Assemblers of Infinity Read online

  Erika nodded. She could identify with that after being isolated for months, seeing no one but Jordan, unless she counted the rare visits from the Mars trainees. It had been nice -- peace and quiet with no one around to disturb her research. And the technical papers she had published could speak for themselves.

  She started to push back her hair when she realized that she still had the rest of her spacesuit on. She held up the thick glove that enclosed her hand and laughed.

  Dvorak looked at her curiously, then shrugged. "Go ahead and get out of that thing. I'll introduce you to the crew."

  --------

  CHAPTER 8

  SPRINGFIELD, VIRGINIA

  Major General Simon Pritchard felt as if he had walked into a world he had left years before. Out of uniform on a Sunday, he sat at a table covered with a huge sheet of brown paper. From the outside, the crabhouse looked as if it should have sported a buzzing neon sign that said nothing but EAT; instead, this place called itself ERNIE'S CRABHOUSE.

  Celeste McConnell had asked him to meet her here.

  The flecked Formica tabletop underneath the brown paper tablecloth had been popular in the fifties, out of date for a few decades, back in fashion again during the nostalgia of the eighties, and now looked old once more. The crabhouse itself seemed unconcerned with a changing world outside.

  A waitress brought him a pitcher of beer and an empty mug. He looked startled since he had not ordered it, but he accepted the mug anyway. When she pulled out her green order pad -- a paper order pad! -- he held up his hand.

  "I'm waiting for someone." He glanced at his wristwatch. He was ten minutes early.

  "Okay. Give me a holler." Tables sprawled across the floor of the open crabhouse, offering no privacy at all. A jukebox by the door competed with a television set above the counter. He wondered what Celeste was up to. His old jeans and loose checkered shirt felt comfortable, and he fit in with the other customers. Off in the corner fifteen men had pulled tables together and played a game with the check totals to see who would pay the bill; they could have been blue-collar workers or White House staffers.

  He sipped his beer. It had been a long time since he had been in a place like this. He did not belong anymore. This was too strange to him. He wished Celeste would hurry.

  Simon Pritchard's father had been a tough Go Union! auto worker. His three older brothers -- Dan, Allen, and Robert -- were well-built, athletic, and their father's pride. Simon, the smartest and most persistent son, had managed to secure an appointment to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, then embarked on a career strewn with accomplishments.

  His father had died of lung cancer at 43, before Simon had demonstrated his military success. Dan had become an auto mechanic, Allen an assembly line worker, Robert a grocery store manager. Simon's career left them in the dust, but he did not gloat about it. In fact, he rarely thought of them.

  He had returned to Detroit to see his mother once. She was still a housewife, living modestly off her husband's pension and life insurance, doing absolutely nothing with herself. During Simon's visit, she talked about her garden, soap operas, and the neighbors, filling him with trivial details about other people Simon had gone to school with, about her grandchildren, about her other sons and their bowling leagues and hunting trips to Canada.

  Simon had wanted to talk about the importance of his job, the way he was helping to shape the nation's future. When his mother had cooked a big family reunion dinner with his brothers and their families, Simon had found it one of the most drawn-out evenings of his life.

  He had blazed high with success, but he had lost his family in the process. They had nothing in common anymore. Why did they stall when I went so far? Am I an anomaly, or are they?

  "I hope you're thinking about something important," Celeste McConnell said as she slid into the seat across from him. "That intent look in your eye is enough to start a fire."

  Pritchard tried to recover himself by waving for the waitress. "Just thinking about this place. Brings up old memories. How did you ever find it?"

  She shrugged and smiled at him. "Slumming." She poured herself a beer from the pitcher. "Actually, this place was pretty well known for awhile." She nodded to the wall where old pictures hung of former presidents, astronauts and senators who had frequented the establishment.

