The blue glow of the vid blanketed Delia Jemison's
face, carrying images of European turmoil to her tired eyes.
She had been standing in the same place for five minutes,
facing the screen above the kitchen counter, seeing nothing,
feeling claustrophobic and trapped. White walls failed to
fool her, mirrors were a bother to polish, and this sturdy
apartment, while regally spacious by Earth standards,
constantly reminded her that she was trapped inside several
hundred meters of solid rock. Mary would begin to notice,
in a few years, when she would inevitably start wanting her
privacy and freedom. It happened, sooner or later, to all
children; Delia's sister, a mother of three, took every
opportunity to assert this fact and to offer her brood as
shining examples of it.
Of course, Monica still lived on Earth, in the dizzying
urban jungles of California, where every part of society
shoved and pulled at all others, sweeping up impressionable
young minds in the never-ending struggle to win a prizeless
contest of lifestyles. Most people never escaped, but Delia
had. She had found something good which would be constant in
her life, someone whom she knew would never leave and would
not change with the perfumed winds of fashion. Kyle, the
astronaut, the Torie, the man with the transparent eyes, the
father of her child, the one who had taught her the
constellations, the promise that she never doubted.
And now she sat at the empty table, sobbing quietly
into her hands, remembering the night of their honeymoon and
every night after that. A thousand whispered words brushed
her consciousness, each one recalling a touch, a kiss, a
caress in the dark. He could make her laugh with a single
grimace, and she could tell him everything with a wave of
her hand. They knew each other so well, but there was still
much they could talk-- and argue-- about: the marriage had
so broadened both their worlds. Nothing to hide, no corner
unlit.
Why "Blue"? She had asked him that, and he had
answered, albeit after three years of prodding. He had been
too polite to question her past, but she had told him just
the same, wanting him to know and understand. The years she
had spent on the street, orphaned and hungry, had not been
wasted; she appreciated everything she now had that much
more. Loneliness had given way to a companion for life, and
that boundless Torie hope had replaced her youthful
cynicism. Her entire life had gone from disastrous to more
perfect than she could have imagined.
Delia forced herself to halt the stream of memories.
Things would never be the same again, not after her
conversation with Kyle, not after his paralysis. The
serpents had finally invaded her hard-won paradise. She
didn't blame him; she knew she couldn't. He could have
refused to go with Quinn and Galza, but if she knew him at
all, she understood his convictions. Whatever else he was
or had been, he was a Torie now, and life had never been
more precious to him. No, she couldn't make it his fault,
but she worried about how Mary would take the news that her
father could never walk again. Monica had always said that
children understood less than they were capable of, and
Delia wondered if her sister was right.
She switched off the vid and dragged herself to the
bedroom, into the obscuring darkness. Mary could be told in
the morning. And maybe then it would all have been a
nightmare, and she would wake up in Kyle's arms, warm and
safe forever, back in the dream she knew. That desperate
hope lulled her to sleep, and the weight of the truth kept
her there until dawn.
"You're not seriously going out there again."
Leonard stared at the screen, absently examining every
detail of Carolyn Leefield's face. He had never really
looked at her eyes before, and only now noticed just how
pale they were, like silver-flecked robin's eggs. This
unhurried inspection continued as he replied in a casual
tone.
"If we find anything, we'll have to."
"Why you?" She was trying, not very successfully, to
hide her concern. "Isn't UNSF going to take over the
investigation?"
His eyes lingered on her lips as they threatened to
curl into a pout. "There have been some complications. I'd
tell you, Carol, but--"
"Security. I know." The mouth closed, pressed into a
hard line. "I've been watching the news, but I still haven't
a clue what's going on."
"I'm coming to Skyscraper," Leonard said after deciding
that her hair color was best described as burnt umber, with
occasional patches of hazel starting to form around her
forehead and ears. The influence of the Sun was something
every Torie had to live with.
Carolyn blinked, then half-smiled. "Len, you're a nut."
"I love you too." She deserved to hear it in person.
Gandalf chewed his breakfast slowly, pausing to examine
each piece of omelet before stuffing it into his mouth. The
morning news flashed before him on five screens, three of
them closed captioned, in English and Mandarin. He
swallowed and reached for his glass as yet another picture
of Jacob Quinn appeared beside a comically solemn
newscaster.
"...and some government sources allege that Quinn
pressured the United Nations into supporting the Top-Secret
Project Theory..."
