THE SMALL POND
by C. Sanford Lowe and G. David Nordley
Being a big fish may be attractive, but can have correspondingly big disadvantages...
* * * *
Chapter 1
In the Solar System’s Kuiper Belt,
9 May 2250
“Return? Return!? But we just got here! Nobody’s even been down to the surface yet!”
The surface floated in front of Liz Avonford, forbidding, mysterious. She put a hand on the Marsden’s observation window as if to touch the unknown planetoid below them. It drew her to it with a force far greater than its negligible gravity.
Salim shook his head firmly. “Orders from Dr. DeRoot. We have to go back. Besides, we didn’t tell them we were going to land. I think Vitus DeRoot would rather someone else be the first on the surface. This is the biggest thing found in the Solar System in the last century—it’s over 300 kilometers across! It’s historically important. The institute would want to be involved in the landfall decision. We’ve got a big fish here, and we aren’t expected to be catching big fish. We should get permission.”
“Nuts!” she said. At 3007 AU’s from Sol, it was her call. “I’m going down for a couple of hours at least. We’re too far out to be calling back to headquarters. It would take a month to get permission.”
“Thirty-four days, sixteen hours,” the Marsden added, helpfully. “25 August 2250.”
“Look, they didn’t say so in so many words,” Salim said, “but...”
“Nuts to the politics! I found it. And I’m going to be the first one down.”
Silence. She was the expedition commander and the legal authority in place, unless Salim or someone relieved her. And they would not do so over this; no one had expressly ordered her not to make landfall.
Liz grabbed the doorjamb and projected herself across the deck to the nearest excursion vehicle. She checked herself smartly with a hand slap on the cockpit rim, pivoting her legs onto the seat. A quick visual showed the standard equipment was all present, including a helmet and coveralls in the wire mesh locker behind the pilot’s station.
“Activate and close up,” she ordered the module.
Two hours later, she was on the planetoid’s surface, leaving the first human footprints on its regolith of coal-black cosmic dust.
She crouched slowly to keep her feet on the ground and set an analyzer on the surface.
“How old?” she queried.
The display inside her helmet projected 7.219 gigayears.
“Salim, this thing is older than the Solar System! Over seven billion years! It didn’t come from here!”
Salim’s groan echoed through her helmet, so loud it made her wince. She sighed. Bad enough to make an uncoordinated landfall on a big ice ball, but this was an uncoordinated landfall on a major discovery. She would go down in history instead of someone much more senior. She straightened her shoulders. That, she thought, was just tough.
Two months later, Liz was back on Earth at Saint Petersburg, in Vitus DeRoot’s office at the top of a very tall ISA tower overlooking the Nevsky Prospekt. DeRoot, she thought, was all the more terrifying because of the way his friendly avuncular manner could mask his anger.
“Shall we go through the particulars?”
Liz willed her fisted hands to straighten and shook her head. She had a good idea of what would be on the list—every piece of negative information about her performance since she arrived in the Earth’s Solar System.
He was going to do what he was going to do.
“The executive committee feels that we should take advantage of your family connections and the public attention your exploits have received in our outreach program.”
Visions of intro classes and faculty teas rushed through her head. “With respect, Dr. DeRoot, I’ve not had any university experience. I did my degree on-ship, on the way in from 61 Cygni.”
He smiled. “Not to worry. We can accommodate you in both respects. Ginny Lu has a long list of elementary schools over the entire planet that need speakers. It would be a real treat for the children to meet someone who was born around another star, and is so famous. You’ll be assigned to her. Anything else?”
“When does this all start? I have a milk run to the Black Hole Project in the asteroid belt.”
DeRoot shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry too much about the BHP; that’s just too premature and grandiose—Director Zhau Tse Wen’s political problems will shut them down before too long.”
Liz felt a cold chill down her back. Was that what was behind this?
“Hilda Kremer, your sister, is on that project, is she not? I’m sorry.” He frowned and looked down.
Liz bit her tongue.
“You colonials come back here with so much enthusiasm, but this is a very old solar system and a very old planet with agendas that go way back.” He shook his head. “One needs to tread carefully. Are we done?”
DeRoot had simply made a personnel move based on “needs within the institute.” It had already been decided. What was done, was done.
She left DeRoot’s office and went to her apartment on the thirty-second floor. There she opened a bottle of Mayagues Port, went out on her balcony, and looked out over the Ploshchad Ostrovskovo, awash in the late summer sun.
