The Alpha Centauri Trilogy Read online

  “What about Wallace?” Sawyer continued. “Can we get him back? And who let Grainger’s backup go this close to the Centauri mission launch anyway?”

  Drake shook his head. “Politics. When Wallace heard about possible lifeforms under the ice on Enceladus, there was no holding him back. He pulled strings to get on the next mission. I’m sure he’d much rather go to Alpha Centauri but it didn’t look like that was going to happen. Our international partners had no problem with it, of course—”

  Sawyer snorted. “Not if they had a chance for one of their own to do the first footstep if something happened to Grainger.” She paused a moment. “It was an accident, right?”

  The thought startled Drake. There had been plenty of political bickering over who would be first to set foot on an extrasolar planet, but it was the United States who had developed a workable warp drive. It had also been an American robotic probe which returned from Alpha Centauri with images of not one, but two Earth-like planets in that system, apparently complete with life forms. The partners had agreed to let an American take the first footstep on whichever of those they landed. It was also agreed that should be an exobiologist. But now Grainger’s backup was on his way to Saturn, and the next most qualified exobiologist was either European or Chinese. There might be some motive to arrange an accident. Still, Drake couldn’t bring himself to believe anyone with access would stoop to that.

  “Yeah, almost certainly. Of course it’s being investigated, just like any other on the job accident. Anyway, George Darwin has been designated as second backup all along.”

  “But he’s in charge of the Lunar Quarantine Lab. People who don’t know George like I do might think he’d prefer that to doing the first footsteps. He’s had his fame and glory, and he’s the boss of the facility that will be first to get its hands on whatever alien specimens the Centauri mission brings back. I can just imagine some Eurocrat thinking that’s a preferred position to being stuck in a tin can for up to six months.” Sawyer shook her head again. “Gods, I don’t want to be cooped up with that man for that long.”

  “You know you won’t be. A week to Alpha Centauri, a couple of weeks of preliminary survey, then he’ll be down planet-side until it’s time to return. Everyone’s going to be busy.” Drake could tell that she wasn’t convinced. He knew they could handle it; they had on the Mars mission, which had been longer. Under any other circumstances, Elizabeth Sawyer was one of the most even-tempered people he knew. But there was one other point.

  “Sawyer,” he said, “it’s out of my hands. The higher ups insist on Darwin. If you don’t think you can handle it . . . well, you have a backup too.”

  Her eyes flared, and she slammed her palm on his desk. “No! I will not be bumped from the mission because of that man.” She settled back in her seat. “We’ll be fine, on our best behavior.” She muttered something else, which Drake didn’t quite catch, but it might have been “or I’ll break his arm.”

  “All right. I’m counting on both of you not to let me down.” Drake made some notations on his computer. He should break this to Darwin in person, to make sure he got the whole message too. He would have to review his task list, to see what else could he get done while on Luna. But first. . . .

  “Speaking of crew assignments,” he said, “how are we coming on plans to redistribute the European contingent amongst the remaining ships?”

  “So we’re not waiting on the Jules Verne? I can’t say I’m sorry.”

  The European ship, the Jules Verne, had run into problems during its interplanetary shakedown testing. Waiting for repairs would push the mission back several months.

  “No. Our taxpayers don’t want to wait, and the Chinese, Russians and Indians aren’t willing to either. Their ships are ready. The Verne is to be held in reserve. Maybe they’ll send it out if we’re not back in six months, but some of the crew comes with us.”

  “Okay. At least they didn’t name it the Perry Rhodan.”

  Drake snorted. For a while, that had looked like a real possibility, because of a popular campaign. Just as his ship had almost been named the USS Enterprise instead of the USS Robert A. Heinlein.

  CHAPTER 2: THE MOON

  Interstellar Quarantine Facility, on the Moon

  Drake finished suiting up for the walk from the lander to the base itself. At any other base on the Moon, there would be a docking tunnel or some other convenient way of getting from the ship to the buildings without going outside. Here, though, the short trip outside was part of the quarantine protocol. If something got loose in the lab, it would be that much harder for it to get back to Earth.

