Cosmic Tales - Adventures in Sol System Read online

  Cosmic Tales-Adventures in Sol System

  Edited by Toni Weisskopf

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2004 by T.K.F. Weisskopf. All stories copyright by the authors.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 0-7434-8832-6

  Cover art by Bob Eggleton

  First paperback printing, June 2004

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

  Printed in the United State of America

  For my husband,

  Hank Reinhardt

  And with thanks to Hank Davis,

  comrade in arms

  OPEN TO WONDER

  The Pinwheel was now framed against the whole expanse of Earth. Dawn still felt strong acceleration into the compartment's floor, but it was lesser now as gravity countered the centrifugal whirl. Their air, too, thickened as the tree's walls exuded a sweet-scented, moist vapor.

  The spectacle of her whole world, spread out in silent majesty, struck her. They were nearing the top of their ascent, the Pinwheel pointing vertically, as if to bury itself in the heart of the planet.

  She wondered what would happen to them next. The Pinwheel throbbed. She had felt its many adjustments and percussive changes as it struggled against both elements, air and vacuum, so this latest long undulation seemed unremarkable. Only a short while ago she had thought that the ravenous green, eating at the pale deserts, waged an epic struggle. Now she rode an unending whirl of immeasurably greater difficulty.

  The kinetic whirligig of all these events dizzied her. The last few days had stripped away her comfortable preconceptions, leaving her open to naked wonder. She was beyond fear now, in a curious calm. Ideas floated through her mind like silent fireworks. She looked down and in a glance knew that the Earth and the Pinwheel were two similar systems, brothers of vastly different scales. . . .

  —From "Blood's A Rover"

  by Gregory Benford

  BAEN BOOKS edited by T.K.F. WEISSKOPF

  Tomorrow Sucks (with Greg Cox)

  Tomorrow Bites (with Greg Cox)

  Cosmic Tales: Adventures in Sol System

  Cosmic Tales: Adventures in Far Futures (forthcoming)

  INTRODUCTION

  Strange adventures on other worlds, the universe of the future.

  —motto of Planet Comics

  Why do we need tales about "Strange adventures on other worlds, the universe of the future"?

  T.K.F. Weisskopf

  "To imagine is not to fashion charming make-believe. . . . Out of the known or knowable, Imagination connects the remote, reinterprets the familiar, or discovers hidden realities."

  —From From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life

  , Jacques Barzun

  As I write this it is the eve of the hundredth anniversary of the Wright Brothers' flight off the North Carolina dunes. And I have come to realize that I am not going to be living in the age of humanity's great expansion into space. I will not be on the Nina, the Pinta nor the Santa Maria, let alone the Mayflower. Instead, I am living in the age of St. Brendan and Lief the Lucky. I can witness humanity's first tentative steps in the direction of the endless frontier—but the chances of me, personally, getting out there are small. Still, at least I can read stories about it! If we as a species are going to get there, we have to remember that we want to go.

  I've long thought that it's one of science fiction's most important jobs to explore the future in fiction. Decisions about what kind of future we want to aim for can be played out in the pages of our magazines and novels. As Travis Taylor's story and article illustrate, the dreams of the writers become the dreams of the engineers and scientists who shape the direction of our technology. You want to make a difference in the world—write science fiction that will touch the hearts of these people.

  It seems obvious to me that staying on one planet is a dead end for humanity. And I like humanity, in general, if not all its specific manifestations. Flush from conquering a new continent Americans of the early twentieth century had a positive vision of the future. We in the West went from horse-drawn carriages to rockets in less than fifty years. Now, in darker times, we seem to be on the road to losing the stars, losing the urge to explore. Science fiction needs to clear away the light pollution and show us the glories of the stars again. Show us where we can go next. Show us where progress should lead.

  One of the most positive visions we can have of the conquest of space is that it will be strange and dangerous, but also in some ways familiar. There will be humans, living their everyday lives, albeit in exotic locations and only because of amazing technological developments. Several of the stories herein describe that kind of existence. And some take us a little farther beyond. . . . There is beauty and wonder in this universe, and whether man makes it his business or God ordains it, it is a noble calling to answer to destiny, search that wonder out and reveal it for future generations.

  If you'd like to see more Cosmic Tales, there will be another volume coming out later in 2004, Adventures in Far Futures. If you'd like to see more beyond that, or to comment on these volumes, write to me care of Baen Books, P.O. Box 1403, Riverdale, NY 10471. Or you can write directly to me at [email protected].

  MCANDREW AND THE LAW

  Scientist and dreamer Arthur Morton McAndrew was one of my favorite science fiction characters. He was one of Charles Sheffield's, too. In his introduction to The Compleat McAndrew (made incomplete by this story, by the way), Charles referred to him as an alter ego. Charles loved speculating about how far science would go, and his nonfiction volume Borderlands of Science is invaluable for any science fiction reader. For the McAndrew series he always included an afterword telling the reader just where the known science in each story stopped and the speculation began. Charles Sheffield died last year, soon after completing this story and before such an afterword could be written. Science fiction will be the less for his passing.

