Singularity's Ring (14 page)

Authors: Paul Melko

BOOK: Singularity's Ring

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The commander frowned. “Major McCorkle is responsible for you from now on. He’ll do whatever he has to to keep the station safe.”

“I repeat, are we under arrest?”

McCorkle spoke. “As if you could go anywhere.”

Ask the other question,
I sent.

“Thank you, Commander Hilton, for the opportunity to work on Columbus Station. Have you found who sabotaged Flora’s sled yet?”

“Sabotage?” she said, the word erupting from her.

“Something a military duo might do, perhaps,” Meda added.

I watched McCorkle’s face contort, a rictus followed by forced relaxation. The forces in the room shifted.

Bingo.

“It should be easy to find him,” Meda added. “He’s not an adept saboteur, since he sabotaged the wrong sled and didn’t even do it well enough to finish the job.”

“It was mechanical failure,” McCorkle said.

Hilton glared at his interruption.

“How do you know, Major?” Meda asked. “We’ll be in our cabin.”

We filed out, the eyes of both of them drilling into us. That was not how McCorkle had wanted it go, but we were certain now that McCorkle had sabotaged Flora’s sled by mistake. And now Hilton had suspicions.

In our cabin we tried Mother Redd, but the desktop flashed an access error repeatedly.

He’s got us locked down.

When does the shuttle arrive?

I remembered the space traffic screen.
Six hours.

No one will know we’re leaving the station with McCorkle. We’d be entirely in his power.

He was willing to kill.

We can’t afford to be in his power.

The door chimed.

Aldo,
Manuel sent after peeking through the door peep.

“I heard what happened. It’s not fair,” he said. “I’ve asked for you as a permanent person on my team. A real space hound.”

“We’re scheduled for the next transport to Sabah Station,” Meda said. “Hilton is shipping us out. We’ve supposedly been assigned to Singleton Relations in Idaho.”

“Your practical isn’t over yet,” Aldo said. “What do you mean, ‘supposedly’?”

“McCorkle is taking us back to Earth. We’re in his custody.”

“That puking groundhog? Why?”

“He’s Major McCorkle.”

“Military? A spy? All military personnel are supposed to go by their rank on station.” Aldo’s face was grim.

“Can you send a message to someone on Earth for us?”

“I can, but not for another six hours,” Aldo said. “Comm is down for repairs.”

He’s locked down the whole station.

There’s no way we can get word to Mother Redd until the barge is gone.

“What?” Aldo asked, noting the thoughts floating between us.

“McCorkle may have sabotaged Flora’s sled. He may have been trying to kill us. If we get on that barge, he’ll have us in his complete control.”

“McCorkle,” Aldo said darkly. “We can take care of him.”

“No, Aldo. He’s military.”

“Well, we can’t hide you on Columbus Station. And there’s nowhere to run to. A sled won’t make it to Sabah Station.”

Nowhere to run, I thought, considering the map I had made for the pod a week ago, one that included not just the OG space facilities.

The Ring,
I sent.

Meda looked at me, shocked. I felt her fear, and it mingled with my own apprehension and fascination. The chance to enter it, to study its physics, drew me toward it.

I don’t want to go there,
she sent.

It’s our only chance,
I said.

Malcolm Leto,
she sent.

It’s empty,
Strom sent.
He’s not there.

What if he is?

He isn’t,
I sent.

She nodded, slowly. “Aldo, we’ll need your help.”

“Anything.”

The Ring.

Near the end of third shift, still three hours before the barge was scheduled to arrive, we pulled up to the sled bay. As we passed the traffic control center, we saw Klada Ross inside, talking with the controller, one of him telling a story, the controller laughing, his back to the screen. One of Klada gave me a wink as we passed.

The bay was empty save for Flora and Aldo. Aldo waved us over while Flora watched from the other bay doors, ready to distract anyone coming into the bay. It wasn’t expected; there was no third shift outside work scheduled.

“Ready?” Aldo asked. He was already suited up, and he helped us quickly get into our own suits.

“What the hell is going on?”

We turned. McCorkle was coming through the door into the bay. Flora pushed off to intercept him.

“McCorkle, you’re due in hydroponics,” she said.

“It’s Major McCorkle, and I’m off station-duty,” he shouted.

“Major? I don’t think so. All military personnel have to wear their rank, and you’re in standard-issue jumpsuits.” Flora caught him easily in the middle of the room.