She thought about her mother, the near legendary starship Captain Katherine Avonford, as she looked at the huge Russian monument to Catherine the Great. Its larger-than-life scale also reminded her of her planet-sculpting father, Wotan Kremer. She had vowed not to be swallowed by her heritage but also, perversely, felt obliged to live up to it in some way, to be larger than life herself. She shuddered; time enough to get things back on track tomorrow. With that she set aside a couple of detox pills and proceeded to get smashed.
The next morning, Liz went back to her small office in the exploration division. The door wouldn’t open. She groaned, then wiped her hand and the handle to aid the ancient fingerprint recognition system’s ability to recognize her paw.
It still wouldn’t open.
A soft beep sounded that only the person standing in front of the door could hear. Liz touched the net for admin.
I am sorry, but you are not authorized entry to this office, came the reply.
Of course I am! Liz sent. I’m Elizabeth Avonford and this is my office. For a while, anyway ... Her stomach tightened as she realized what had happened. Chaos! It had only been ten lousy hours!
A young man, a tall blond, came down the hall toward her, followed by a cartload of boxes. As he reached her, he smiled winningly and stuck out his hand.
“David Levi.” He pronounced it dah-FEED leh-VEE. “A visitor already! As you see, I haven’t moved in yet.”
“It’s my office,” Liz said, knowing she was wrong.
Levi stared at her.
Liz sighed, deflated. “At least it was. I think my stuff is still in there.”
“Oh, dear.” Levi looked concerned. “Let’s see.”
He put this hand on the pad and the door opened. The office was bare.
“Damn!” Liz said. She’d only had it for three years, and most of that time she’d been in space. Still, there were memories—her first real job.
She looked at the wall where the pictures of her family had hung. The empty shelves that had held a few precious real books. Even her snow kitten doll was gone.
Levi looked mortified. “I’m sorry, I ... They just assigned it.”
Liz shook her head and wiped away a tear. “It’s not your fault. I’m sure the service robots have stashed my things somewhere.” She composed herself. “Well, what do you do?”
“Bionanotechnology. I got my doctorate at Jerusalem United fifteen years ago and finally got a position.” He stepped aside and the cart moved into the office with his things. “Only so much to do and a hundred and twenty-three billion people to do it.”
Liz smiled and shuddered inwardly. She had a sudden insight into what resentment there might be towards her or any other colonials taking up positions.
“And you are?” Levi asked.
Liz hesitated, then sighed. He’d find out soon enough. “Elizabeth Avonford.”
His eyes went wide. “The person who just discovered the new planet three thousand AU’s out? Captain Kate Avonford’s daughter? And I’m taking your office? I’m very sorry!”
She smiled falsely. “Bureaucratic error. Uh, ten days before spring or after autumn equinox, the sun sets right behind the old fort. Enjoy it. By the way, it’s a kuiperoid or planetoid or whatever—not a planet.” She turned and walked to the elevator.
As she entered her apartment, she realized she had to talk to someone. She touched the net for her older sister, Hilda.
Hilda, I just got my ass fired. She took a breath. Help!
A few minutes later, her sister was on her wall screen. Hilda had inherited wide-set blue eyes from their father, Wotan Kremer, and a long nose so much like her own that, in certain positions and lighting, it was almost like looking in a mirror. But Hilda’s hair was an almost platinum gold, while her own locks were more reddish brown, attesting to Catherine Avonford’s Celtic lineage. And Hilda had a strong chin. Liz often thought about having her own enhanced.
“Good morning, Liz. What’s happened?”
Liz unloaded. “I don’t know what to do next,” she concluded.
Hilda appeared thoughtful. “Look, Dr. Sarah Levine has changed her mind about going to Lacaille 9352 to work on the fabrication and the launch of its impactor for the BHP. You’re used to command and an expert in space resources. Interested?”
Liz caught her breath in the thrill of the offer. Eleven light years away, at a start-up interstellar colony, she would likely have a major role. Then she hesitated. “Hilda, I don’t work for people very well. I’m, well, kind of bullheaded.”
Her older sister smiled knowingly, but instead replied, “You’ve led four expeditions since you got into Earth’s Solar System, all successful.”
“Well, yes, but when I do an expedition, it’s my show.”
Hilda looked pointedly into the camera. “That’s what I’m going to recommend.”