  Charles Sheffield

  It's widely accepted that there's no such thing as a free lunch. I suppose anyone with a brain in her head would realize this applies equally well to dinner, but some people never learn; so there I was, sitting across the table from Professor Limperis and fully expecting him to pick up the tab.

  He's a wily old bird who puts a high value on his time, a fact which I've known for as many years as I've been visiting the Penrose Institute. And today we were far from there. I was on vacation, ready to follow the progress of the Grand Solo Solar Contest out in the Belt. What were the chances that Limperis had traveled several hundred million kilometers for the doubtful privilege of taking me to dinner?

  At the moment he was busy telling me that it was hard times for the Institute, with research budgets squeezed tighter and tighter. I nodded sympathetically, but to be honest my mind was otherwise engaged. I like to gamble on the outcome of the Grand Solo Solar Contest, and a prime entry for the GSSC had just entered the dining room. I guessed that he massed between five and six hundred kilos.

  In the GSSC, fat is good because the contest is just what the name suggests. You do the Belt-Jupiter-Mars run alone, with no assistance. "No assistance" means no fuel, no food, no water. Also, no ship. You are provided a suit with an oxygen supply and built-in fusion and chemical drives. Solo means solo. The materials
to power the drives have to come from the competitor's own body.

  That's where judgment enters the picture. The chemical and fusion drives are lipid based, and a competitor draws reaction mass only from his or her own body fat. That's why the hard-to-say "Grand Solo Solar Contest" is better known as Fat Man's Run.

  With some people, the will to win inevitably takes over. In a pinch, the drives run at reduced power on muscle and sinew. I have seen a competitor, what was left of him, dragged out of the race by the marshals when his total body mass was down to sixty pounds. He might recover, after a fashion, but he would never race again. He would also never walk, run, or have sex, even in low-gee. When I saw him, skin hung off his spongy skeleton like rags on a frame of twigs. And still he was complaining about being removed from the race.

  I became aware that Professor Limperis's eye was on me. He knew I had been distracted by my potential dark horse, and he was quietly waiting.

  "I mentioned that finances were tight, Jeanie," he said at last, "but I didn't tell you the worst of it. Mac has another pet project stuck in his head, and there's no way the Institute can afford to do it. I told him that. So he took it on himself to try his hand at fund-raising. He went to Fazool el-Fazool to see if the man could help out."

  That was a real shock. McAndrew fund-raising? Money means less to him than it does to a groundhog.

  Limperis saw my look of astonishment and misinterpreted it. "You know Fazool?"

  "I've never met him. But he's McAndrew's -mother's . . . friend."

  "Ah!" Limperis's chubby face lit up. "That explains a lot. I only know Fazool as one of the System's richest people. But if he's McAndrew's mother's—er . . ."

  "Friend."

  "Right. Her friend. Then it makes sense that Mac would get a hearing. More than that, he received a promise of the money he needs for his new project. But there's a condition."

  "That doesn't surprise me. Rich people like to stay rich. Fazool will want a return on his investment."

  "It's not that kind of condition. Fazool wants his son, Abdi el-Fazool, along on the expedition. He says it will be a—er—a broadening experience for the lad."

  I could agree with that. I've had near-death experiences with McAndrew all too often.

  Limperis was watching my face. "You don't like the idea?"

  "I don't. How old is Abdi el-Fazool?"

  "Eleven."

  "Then I certainly don't. But if you think that Mac will take any notice of what I—or you—think, you should know better. The man's a human mule. Particularly when one of his pet ideas is at stake."

  "Jeanie, he listens to you more than anyone."

  This, while true, was hardly relevant. But something else was going on here.

  "Professor, I understand that money is tight at the Institute—it's tight everywhere with today's economic conditions. Fazool's money must be a great temptation. But money or no money, won't Mac need the use of Institute equipment to perform his project?"

  "Assuredly. What he has in mind would be impossible without it."

  "Then if you're so worried about this, why not just say no? Fazool's a powerful man, and I'm sure he has lots of influence. But he can't force the Institute to do whatever he fancies, even with Mac's blessing."

  Limperis eyed me thoughtfully. He's as sharp as they come, and normally he's inscrutable. This time, though, I could read what was in his mind. It was, How much can I afford to tell her?

  "It's not quite that simple, Jeanie," he said at last. "McAndrew views his expedition as a research activity, but not everyone sees it that way. Others at the Institute believe that we may be in sight of a new and inexhaustible source of free energy."

  "There can't be any such thing," I began, then paused. Others at the Institute. I suspected that I was talking to one of them. "Can there?"

  He coughed. "Well, there might be. There just might. And as you can imagine, it's very difficult for the Institute to say no to a project that won't need a penny of our funds and holds out even the remotest chance of unlimited free energy. I'm in a spot, Jeanie."

  It was dawning on me. Limperis didn't want me to talk to Mac. We both knew that was a waste of breath. He wanted me directly involved, because he was worried about McAndrew's judgment and possible fate. And, of course, if Limperis was worried he thought I should be doubly so.

