Analog SFF, December 2006 Read online

  A dozen folk emerged on the fourth ramp, hooded against the chill of the still warming air. “Do you know which one she is?” Sasha asked. “Mom?"

  "Huh? Oh, sorry. I was just checking with the site on how impactor fabrication was doing. Icestar was reporting a concern about defect frequency."

  "Mom, those pop media gadflies would make a scandal out of someone's hangnail."

  She chuckled. “It's not really important; we'd like the impactor to be a single crystal, but that's not a requirement. That close to light speed, its mechanical properties on impact are almost irrelevant.” In two New Antarctica years, their billion-ton iron rod would be the first to head toward the implosion site, a little less than eights light years away. Independently, identical impactors would be launched from Lacaille 9352, Epsilon Eridani, and Sol. Each impactor and each launch had to meet exacting specification and schedule constraints to make the implosion as symmetrical as physics would allow, or the biggest fiasco in human history would result. She was really not so unhappy to have someone else take responsibility for that.

  A hood fell from one of the passengers, revealing a tall blond with wide-set eyes and a long nose. She didn't seem to mind the chill, and she was grinning from ear to ear. She glanced around and Sasha's eyes met hers momentarily.

  "Mom?"

  "It's her! Dr. Kremer's the tall one.” Naomi waved. The woman waved back and headed for the elevator.

  "Not bad,” Sasha said. “She'll melt someone's icecap."

  Naomi smiled. “She looks really glad to be home.” At twenty, her son was somewhat of a man-child, brilliant enough in his architectural studies but never quite connecting socially. She worried that she was too close to him, that she hadn't quite lived up to her weaning responsibilities.

  Dr. Kremer reappeared on the terrace and headed for their table. She'd shed the hooded cape on the elevator, to reveal a trim figure in a standard gray unisuit. She carried herself with a grace that spoke of diligent exercise.

  "Mom, is she an athlete?” Sasha asked. “Thirteen years on a starship and she looks like she could run a marathon!"

  Naomi laughed. “About seven years ship time—remember your physics—and people have a lot of time for exercise on interstellar voyages. Sasha, don't jump into the personal stuff right away, okay?"

  "Okay."

  Kremer held out a hand as she reached the table. “Naomi Abila! How good to see you in person. And this must be Sasha!"

  "Welcome to New Antarctica,” Sasha said, holding out his hand.

  Kremer shook it, smiling broadly, then added, “I just heard everyone voted to change the star name to Erebus when I came out of deep sleep. I love the change—I think."

  Naomi patted her on the arm. “You'll get used to it!"

  "I got to visit its namesake, the volcano in old Antarctica."

  They sat and ordered more coffee, which a robot vendor brought in short order.

  Sasha's eyes glowed. “Earth must be amazing."

  "It's good to be home,” Kremer said to Sasha. “You've just graduated, haven't you? Architecture?"

  Sasha nodded. “First year in grad school now, macroarchitecture."

  "He wants to design space colonies,” Naomi added.

  Kremer smiled warmly at her friend's son. “I'm sure he will. What do you think of the Black Hole Project, Sasha?"

  "The BHP's just mind-boggling, Dr. Kremer,” Sasha said, “trying to get such a precise collision with four-billion-ton impactors eight light years away."

  She laughed easily. “You can call me Hilda. And that's about all there's left to do in physics—mind-boggling things. All the easy stuff was done before we were born. We have to be precise, but not perfect. Vertex Station, where the impact point will be, provides the vernier beams and guidance points for the final approach. Then, on December 23, 2284, all four impactors meet the target as planned, and boom! We get a mini black hole."

  Sasha shuddered. “Or, boom! The universe blows up!"

  Naomi grimaced and tried to think of something diplomatic to say as Kremer's jaw dropped.

  "Just kidding,” Sasha said quickly. “But we've got some ice-heads here, too, who think it's possible."

  "Well!” Kremer shook her head. “I didn't think I'd escape them entirely."

  "Anyway, we've got an extra six months,” Sasha said.