  It was also a pain in the ass.

  He exited the airlock and bounced along the surface to the lab. At least they’d hardened it—“paved” wasn’t quite the word, it had been sintered using focused sunlight—so he wasn’t kicking up dust at every step like the first time he’d set foot on the Moon. How many years ago had that been? Too many.

  He was expected, of course, and some minor assistant was there to help him out of his suit as he cleared the lab entrance.

  “Welcome to the Moon. We weren’t given details of your visit, just that you were arriving. What can we do for you?”

  “Later I’ll want a tour of the facility, I expect to be spending some time here when we get back from our mission.”

  “Of course, sir. Um, you said later? Was there something first?”

  “I want to pay a visit to an old friend. Where’s Darwin’s office? I’ll find my own way.”

  “Uh, Director Darwin is a busy man—”

  “So am I, and I outrank him. I also want to surprise him. Now, which way?” Drake felt a little bad about taking that tone, but what was the point of having rank if you couldn’t pull it once in a while? The aide gave him the directions and he set off down the high-ceilinged corridor.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Darwin’s office

  “You’ve gained weight since Mars, George.” Drake said.

  Darwin looked up from his desk, scowling. Then he recognized the unexpected visitor at his door and smiled. “Captain Drake! I didn’t know you’d arrived, I’ll have to talk to someone about that. Come in. What brings you here?”

  Drake entered the office and seated himself in the chair across the desk from Darwin. “It’s Commodore Drake now, actually. Commanding a fleet and all that, if a small one.” He paused a moment, glancing around the high-ceilinged office, taking in the spider plants hanging in the corner, the pictures on the wall. Most were scenes from Earth, of Darwin in unusual environments. Hot springs, a glacier. He recognized one, a bleak rocky landscape in shades of red with a pinkish sky. Two space-suited figures posed for the picture; Darwin and himself. “You have that picture on your wall? I get tired of seeing it.”

  Darwin glanced over his shoulder at it. “That’s why it’s behind me. It’s to impress visitors, my glory days.”

  “Don’t say that, it makes you sound like an old man, and where does that leave me?”

  “In my office trying to avoid telling me why you’re here when I thought you had a starship to make ready.”

  “You’re right,” Drake said. “Neither of us was ever much for small talk. How would you like to go to Alpha Centauri?”

  The look on Darwin’s face was almost worth the trip in itself. It managed to combine deer-in-the-headlights with complete disbelief with a kid seeing the presents under the tree on Christmas morning.

  “What? In what capacity? You’ve got an exobiologist.”

  Drake shook his head. “Actually we don’t. Grainger managed to fall off the descent ladder in a rehearsal exercise. He broke some bones and punctured his spleen. He’s not going.”

  “Is he all right? No, stupid question.”

  “He’s fixable, but waiting for him would push back the schedule, and our international partners don’t want to wait. China and the European Union have already offered replacement exobiologists.”

  “Hah, no way that’s going to happen.” The first ship to land would be the Indian vessel Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, but the privilege of first footstep would go to the mission’s lead exobiologist. “But what about Grainger’s backup?”

  “Wallace? Last month the Enceladus exploration team found signs of life under the ice. Since it looked like he wouldn’t be needed on the Centauri mission he lit out for Saturn as soon as he could get authorization. We could get him back—Saturn is at least on the same side of the Sun as we’re going, although we’re headed out of the ecliptic—but I decided to offer the slot to you first. I know it’s a bit of a demotion, but—”

  “No, no. I mean, sure, I’d have to give up the glamour and excitement of running the Interstellar Quarantine Lab, but I’m willing to sacrifice to help out an old friend.”

  Drake snorted. “Right. The opportunity to investigate two planets’ worth of alien lifeforms first hand has nothing to do with it.”

  Darwin smiled. “Well, maybe a little.” He sat forward on his seat, sobering. “Okay, how long do I have to transfer operation of this lab, and what’s my training schedule going to be?”