  Celeste had dressed in a loose teal blouse and clinging poly-jeans. She had pinned her dark-brown hair back behind her ears in a style that made her look girlish, though she was at least six years older than he. She wore little makeup. The whole effect made her look much softer, less businesslike than the iron Agency director ... and very attractive.

  "What are you staring at?" she asked, smiling.

  He straightened and took a sip of beer, feeling his cheeks start to burn. "You look different, that's all."

  That seemed to delight her. "And so do you, General. You don't look quite so stuffy and intimidating out out of uniform."

  "Intimidating?" Pritchard found the thought amusing. "I was thinking the same thing about you. I like this version much better."

  "Ditto," she said. "The whole idea was to go where nobody would recognize us. God knows my face has shown up on the newsnets often enough in the last two weeks."

  "Then why did we come here?" He looked around at the other customers, at the lack of privacy.

  "Somebody's always watching my office. I wanted to make sure nobody saw the two of us together. That could put the wrong spin on everything. We have to be very careful about appearances right now."

  Now she had his interest. He met her eyes, then turned away. "I thought you had changed your mind and were leaving me out of the picture. I've been out of the public eye -- "

  The waitress interrupted them as she took their order. She then went off as the men in the corner burst out laughing. Someone must have gotten stuck with the bill.

  Celeste leaned across the table, clasping her hands together. She looked petite, delicate, and very strong. Her black-lacquer eyes were unreadable, but her voice was mellow and reasonable.

  "We have more than just a mystery at the Daedalus crater, Simon. The sheer fact of the construction and its alien origin has stunned the public.

  We're not alone in the universe anymore, and we don't know a damned thing about the new kids on the block. What is that construction? How fast is it going to be finished, and what will happen when it is? What if they're not friendly? Could this be an outside threat, an alien invasion?"

  She stopped to look at his expression. "Don't look at me like that!

  I've already heard it in the editorials, and it's bound to pick up speed. I'm not sure it's so silly. The construction has already proven it can be dangerous -- three people dead, two hoppers destroyed. What if this 'circle of death' around Daedalus keeps growing? What if those alien machines decide to disassemble the entire Moon? Turn it into a galactic parking lot or something?"

  He nodded, serious now. "I've considered that myself, and you could very well be right -- but it doesn't make sense that you're trying to keep me hidden in the closet. Shouldn't I be helping you make your case? With my rank and my background -- "

  Celeste held up her hand to silence him. She took a long sip of her beer, placed it back on the tabletop, wiped foam off her lips, then studied him again. "Simon, have you ever seen the old movie Dr. Strangelove?"

  Pritchard smiled. "Yes. Just last year in fact."

  It was one of his favorites; it had caused quite a stir when it had been rereleased as the first of the old classics that had not only been colorized but three-dimensionalized as well. Purists had boycotted the exhibitions and generated enough publicity that the rerelease had done ten times as well as it otherwise would have. Pritchard had gone by himself to see what all the fuss was about; the movie had lampooned all those military stereotypes.

  "Then you must remember Colonel Jack D. Ripper, the man who wants to destroy everything that does not fit with his philosophy? And that general --

  Bloodw
orth? The gung-ho soldier who wants all the big military toys."

  Pritchard snorted. "I still know some people like that. But the world is better off forgetting absurd stereotypes."

  Celeste grinned sharply. "But they won't! We think we're beyond that now, and the military just needs to keep watch over Third World hotspots. But as soon as a two-star general like yourself starts warning about alien invasions and campaigning to gear up the weapons complex, exactly what image do you think is going to pop into the public's mind?"

  Pritchard had encountered that sort of thinking all through his career.

  On the one hand, he had risen remarkably fast, being in the right place at the right time over and over again. As a colonel, he had led the Air Force into co-sponsorship with the United Space Agency and had been surprised by the storm of protests even among highly educated scientists about tainting pure research with connections to "warmongers."

