The Shattered Sphere

Twenty-five The Way Out

Ursula Gruberdid not like the ideas he was getting. They were dangerous, grandiose—and yet, they smacked of surrender, somehow.

The Lone World monitors were coming into their own, pulling down all sorts of data, and were listening in on nearly every command the Lone World sent to the Ghoul Modules controlling the Moonpoint Ring. By now the data teams were confident they had correctly interpreted all the basic commands.

And they were at least fairly certain they could duplicate at least a few of them.

Well, maybe that was the way they would have to go. She was not sure she saw any other way out.

If “out” was the right word to use, all things considered. Ursula checked the time and sighed. Time for her call to NaPurHab, a chore she did not look forward to. She did not like dealing with those people. In a better world, she would not have to do so.

Of course, in a better world, aliens would not have kidnapped the Earth, either.

Sianna Colette, still in her hospital overalls, slipped into the back of the MainBrainMeet Room. Wally was there, listening to the call from Earth with rapt attention. Sianna felt she ought to be in on the conference, even if she was too much in shock to pay much attention. After all the effort made to get her here, she felt something close to honor-bound to attend.

But effort expended was the least of it. Sakalov had died. Died to no purpose whatsoever, pummeled to death by an intelligent rock.

And there was something else she could not help realizing: they were stranded here, she and Wally. NaPurHab was supposed to be a way station for them, a place to wait until the Terra Nova came and collected them. But that was not going to happen anytime soon. Not with a sky full of COREs and SCOREs making everyone’s life interesting. Maybe it would never happen.

But Dr. Sakalov. Would he still be alive, now, if she hadn’t run into Wally that morning a few days and a hundred years ago? If she and Wally had not guessed at the nature of the Charonian command center and inspired Bernhardt to send them off to take a look at it? As best she could see, the only concrete result of that guess was Sakalov’s death.

But no. At least try to listen. Ursula Gruber was on the screen, giving Eyeball an update. Gruber. Strange that the first thing Wally did upon arrival here was to phone in to her.

“Half of the SCOREs are heading through the revived Moonpoint Wormhole,” Gruber was saying. “The other half are taking up positions around the hole. They are going into a layered spherical envelopment outside the perimeter of the Moonpoint Ring.”

“And we be insideward too,” Eyeballer Maximus muttered, too low for the mikes to pick it up. “Not likeworthy.” Sianna had yet to make sense of the Purps in general, and Eyeball in particular. Eyeball was a smart, tough, clear-thinking woman. She could talk normally if she wanted to. Except, most times, she didn’t. Sianna had met her when she breezed through Sianna’s docshop room—in order to ask Wally something. Wally seemed to be fitting in awfully well around here.

“…From what we are able to tell,” Gruber was saying, “the SCOREs are directing their radar toward the hole. They appear to be watching for something coming out of the volume of space they are protecting, rather than trying to keep anything from going into it.”

“Agree there,” Eyeball said. “SCOREs notlooking at incoming cargo cans. And just had malf that told more, too. One cargo can missed NaPurHab, did a flyby instead of latching here. Flew on past, heading out of SCOREguard zone. SCOREs beat hellout uvvit. Can no more.”

Gruber image’s on the screen listened carefully, and seemed to take a bit longer to reply than could be accounted for by just the speed-of-light delay. “Ah, yes. We saw that. A cargo vehicle that missed its docking pass was destroyed by the SCOREs as it moved out of the volume of space the SCOREs are watching.”

“Just said that,” Eyeball said. “No echo need.”

“Ah, yes,” Gruber said. Sianna suppressed a small smile. No one had taken the Purps seriously for generations. Now they had no choice: the Purps were the front-line troops, as it were. Five years ago Ursula Gruber would not have deigned to speak to someone named Eyeballer Maximus Lock-On. Now she was being as polite as she could, no doubt for fear Eyeballer would cut the connection and doom the Earth, or something.

There was the ghost of a smile in Eyeball’s expression. Clearly she knew all that too, and was having a bit of fun with it. “Anyhow, can got creamed. Likewise, empty cargo cans get smashed by SCOREs. What uvvit? No noseskin of ours peeled off.”

“On the contrary,” Gruber replied. “I think there’s a lot of skin off your nose.”

“Say what?” Eyeball said.

“You’ve got your maneuvering tanks just about filled now. What are your plans?”

“Kick orbit upward a bit, get away from black hole.”

“I don’t think that would be wise,” Gruber said. “In fact I think it would be extremely dangerous.”

“How so?”

“The malfunctioning cargo craft and the jettisoned cargo cans were not destroyed when they crossed out of the spherical volume protected by the SCOREs. They were attacked at the first moment they showed any movement out from the centerpoint of that volume of space. Anything that moves outward from the center of the protected area dies.”

“No how,” Eyeball said, her disbelief plain. “We boost the orbit just a tad, stay away from SCOREs, we okay.”