“Inside,” Aldo said.

“But—”

“Go. Flora can handle herself. And besides she has some motive,” Aldo added.

We entered our sled, Aldo behind us, but not before we heard the horrific sound of retching. One of McCorkle was spinning in the middle of the bay, unable to stop his rotation, surrounded by a nebula of puke. The other was latched onto the floor, heaving.

“Did I mention that Flora is station weightless jujitsu champion?” Aldo asked as the door to our sled shut.

The sun was hidden behind the Earth and peeking at its edges, as we nudged the sled away from the station. Aldo let me pilot, while he lounged in the crowded back. The space traffic controller didn’t even notice us until we were a hundred kilometers away. Meda turned off the radio.

I flew the sled like it was a part of me, spinward toward the nearest Ring spine. I was alive for the first time in over a week. The shuttle from Sabah Station would have no passengers that morning, except McCorkle. We were finding our own way back.

Thirty minutes later we neared the spine. At GEO, it
seemed to have grown a large bulb, half the size of Columbus Station, smooth and alien. Twenty-eight thousand kilometers below, squeezing the Earth, was the Ring. Above were counterweights and the far end of the space elevator that could launch material into space.

I brought the sled to within ten meters of the spine’s airlock. Slowly, methodically, we clamped our helmets on, one by one cutting ourselves off. Aldo checked the seal and gave each of us a thumbs-up.

“Good luck, Apollo,” he said over the radio.

One by one, we entered the airlock and exited to hang on to the side of the sled. As I hung there, sharp space and brilliant stars whirled around me. I could have let go then, so that I would never come back to Earth. Helmeted, slipping away was simple.

But then the last of us—Strom—was through, and hand in hand we jumped over to the airlock.

“What if Leto is on the Ring?” Meda asked, her voice tense.

“He’s not,” Moira said. “And even if he were, the Ring is too big for him to be right here.”

“He’s not on the Ring,” Strom said. “And if he is, we’ll take care of him. He is just one, we are five.”

The airlock was large enough for all of us. It opened as we approached and closed when we were all inside. Air hissed into the lock. The inner door did not open.

Meda popped her helmet off, touched the inner door with her gloved hand. Her cold breath hung in the air around us, frosting our faceplates.

“There,” I said, and I tapped open a small recess in the wall. Inside was an interface jack, the male to the female connector in Meda’s neck.

“Here goes,” Meda said, and slid the jack in.

A voice, smooth and sexless, sounded in the lock, “Welcome to the Ring, Apollo Papadopulos. How may I
serve you?” The inner door opened onto a white corridor, empty.

Together, we entered the desolate Ring, leaving behind us our dreams of two decades. They were someone else’s now.

FOUR

Manuel

Once the five of us were inside, Meda pulled the interface jack from her neck and threw the wire back at the wall. It slithered into place. Silently, the inner airlock door closed. Quant glanced out a port next to the lock and shared with us a picture of Aldo thrusting the sled away.

The Ring is empty,
Meda sent, though she hadn’t needed to. We had felt the desolation through her link. The colossal space station was devoid of any human life.

We could just stay
—Quant began, but Meda erupted in veto pheromone.

No, not here.
She shuddered.

Down,
I sent.
To the Earth.

The consensus was unanimous.

I pulled myself down the corridor ahead of my pod using my hands and modified feet. The air smelled … like nothing. After a month of filtered space station air on Columbus Station, of recycled air still stinking of pheromones, rubber,
and sweat, the lack of any other odor was striking. My nose twitched.

The corridor opened into a cylindrical room lashed with ropes in all directions. At the center of the cylinder was another cylinder, an elevator that would take us from GEO to the main Ring torus.

Elevator,
I sent back up the corridor, then pulled myself across the space to the door. As the pod followed, I felt Meda’s fear of jacking in again to work the elevator. I sent her the image of the manual elevator controls. She’d have no need to use the interface.

The elevator car was six meters tall, with molded chairs attached to both ceiling and floor. We took seats and Moira found the button labeled “Ring—Torus—Central.”

She shrugged. It would be down, and that’s all we needed now.

The elevator smoothly accelerated toward the Earth, until we had enough gravity to lay out the lunch we had taken from the station.

After a time, the rest of the pod slept, though I remained awake, climbing along the webbed walls in the weak gravity, watching the Earth slowly grow.