  Pritchard had always felt that the military's new role should be focused outward, leading the way in colonizing the solar system -- like the military of old, who were the real pioneers of the American West, going out on expeditions like Lewis and Clark, braving the dangers of a hostile environment and paving the way for the second wave of civilians.

  With extremely expensive and high-tech weapon systems dropped out of the budget, the armed forces had contented themselves with advanced conventional weapons, fine-tuning their accuracy and effectiveness. Treaties watched over by the International Verification Initiative had dismantled most of the nuclear weapons, leaving only a handful of warheads in secure installations -- mostly as a deterrent against certain Third World countries who were ignoring the non-proliferation sanctions to build up their own stockpiles.

  After the European Economic Community had effectively wiped out political borders, leaving only cultural differences of more interest to tourists than army commanders ... after the fragmented Communist powers became preoccupied with internal problems -- what was left? Who did they need to keep on guard against -- except the lunatics? "I see your point," he said.

  "I want you to work closely with me, but you must keep a low profile. I believe you and I have the same agenda, and together we can make it happen."

  She paused. "As co-conspirators. This whole thing can launch our future in space, make colonization and expansion more than a PR show or a few experimental exercises."

  Now Pritchard knew what Celeste had been up to all along. It was something he had suspected, but not nailed down until now. "I have that dream myself."

  His comment seemed to startle her. "I'd be interested in hearing your dreams," she said, but her words were mumbled, and her eyes looked far away....

  Eleven years before, on board the Grissom, Celeste had awakened from a dream with the gut-terror of falling and falling and falling -- the way she often awakened in zero-G. Her husband Clark told her she would get used to sleeping on the space station, but after two months Celeste still could not stop the disorientation.

  This had been more than just a dream, more than just a nightmare. One of those dreams that compared to ordinary nightmares the way migraines compared to ordinary headaches. This one had been even clearer than the others, more definite.

  Explosions --

  Freezing --

  Tearing metal --

  Screams --

  Death....

  She saw herself floating to one of the modules. Module 4. The protruding module with the medical lab. Only there would it be safe. She had to get to it.

  Swimming away from the rapidly fading images, she remembered with razor clarity seeing the glowing green chronometer on the wall panel. She remembered what time the disaster would happen. Disaster. The word itself meant an unfavorable alignment of planets or stars. How ironic. Celeste blinked now and saw she had only twenty-three minutes left.

  Twenty-three minutes until calamity would strike. And Module 4 would be the only safe place on the entire Grissom station -- but how to get everyone there? How could she save them all? She knew none of the details, only that something would happen. It would happen! She couldn't tell anyone how she knew. They would laugh at her. She would laugh at it herself ... if her dreams hadn't proven to be true so many times before.

  She was alone in their sleeping quarters. Clark would be on duty in the command module with Rico Portola. She had never told even her husband about the dreams -- and he would not understand now. She had only twenty minutes.

  How could she divert the tragedy if she did not know what to warn them about? She had to get all eight members into a single module, and in only a few minutes.

  She remembered the other times that the dreams had come to her ... the car wreck ... her brother drowning. Celeste finally hit the wall intercom, turning up the volume. "All station members. Attention! All station members, that's you too Clark and Rico! I'm calling an emergency meeting in Module 4.

  Right now, everybody."

  She did not answer when a few of the members sharing her same sleep period answered with befuddled questions. Clark came on the line, demanding to know what she was doing.

  "Just come down! Right now. This is very important."

  She had no idea what excuse she would use once they got together. If the disaster did not happen, how could she explain? She might be disciplined, maybe sent back Earthside. But if nothing did happen, wouldn't that be a small enough price to pay?

  Before exiting the sleeping quarters she shared with Clark, she called up the personnel roster on the wall infopad. Maybe she would get lucky --

  eight crewmembers, extended families, birthdays, anniversaries. She scrolled down the dates, keeping one eye flicked to the dull green numerals of the chronometer on the wall. Fifteen minutes left.