  Naomi stared at him in surprise. “What do you mean by that?” No one had mentioned a delay to her. She looked at Hilda, who shook her head.

  "I haven't heard anything like that. Where did you get that, Sasha?"

  "Ginny Wu at Icestar says a message came in delaying the impact time by six months. Says they're reviewing the calculations and that Wotan asked them to hold it until he gets a chance to talk to you, Dr. Kremer."

  Naomi watched Kremer's lips tighten for a brief moment.

  "Ginny Wu is Sasha's best friend's cousin,” Naomi added. “It's still a small town here."

  Kremer took a breath and smiled. “Well. You should have seen it when I was here. Morris Wu—he started Icestar—and I went to school together half a century ago. A delay doesn't sound right, though; I should have gotten word directly. Let me double-check ... nothing."

  Naomi shook her head. “Dr. Kremer, uh, Hilda, it could be a rumor or a complete invention on someone's part. Ginny can get a little in front of things at times."

  Sasha laughed. “Like when she said the Maluks were New Reformationists and they were just Baptists! It was weeks before all our Martian refugees started talking to them again, just for a rumor."

  "Well, I hope that's all there is to this,” Hilda said. “You'll let me know before doing anything about it?"

  Naomi grinned. “Absolutely! When are you going to meet your father?"

  Hilda shook her head. “He's still in a meeting about tidal waves and the planned Maud Plateau ice sheet collapse. Said he'd be here tomorrow. Naomi, I haven't heard anything about a delay, which is surpassingly strange. It's a major change. Brad Adams and Sarah Levine back at Sol's BHP would have sent messages to me. All the traffic I've gotten is completely normal."

  "Including the impact date?” Naomi asked.

  "That was set seventeen years ago,” Hilda said. “The impactor state vector targets are cast in concrete; they're the fixed star about which everything else in the project revolves. The only reason to send a new one would be some major change."

  Naomi shivered. “Hilda, we do have some Consolidationists here, including three of the ten planetary councilors. Hans Bluth, the security minister, is one of them. Wotan figured that was a good place for a conservative."

  Hilda shook her head. “Some of those people think they're so right, that anything they do is justified."

  Sasha's head was turning between them like a spectator watching a tennis match. “What happens if we launch late?” he asked.

  Naomi looked at Hilda and both women shook their heads.

  "Complete disaster,” Hilda said finally, “of varying flavors, depending on how late and what is done about it, but as far as the project is concerned, complete disaster."

  * * * *

  Chapter 2

  New Antarctica, 12 April 2772

  Hilda found quarters in Hadley's Hotel, overlooking the large lake in the center of Dome 2, east of the spaceport. The hotel was a re-creation of the hotel in Hobart where Amundsen had stayed after his return from the South Pole. It was staffed by pleasant android robots with cockney accents. After brunch with Naomi and Sasha, she'd spent the day getting her things in storage and connecting with Shira Hassan, an old schoolgirl friend and BHP team member who promised to call on her.

  Shira laughed. “I'll be the one in the head scarf and long dress."

  "You always had the most beautiful long silk scarves.” Hilda remembered them fondly.

  Storage chores done, she took a break and walked around the lakeshore where she and Mom had played. Still there was the fountain where Mom had told her of her decision to head the first expedition to Ross
128....

  * * * *

  "I have to do this, Hildy. Kyle Perot got himself killed in a skiing accident and they need another starship captain. It will be the first ever discovery voyage not mounted from the Solar System; and after sixteen years on my butt, it's an opportunity I can't pass up. You can come too, if you want."

  "Will Dad come?” she'd asked.

  Mom had been silent for a while. “Your father and I ... well, sometimes two strong people need to get away from each other for a while."

  "Mom,” she had said, “I love Dad. All my friends are here. School—I'm playing clarinet in the band. Song-Do Chun wants me to go to the Waltz Festival with him."

  "I understand, dear,” she'd said with a smile. “'Feathered and flown with projects of your own.’”

  "Huh?"

