redesigned to your specifications so that they can incorporate this drive, and weapons. All your requirements will be met, at once.’
‘What do you mean, ma’am?’
‘I mean, Professor Calder, I am promoting you to a special position. I am giving you control of all offworld industries, and I am allowing you the power to demand from on-world industries anything you require. I am therefore, in effect, putting all of Earth’s resources at your disposal.’
He just stared at her, saying nothing, obviously shaken alert at last.
She continued, ‘Aboard Argus Station they managed to build a workable drive during their journey to the Asteroid Belt. With the resources at your disposal I expect you to achieve the same result much more quickly.’
Finally he managed to speak. ‘I . . . I can’t organize all this by myself.’
‘Expert teams are on their way to you right now,’ Serene replied. ‘You tell them what you want, and they will organize it. Anyone you require is yours.’
‘So long as they do what I say,’ he risked.