"Dream on," Gandalf snorted. Jacob Quinn had been
dragged, kicking and screaming, into the Project by the
previous Gandalf, an emeritus professor of physics at
Stanford University whose father had once been head of SETI.
Quinn had paid off a large personal debt by stepping in to
calm the squabbling Project members, and eventually became
immersed in the work they were doing. Only recently had he
begun prodding UNIA to expand the Project to a practical
research and development program.
Of course, that would no longer be necessary. The
incident at Saturn had already thrust Theory into the
spotlight, and the United Nations was being forced to make
it a primary concern. Not that they would have ignored it--
Gandalf had read all the reports, from Quinn, Galza, the
Marines, Japetus, and a dozen other stations in the Torus,
and there was no denying that these aliens posed a serious
threat to the Solar System. They had killed most of an
Ariane security escort led by a former UNSF captain, and the
disappearance of the ships at Saturn indicated a technology
well beyond humanity's. Even John Ilbad, the eternal
skeptic, had been unable to conceal the worry in his voice
when Gandalf spoke to him about declassifying the Project.
One of the news stations returned from a commercial
break. A thin man, reporting live from Huann Fa Point for
no apparent reason, spoke animatedly of rumors that Project
Skyscraper had been sabotaged, and of Torie suspicions that
Earth was the culprit. It was a largely unfounded
hypothesis, as the reporter admitted, but as Gandalf watched
he made the connection which Quinn and McBride had discarded
the day before. He was about to do the same when another
synapse fired, and the picture in his mind sharpened to
crystal clarity.
Having been in the intelligence business for all of his
adult life, Gandalf knew the game of misinformation
intimately well. He had been trained to see through and
around a situation from every possible angle, and he was now
seeing evidence-- albeit thin-- of a monstrous deception.
Whether it was true or not, there would be trouble.
The half-finished breakfast skidded across the desk as
Gandalf waved the vid screens away and brought up the
communications console. He smiled briefly as he rang John
Ilbad, knowing the Director of Intelligence was still
asleep. Most mornings at UNIA were hectic, but today,
Gandalf would be the one causing the noise.
"Bad coffee." Tony Galza made a face and pushed his cup
away.
"Try the tea." Jacob Quinn stared down at the table,
perusing its imitation marble surface.
"Hot water," sighed Galza. "I'll suffer in silence."
Another white-coated resident shuffled past them,
yawning and scratching at the day-old shadow on his face.
Quinn's hand moved reflexively to his own chin and confirmed
that he, too, was starting to look like a long-haul miner.
His beaten zee-gee jumper added to the illusion, making him
just another Torie, only temporarily trapped in the gravity
of Japetus.
Galza, on the other hand, still looked like a visiting
Earther, despite his matching facial hair and crinkled
uniform. Nothing could hide his build, and the bulky
physique which aided him on Earth's surface did him a
disservice in the microgravity of the Torus. It would take
several months of consecutive residence in the Torus to thin
him down to a believable musculature, but he was unwilling
to abandon the planet of his birth for that long. Jacob had
always thought it ironic that Tony admired Tories so much--
like an art dealer admiring a painting.
"Tony, we have to talk," said Quinn suddenly.
The statement caught Galza by surprise. "Sure. Go
ahead."
Quinn swept his eyes around the cafeteria and counted
six other people, none of whom was within earshot. "You
realize this whole alien thing is pretty incredible."
"Yeah. I still have trouble believing it, myself."
"Exactly," breathed Jacob, leaning forward. "Some
people aren't going to believe it at all."
Tony frowned, starting to focus his thoughts. "What's
that supposed to mean?"
"I mean some people would rather believe--"
"That we made all this up?" Galza coughed up a laugh.
"If they're that stupid, they can believe whatever they
like."
"Think about it." Quinn thrust a hand forward. "We lost
the body. Everyone who ever saw the alien died at Star
Ithaca. Gramble's and Millen's bodies were also there;
they're gone too. The convoy was attacked by Ariane
shuttles. Less than a dozen people actually saw the alien
ship, and none of us saw the corpse firsthand."
Galza gritted his teeth as he moved forward,
challenging Quinn. "You are accusing me of faking this whole
thing?"
"No." Jacob returned the burning stare with equal
conviction. "I know you too well, and I can tell you're not
lying. You're not that good an actor."
Tony relaxed somewhat, but continued to frown. "I don't
understand."