The elevator slowed hours later and glided into the central curve of the Ring. We gasped as Quant saw the interior; a vast cylinder at least two kilometers wide, set with terraces and bridges on its walls. Thin wispy clouds formed at the ceiling. A blue lake dominated the floor, surrounded by trees and grasslands. Roads wound around the floor, climbing into the walls.

All of it was empty.

Birds,
Strom sent. A flock took flight from the lake.

At fifteen percent normal gravity, the birds jumped aloft with their legs more than their wings, a single flap enough to drive them into the sky.

Eight thousand cubic meters per person,
Quant inserted into my thoughts. Clearly the Community had built the Ring with room to grow.

We could hide here forever,
Strom sent.

Until
he
comes back,
Moira added.

That way,
Meda sent. A second bank of elevators stood below us. These elevators descended the last ten thousand kilometers to an Earth-based anchor station and were larger—twice the size of the spine elevator.

I took one last look at the valley: a desolate tribute to a dead species of humanity. I couldn’t picture it as anything but an empty habitat, a place we once lived, but no longer.

Meter by meter, second by second, the gravity grew as the Earth loomed nearer, pulling limbs down to our sides. Meda’s, Moira’s, and Quant’s hair, so poofy at geosynch, seemed slick and oily, pressed against their skulls. After just a few weeks in zero-gee, the pull of gravity was oppressive. My feet hurt.

Below us, the delta of the Amazon River reached with brown fingers into the Atlantic, coloring it with sediments. We were about two hundred kilometers up, at the edge of the atmosphere. The elevator was beginning to break, electromagnetic squeezes on the cable. Soon we would be buffeted by winds during our last segment of this ride to Earth. It had taken nearly two days to get from geosynchronous orbit.

Gravity is point nine four gees,
Quant counted off. She had been doing that every ten minutes for an eon. I checked my anger; it was my feet. Instead, I gingerly walked away from the window of the elevator and found a seat. I could see the view through Strom’s eyes just the same.

The Ring elevator was three stories tall, a cylinder wrapped around the elevator cable, with a diameter of sixty meters.

I rubbed my feet, massaging the phalanges and metatarsals. On Earth I had thought that my modified feet were for climbing trees. It wasn’t until we had spent a month on Columbus Station that I realized that I had been made to move in zero-gee. I had spent hours stretching tendons and muscles in my feet, allowing them to grip and manipulate like never before. But now, the gravity was crushing them. My entire body was rude and tired.

With Strom’s eyes, I could still make out the curve of the Earth slowly flattening to a horizon and the weather patterns over South America and the Amazon. A tropical depression swirled in the middle of the Atlantic, it too lethargic and slow. Weather, gravity, pain: it was as if we were entering a new world.

If we buy transport, if we use our credit chit at all, they’ll know where we are.
This was Meda’s thought, which I would have known by smell alone. Her thoughts are nuanced with memories from deep storage: the look on McCorkle’s face from Hilton’s office, our credit chits, an image of a Scryfejet that drove Quant into a subtext stream of consciousness on various performance numbers for that line of aircars. Meda had taken her auburn hair from her ponytail, the first time since we’d left Columbus Station. There was no need now to keep it tame and out of her eyes.

Until we understand the forces in the OG that are after us, we must travel with care, incognito.
Moira’s thoughts were precise. Where her sister Meda layered her thoughts with connotation and subtlety, Moira was exact. On the surface, twins, but beneath, their thoughts were thunder and lightning.

It was not rare for biological siblings to form into larger pods. In fact, their physician had published several papers on the additional bonding force identical twins added to a pod. For a moment, I considered my own sister Corrine,
and then I shut that out. Any jealousy I felt for Moira and Meda’s relationship I crushed, thinking instead about my pain-filled feet.

Quant looked at me, smiled softly, and sent,
Strom can carry you. Then you can use all four thumbs.

It wasn’t about using my thumbs, I almost replied, but nodded.

I will,
Strom sent. Strom was our strength, our power, and our innocence. I knew he would carry us all if need be, and fall trying.

What would I do with four thumbs?

It’s as useful as I am in a gravity well,
Quant sent.

We’re all useless,
Meda said. It was the same consensus we had stuck on since the call from Mother Redd. Purposelessness, futility, depression.

They know where we are right now. Overgovernment prefects will be waiting at the anchor,
Moira sent. Moira’s hair, unlike her twin Meda’s, was always short.

