A Night Without Stars (13 page)

“No, sir.”

Anala was staring solidly out the window as the steam engine let out a whistle and the pistons started to pump. The train pulled away from the platform.

“Good man. Glad you haven't forgotten your duty. Bienvenido comes before any personal indulgence. There'll be plenty of time for that when you come back. Giu, I remember my triumph parades. If you thought the girls were enthusiastic last night, you ain't seen nothing yet.” He slapped Ry's leg.

Ry gave Eades an embarrassed smile.

The train rattled along the track to Cape Ingmar, a raised stone-walled embankment that ran parallel to the coast a couple of kilometers inland. Outside, the ground was mainly jugobush swamp that had an ever-shifting boundary with the sea as gritty silt and vigorous fronds constantly pushed outward, only to be washed back again. There were no settlements here; this land was too difficult to ever tame and farm. Nor were there any fishing villages. The swamp covered river inlets and possible harbors.

The only sign of life was a village of Vatni huts—long cylinders woven from dried jugobush branches, looking like some kind of exposed tunnel network. The aliens from Aqueous had slowly spread their family enclaves along Lamaran's coastlines since their arrival two and a half centuries ago, during the brief time Laura Brandt had opened a wormhole to their world. Some people muttered about their expanding population being as bad as a Faller incursion, but Ry knew that was stupid paranoia. They were semi-aquatic; they didn't covet land. Besides, it was Slvasta himself who had negotiated the deal, allowing them new settlements on Bienvenido in exchange for protection. They had become invaluable in guarding the coastal waters from marine-Fallers. Eggs fell constantly into Bienvenido's oceans, where they eggsumed larger, more aggressive species of fish. Crewing a trawler, and even some of the smaller commercial boats, was a hazardous profession. But since the Vatni arrived and began patrolling along the coast, that risk had reduced considerably.

To the west, the imposing Salalsav Mountains rose out of the horizon, snow sparkling on their upper slopes. The high range shielded the Desert of Bone from the clouds coming in off the ocean. Not even the post-Transition conjunction storms could break through their guard. Rain hadn't fallen on that desert for thousands of years.

Looking at the jagged pinnacles, he thought of his brief time on the edge of the desert. Astronauts underwent two weeks of desert survival training just in case they came down in one. Afterward, Ry decided he'd prefer a leaking command module adrift in the ocean to that.

The train whistled again as the raised track began to follow the coastal curve eastward and start up a shallow incline. Ry and Anala stared out of the window. Cape Ingmar was a sight Ry knew he could never possibly tire of. The Cape itself was an oval of land protruding out from the low swamps, like a plateau that had never managed to rise more than thirty meters up from sea level. But its 190 square kilometers of scrub wasteland just south of the equator made it the perfect launch site.

The five assembly buildings occupied the neck of the Cape—massive metal hangars painted white to reflect the heat, with huge electrical air cooler boxes along the walls. A clutter of administration and engineering buildings, equally white with silvered windows, were huddled in their shadow. The flight control center out in front was a three-story cylinder of white marble, topped by big radar dishes and smaller radio aerial towers. The two basement levels were full of electrical computators that would guide his Liberty spacecraft up to the Tree Ring, and back again.

Dominating the eastern side of the rocket port were the eight launch pads. Big circles of concrete surrounding the deep blast pits, smothered in iron gantries. Seven of them were currently inactive, the gantry towers lying horizontally on their support columns as they underwent routine maintenance and refurbishment. But the eighth—

Ry couldn't help the sigh of satisfaction as he saw the Silver Sword rocket standing proud against the burning azure sky. It stood fifty meters high, including the escape rocket at the top. The four first-stage boosters were matte gray, clustering around the core stage. The third stage was a three-meter-diameter cylinder standing on a simple truss segment above the core, its insulation foam snow white, protecting the cryogenic propellant tanks from the brutal sunlight. (Even then, the rocket was only ever fueled at night when the air was cooler.) Above that was the silver shroud, its aerodynamic segments encasing the Liberty spacecraft he was going to be riding tomorrow. Perched on top of the shroud was the spindly solid-fuel escape rocket.

