A Stone in Heaven Page 6

  Lightning glared. The rainstorm grew more wild.

  VI

  Hooligan raised her lean form off the spacefield and hit the sky as fast as regulations allowed. Thunder trailed. Beyond atmosphere, she curved away as per flight plan, accelerating harder all the time. Presently she was far enough distant from regular traffic trajectories that she could unbind the full power of her gravs. Before long, Terra was visibly dwindling in eyesight, more quickly for each second that passed.

  None of this was felt inboard, where fields maintained a steady one gee of weight. Only the faintest susurrus resounded, and most of that was from the ventilators which kept vernal breezes moving. Hooligan was a deceptive craft: small, but overpowered, with armament to match a corvette’s, equipment and data banks to match an explorer’s (and an Intelligence laboratory’s), luxury to match—but here Banner’s experience failed her.

  In her stateroom, which gave on a private bath cubicle, she removed her disguise. It came off easier than she had expected, not just the dress and wig but the items which had altered her looks and prints to fit the passport Flandry had given her.

  Sarah Pipelini—“Is this anybody real?” she had asked.

  “Well, several real persons have found it convenient to be her for a while,” he replied. “She’s got the standard entries, in official records, birth, education, residence, employment, et cetera, plus occasional changes to stay plausible. I’ve a number of identities available. Sarah’s is the easiest to suit you to. Besides, creating her was fun.”

  “I’m no good at playacting,” Banner said nervously. “It’s too short notice even to learn what her past life is supposed to have been.”

  “No need. Simply memorize what’s in the passport. Stay close to me and don’t speak unless spoken to. No harm if you register excitement; that’s natural, when you’re off on a trip to far-off, exotic Hermes. It’ll also be natural for you to clutch my arm and give me intermittent adoring glances, if you can bring yourself to that.”

  “You mean—?”

  “Why, I thought it was obvious. We have to get you aboard. Besides the regular Naval clearance procedures, Cairncross will doubtless have agents unobtrusively watching. No surprise if I bring a lady along to help pass the time of voyage. In fact, that will reinforce the impression—together with just Chives coming otherwise—that I am indeed going where I’m supposed to. If I brought any of my staff, then his Grace might well demand that men of his be included. As is, I’ve already filed our list, the three of us, you described as a ‘friend.’ Cairncross may snigger when he reads it, but he should believe.” Flandry’s tone grew serious. “Of course, this is strictly a ruse. Have no fears.”

  When he applied the deceptive materials, her face had burned beneath his fingers.

  Now she showered the sweat of tension off her. For a moment she regarded her rangy form in the mirror and considered putting the glamorous gown on again. But once more she flushed, and chose the plainest coverall she had packed. She did brush her hair till it shone and let it flow free under a headband of lovely weave.

  Emerging, she found the saloon where Flandry had said they would meet, and drew a quick breath. She had often seen open space, through a faceplate as well as a viewscreen. Yet somehow, at this instant, those star-fires crowding yonder clear blackness, that icy sweep of the galaxy, and Terra already a blue jewel falling away into depths beyond depths—reached in and seized her.

  Music drew her back. A lilt of horns, flutes, violins … Mozart? Flandry entered. He too had changed clothes, his uniform for an open-necked bouffalon shirt, bell-bottomed slacks, curly-toed slippers. Is he being casual on my account? she wondered. If so, he still can’t help being elegant. The way he bears his head, and the light makes its gray come alive—

  “How’re you doing?” he greeted. “Relaxed, I trust? You may as well be. We’ve a good two weeks’ travel before us.” He grinned. “At least, I hope we can make them good.”

  “Won’t we have work to do?” she inquired hastily.

  “Oh, the ship conns herself en route, and handles other routine like housekeeping. Chives handles the meals, which, believe me, will not be routine. He promises lunch in an hour.” Flandry gestured at a table of dark-red wood—actual mahogany? Banner had seen literary references to mahogany. “Let’s have an aperitif meanwhile.”

  “But, but you admitted you know almost nothing about Ramnu. I’m sure you’ve loaded the data banks with information on it, but won’t you need a lot of that in your mind, also?”