  She found a corresponding date. Good! She scanned the name, committed it to memory and grabbed for the doorframe to pull herself through.

  Clark's voice came over the intercom on narrow-band to their quarters only. "Celeste, what the hell is going on? We can't leave the control center right now. Rico's found something -- space debris, we think, but it has an anomalous return signal. It's going to come close. I need to stay and monitor it."

  Even floating in zero-G, Celeste felt her knees turn to jelly. "Clark, that's it! I think it's going to hit the Grissom!"

  She heard him snort over the speaker. "Naw, it's got a tiny cross-section and a really screwy orbit -- it'll miss us for sure. Probably somebody's screwdriver from an EVA twenty years ago. Not on any of our charts, though, so we need to track it and let Mission Control enter it into their database."

  "Clark, swear to me that you'll come to Module 4. Right now. You and Rico! I'm not kidding."

  After a long pause, he answered her cautiously, his Texas drawl stretching the words. "All right, hon. We'll be down. Promise."

  She pulled herself into the narrow corridor and pushed off from the bulkhead to get to the intermodule airlock. Eleven minutes. She worked her way through the airlock, into the next module, then shot into the vertical lock overhead. The closed door said "4" in bright blue.

  Dr. Bernard Chu, a thin and intense young biochemist, joined her as he hurried to the emergency meeting. She couldn't see the chronometer. She hustled Chu into the medical lab. Everyone had arrived -- except for her husband and his partner.

  The gathered crewmembers looked at her, one blinking sleep from her eyes, another looking angry, and two showing fear. Only seven minutes remained. The module was cramped with their bodies. Drifting without enough handholds or seat-straps, the six people kept bumping into each other, murmuring about the emergency meeting.

  If Celeste was going to have a cover story when all this was over, she had to state her excuse now. It was a lame reason, even stupid. But she could never survive a board of inquiry if she said simply that she had experienced a premonition.

  "I suppose you're wondering what this is about?" She looked at all of them. "Well, it's all because of Bernard Chu."

  Chu blinked in astonishment. "Me?" The oth
ers flashed a glance at him, immediately pegging the biochemist as the cause for the turmoil. "What have I done?"

  But Celeste stared at the chronometer, at the hatch. Come on, Clark!

  "We are cut off from Earth here, and we must make every effort to keep our ties. I called us here together to celebrate the birthday of Bernard's son Shelby. He is eight years old today." She smiled at Chu, who blinked in astonishment. She saw tears spring to the man's eyes.

  Several of the other crewmembers grumbled in annoyed surprise. Someone clapped. A voice said, "Big fucking deal."

  Celeste hit the intercom on the wall again. "Clark, where are you!"

  One minute left. Clark was always late. With his long legs and big frame, many had called him a remarkable contrast to petite Celeste and her intense scurry. The newsnets had called them a "darling couple."

  "Still up here," he answered. His voice sounded distracted. "There's something funny about the debris. Can't get a good reading. Never seen anything like it."

  Despair burned like acid in her throat. The last number on the chronometer changed. No more time. "Shut the hatch!" she yelled at Chu, who sat nearest to the module airlock. Startled, Chu moved to close it.

  Over the intercom, they all heard Rico Portola's voice calling to Clark. "Look out the port, Clark! I can see it!"

  "Holy shit!"

  It was the last thing Celeste ever heard Clark McConnell say.

  The entire station rang with a sound like a churchbell thrown from a tenth-story window. The impact tossed the six of them about in the cramped module. Two men ended up with broken limbs; four people, including Celeste, had bloodied noses.

  Chu had managed to shut the airlock hatch in time.

  The lights flickered and went out, replaced by red emergency lights powering up from solar cells mounted on the skin of each module. Screams and shouts filled the tiny medical lab. Celeste found herself huddled against the wall near the arbitrary ceiling, whispering her husband's name over and over again as tears bit the edges of her eyes before floating free. Why hadn't he listened to her?