Most of the Silver Sword was obscured by the four gantry towers that had levered up to clamp the fuselage and connect it to dozens of umbilical lines and fuel pipes. Hydraulic access platforms were extended all the way up, and he could see technicians crouched beside inspection hatches, running final tests.

“Now, that is something beautiful,” Ry murmured.

“Certainly is,” Anala agreed. “And it's all yours.”

“You get the next one.” Pilot assignments were made fifteen flights in advance, allowing mission-specific training.

“Six weeks,” she replied wistfully. “It's going to seem like forever.”

The train pulled up at Cape Ingmar's solitary passenger platform. General Delores was waiting under the awning, heading the welcome committee of more officers and flight-veteran astronauts, several People's Congress representatives, more reporters, more photographers, and more newsfilm cameras. Ry put his jacket and cap back on, let Anala straighten them, and gave her a quick kiss when Eades wasn't looking. “I don't want to wait six weeks,” he said.

Her grin was enigmatic, but promising. “Me neither. So make sure you come back.”

“Deal.”

The carriage door opened. Ry stepped out and saluted the general amid the clicking of cameras and loud applause. The general formally presented him his mission badge—a platinum Liberty craft with a C-curve of exhaust wrapping around the planet, number 2,673.

With 2,672 Liberty missions already completed over the last 250 years, the launch procedure at Cape Ingmar was now utterly rigid. There were no variables, no unknowns, no deviations from the long checklist.

Once his mission badge was pinned onto his uniform, Pilot Major Ry Evine became a piece of Cape Ingmar's property, a component to be inserted into the Silver Sword rocket when tests and preparations had been completed satisfactorily. There was the final mission briefing, hourly reports on the Silver Sword status, two hours of preflight medical checks, the formal handover of the bomb codes, studying the weather reports for tomorrow morning.

When dusk fell he went out onto the roof of the flight center, where a small telescope had been set up. Trees of the Ring glimmered silver-white along their orbit, fifty thousand kilometers above Bienvenido. Laura Brandt had claimed they looked like stars in the Commonwealth galaxy, where they'd all come from originally. He looked through the eyepiece at his target, Tree 3,788-D. It hung just above the western horizon, magnified by the telescope to a small line of sparkling brilliance, with a hint of color in its radiance.

“I'm coming for you, fucker,” he promised it.

He ate his last meal in the astronaut suite on the second floor of the flight center: fillet steak, sautéed potatoes, grilled tomatoes, tolberry sauce. Chocolate ice cream with cherry sauce for dessert. Half a liter of water—no alcohol this close to the mission. Eades and Anala were his table companions. Talk was all trivia. One last weather report, predicting minimal wind at dawn. Silver Sword progress reports. At six thirty, the third-stage tanks were being chilled ready for fueling with liquid hydrogen and oxygen. First- and core-stage fueling was scheduled to commence in eighty minutes.

Six fifty: He changed into pajamas and entered the bedroom. Lights out, seven o'clock. Authenticated by Colonel Eades, who flicked the switch and shut the door.

Some veterans told the trainees they couldn't sleep. Others claimed they were so tired by the preflight procedures and their Commencing Countdown festivities they even asked to go to bed early. Ry lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, convinced he was going to be an awake-all-night guy. There was so much running through his mind, the flight manuals flipping up behind closed eyelids, reviewing everything. Then they faded away to be replaced by Anala—her touch, her warmth, her lithe body writhing energetically against him. He wished there could be an exception about being alone tonight. And if anyone was going to break regulations and sneak in, it would be Anala. But the door remained closed. It was going to be a long night—

Colonel Eades opened the door and switched the light on at three o'clock precisely.

“Flight control has issued a pilot ingress go,” he announced.

Cape Ingmar's chief medical officer was waiting. Ry extended his hand, and the doctor jabbed his thumb with a needle. A drop of blood welled up.

“Confirmed red,” the doctor reported officially. “Pilot Major Ry Evine is human.” He smiled. “Good luck, Major.”

Fallers had dark-blue blood. There'd never been an attempt by a nest to hijack a Liberty flight in the 250 years of the program, and General Delores was determined there wouldn't be one on her watch.