  Drake wasn’t surprised at how quickly Darwin had gotten down to business. It was one of the things he liked about him. He pulled a data chip from his pocket and placed it on the desk in front of Darwin. “The details are all in there. You already have plenty of space experience, and you’re one of the best exobiologists in the business, so your focus will be the detailed mission plan—”

  “Okay, I know some of that from how it ties into the LQL requirements for when you, or we, get back. And I developed the mission biology protocols.”

  “I know. The only other thing is general starship systems, although aside from the warp drive it’s not much different from what we went to Mars in.”

  “Oh, and about that,” Darwin said.

  “Yes?”

  “The gravity is lower here. I’ve lost weight since Mars.”

  Drake laughed and shook his head. “All right. Read through the briefing on the chip and contact me later today.” He turned to leave, then stopped and turned back. “There is one other thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Elizabeth Sawyer is on the mission team. Will that be a problem?”

  The deer-in-the-headlights look came back, this time without being combined with the kid on Christmas morning. So much for being happy to see her again, Drake thought.

  “In what capacity?”

  “My second in command, and geologist. Look, I know you two can get along in public. And for all the screaming matches, it never got physical, right?”

  A wry grin crept onto Darwin’s face, like he was remembering something. “Well, not in that sense. She’d have broken my arm.”

  Drake remembered something he’d once heard about makeup sex being the best kind. Fortunately his dark skin didn’t show a blush. “I don’t need to know any other details. So, no problem?”

  Darwin’s expression sobered. He looked a little like he’d swallowed a bug, but said: “No, no problem at all.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  One problem down, a dozen to go, Drake mused as he left the quarantine lab. The planned six-ship fleet was already down to five, after the problems with the European craft Jules Verne, leaving him to rearrange the crew to ensure a European presence, and ever since the robotic probe, Nessus, had returned with pictures of not just one, but two Earth like planets in the Centauri system, the taxpayers were anxious to see a mission get out there and “boldly go where no-one had gone before”.

  More importantly, at least to the United States government, was the concern that China and perhaps other nations were close to discovering the secret to creating a stable warp field. Without warp technology to bargain with, the Chinese-designed compact tokamak fusion reactors necessary for a manned warp ship might suddenly become unavailable, giving China a monopoly on interstellar flight. The fission reactors that powered the Nessus put out too much radiation to be used within the limited confines of a warp bubble with humans present, and their relatively limited power reduced both the size of that bubble and the available speed. Not a problem for a robotic probe, but unworkable for sending a crew beyond the solar system.

  Politics. Drake hadn’t gotten where he was by ignoring it, but that didn’t mean he liked it.

  CHAPTER 3: GEOLOGISTS

  Centauri Mission Headquarters, Earth

  Sawyer’s omniphone beeped at her. She glanced at the screen on her wrist, it was reminding her of a meeting with Fred Tyrell, another of the geology crew. Already ahead of you, she thought, as she entered Tyrell’s office.

  “So, Fred, anything new?” The man before her had the characteristic leathery skin of someone who had spent more time in the field than in the classroom or laboratory.

  “I’ve been going over the geology manifest. With the extra crew member our mass allotment has been cut by over a hundred kilos. That seems excessive, especially considering that the biology team has been similarly cut.”

  “It’s not just the mass of the crew member. We’re adding a couch and life support reserves. I know it sucks, but it’s what we’ve got.”

  Fred sighed. “Yeah, I realize that. At least we’re not totally eliminating any of the experiment packages, just reducing the redundancy somewhat. For example, we’re only taking half the geophones and seismic charges you wanted to.”

  That would cut into their ability to do detailed subsurface profiling, and who knew what interesting clues to the planetary history. “That’s unfortunate. What about the ANT gear?” That would give them a gross picture of the planetary interiors, but nothing fine grained.

  “No change there. The neutrino detectors are built into the ship. Even if we wanted to take them out it would delay things too much. As long as we have a working reactor to generate anti-neutrinos, we’re good.”

  “And if we don’t, we have bigger problems,” Sawyer said. “What else?”