  He guided her by the elbow to a padded bench that curved around three sides of the table. Above it, on a bulkhead that shimmered slightly iridescent, was screened a picture she recognized: snowscape, three trudging peasants, a row of primitive houses, winter-bare trees, a mountain, all matching the grace of the music. Hiroshige had wrought it, twelve hundred years ago.

  “Please sit,” he urged. They did. “My dear,” he continued, “of course I’ll have to work. We both will. But I’m a quick study; and what’s the use of laying elaborate plans when most of the facts are unknown? We’ll do best to enjoy yourselves while we can. For openers, you need a day off to learn, down in your bones, that for the nonce you’re safe.” Chives appeared. “What will you drink? Since I understand a seafood salad is in preparation, I’d recommend a dry white wine.”

  “Specifically, sir, the Chateau Huon ’58,” said the Shalmuan.

  Flandry raised his brows. “A pinot noir blanc?”

  “The salad will be based upon Unan Besarian skimmerfish, sir.”

  Flandry stroked his mustache. “I see. Then when we eat, we’ll probably want—oh, never mind, you’ll pick the bottle anyway. Very good, Chives.”

  The servant left, waving his tail. Banner sighed. “Where can you possibly find time for gourmandizing, Admiral?” she asked.

  “Why, isn’t that the purpose of self-abnegation, to gain the means of self-indulgence?” Flandry chuckled. “I’d prefer to be a decadent aristocrat, but wasn’t born to it; I’ve had to earn my decadence.”

  “I can’t believe that,” she challenged.

  “Well, at any rate, frankly, you strike me as being too earnest. Your father knew how to savor the cosmos, in his gusty fashion. So did your mother, in her quieter way, and I daresay she does yet. Why not you?”

  “Oh, I do. It’s simply that—” Banner stared past him, into brilliance and darkness. She wasn’t given to revealing herself, especially on acquaintance as brief as this. However, Flandry was an old family friend, and they’d be together in running between the claws of death, and—and—

  “I never had a chance to learn much about conventional pleasures,” she explained with difficulty. “Navy brat, you know, shunted from planet to planet, educated mostly by machines. Then the Academy; I had an idea of enlisting in Dad’s corps—yours—and a xenological background would help. But I got into the science entirely, instead, and left for Ramnu, and that’s where I’ve been ever since.” She met his eyes. They were kindly. “I wouldn’t want it any different, either,” she said. “I have the great good fortune to love what I do … and those I do it with, the Ramnuans themselves.”

  He nodded. “I can see how it would make you its own. Nothing less than total dedication will serve, will it? On a world so strange.” His vision likewise sought the deeps outside. “Gods of mystery,” he whispered, “it wasn’t supposed to be possible, was it? A planet like that. Yes, I do have a brain-scorching lot of homework ahead of me. To start off, I don’t even know how Ramnu is supposed to have happened.”

  Originally a dwarf sun had a superjovian attendant, a globe of some 3000 Terrestrial masses. Such a monster was, inevitably, of starlike composition, mainly hydrogen, with a small percentage of helium, other elements a mere dash of impurities.

  Indeed, it must have been more nearly comparable to a star than to, say, Jupiter. The latter is primarily liquid, beneath a vast atmosphere; a slag of light metal compounds does float about in continent-sized pieces, but most
solid material is at the core (if it can be called solid, under that pressure). The slow downdrift of matter, drawn by the gravity of the stupendous mass, releases energy; Jupiter radiates about twice what it receives from Sol, making the surface warm.

  Increase the size by a factor of 10, and everything changes. The body glows red; it is liquid, or fiercely compressed gas, throughout, save that the heavy elements which have sunken to the center are squeezed into quantum degeneracy, rigid beyond any stuff we will ever hold in our hands. At the same time, because its gravitational grip upon itself is immense, a globe like this can form, and can survive, rather close to an ordinary sun. Energy input from light and solar wind is insufficient to blow molecules away from it.

