The Aftermath

Plenty of time to get into the storm cellar, Victor thought as he switched back to the pornography. I just hope the storm doesn’t foul up the signal from Earth.

* * *

Without any working antennas Syracuse was cut off from the storm warning. But the ship’s radiation sensors pinged while the family was eating its meager breakfast. They were down to two meals per day: a breakfast of juices and protein bars, and a dinner that Pauline tried to make attractive and nourishing.

“Radiation alarm,” Theo said, his mouth half filled with the last of his morning’s protein bar.

“Solar storm?” Angela asked.

Theo nodded. “Prob’ly. Might be the precursor wave of high-energy protons and heavier stuff.”

Pauline said, “We’d better get to the storm cellar, then.”

“Right,” said Theo. “I’ll go up to the control pod, see what the instruments show, and check out everything. We might have to fly-on remote for a few days.”

Looking at Angela, Pauline said, “You help Theo into his suit.”

“I won’t need a suit,” Theo protested.

“It’s extra protection and you’d be foolish not to take advantage of it,” Pauline said firmly. “I’ll check the food stores in the storm cellar. If I recall from the last one we were almost out of juices there.”

“I restocked the juices,” Angela said, getting up from the galley table.

“Good.”

Theo got to his feet and followed Angela out to the airlock area, where the space suits were stored.

“I really don’t need this,” he grumbled to his sister once they were out of Pauline’s hearing. “Mom’s being a tight-ass.”

“Don’t let her hear you say that.”

“Tight-butt. Okay?”

Angela grinned as Theo sat on the bench in front of the lockers and began tugging on his suit’s leggings.

“The suit gives you an extra layer of protection against radiation,” Angela recited from memory. “It could be the difference between life and death.”

“If we get so much radiation that the spittin’ suit saves my life, half the equipment still running on this bucket will barf out,” Theo said sharply.

“You’re always such an optimist, Thee.”

* * *

It’ll be two days before the storm hits, Victor saw on the wall screen’s display. He was exercising on the treadmill in Pleiades’s gym, a small, almost claustrophobic metal-walled chamber jammed with equipment that Victor thought of as implements of torture. Necessary torture, though. It would be all too easy to bloat into a boneless slug aboard ship. Exercise was necessary, vitally so.

Two days before the cloud of high-energy protons and electrons smothers this region of space. There’s lots of heavier ions in the cloud, too, he saw as he studied the latest IAA bulletin. The ship’s magnetic field will deflect most of the crud, but rad levels will still go up in here. I’ll have to spend a couple of days in the storm cellar.

Communications from Earth had fizzled out once the storm cloud reached the Earth/Moon region. For entertainment, Theo had to fall back on the chips that Cheena Madagascar had stocked in the captain’s compartment. The woman had interesting tastes, Victor discovered. He knew from his own experience that Cheena was a vigorous heterosexual, but her assortment of entertainment vids was much, much broader.

I’d better bring some of the better ones to the storm cellar with me, he told himself. Not much else to do in there while I’m riding out the storm.

Then he remembered that Pauline and the kids would probably be hit by the same cloud of deadly radiation. Syracuse has a storm cellar, he thought. Pauline will make sure they’re safe.

But how many storms has battered old Syracuse gone through? How many more can the ship take before its vital systems break down?

* * *

Like most deep-space ships, Syracuse’s storm cellar was a tight little compartment lined with thick metal walls that held a heavy liquid mixture that absorbed incoming subatomic particles. After a, storm, once it was safe to leave the cellar, the liquid was flushed into the propellant tank for the fusion torch engine; eventually the absorbed particles were fired out the engine’s thruster.

Theo stared worriedly at the wall screen as he sat on the padded bench that ran along the cellar’s oval interior. The screen showed the level of absorbent remaining in the supply tank.

“How does it look?” his mother asked. She was sitting beside him. Angela sat across the minicompartment, where the food locker stood.

Theo thought for a moment before answering, “Depends on how intense the storm is, Mom, and how long it lasts.” He didn’t voice the rest of it: we might get through this storm, but we’ll be out of luck if another one hits us.

Angela looked concerned, almost frightened. “We’ll be all right, won’t we, Thee?”

He made himself smile at her. “Sure, Angie. We’ll be okay.” He wished he actually felt that way.

* * *

Valker worked hard to keep smiling. Cooped up with the rest of the crew in Vogeltod’s minuscule storm cellar was a strain, by any measure.

And just before the storm’s radiation blanked out the ship’s communications there had been that tantalizing blip on the radar screen. A ship, Valker was convinced. It had to be a ship, not a rock. No asteroid gives a profile like that.

It wasn’t Hunter, the ship they’d been seeking all these past months. But it was a ship. Valker was certain of it. It was running silent for some reason. No tracking beacon, no telemetry coming out of her. All the better. A derelict, most likely. But she was intact, as far as the radar profile could show. All in one piece, not busted up. It’s a ship that we can take and sell back at Ceres for a pretty dollar.

Valker couldn’t wait for the storm to subside. The smell of the other men crowded into the cellar gave him even more incentive to get out and take that ship, no matter who it belonged to or who might be aboard her.

SELENE: HUMPHRIES SPACE SYSTEMS HEADQUARTERS

As the flunky in the conservatively dark suit led them through the warren of cubicles filled with quietly busy HSS employees, Yuan thought that Tamara seemed strangely cool, confident. She looked quite calm, almost serene, as if she were looking forward to this meeting with Martin Humphries. Yuan tried to picture how Humphries would react when he admitted that he had let Dorik Harbin and the old woman go free. Humphries doesn’t like to be disobeyed. This isn’t going to be easy, he told himself.

Yet Tamara seemed unconcerned, almost at ease. He wondered if she really was that relaxed or whether it was all an act, a front of bravura that she really didn’t feel.

There’s nothing for me to worry about, Yuan told himself. He thought back to the vision that the artifact had shown him. You’re going to live a long and fruitful life, he repeated in his mind over and again. Yeah, he replied silently. Maybe. But the instant they had presented themselves at the corporate headquarters’ reception desk, the