It was a stupid, crazy thought, but Jacob had to voice
it. "I personally don't believe this. But if I can think of
it, so can a lot of other people. And sooner or later
somebody's going to put it on broadcast news, and it's going
to look very bad for you."
Galza understood. "Jenny."
Quinn studied the face and, satisfied that he was
seeing the truth, said, "We both know this is totally
preposterous."
Tony nodded blankly.
"Oh, jick," spat Quinn. "Jick!"
"I don't know," Galza whispered.
"Jennifer!" hissed Jacob, holding back his anger. "Your
wife, remember? The one you've had for thirty years? What
the hell do you mean, you don't know?"
"It--" Tony blinked and sucked in a sharp breath. "We--
haven't--"
The words stopped coming, and Jacob resisted the urge
to throw the contents of his cup into Galza's face. They
didn't need to cause a scene.
"Jick," he repeated tersely.
Sunlight bounced off the array of solar panels, several
hundred square meters in area, and momentarily blinded
Carolyn Leefield. She cursed as she reached for the
keyboard on her wrist. Leonard was arriving in less than
two hours, and she wanted to finish this assembly job before
then. The radio clicked in her ear, hissing softly as
ambient radiation invaded the frequency.
"Dammit, Gary, secure those mirrors! Over." She saw
Hanson waving back at her while his partner, Gastronov,
stabbed at a floating control console.
"Sorry, Chief, auto controls are out. We're moving
these sheets manually. Over."
"Like hell you are, we've got three more modules coming
in and we need this thing on auto. Get the console from
Radio Two Hotel and fix this one later. Out."
"Wilco, Chief. Over and out."
Leefield looked down, made sure her module was on
course to the storage yard, and turned her head back upward.
Gastronov had relinquished the faulty console, which was now
tucked under Hanson's arm. He pushed off a support strut,
one of the few out here on the edge of the station frame,
and began drifting toward the Radio 2H module. Ten meters
away, another astro glided downward from a parked supply
shuttle, guiding a cargo module and waving with his free
hand.
Hanson had raised his hand to return the greeting when
he abruptly disappeared. Leefield blinked, and then
realized that the other astro and his cargo were also gone.
Gastronov reacted first, pushing himself out on the same
path that his partner had taken.
Leefield slapped her radio on. "Hanson!" she shouted.
"Hanson, respond, over!"
Gastronov reached Radio 2H, turned around, and headed
back. "Chief, there's nothing here. They just-- vanished.
Over."
"People don't just vanish!" she snapped, still staring
at the patch of empty space where Hanson had been. The
shock of the disappearance had not set in yet, as she was
still searching for a rational explanation for it. And some
part of her mind reminded her that people did vanish: they
died, they left, they forgot. It was depressing, but at
least she understood those phenomena.
She cursed as she dialed her radio to the Control
frequency. This was going to require at least three more
reports, which meant that much longer before she could be
with Leonard. As much as she enjoyed her job and
appreciated its importance, sometimes she just wanted to
spend an evening being nothing more than a woman in love.
There had been too much excitement lately-- the sabotaged
radio modules and the incident at Saturn, plus the general
headaches of zero-gravity construction. Her life had become
less and less her own.
Carolyn knew, speaking into her suit microphone, that
the evening would be marred by this new mystery. Leonard
would certainly want to know all about it. A wry smile
dimpled her face. She'd have to do some work to attract his
attention to other things.
A rough hand shook June-Garner Bergan's shoulder.
"C'mon, wake up."
"Erhh." She lifted her head from the table, rubbing her
cheek and noticing that she had fallen asleep on top of her
hand 'puter. Her face would be red for the next hour or so.
Robert-Gill Price smirked as he saw the keys imprinted
on her cheek. "Becoming one with the computer?"
"Ha ha." Bergan punched up the last thing she had been
working on, telescope records for Mars Trailing 115-603, and
saw that Tabowitz had already taken care of it. "We're done,
then."
"As much as we can do for now." Price sat down opposite
her, offering a bag of dry cereal and a ball of milk.
Bergan took the food gladly. "Thanks. So what's the
news?"
"We plotted those grey blurs." A graphic appeared in
the middle of the table screen. "Depending on how we
extrapolate, it might be the same object orbiting in a plane
perpendicular to the ecliptic, or two or three separate
objects passing through at acute angles." Lines of twenty
different colors illustrated his meaning.
"Not much help," sighed June, chewing on some cereal
and wondering if Price actually liked the stuff. She knew
there was much better food to be found in the station
cafeteria.