“I wish you were right. Check your own data. See when the SCOREs attacked.”

Wally already had a datapack out. Sianna looked over his shoulder as he pulled up the orbital tracks and attack playbacks. “She’s right,” Wally said. Sianna took the pack from Wally and worked the data herself.

“Tricks!” Eyeball said. “Groundhog tricks to keep Purps down.”

“No,” Sianna said. “Why would they want to do that? They just jumped through hoops resupplying you. The actual impacts happen when the targets are near the periphery of the protected zone, but the SCOREs begin their attack runs the moment the targets start moving out from the center.”

Eyeball grabbed at the datapack and checked the numbers. “Damn all,” she half-whispered to herself.

“It’s no trick,” Gruber went on. “You must not raise your orbit around the black hole—at all. Any raising of your orbit, by however slight an amount, would almost certainly cause the SCOREs to respond and attack.”

“But hafta fix orbit,” Eyeball protested. “Charos destabbing us something fierce. We do a spiral-down onto black hole less we goose the orbit.”

Ursula Gruber nodded awkwardly. “Yes, yes. We know that. But there is another way.”

“What? Stabilize at current radius? Nohow. Unstab. Can’t hold here for long.”

“We know. With all the perturbations your orbit has experienced, it’s a wonder you’re still there at all.”

“Good at job,” Eyeball said, a bit aggressively. “No damn miracle needed.”

“You’ll need one soon,” Sianna said. “You can’t hold out here forever.”

“She’s right, Eyeball,” Wally said. “You’ve managed with repeated microburst corrections. You’re inducing as much instability as you’re correcting. Even without any more perturbations, tidal effects alone are going to get you into trouble.”

“Hey, boyo, don’t yap at me on tidal effects. Been fighting to keep hab out of tumble for days now.”

“And you don’t think that’s going to get worse?” Sianna asked. Eyeball turned and glared at her.

“You’re out of options,” Gruber said, her voice gentle, her words tripping over Sianna’s just a bit, thanks to the speed-of-light delay.

“Not go lower,” Eyeball said. “You’re not telling me to drop to lower orbit, are you?”

“No, not exactly, ah, Eyeball,” Gruber said. “I’m not on that habitat. I can’t tell you what chances to take. But we’ve been learning fast down here. We’ve learned the Lone World’s command set, and now we know how to send its form of commands ourselves. If we have to, if we want to, we can link direct to the Ghoul Modules and control the Moonpoint Wormhole. Open and shut it whenever we want.”

Dead silence. All three of them stared at Gruber’s image on the screen.

“Think about it,” Gruber said at last. “Talk it over. It’s a desperate, risky plan, but as best I can see, the only way out is through.”

Two hours later, not much in the room had changed, except that Gruber’s image was off the screen. Sianna was sitting in the furthest corner of the room, sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped around her knees, trying to force herself to think. Think. Being dropped down a black hole. There had to be another way. There had to be. So think, damnation. What was it?

“Do you think it would work, Wall?” Eyeball asked Wally. The two of them were sitting at the beat-up conference table.

“It ought to.” He thought for a moment and then nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. It will work. The mass density is different, of course, but that shouldn’t matter. It’s risky, of course, but it sure beats getting pasted by a SCORE or being accreted onto the singularity.”

Sianna shut her eyes and took a deep breath. “Hold it,” she said. “Pretend I’m stupid. What exactly are you talking about, from the top?”

“What Gruber said,” he replied. “They play back the command sets that they’ve been capturing on Earth. They send commands to the Ghoul Modules, and order the Ghouls to open the wormhole for us. We go through the wormhole instead of piling into the singularity or getting smashed to pieces by the SCOREs.”

Sianna looked from Wally to Eyeball. The two of them were actually serious. “You can’t do that,” she protested. “There are over nine thousand people in the hab. You can’t drop it through a black hole just for the hell of it. There has to be another way.”

“Then lay it on down,” Eyeball said. “We got the ears, you got the words?”

“Yeah, Sia,” Wally said. “You got a better idea?”

Sianna hated being called Sia. And Wally was ganging up on her, siding with this Eyeball lunatic instead of her. Suddenly, she got mad, blind angry. It would have been a perfect moment to come up with the brilliant solution, to have the blinding flash of inspiration that would make everything okay.

The trouble was, she couldn’t think of a damn thing.

Ohio Template Windbag, the Maximum Windbag himself, sat in his comfortable, frowzy old armchair, his hands folded over his ample gut, watching Eyeballer Maximus Lock-On pacing back and forth, listening to what she had to say.

“I don’t like it, boss, but I think the straights have it nailed down right. Was gonna do a bigburn correction, get our orbit up. But can’t go high orbit—get clobbered bigtime. We can’t go low without de-stabbing like crazy, badnews tidal effects. And can’t stay where we is without orbit rotting out.”

“Who you been yapping at?” Windbag asked.

