[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Then two more drops from circuits, he called to Jorff. You think we can
impress the boss?
You bet.
There was some jostling and milling about going on around the doors, Kelm saw.
But that wasn t too important. The practice hadn t been to get them back in.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Kronian Interplanetary vessels like the Osiris and Trojan simulated gravity by
the rotation of a wheel-like system of modules carried on spokes that could be
trailed at an angle like a partly-open umbrella to produce a normal resultant
of centrifugal and linear forces at the Rim. While ingenious, this yielded a
large and somewhat ungainly structure whose distortion under thrust set a
Page 175
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
limit on the acceleration that could be sustained. This meant that they were
unable to take full advantage of the performance theoretically attainable from
their fusion drives. Aztec, by contrast, with its underdeck
Yarbat generators, did away with large, deformable geometries, and was trim
and compact. When the ship was under thrust, the AG fields were simply
generated at a slant to produce the same effect as had previously required
enormous works of structural engineering. Hence, though its drives were
similar to those used on the earlier craft, Aztec could run them to higher
power. In addition, even with its greater carrying capacity, Aztec was
burdened with smaller mass. For both these reasons, it could attain
accelerations that were considerably higher. To withstand the resulting
forces, the vessel s construction was correspondingly more robust.
If he hadn t known otherwise, he might have thought he was inside an old
Terran ocean liner rather than a spacecraft, Jansinick Wernstecki thought to
himself as he looked around the aft cargo hold. He had come back to inspect
the securing of the rafts of massive lithofracture exciters that the ship
was carrying. Commander Reese had advised that new orders changing their
flight plan were expected from Saturn. With the prospect of course changes and
maneuvering, such a check on the heavy cargo was routine. What wasn t routine,
of course, was to be anticipating orders to slow down or stand off after all
the hurry to get Aztec and its payload to Earth as soon as possible.
A call tone sounded from his compad. It was Merlin Friet, Wernstecki s
colleague who had come with him from the Tesla Center on Titan. Jan, how s it
going there? he queried.
I m just about done. Nothing amiss. What s up?
I m with Vicki and Luthis in the dining mess. Vicki s been talking about how
their planetary theory has been coming together. It s fascinating. I thought
you might like to join us.
Sure. I m on my way. Wernstecki cut the connection and began making his way
forward out of the hold and through the ship.
It was obvious to all by now that something ominous was happening on Earth.
Communications were still spasmodic, and then always with the same people.
Wernstecki had sent several messages for Keene, but no replies had been
forthcoming. The responses to his questions were evasive or nonsensical. The
claim of interference from electrical disturbances in Earth s vicinity was
wearing thin.
Few now doubted that there had to be some connection with the disappearance at
the same time of Valcroix and the Pragmatist leaders at Saturn, and the
prevalent guess was that some kind of attempt was being made to seize the
Terran base as the beginnings of an independent political system. Many thought
that the Trojan had to be involved also, although the mechanics of how the
different units scattered over such vast distances were to be brought together
was unclear.
Wernstecki was unable to relate to the motives or psychology that would drive
men to act in such ways. Born on Enceladus, a Kronian, he had grown up in tune
with the internal pulse and rhythm of the new cultural organism that was
coming into being, expressing its inner imperative to expand both through
space, by encompassing and eventually leaving the Solar System, and through
time by becoming the Future of the human species. Just as the previous high
cultures that had been
born, flourished, and then when their span was over, like any other organism,
died-Babylonian, Chinese, Hindu, Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Arabian, Central
American, European, North American-
had been driven to their highest achievements in thought, art, technical
mastery, and social organization by their religion, so Kronia was an
expression of a religion, though not expressed in the same terms as the
earlier ones. Wernstecki was very conscious of the life-force emanating from
the collective Kronian soul that was in the process of awakening, that united
Page 176
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
him and all others who shared it.
It wasn t a geographical or territorial thing that had to do with any place of
origin. The pioneers who founded Kronia had come from every place. What they
shared was a world view that rejected the soulless battlefield of economics
that Earth had become, with life itself reduced to a pointless mechanical
process with no other purpose that the accumulation of money, carrying in them
instead the vision of what could be.
But the forces that had been brought to Kronia when Earth died, and which were
now revealing themselves, had no place in such an organism. Products of an age
that had already been dead, they would reduce all of life to the level of
animal subsistence and the mechanical caricature that their sciences had
created. Because they comprehended nothing beyond, the aliens wanted to raise
once more to eminence the accumulation of material wealth as sole object of
existence, and if that were resisted, to impose it by force, because that was
the only way they knew how. And, indeed, that was the only term to describe
the phenomenon, Wernstecki reflected: Alien. A foreign invader in the Kronian
organism, living to a different imperative that was in conflict with the host.
He worried that the host might have recognized the threat and reacted to it
too late.
The mess wasn t crowded when Wernstecki arrived. Merlin and Vicki were at a
corner table.
Tanya, Vicki s cabin mate was with them. He helped himself to a Mimas tea from
the self-serve counter by the door and made his way over. A few heads nodded
at him perfunctorily. So what s going on? he asked, easing himself down onto
the bench seat next to Tanya.
Vicki s latest exchanges with Farzhin at Dione, Merlin replied. It sounds
as if they ve got something coming together that could tie it all up. We
thought you d want to hear it.
Me too. I ve only just arrived here, Tanya put in.
Wernstecki sipped his tea. Well? He looked around invitingly. I m all ears,
and panting with suspense. Merlin waved for Vicki to take it. Wernstecki had
heard a lot about Vicki as a result of working with Keene on Titan, and gotten
to know her himself more during the voyage. She possessed the instincts that
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