Breakfast. Yogurt, then bacon, eggs, toast. Orange juice. Colonel Matej, the mission controller—a five-flight veteran and living legend to the astronaut corps—came in for his briefing. The fueling had been completed during the night; all they were doing now was topping up the tanks. Tracking and communications stations around the planet were online. The recovery ships had reached the splashdown zone, two hundred kilometers east of Cape Ingmar. Weather planes were up, reporting excellent conditions. Two Falls were in progress, neither of which would come close to his projected orbit.

Down a floor to the suit room. The indignity of the fluid waste disposal tube, its tight rubber cap squeezing his cock, bladder sac strapped to his right thigh. Further indignity of the solid waste absorber pants—basically an adult diaper. Medical electrodes were stuck to his chest, a thermometer strapped into his armpit. Then they dressed him in a bright-blue one-piece cotton garment. Over that came the silver pressure suit. Tight gloves. Big bowl helmet, clicked into the metal ring around his neck. Thick flexible air tubes were plugged into the sockets on his chest, leading to a suitcase-sized personal environment module—carried by Colonel Eades as he walked out the door.

People were lining the corridor, applauding. Camera flashbulbs going off. Outside doors opening. The transfer van. Drive to the pad. Rocket and gantries illuminated against the dark predawn sky by powerful arc lights. Ride up the gantry in a cage lift. No nerves. Not yet. Just eagerness. And pride.

Five flight engineers were grinning in welcome. They were used to this. It was nothing special to them, just another spaceflight. Open hatch in the shroud, exposing the smaller circular command module hatch. Ingress: an incredibly difficult gymnastic maneuver while wearing the pressure suit, holding the rail and wiggling in horizontally. But then he was snug in the acceleration couch, looking up at a console wall that was all switches and dials and the orange glow of nixi tube numbers.

The inside of the command module was a simple hemisphere two and a half meters in diameter at the base, most of which was taken up by the controls, instruments, and various lockers. When the Liberty was in free fall, he would have just over two and a half cubic meters of space to move around it. On the ground it was like wearing a coffin, especially for him: one meter eighty-one tall, and eighty-four kilos. This capsule had to have customized fittings, and not even those could mitigate the way his legs were bent up to accommodate his height.

The engineers plugged his air tubes into the command module environmental circuit. Colonel Eades reached in and gave his hand a quick firm shake.

Ry switched on the com circuit.

“Good morning, Liberty two-six-seven-three,” Anala's voice said in his earphones.

“Good morning, flight com,” Ry replied with a smile. It was comforting to have her as his flight com, and not just because of what had happened between them. Flight com was always the astronaut scheduled for the next flight; the intense shared training over the previous months helped them become familiar with each other, reducing the chances of misunderstanding.

He scanned the console, checking the lights and dials. “Ready to commence pre-launch checklist.”

“Roger that. The flight controller has given a go for hatch closure.”

A hand slapped his helmet, then the hatch, shut.

Ninety minutes spent confirming instrument data, putting switches in the correct position, watching the Liberty systems stabilize. Dawn light started to shine in through the tiny hatch port behind his head.

He became the machine he'd been trained to be: a piloting mechanism. Observing and responding correctly as the tanks were pressurized, the umbilicals withdrawn. Gantry retraction. First-stage booster motors' turbine ignition. Not even when all twenty rocket motors of the boosters and core stage ignited simultaneously did he take a second out from the procedures.

Liberty mission 2,673 lifted smoothly from the pad as the rocket engines burned four hundred kilograms of liquid oxygen and eleven hundred kilograms of highly refined kerosene every second, delivering a combined thrust of four and a half thousand kilonewtons. Acceleration in the command module reached four gees, shoving Ry down hard into the couch. The instrument console blurred from the vibration and he couldn't read anything; he just gritted his teeth and concentrated on trying to breathe.

Booster separation came at 120 seconds—a judder that made him yell half in fright, half in delight.
Now
he started to relax and take in the experience. Thirty seconds later the Liberty shroud split apart, and the segments peeled away from the spaceship amid a vigorous shaking. The guidance computator steered the core's four small vernier rockets, keeping the trajectory steady, and the Silver Sword continued to power upward for a further 140 seconds until the core stage was exhausted and the third stage ignited. The hydrogen-oxygen rocket produced 250 kilonewtons and burned for a further 270 seconds, putting the Liberty into orbit 225 kilometers above Bienvenido.