"Do you believe these aliens exist?" asked Price
without warning.
Bergan squinted and finished swallowing her mouthful of
milk. "Why?"
He avoided looking at her for the first time since he'd
arrived. "An honest answer, please."
Wondering if this was another security test, June said,
"Of course. Why would you lie to me?"
"I wouldn't. Suppose someone lied to me."
She set her food down. "He'd have to be a damned good
liar."
Price smiled briefly and turned his head toward her.
"As of this moment, we have no evidence that any of this
trouble was caused by aliens."
"What about the pictures? The camera footage?"
"Those could have been faked."
"And Quinn and Galza?" Bergan suddenly realized that
her heart was thumping. "They were both there. And you were
there."
"Yeah." Price nodded solemnly. "Quintex and Ariane."
"So you're saying--" She stopped as her thoughts
overtook her words, in a tidal wave of realization. "And
people actually believe this?"
"If not now, they will." He patted the table, and the
wall screen flickered to life with a current news report
detailing the continuing investigation of sabotage at
Project Skyscraper, placing heavy emphasis on the tensions
between Ariane Odyssey and Quintex Corporation. Mention was
made of the unconfirmed reports of first contact near
Saturn, which had come only after UNIA publicly declassified
Project Theory. This was a Torie news channel, and the
anchor spoke every other word with a doubtful narrowing of
her eyes.
After watching for a few minutes, Bergan shook her
head. "It doesn't make sense."
"It makes perfect sense. Quintex is old, which means
it's tied to Earth. Ariane runs everything from Mars, and
their entire business has always been space exploration.
Who are Tories more likely to trust?"
"Paranoia!" June pointed an accusatory finger at the
screen. "This is just sensationalism, and I can't believe
you're taking it seriously. It's going to blow over in a
week."
"If people hadn't been dying, I'd be inclined to
agree," said Price, in a cool, controlled voice. "We're all
ruled by fear. Being afraid means knowing who your enemy
is, and we can't survive-- we can't defend ourselves--
without knowing that. It's plain biology that we know there
must be something to fear, so we keep looking for it."
"Look, these are Tories," Bergan stated. "They're not
stupid, and they're not irrational."
"Yeah, but you're a Torie, and look at you." Price
switched off the screen. "Emotional. Passionate.
Courageous. Your heart leads your head."
June shook her head violently, ignoring the thinly
veiled flirtation and restraining a smile which might be
misinterpreted. Price hadn't had time to notice how the
older Tories at Io looked down on newbies. "That's not the
point," she said.
"It is." Price waved a hand toward the far wall. "Earth
and Torus have never been the best of friends. Basic
ideological differences. Tories exist because of new
philosophies that didn't get along with old philosophies.
There was a physical distance for a while, but that's gone
now. We're all the same Solar System, and we've been
bumping into each other more and more."
"But we're not enemies," she protested. "Tories have no
reason to hate Earth, or Quintex. And vice versa."
"You may not personally, but plenty of other people
do." Price shrugged. "The UN isn't everybody's friend,
especially when it comes to commerce regulations. Torus has
always been a self-governing capitalist state, but Quintex
doesn't believe it's totally self-sufficient yet."
Bergan nodded. "And socio-economics is a single word,
yes, I've heard it before. You're saying somebody wants to
ruin Quintex. Who? Not Galza."
The security officer remained still. Obviously he
wanted to hear her opinion, and Bergan had to take a breath
before giving it.
"Galza's not in control." She was unaware of her mouth
hanging open. "Somebody else is doing this. People start
talking, Galza looks bad, he goes away, and Ariane..."
Price nodded morosely. "It's the logical conclusion,
isn't it?"
"Jick."
"This is speculation," Price said quietly. "No
evidence. We don't know anything."
He shook his head and almost smiled. "First people
think it's humans-- pirates-- raiding our stations and
attacking the convoy. Nobody knows who it is, or why
they're doing it. Then we go to Saturn, and it's aliens.
Nobody knows where they came from, what they're doing here,
why they assaulted us. Now we come home, and it's humans
again. And we still know nothing."
Bergan nodded glumly. "Reason proceeds in the absence
of fact."
"You think this is outrageous?"
"Totally."
"Do you believe in aliens?"
Her face looked like it had been carved from solid
rock. "Yes."
"Good." Price grinned. "Now we just have to find them."
Copyright © 1996 Curtis C. Chen. All Rights Reserved.