America 2040 - Golden World Part 11

"You know the intolerance of the Americans. They would not allow us to live in peace. They would not even try to understand our system of true socialism. No. If we go to the planet where the Americans are, it will be best to fight first, while we are still strong."

"We will go to them in peace," Theresita said firmly, but she was heartsick. The old att.i.tudes were gaining force. "I, for one, favor exploration of other star systems. The cosmos is vast. How much better it will be to have our own planet so that we can develop as we please- without friction, without the necessity of fighting."

"I insist on a vote, " Denis Ivanov said. He was backed by others.

Theresita postponed the decision for as long as possible. The year 2040 pa.s.sed. The ship continued its sublight cruise toward the outer limits of the solar system. And, as the second year pa.s.sed and icy Pluto's...o...b..t was near, she reluctantly set up the procedure for a secret ballot. She hoped that her sensible talk, backed by most of the s.p.a.ce Service people who had joined the mutiny, had convinced the majority that conducting their own exploration to find their planet was the best course.

The vote was close. Fifty-three percent of those aboard wanted to avoid the 61 Cygni system and the Americans' planet and find a planet of their own.

"Comrades," she told them, on the jury-rigged all-ship communicator, "we must not let this difference of opinion among us cause rancor. We must work together. I ask those who are in the minority to accept the decision and join with us. We live in comfort here on this great ship, and there is no danger of shortages, thanks to our efficient life-support systems. Perhaps we will be lucky and find a planet on our first attempt. If not, we must develop patience."

"Each time we search a solar system," Denis Ivanov angrily told a group of his followers, "we will have to cruise at sublight speed. It will take ten years or more to search the systems of five or six stars, and if they, too, have no planets, what have we done other than waste a decade of our lives?"

A star was chosen. It was not even in the same segment of the galaxy with 61 Cygni. Ilya Salkov and his engineering staff began to make preparations for the big moment, the activation of the Shaw Drive. The rhenium fuel, cast into three foot-long cylinders, was bulky and very heavy. The ship's architects had placed the storage areas for the excess fuel in the engine room so that refueling would not require laborious movement of tons of heavy metal. Rhenium was an inert metal until bombarded with antimatter, so it had seemed perfectly safe to store the tons of excess fuel in close proximity to the drive room. What the designers of the ship did not antic.i.p.ate was the field of undefined force, which extended outward from the Drive when it was activated and encompa.s.sed the entire ship.

And what Theresita had not antic.i.p.ated was a second mutiny.

Denis Ivanov and his supporters, in a slashing, surprising display of violence, decimated the ranks of those who had voted to stay away from the 61 Cygni system, took the engineering staff with Ilya Salkov as their prisoners, and overwhelmed Theresita in her quarters while she slept.

"We offer you the same choice that you offered Captain Simonov," Vera Ivanov told Theresita, speaking for her husband and the new mutineers. "We would like to have you with us, comrade."

Having survived the bomb she'd used to kill the man she loved, and having escaped certain nuclear war and lived through a mutiny against heavy odds, Theresita was not going to stand on principle to the point of throwing her life away. "Thank you," she said. "I accept your generous offer."

Under guard, she talked with Ilya Salkov and his engineering crew. "To stay alive is the important thing now, comrades. Perhaps we can be of some influence later."

"To fly this ship requires technical know-how," Ilya said. "We can refuse to partic.i.p.ate in any attack from s.p.a.ce on the Americans."

"Such talk will be reported to the committee," said their guard.

"Report it and be d.a.m.ned," Salkov said. "What's to prevent me from programming the Drive to take us to the star that was chosen by the majority?"

The guard, a microbiologist not accustomed to his role as weapon-bearing mutineer, looked uncertain.

"There are those among us who are familiar with the operation of the Drive," he said.

"Do as you are ordered," Theresita told Ilya.

When the time came, when theKarl Marx was safely out of the gravitational influence of the solar system, there was an understandable air of tension throughout the ship. Ilya Salkov was on the bridge.