  "Look up Millay. Don't worry, dear, we'll have more time together some day."

  "When are you going?"

  "Tomorrow,” Kate Avonford had said. “Tomorrow."

  * * * *

  Hilda remembered the moment as clearly as if it had been yesterday. It had been the end of her childhood. She finished the walk with moist eyes and headed up to her room, to bury herself in the details of expanding the solar power and beam projector array that would push Erebus’ impactor to its rendezvous some twelve years hence. She worked through dinner but made it down to the Lakeside Grill for supper with Sasha. The starship had been on New Antarctica's thirty-eight-hour, four-meal day since deceleration, but she still felt a bit of a disconnect after all the years on Earth.

  She watched a show until the wee hours, and fell asleep easily enough.

  A crash of cutlery woke her the next morning. Her room overlooked a large courtyard full of diners busy with their breakfasts; someone must have knocked over a cup. She opened her eyes and decided it was well past time to get up. Dad would be coming by at noon.

  The knock on the door came at 19.6 hours, precisely. Heart in her throat, she opened it.

  "Dad!"

  Wotan Kremer had not changed physically since Hilda had last seen him, but he gave the appearance of a somewhat more youthful person than she'd remembered. His shoulders were more square, his posture better, his face more ruddy and self-assured.

  Of course, the man who had sent her away to Earth at the age of sixteen had been a very sad person trying to put a failed marriage behind him. That had been six decades ago, with a reunion, two more children and another split. Those who are larger than life live by their own rules, Hilda thought. One looks up in wonder and tries to stay out from under their feet.

  "Hildy!” He opened his arms and Hilda rushed into them. Sixty years of heartache were suddenly set aside and she was ten years old again, back in the time of birthdays, Christmas trees, and trips out to see the stars. Her eyes filled with tears as she laid her head on his broad shoulders. At length they parted. She rubbed her eyes. Should she mention Mom? What wounds would that open in both of them? Yet to say nothing was like trying to ignore an elephant in the room.

  "Katherine sends her greetings from Luyten something or other, wherever she is now"

  "I'm ... I'm glad you're speaking to each other."

  "Hmmpf. Well, there are times when I think that the one year between messages is about right. But, ja, we communicate. I should have been more realistic; the only way one can keep a butterfly forever is to put a pin through it. Hildy,” he paused, “she's very proud of what you've accomplished, as I am. The Ried clan and their allies were formidable adversaries, trying to sabotage your project! But you won't have such worries now. Here, I am in charge!” He grinned at her.

  They had Mittagessen of vegetable cake and salad, then talked into the afternoon about family, about Liz going to Lacaille 9352 to manage the final effort there, and Konrad, the brother she'd never met, leading the Colony at Ross 128. They wended their way back to Hilda's room. Finally it was time to talk about the business here.

  "Dad, there's a rumor that Earth's directed a delay."

  Wotan nodded gravely. “We received it five days ago. I wanted to talk to you about it before I released it."

  "I'm glad you did,” Hilda said. “Things don't seem right—I would have gotten a message, too. From Zhau Tse Wen, from Brad, or from Sarah—from all of them."

  Wotan shrugged. “Our people had some reservations as well. But the orders came right from the BHP transmitter location—our interferometers pinned it down to within a couple of kilometers in the Sol System. The multi-channel signal was continuous, with all the right synchronization codes. There are occasional dropouts, but that happens going through an asteroid belt. I've released it to your access. Go ahead and take a look."

  She touched the local net and scanned the numbers. It was basically their standard state vector update, of which there had been several early on, but none in the last ten years. Standard except that the launch epoch was almost six earth months later. The comments field said the change was due to a recalculation of the ten sigma coupling to the probability field for fluctuation inflation.

  Hilda's stomach suddenly knotted up. “Dad, there's no such thing as ‘coupling to the probability field for fluctuation inflation,’ and the BHP certainly hasn't done any tests to look for anything like that."

  "Hmmm. Well, that's not really my area, but I understand that many physicists think that the big bang couldn't have happened by itself, that something external, some first cause, had to trigger the initial period of inflation."

