“They wouldn’t like it,” I said. “It was a jungle and the only life on it is cockroaches and rats.”
Freeman understood what I meant immediately. Ships are not allowed to land on engineered planets until they are declared stable. When squatters trespass on these planets, vermin escape from their ships. On a planet like Ronan Minor, where the vegetation is profuse and there are no natural predators, rat and cockroach populations proliferate.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Talk about your flat-world society …Archie Freeman did not believe that there could still be a fighter carrier floating out somewhere around his planet. It took some arm-twisting, but Ray talked him and three of the elders into a trip to the broadcast discs. We would show them that the discs were dead, do a radar sweep to see if we could find any trace of the fighter carrier, and maybe look around. Ray Freeman did not come for the ride.
Archie and his brethren were novices at space travel. They had never been in a self-broadcsting ship, and the idea of it scared the hell out of them. The old man had to brace himself just to climb into the copilot’s seat of the Starliner. He did not complain or ask me to be careful. He looked around the cabin nervously and tried to sound comfortable.
“You know,” he said in a confidential tone that suggested this was a big confession, “I always wondered what it would be like to go up in one of these.” He laughed. Now that he was in true confession mode, he went on. “Self-broadcasters remind me of the early days of airplanes and daredevils flying through barns. Ho, ho, ho.” He laughed a beautiful baritone laugh.
The elders, men in their thirties if I had to guess, sat in the first row of the cabin. They strapped themselves in and did not speak. They seemed to share Archie’s outer fear of self-broadcasting ships not his inner enthusiasm.
“Do you understand how self-broadcasting works?” I asked Archie as we strapped ourselves into our seats. I, of course, only had the shallowest grasp, but a farmer/colonist like Archie would not care about the specifics. All he cared about would be the base fundamentals.
“It will be just like flying into a broadcast disc,” I said.
“The broadcast discs were destroyed,” Archie said.
“Not destroyed …just unplugged,” I said, for lack of finding a better way to explain myself.
“They don’t have power?” Archie clarified.
“Right. This ship can broadcast itself. There will be an electrical field around the ship right before we broadcast. It’s supposed to be there. There will be a bright flash, and when we come out, we’ll be near the broadcast discs.”
“What if we run into that carrier?” Archie asked as I powered up my console.
“We could,” I said, “but I’m betting that they went to the discs, found them dead, and have already turned back toward Little Man.”
“Delphi,” Archie said.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“We call the planet
“Right. Sorry.”
“What happens if we run into that carrier? I don’t see any guns on your ship.”
“I don’t have any.”
“Can you outrun a carrier?”
I hit the button to start charging the broadcast engine. “Not a chance. Those ships hit thirty million per hour. I might be able to do six million miles at best.”
“So what will we do?” Archie asked.
“Look, Archie, it’s a big galaxy. You don’t run into ships out here by accident. You can go out looking for other ships and never see them. If you and I were the only people on Delphi, what do you think the chances would be of our accidentally running into each other? The galaxy is a billion times bigger than Delphi.”
We took off at a steep angle and left the atmosphere quickly. Now that we had left the ground, Archie gripped the sides of his chair, his bony knuckles curved in like cats’ claws. He seemed unable to look away from the window. The sight of the planet below us seemed to hypnotize him.
I looked back in the cabin and saw that the three elders had the same reaction. They leaned into the nearest windows and stared.
“Okay, I am going to broadcast us now,” I said as I brought up the tint shield.
“What’s that?” Archie asked. “The window went black.”
“It’s a tint shield. It protects your eyes,” I said. “Things get bright out there when we broadcast. Unless you tint the windows, the brightness will blind you.”
“Oh, okay,” he said, sounding somewhat reassured.
Strings of electricity showed through the blackened windscreen, then the flash showed through. Archie was startled. He looked around the cockpit nervously. His legs, which did not fit behind that seat much better than his son’s, went stiff, and he lifted himself part way out of his chair. In that moment of fear, he lost partial control of his body. He did not wet himself or drop a load, but he farted something loud and smelly.
I had started to say, “We’re here,” but seeing the shocked look on Archie’s face, I could not stop from laughing.
“Oh, you think that’s funny?” Archie asked. “You goddamned clone.”
Some things you regret saying even before you finish saying them. I saw embarrassment and anger on Archie’s face. He settled back in his seat and stared straight ahead.
Out of habit, I started up the generator to charge the broadcast engine the moment we arrived. That habit saved our lives.
We arrived just a few miles from the broadcast discs and drifted over to see them. Coming to an almost dead stop, I took the Starliner around the defunct discs.
“Those are the discs?” Archie asked.
He probably did not see the discs when he came to Delphi. He and his fellow settlers had most likely traveled in a cargo ship. Even if they flew in a commercial craft, the tint shields would have been up long before they came this close to the discs.
“That is the broadcast station,” I said.
“You fly into it?” Archie asked.
I remembered that he lived on a planet without modern conveniences. “You fly toward it. It sends out an energy field to transport your ship.”
“I see.”
“If the discs were live, they would have a white glow. There would be traffic lights and warning lights along the top. There’s not so much as a volt of electricity in this station.” My broadcast gear included an enhanced radar display. As I reached to turn on the display, the Harrier buzzed us. It was a gray-white blur that streaked past the cockpit and totally vanished.
“Good God! What was that?” Archie yelled.
Red lights flashed in the canopy and on my heads-up display. A warning sign flashed on my instruments. Alarms buzzed. I switched on the radar with one hand and pulled the wheel sharp to the right with the other. “Hold on,” I yelled.
“What’s going on?” Archie yelled. It was not a scream. He had control of himself. “What was that?”
“You asked me what would happen if we ran into that carrier,” I said. “We just did.”
He pressed his face against the cockpit and stared out the window. “I don’t see anything.”
“Archie,” I said, as I stared into the radar, “that ship travels thirty million miles per hour. They could come right up our nose and ram us before you see them if they wanted.”
“Do they want to kill us?” Archie asked.
“We’d already be dead if they did. That was a fighter. The pilot could flame us with a single shot if he wanted.” I glanced at the broadcast gear. It would need another two minutes of charging before I could use it.