Liz opened her mouth and couldn’t close it. In charge of the whole show? No boss, no politics? Eleven light years from Earth with nothing to do but make it happen? She looked at her sister, excited, almost breathless. “You’re kidding ... You’re not kidding. You think I’d have a shot?”
Hilda laughed. “That bullheadedness, along with your ability to improvise, is probably just what we need. There’s a man out there named Gunheim, former PM of Queensland, given to grandiose schemes. He’ll probably be in local politics out there, and if he starts interfering, it will take a strong will to stand up to him. We’ve got a planning meeting in a few minutes, so I’ve got to go. Should I ask Tse Wen?”
Liz caught her breath. The responsibility would be huge; a monstrous projectile of precisely the right mass would have to leave Lacaille 9352 at just the right time and reach just the right velocity to meet the three other projectiles with nanosecond precision at the experiment vertex. A small pond, yes. But she would be the big fish in it. That excited her. And making the Black Hole Project happen would be an exquisite revenge on that arrogant, disingenuous bastard, Dr. DeRoot. But...
“Hilda, we haven’t had much time together.”
“I know. But I may be heading out myself. Dad’s headed back to New Antarctica; he and I have some issues to put behind us. The project needs a local lead. There are other political problems, though. Sis, we have all eternity ahead of us. Let’s get together at New Antarctica when it’s done. Maybe mom will come.”
Liz grinned. “Now that would be interesting. Okay, I’m in. If Tse Wen wants me, I’m ready.”
She signed off and touched the net. Any starships headed for Lacaille 9352 in the next year?
The C.E. Singer, Peter DeRoot commanding. It would leave Venus Equilateral in eight months.
DeRoot? Any relation to the Director?
Brothers.
Probably irrelevant, Liz thought, but just bad luck if not. The Singer was her only choice. She stored the information and turned to her apartment window. Gold and pink clouds floated in the sky beyond the Ploshchad Ostrovskovo. She looked to the northwest, toward the lands of the Vikings and of Nansen and Amundsen. There was so much she hadn’t taken time to see.
Chapter 2
Between Sol and Lacaille 9352,
23 September 2264, Sidereal Reference
In her third day after emerging from hibernation, Liz Avonford lay on a towel on the grass by a tiny pond under the warm artificial sun of the starship recreation dome, eyes closed. Linked to the computational power of the starship via bioradio and the local net, she was hard at work, simulating orbital motions in the Lacaille 9352 system.
At a time compression of 10,000, the planets of the system traced their orbits. Two small ones, Sunbeam and Canning, lay close in, surrounded by the orbits of a pair of larger worlds, Venus-like Carlisle and Mars-like Martin. Further out was a thin belt of asteroids, then a pair of gas giants, Munro and Spencer, which might have been twins to Uranus and Neptune. Beyond those rolled an icy Plutonian world, Rayl, at the inner edge of a wide ring of kuiperoids.
A brilliant flash and afterglow in the inner system caught her eye. That must be it, she thought—the impact that would occur in the Lacaille 9352 system a dozen years from now. She replayed the last hours of the collision in real time and high magnification. A largish asteroid approached Martin, the Mars-sized world, slowly, gracefully taking a whole second to cover its own diameter to start with. One thousand one ... But the asteroid sped up as it approached the planet until over the last two or so planet radii, it was sucked into the Mars-like body in a flash. Liz stared intently as a great enveloping black cloud boiled out of the wound and spread around the whirling planet. She sighed at the great stroke of cosmic luck that would let her be present at such an extraordinary catastrophe.
“Elizabeth Avonford?”
But the luck wasn’t all good; it would happen just at the end of their BHP impactor’s acceleration. Debris splashed from the collision could easily interfere with the vast solar arrays and beam drivers needed to send their impactor on its way. She asked the computer to light the array’s position in vivid green, trailing and fading over several million virtual kilometers. The debris made a virtual cloud that spread from Martin inward and outward, and the edge of the cloud touched the ring of power stations that would power the Black Hole Project. Should they divert the asteroid for one revolution? Or change the time-mass-velocity profile to get the beam out before the impact?
The sound of her name penetrated, and dimly aware that it was the second time she’d been called, she groaned and opened her eyes, disoriented. Reality was calling her back from the virtual universe and it took a moment to adjust, like waking up from a dream.
Her eyes got into focus. The man who had spoken to her had a familiar accent, but she couldn’t quite place him. “Yes?” she replied.
“David Levi.”
She touched the ship’s database and made the connection.
“Oh yes. You’re the young man......
widez2