The four thousand people did manage to keep it secret, not so much out of strength of character as from a deep-seated paranoia about Earth and Earthlings.
And Senator Connors’ Tricentennial actually came to their aid.
Although there was “One World,” ruled by “The Will of the People,” some regions had more clout than others, and nationalism was by no means dead. This was one factor.
Another factor was the way the groundhogs felt about the thermonuclear bombs stockpiled in Helsinki. All antiques: mostly a century or more old. The scientists said they were perfectly safe, but you know how that goes.
The bombs still technically belonged to the countries that had surrendered them, nine out of ten split between North America and Russia. The tenth remaining was divided among forty-two other countries. They all got together every few years to argue about what to do with the damned things. Everybody wanted to get rid of them in some useful way, but nobody wanted to put up the capital.
Charlie Leventhal’s proposal was simple. L-5 would provide bankroll, materials, and personnel. On a barren rock in the Norwegian Sea they would take apart the old bombs, one at a time, and turn them into uniform fuel capsules for the Daedalus craft.
The Scylla/Charybdis probe would be timed to honor both the major spacefaring countries. Renamed the John F. Kennedy, it would leave Earth orbit on America’s Tricentennial. The craft would accelerate halfway to the double star system at one gee, then flip and slow down at the same rate. It would use a magnetic scoop to gather antimatter from Scylla. On May Day, 2077, it would again be renamed, being the Leonid I. Brezhnev for the return trip. For safety’s sake, the antimatter would be delivered to a lunar research station, near Farside. L-5 scientists claimed that harnessing the energy from total annihilation of matter would make a heaven on Earth.
Most people doubted that, but looked forward to the fireworks.
“The hell with that!” Charlie was livid. “I—I just won’t do it. Won’t!”
“You’re the only one—”
“That’s not true, Ab, you know it.” Charlie paced from wall to wall of her office cubicle. “There are dozens of people who can run L-5. Better than I can.”
“Not better, Charlie.”
He stopped in front of her desk, leaned over. “Come on, Ab. There’s only one logical person to stay behind and run things. Not only has she proven herself in the position, but she’s too old to—”
“That kind of drik I don’t have to listen to.”
“Now, Ab ...”
“No, you listen to me. I was an infant when we started building Daedalus; worked on it as a girl and a young woman.
“I could take you out there in a shuttle and show you the rivets that I put in, myself. A half-century ago.”
“That’s my—”
“I earned my ticket, Charlie.” Her voice softened.
“Age is a factor, yes. This is only the first trip of many—and when it comes back, I will be too old. You’ll just be in your prime … and with over twenty years of experience as Coordinator, I don’t doubt they’ll make you captain of the next—“
“I don’t want to be captain. I don’t want to be Coordinator. I just want to go!”
“You and three thousand other people.”
“And of the thousand that don’t want to go, or can’t, there isn’t one person who could serve as Coordinator? I could name you—”
“That’s not the point. There’s no one on L-5 who has anywhere near the influence, the connections, you have on Earth. No one who understands groundhogs as well.”
“That’s racism, Ab. Groundhogs are just like you and me.”
“Some of them. I don’t see you going Earthside every chance you can get … what, you like the view up here? You like living in a can?”
He didn’t have a ready answer for that. Ab continued: “Whoever’s Coordinator is going to have to do some tall explaining, trying to keep things smooth between L-5 and Earth. That’s been your life’s work, Charlie. And you’re also known and respected here. You’re the only logical choice.”
“I’m not arguing with your logic.”
“I know.” Neither of them had to mention the document, signed by Charlie, among others, that gave Dr. Bemis final authority in selecting the crew for Daedalus/Kennedy/Brezhnev. “Try not to hate me too much, Charlie. I have to do what’s best for my people. All of my people.”
Charlie glared at her for a long moment and left.
From Fax & Pix, 4 June 2076:
SPACE FARM LEAVES FOR STARS NEXT MONTH
1. The John F. Kennedy, that goes to Scylla/Charybdis next month, is like a little L-5 with bombs up its tail (see pix up left, up right).
A. The trip’s twenty months. They could either take a few people and fill the thing up with food, air, and water—or take a lot of people inside a closed ecology, like L-5.
B. They could’ve gotten by with only a couple hundred people, to run the farms and stuff. But almost all the space freaks wanted to go. They’re used to living that way, anyhow (and they never get to go anyplace).
C. When they get back, the farms will be used as a starter for L-4, like L-5 but smaller at first, and on the other side of the Moon (pic down left).
2. For other Tricentennial fax & pix, see bacover.
Charlie was just finishing up a week on Earth the day the John F. Kennedy was launched. Tired of being interviewed, he slipped away from the media lounge at the Cape shuttleport. His white clearance card got him out onto the landing strip alone.
The midnight shuttle was being fueled at the far end of the strip, gleaming pink-white in the last light from the setting sun. Its image twisted and danced in the shimmering heat that radiated from the tarmac. The smell of the soft tar was indelibly associated in his mind with leave-taking, relief.
He walked to the middle of the strip and checked his watch. Five minutes. He lit a cigarette and threw it away. He rechecked his mental calculations: the flight would start low in the southwest. He blocked out the sun with a raised hand. What would 150 bombs per second look like? For the media they were called fuel capsules. The people who had carefully assembled them and gently lifted them to orbit and installed them in the tanks, they called them bombs. Ten times the brightness of a full moon, they had said. On L-5 you weren’t supposed to look toward it without a dark filter.
No warm-up: it suddenly appeared, an impossibly brilliant rainbow speck just over the horizon. It gleamed for several minutes, then dimmed slightly with a haze, and slipped away.
Most of the United States wouldn’t see it until it came around again, some two hours later, turning night into day, competing with local pyrotechnic displays. Then every couple of hours after that, Charlie would see it once more, then get on the shuttle. And finally stop having to call it by the name of a dead politician.
There was a quiet celebration on L-5 when Daedalus reached the mid-point of its journey, flipped, and started decelerating. The progress report from its crew characterized the journey as “uneventful.” At that time they were going nearly two tenths of the speed of light. The laser beam that carried communications was redshifted from blue light down to orange; the message that turnaround had been successful took two weeks to travel from Daedalus to L-5.
They announced a slight course change. They had analyzed the polarization of light from Scylla/Charybdis as their phase angle increased, and were pretty sure the system was surrounded by flat rings of debris, like Saturn. They would “come in low” to avoid collision.