  Unless—

  Close by, as astronomical distances go, was a giant star. It went supernova. This may have occurred by chance, when it was passing precisely far enough away. Likelier, giant and dwarf were companions, with precisely the right orbits around each other. In the second case, the catastrophe tore them apart, for mass was lost at such a rate that conservation of momentum whirled the pair off at greater than escape velocity.

  A violence that briefly rivalled the combined output of billions of suns did more than this. It filled surrounding space with gas that, for millennia afterward, made a nebula visible across light-years, till at last expansion thinned it away into the abyss. The dwarf star may well have captured a little of that cloud, and moved up the main sequence.

  The huge planet was too small for that; parameters were wrong for producing another Mirkheim. Bombardment and sheer incandescence blew away more than 90 percent of it, the hydrogen and helium. They volatilized mainly as a plasma, which interacted with the core of heavier elements through magnetic fields. Thus the rotation of that core was drastically slowed. It exploded too, out of super-compaction into a state we might call normal. This outburst was insufficient to shatter the remnant, though perhaps a fraction was lost. But the ball of silicon, nickel, iron, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, uranium … was molten for eons afterward.

  Meanwhile, its lesser satellites, like its lesser sister planets, had been vaporized. A part of three big ones survived. The shrinkage of their primary sent them spiraling outward to new orbits. Movement was hindered by friction with the nebula, which was substantial for thousands of years. That may have caused an inner moon or two to crash on the planet, Certainly it moved the globe itself sunward.

  When finally things had stabilized, there was Niku, a late G-type star of 0.48 Solar luminosity, unusual only in having a higher percentage of metals than is common for bodies its age (and this only if we have estimated that age correctly). There were four small, virtually airless planets. And there was Ramnu, circling Niku at a mean distance, which varied little, of 1.10 astronomical unit, in a period of 1.28 standard year. Its mass was 310 times the Terrestrial, its mean density 1.1 times—but the density was due to self-compression under 7.2 standard gees, for the overall compositions were similar. The axial tilt of Ramnu was about 4 degrees, its rotation period equal to 15.7 standard days.

  As the stone cooled, it outgassed, forming oceans and a primordial atmosphere. Chemical evolution began. Eventually photosynthesizing life developed, and the pace of that evolution quickened. Today the atmosphere resembled Terra’s, apart from slight differences in proportions of constituents. The most striking unlikeness was its concentration, 4.68 times the Terrestrial at sea level, which meant 33.7 times the pressure. Thus, although irradiation from the sun was 0.4 what Terra gets, greenhouse effect kept the surface reasonably warm … but this fluctuated.

  The world was discovered not by humans but by Cynthians, early in the pioneering era. Intrigued, they established a scientific base on its innermost moon and bestowed names from a mythology of theirs. Politico-economic factors, which also fluctuate, soon caused them to depart. Later, humans arrived, intending to stay and operate on a larger scale. But the facilities made available to them were never adequate, and lessened across the centuries. For all its uniqueness, Ramnu remained obscure, even among planetologists.

  There are so many, many worlds, in this tiny segment of space we have somewhat explored.

  When safely high in Sol’s potential well, Hooligan switched to secondary drive. Her oscillators gave her a pseudovelocity almost twice that of most vessels, better than half a light-year per hour. Yet she would take half a month to reach the region of Sol’s near neighbor Antares. Had she been able to range that far, it would have taken her twenty years to cross the galaxy. Their compensators cancelling the optical effects of continuous spatial displacement, her screens showed heaven slowly changing, as old constellations became new; unless made to amplify, on the fourth day they no longer showed Sol.

  “Which shows you how we rate in the scheme of things, doesn’t it?” Flandry said apropos. He and Banner were relaxing over drinks after she had led him through a hard session of study. The drinks now totalled several.

  She leaned elbows on the table and gave him a serious regard. “Depends on what you mean by that,” she replied. “If God can care about the workmanship in an electron, He can care about us.”

  He looked back. It was worth doing, he thought. She wasn’t beautiful by conventional measures, but her face had good bones and was more alive than most—like her springy body and those leaf-green, sea-green eyes … “I didn’t know you were religious,” he said. “Well, Max was, though he made no production of it.”