  As I was. He had me, and he knew it. I was about to be sucked in. Forget my holiday and Fat Man's Run, I must fly out and talk to McAndrew. As I said, some people never learn.

  Limperis didn't tell me what McAndrew's infinite energy scheme was all about. Better, he said, that it should come from McAndrew himself. That was his way of ensuring that I would head out to the Penrose Institute as soon as possible to clear up the mystery.

  The Institute had settled into one of its rarer research locations, down near the Vulcan Nexus. Although an excellent site for solar observation, it is one of the places in the solar system that I least like to visit. It is perfectly safe—they tell you—but the Sun is only two million kilometers away and occupies half the sky. An unprotected human exposed to the intense flux of radiation will fry and die in ten seconds.

  That sort of risk means nothing to a man who has spent a large fraction of his life thirty meters from a kernel, a shielded Kerr-Newman black hole. I found McAndrew staring through a set of specially designed optical filters at the naked solar surface. Prominences a million kilometers long sprang out at him—at least, they sprang out at me.

  The greatest theorist since Einstein and the greatest combination of experimenter and theorist since Newton was dressed in dirty long johns. His thinning hair straggled down over his face. He was in his bare feet, and he was sitting cracking his toe joints in a way that I found both infuriating and disgusting.

  Was this scraggy unwashed specimen of humanity also my longtime companion and the father of my child, the man to whom I had been faithful (mostly) for over twenty years? Apparently it was. McAndrew is not the only one who needs to have his head examined.

  "Jeanie." He greeted me with the vague pleasure of a man reacting to an Institute minion who has brought him an unexpected cup of tea.

  "All right, that's enough." I have my limits. "Arthur Morton McAndrew, I traveled four hundred and eighty million kilometers to see you. Either you give me a proper hello, or you're a dead man."

  That got through. Mac stood up and enfolded me in an awkward embrace. Twenty years of hard work was paying off. With luck, in twenty more he might start acting close to human.

  I plunged right in, because on my trip to the Institute it had occurred to me that young Fazool, rather than McAndrew, might well be Limperis's biggest source of worry. An unsuccessful expedition was one thing. An unsuccessful expedition that killed off a child of the super-rich was quite another. Rich men tend to have powerful friends, and that could hurt the Institute—Limperis's baby.

  "Where's the boy?" I asked.

  McAndrew frowned at me. "Who?"

  I said slowly, "Mac, I am not here to play games. I am referring to Abdi el-Fazool, the son of Fazool el-Fazool. Where is he?"

  "Ah. He's not here yet. He's flying in on a private vessel, right behind yours. Be here within the hour."

  "And you agreed with his father that you would take him with you?"

  "Well, yes. I did do that."

  "I assume he doesn't have two seconds of space experience?"

  "Actually, you're right. He doesn't."

  Mac was being a clam. I might have to wait until we were heading out, when with a more intimate environment I could wheedle anything out of the man. I changed tack.

  "This expedition of yours. How many people will be going on it, and what roles will they play?"

  "Ah. That's a very good question. There's me and you, of course."

  "Me?" I should have known what was coming from the minute that Limperis sat down with me at the dinner table, but now I had absolute proof.

  "Sure. I don't know why, but approval for the use of the ship—i
t's going to be the Hoatzin, because we'll need something with the balanced drive—was conditional upon you coming as well. Didn't Limperis tell you that?"

  "He did not."

  "I guess he overlooked it."

  "I guess he must have." Trying to explain certain aspects of reality to McAndrew is a waste of time. "Who else is going?"

  "Well, we don't have much extra capacity, because the Hoatzin has to take along a lot of special equipment including a space pinnace designed to withstand high accelerations. The only other person will be young Abdi."

  "That's it? Me, you, and Abdi el-Fazool?"

  "That's it."

  I felt the worry-knot in my stomach loosen. In many ways McAndrew is like an eleven-year-old himself, and I've dealt with him for long enough. If I couldn't handle two of them, I deserved whatever was coming.

  "Can we go along and meet Abdi's ship when it docks? I'd like you to introduce me."

  "We can go to where he'll be docking. But I can't introduce you."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I never met him."

  "Mac, he's the son of your mother's friend."

  "He is that. The son by another woman, and he lives with her. But we'll go meet him."

  "Might you consider dressing first?"

  He glanced down at himself, and seemed surprised by what he saw. "Oh, aye. I suppose I could use a bit of a wash and brush up."

  "And a shirt, and a pair of trousers. Maybe shoes."

  "Right. Give me a couple of minutes."

  As he washed and dressed I learned what Mac knew about Abdi. It was not encouraging. The information came from Mac's mother, whose information came from Fazool el-Fazool, who apparently spent almost no time with his son. Chain those together, add distortion or misinterpretation at each link, and our knowledge of Abdi el-Fazool consisted of three items: he was male; he was eleven; and he had recently been expelled, for reasons unknown, from the most expensive school on Earth.