“These two, some,” she said, indicating Wally and Sianna with a negligent flick of her wrist. “Been running my own data. And on the horn to Gruber,” Eyeball said. “She’s trying to square it up with the head hun Earthside.”

“Who? Bernhardt? Gruber didn’t sign off with him first?”

“Not before she talked to me. Guess didn’t want to push me, just drop idea. Our call, not theirs. But the straights have been picking the brains of that Lone World, tapping all its signals. These two have shown me some sims and data, and I buy it all. We gotta suck up what they spitting out. Nothing else for it. Deal’s real. Go in and through, not up and out.”

“Want to get this solid. You and Gruber and these two all asking me to okay dropping NaPurHab through the wormhole?”

“That’s the deal,” Eyeball said.

“You nuts for good this time? All anyone’s said ’bout that hole for sure is they sure it ain’t home on other side.” He cocked his head toward Wally. “Ol’ Windbag Max got that straight?” he asked, clearly hoping to be told he was wrong. “Noway the Moon and the Sun and Mars and home on the hole flipside?”

“Ah, no sir,” Wally said. “The hole is locked on its default tuning, and we know they had to retune it to lock on to the Solar System. The Solar System is the one thing we know isn’t on the other side.”

“Hmmph. So gimme guesses?”

Wally shrugged. “We don’t even know if there is another side, for sure. We assume there must be, because they’re sending the SCOREs into the hole. My guess would be another Multisystem of some kind, but I don’t know.”

“Any one of you have any idea past that?”

No one replied.

“Thanks for the bigtime info,” the Windbag growled. “Could the Hab survive there? Would there be enough light to the solar collectors, or not too much? We can adjust some, but by enough? Stable orbit possible? Low enough radiation density?”

Wally turned his palms up helplessly. “No way to know.”

“Can we even get hab through hole? This is a pretty bigtime tin-can.”

Wally nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes. We should be able to do it. It will take some very tight work, and some very good piloting, but it’s doable.”

“Um, sir?” Sianna said, struggling to find her voice. “There is another factor I think you really need to consider.”

“Yeah? Like what?” the Windbag asked as he gave his beard a thoughtful scratch.

“The SCOREs are setting themselves up to keep something from getting out of that hole. What, we don’t know. But obviously whatever it is has to be on the other side of that hole.”

“You don’t think we should do this, do you?” the Max Windbag asked.

“No, no sir, I don’t. I think it’s close to suicidal.”

“Got any instead ideas? Something we could live through, maybe?”

“Not really.”

“Thanks for the bigtime help,” the Windbag said. He stood up and started pacing the compartment, not speaking for a while. “Time,” he said at last. “We on the clock?”

“Ticking loud,” Eyeball agreed. “Earthside numbers crunch to fifty hours, maybe sixty, sixty-five tops. I get near-same. Orbit won’t hold past that. Practically every perturb is goosing us in closer. Past six-five hours max, we’ll be too deep in the hole’s gee-well to climb back out. High-speed orbital decay after that. And we pile it in.”

“Can’t stabilize where we are for lit-bit longer?”

“That’s with us duking it out to hold orbit. Can’t raise orbit without SCOREs doing for us. Can’t hold orbit exactly, perfectly steady with all the grav action round here. Means we drift in, no mistake.”

“Gimme some odds,” Windbag said, with something close to a note of pleading in his voice. “What if we don’t go down the tube? Say I put it all down on staying here. Gimme a bet.”

Eyeball made a thumb-out fist and then turned thumbs down. “Near enough zip makes no nevermind. This crate can’t dodge SCOREs. We stay, we pile it in. SCORE-splat or hole-smash. Dumpster locked.”

“Fershure?”

“Nailed. No odds.”

“No odds. No odds at all,” the Windbag said. “Don’t cut me much, does it?”

“Zip or less,” Eyeball said.

The compartment went silent as the Windbag stood there, motionless, thinking.

“Odds not much better if we take the dive,” he said. “Hole run deathride, otherside hostile, the scarything the Charos are trying to keep out. But zillion-to-one beats zero.”

He sat back down in his chair, with his forearms on the arms of the chair, his hands gripping deep into the worn fabric. He stared straight ahead, at nothing at all, the distracted, far-off look of a chess player on his face. But a vein was throbbing at his temple, and his eyes were flat and hard.

“All right,” he said at last. “All right. Gotta call a Purple Deluxe Meet. Pull in all the honchos and honchettes, tell them about it, get ’em close enough to realworld that they sign off on it. But that’s my gig, not yours. You got work to do.”

“Tell me straight,” Eyeball said. “No mistakes, no saywhats later on this one. Go Code?”

“Go Code,” the Windbag agreed, his voice a whisper. “Go Code it is.” He looked up at Eyeball, at Wally, at Sianna, and the fear was plain in his eyes. “Do it,” he said. “Gear us up and get us down that hole.”