We should have traveled the Ring to the Galapagos line,
Quant sent. High-speed trains ran the circumference of the Ring. We could have descended any of the dozen elevators to the equator. We had chosen the closest for our descent.

No!
Meda sent.
Not a second longer in the Ring.
We all felt Meda’s revulsion. Even though the Ring was empty.

The Macapa anchor is in the middle of a singleton enclave. They can’t get to it easily,
Quant sent.

The anchor itself is Overgovernment property.

Robotically manned.

We’ll know soon enough,
I sent. I stood on sore feet.

The others joined me at the window. The Earth below us was so close we could no longer see the extent of it in one glance. It stretched around us, the horizon pushing in all directions. The altimeter showed a red digital readout of one hundred and fifty kilometers.

The upper edges of the atmosphere tickled the elevator, shivered the cable.

“If the prefects are there, we will discuss things with them. If they are not, we are free,” Strom said. He flexed his hands, making fists.

Free.

Useless.

At first the elevator seemed to be descending directly into the green canopy of the rain forest at the edge of the muddy Amazon. Then what I thought was morning fog formed the shape of a finger: the anchor.

Middle finger,
Quant sent.

The anchor was curved and white, unlike current pod architecture, which used the prior century as a model. The jungle surrounded it, but did not encroach on the sealed-off pavilion, perhaps scared of the huge, white monstrosity, thinking it some whale that had crawled up the Amazon on its belly and beached itself on the shore during the rainy season.

Deceleration added weight beyond one gee to my feet. I reached up and hung from a bar, stretching the muscles in my arms.

Monkey,
Strom sent.
We will find your cousins down there.

Bears and monkeys are our cousins, self,
I replied.

True.
I caught some of Strom’s wistfulness. The bears were still a mystery to us, and Strom’s personal totem. He—and so we all did—dreamed of them at least one night in ten.

The elevator had slowed to a few meters per second. To the south was the Amazon, and along its banks was a village. Nearly all of the Amazon was a singleton enclave, a semiautonomous zone under the Overgovernment rule.

When was the last time they saw an elevator coming down?
I sent.

Thirty years ago.

Blackness, as the elevator entered the top of the anchor building. Then a flash of lights and a heavy deceleration as the elevator came to a stop. With a whoosh, the door opened, and my ears popped. The elevator landing opened onto a sloping path, spiraling down into the anchor.

No one was there to meet us.

Of course not,
Moira scoffed.

I know,
I replied, sharply.

Strom stepped out of the elevator onto the ramp. The walls curved up and around. At a meter, spaced evenly along the wall, were rows of interface jacks, each one a direct connection to the Community. Meda shuddered.

The ramp descended, through three floors. At the ground floor it opened into a glassed atrium. Statuary, chairs, and tables formed a static plaza. A red sunrise seeped through the room. It had seen thirty years of sunrises, and we were the first to set foot here in all that time.

Strom urged us on. I felt his anxiety tingling through us, triggering adrenaline in me, shuttling through us: pod feedback. Glass doors off the atrium slid open as we approached. Beyond was a courtyard. The heat pushed us back. The smells were foreign: pollen and sweetness swirling in humidity.

The courtyard was twenty meters in diameter, overrun with small shrubs and plants. A flock of parrots looked at us from a small tree.

“Come on.”

Across the courtyard was a gate. The inner door opened for us, then shut as we passed through.

Be ready,
Strom sent.

The outer gate opened.

No prefects. Let’s go.
Strom relaxed, now that no threat was apparent.

A syncrete apron surrounded the anchor, but beyond it was green jungle, a wall of brush and trees, climbing into the sky. Quant looked at the forest, her mind testing, searching, and we all felt it when she found the path. It was a deviation that stood out to her like red on white.

The river is that way. So is the village,
she sent.

So,
I sent.
What does that gain us?
I released veto scent and sat down. My feet hurt too much to wander a jungle. My shoes were too tight.

Give up?
Moira asked.
We could have stayed on Columbus Station.

Of course not! But where are we going?

The farm,
Strom sent.
Mother Redd.

Won’t they look there?
Meda asked.

Who will look there?
I shot back.
What if this is paranoia induced by pod instability?

Remember Anderson McCorkle?
Quant asked.
He wanted to kill us.

We’ve been a target for someone since the interface jack, since Leto,
Moira replied.
Politically and physically.