  “What do you think of cutting the equipment on the fliers? There’s a lot of sensor gear there. If we cut out either the multispectral scanner or the ground imaging radar that’s a good percent of our weight right there.”

  Sawyer considered this. The fliers were electric ultralight aircraft, powered by photovoltaic film in the wings, and modified from a commercially available model to fold up for storage in the lander. She hated to lose any of the sensor gear. “If we take out one of those, could we rig the flier for an extra passenger? Might come in handy.”

  Fred’s brow furrowed as he thought about it. “It’d be heavier with three people, but it might be workable. We want to make sure we have margin. The radar is heavier, and the biologists will care more about the multispectral anyway.”

  Personally Sawyer cared more about the ground radar. Overlying vegetation, which the radar could see through, often hid interesting geophysical details. But the multispectral scanner could also reveal things about surface chemistry. And it didn’t hurt to keep the biologists happy—she winced as she remembered who the new lead biologist was—it was the fact that there were clear signs of life in the Alpha Centauri system that was driving the mission, after all. “Okay,” she said, “let’s do the biologists a favor.”

  “Speaking of biologists, I have a training session with them tomorrow. We’re going on a field trip.”

  “You’re teaching them geology?”

  “Yes and no. Surprisingly, there’s not a paleontologist in the bunch.”

  “But I thought—”

  “Oh, sure, they know some, especially in their own specialties, but no field paleontologists. They want me to show them what to look for in terms of possible fossil-bearing formations. Actually, I think they wanted you, but you’ve got your hands full.”

  “Tell me about it. So what did you have in mind?”

  “A couple of ten- or fifteen-kilometer hikes through some interesting formations. I’m limiting it to what’s most likely to be in range of the landing areas, so nothing too arctic.” Orbital mechanics meant keeping the landings away from the poles to maximize their payload.

  “Okay. By the way, I don’t know when he’s due Earth-side, he may already be back, but George Darwin is now leading the biology team. He’s Grainger’s replacement. If he’s back he’ll be joining your field trips, he needs time with his team.”

  “Darwin?” Tyrell’s expression suggested that he wanted to add some comment but wasn’t sure if he should. He settled for saying: “He’s been on the Moon for what, several months now? He won’t have his Earth legs back yet. I’ll go easy on him.”

  “Don’t.” At Tyrell’s startled look, she realized that had sounded more mean-spirited than she’d intended. “The planets we’re going to are Earth sized, and we’ll be spending two weeks or so in zero gee before we get there. He’s going to need to rebuild his muscles before that. He’d tell you the same thing.” Knowing Darwin’s stubborn pride, she had no doubt of that.

  Tyrell still seemed skeptical, but nodded. “All right. I hope for his sake he’s been keeping up his exercise program.”

  “He was a fanatic about it on the way to Mars. The man’s a born overachiever.”

  “And you’re not?” Fred said, then looked down and mumbled “Sorry”.

  Sawyer wasn’t offended. “Yes, I guess I am. That’s probably why we got along so well,” she with a wry smile.

  CHAPTER 4: FIELD TRIP

  Geology Field Training Site 1, Earth

  Fred Tyrell surveyed his troupe of biologists, who stood looking expectantly at him in the morning sun. He waited as the rotor throb of their helicopter faded in the distance. He’d met all of them before at various training and orientation sessions, of course, but except for the American crew, he didn’t know any of them well.

  There was Dr. Jennifer Singh—they all had at least doctorates in one field or another—the botanist, part of the Indian contingent. George Darwin, of course, who didn’t seem in the least perturbed standing there in gravity six times what he’d been living in for the last few months. We’ll see how long that lasts, thought Fred. To Darwin’s left stood Xiaojing Wu, the Chinese microbiologist. Then there was Dr. Ulrika Klaar. As far as Fred was concerned, her picture could be in the dictionary beside the definition of “Nordic beauty”. Tall, with long, straight, almost platinum blonde hair which normally hung loose to her waist but now was done up in a more sensible braid. Fred wondered if she’d get it cut before the mission left, long hair could be a hassle in zero gee.