  “I’m not sure if I’d call myself religious,” she admitted. “I’m not observant in any faith. But Creation must have a purpose.”

  He sipped his Scotch and followed the smoke-bite with a little water. “The present moment could make me believe that,” he said. “Unfortunately, I’ve seen too many moments which are not the least like it. I don’t find much self-created purpose in our lives, either. And our public creations, like the Empire, are exercises in absurdity.” He took forth his cigarette case. “Ah, well, we went through this argument at the age of eighteen or thereabouts, didn’t we? Smoke?”

  She accepted, and they kindled together. He had selected for music a concert by an ensemble of tuned Freyan ornithoids. They twittered, they trilled, they sang of treetops and twilit skies. He had given the air a greenwood odor and made it summer-mild. The lights were low.

  Banner seemed abruptly to have forgotten her surroundings. She inhaled as sharply as her gaze focused on him. “Did you?” she asked. “At just about that age, weren’t you serving the Empire … under my father? And afterward, everything you’ve done—No, don’t bother playing your cynicism game with me.”

  He shrugged and laughed. “Touche! I confess I matured a trifle late. Max was a stout Imperial loyalist, of course, and I admired him more than any other man I’ve ever met, including the one alleged to have been my own father. So it took me a while to see what the Empire really is. Since then, if you must know, like everybody else who can think, I have indeed been playing games, for lack of better occupation. Mine happen to be useful to Terra—and, to be sure, to myself, since our pre-eminence is more fun than subjugation, barbarism, or death. But as for taking the Imperial farce seriously—”

  He stopped, seeing appalled anger upon her. “Do you say my father was a fool?” cracked forth.

  Am I drunk? flashed through him. A bit, maybe, what with alcohol poured straight over weariness and, yes, loneliness. I ought to have been more careful.

  “I’m sorry, Banner,” he apologized. “I spoke heedlessly. No, your father was right at the time. The Empire was worth something then, on balance. Afterward, well, from his standpoint it doubtless continued to be. If he grew disappointed, he would have felt obliged to keep silent. He was that kind of man. I like to imagine that he lived and died in the hope of a renascence—which I wish I could share.”

  Her countenance softened. “You don’t?” she murmured. “But why? The Empire keeps the Pax, holds the trade lanes open, fends off the outside enemy, guards the heritage—That’s what you’ve spent your life doing.”


  Aye, she remains her father’s daughter, he saw. It explains much about her.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “I was being grumpy.”

  “No, you weren’t,” she declared. “I may not be a very skilled human-reader, but you meant your words. Unmistakably. Please tell me more.”

  Her spirit is bent to the search for truth.

  “Oh, it’s a long story and a longer thesis,” he said. “The Empire had value once. It still does, to a degree. Nevertheless, what was it ever in the first place, but the quickest and crudest remedy for chaos? And what brought on the chaos, the Troubles, except the suicide of an earlier order, which couldn’t muster the will to keep freedom alive? So again, as before, came Caesar.

  “But a universal state is not a new beginning for a civilization, it’s the start of the death, and it has to follow the same course over and over through history, like a kind of slow but terminal sickness.”

  He sipped, he smoked, feeling the slight burns of each. “I’d really rather not give you a lecture tonight,” he said. “I’ve spent hundreds of hours when I’d nothing else to do, reading and meditating; and I’ve talked to historians, psychodynamicists, philosophers; yes, nonhuman observers of us have had cogent remarks to make—But the point is simply that you and I happen to be living in a critical stage of the Empire’s decline, the interregnum between its principate and dominate phases.”

  “You are getting abstract,” Banner said.

  Flandry smiled. “Then let’s drop the subject and watch it squash. Chives will clean up the mess.”

  She shook her head. Subtle shadows went over the curves around cheekbones and jawline. “No, please, not like that. Dominic—Admiral, I’m not entirely ignorant. I know about corruption and abuse of power, not to mention civil wars or plain stupidity. My father used to do some wonderful cursing, when a piece of particularly nauseous news came in. But he’d always tell me not to expect perfection of mortal beings; our duty was to keep on trying.”