  Hilda was about to say she'd never heard of such nonsense when she remembered that she had, and where. “Dad, there was a Dr. Hiram Kokos working with the Consolidationists ... I think he was making those kinds of noises. He's a planetary astronomer, not a theoretical physicist, and no real physicist takes his stuff seriously. Ask your local physics community."

  Wotan shook his head. “Hildy, that would be Brian Lobov, who runs the physics department at our university, and maybe a couple of others who make it a hobby. He's pretty good; I rely on him.” He smiled and shrugged. “But there is just not much of a physics community on New Antarctica, even now. We only have about half a million people in the whole system! Why do you think I sent you to Earth?"

  Hilda's eyes opened wide.

  "Mom left. I thought I was, well, in the way. A reminder."

  "Oh, no, Hildy, never that! It was for your physics. You didn't want to do anything else—no boys, no dances, just your equations and your experiments. Hildy, do you remember the argument you had with Alex Leparc about relativity? I thought you two would come to blows! You were, what, eight years old?"

  Hilda winced. They had come to blows, later, and nobody had ever heard about it because young men don't like losing fights with girls.

  "For physics, Hildy, you had to go to Earth. All these years, you never said..."

  He was completely right, she realized. She could never have done what she did at New Antarctica. But she had not felt that way at the time. Emotions held back for years raced through her. She didn't know what to say.

  "I'm sorry, Dad. I just ... Should I order some drinks?"

  Wotan sighed and smiled. “Dry sherry. Our vines have done well."

  She placed the order on her bionet. Wotan kept talking.

  "Have you noticed that the glaciers are starting to retreat? Air pressure went over 0.6 bars a couple of months ago, and our mean surface temperature is up to 254, and up to 274 within fifteen degrees of the equator. Things should proceed quite rapidly now."

  Hilda's mind shifted gears. “274? Above freezing? Open water? Do you have open water?” New Antarctica had started with a surface temperature of 233 K at the equator, with spots below 173 K at the poles.

  Wotan laughed—the deep-throated, powerful, thunderous laugh she remembered from the good times of her childhood. “Not yet, but they've created a betting pool. The bets will peak for a time a few months from now. People keep asking me; I tell them I'm not saying because I don't want to bias the pool. Can you imagine that? It is far too complicated
to predict precisely, but they think I know and am not saying!"

  Hilda shook her head.

  "This is the most Earthlike planet humanity has ever found! Mass, gravity, tectonics, everything. All we had to do was give it a little push, ja!"

  Their drinks arrived. Wotan swished the dark fluid around his mouth, then abruptly swallowed.

  "You must come on an air trip with me and I will show you this world I am building for you."

  "For me?"

  "Of course for you, if you want it. Why do parents do anything?"

  Hilda laughed. No person could own a planet, but as a first-generation founder's daughter, and having made a small mark in human history, she would occupy a unique position here for as long as she wanted. “Okay, but it will have to be tomorrow; I'll be leaving for the site the next day."

  Wotan drained what remained of his sherry.

  "Done. We'll leave about eight, from West Dome Airport."

  After Wotan left, Hilda remembered that they'd left the conversation about the delay unfinished. She touched the net to find Dr. Brian Lobov.

  Somewhere, the fates were having fun with her. Dr. Lobov had been a student of none other than Hiram Kokos. Whoever had sent that message had sent it to fertile ground.

  The next day, they left early and flew over the ice pack and emerging islands of New Antarctica's Great Equatorial Sea. Their aircraft was a high-wing delta design with a mostly transparent fuselage. Wotan flew with manual controls. He was born before genetically engineered bioradio and had an irritable distaste for prostheses. As long as Hilda could remember, he preferred to do things with his hands.

  Wotan pointed out to her where the first open-air settlements would be. “It's a volcanic island chain, with the hot spot migrating southeast, somewhat like the Hawaiian Islands, but a bit larger. You see, the big caldera, Novetna, is now free of ice!"