Theresita, no longer under guard, was observing. The target for their lightstep was 61 Cygni A. The Americans were, at that time, only weeks ahead of them, and there was talk that they might find theSpirit of America still in s.p.a.ce. With the advantage of surprise, one missile could settle the issue of ownership of the new planet.

But even among the new mutineers there was disagreement. The s.p.a.ce Service officer who had been in charge of weapons control had been killed in the first mutiny. One of Ilya's engineers was now serving in that capacity. As the countdown continued his voice broke in on the communicator.

"I serve notice to all," he vowed in a trembling voice, "that I will not obey any order to fire on the American ship." "Relieve that man immediately," Denis Ivanov yelled, to no one in particular, although all the self-proclaimed leaders of the second mutiny were gathered on the bridge.

"Whom do you suggest in his place?" Ilya Salkov asked, with a sneer. "Perhaps the nutritional expert from the ship's kitchens?"

"We must take advantage of the element of surprise!" Ivanov said, his eyes a bit panicky.

Anarchy, Theresita was thinking, a grim smile on her lips. With a certain amount of disgust she began to understand why American democracy had never been successfully established elsewhere: The ordinary man didn't have the sense to control his own destiny, much less to make decisions about important matters involving the good of all. He was not capable of handling freedom.

"Comrade Marshal," Vera Ivanov appealed, "you must make that man in weapons control listen to reason."

"Whose reason, Comrade Vera?" Theresita asked.

"You'll have no help from her," Denis said sourly. "She's still unhappy at having been relieved of command."

"Not at all," Theresita a.s.sured him. "I feel a certain relief, as a matter of fact. I am happy that you are in command, Denis, so thatyou can decide what will happen if the American ship opens fire on us, with our man in our weapons control refusing to fire on them."

Denis blinked rapidly and swallowed, his face going pale. The countdown was proceeding, in spite of the confusion.

Ilya Salkov and his shorthanded staff did a great job, not missing any checkpoints in the countdown and making the lightstep strictly according to the book. Now the viewscreens showed a different star pattern, although it felt as if nothing had happened.

The navigator was an astronomer who had no practical experience in operating the various sensor systems. It took him a long time to identify two dim stars as, most probably, being 61 Cygni A and B.

"We are too far from them," Denis said impatiently. "What do you mean, bringing us out of lightstep so far from our destination! There will be how many years of cruising to get there?"

"No more than two, comrade," answered the sweating astronomer.

"And which is the Cygni A star?" Denis demanded.

"The one to the left of the screen, comrade," the astronomer said. "At least I'm reasonably certain that it is."

Denis turned, his hands still shaking. "By the name of Lenin!" he snarled in disgust. "He can't even tell us which star is which."

"We can program another lightstep," Vera said. "We're not that close to any object with a gravitational well." "Salkov," Denis demanded, "is she right?"

"Yes," Ilya said.

"Then go down to engineering and check the Drive and refuel."

"May I have the commander's permission to accompany Lieutenant Salkov to engineering?" Theresita asked.

"I don't give a d.a.m.n what you do," Denis said.

They found the engineering staff cl.u.s.tered around the Drive control console. "It's good you are here, Comrade Salkov," a young officer said. "We are sustaining quite unusual readings on the instruments."

Ilya stepped to the board and swept his eyes over the instruments. The temperature inside the sealed Drive chamber was high. At first that did not concern him. Temperatures reached almost sunlike highs during the lightstep reaction. Then he looked back at the temperature gauge and felt a jolt of anxiety.

Instead of cooling, the interior of the Drive chamber was heating, the gauge moving imperceptibly upward.

"Check the cooling system," Ilya ordered.

"It has been done. The cooling system is operating at maximum."

"Is something wrong?" Theresita asked.

"I don't know yet."

"Ilya," said a young engineer named Ivan, "take a look at the flux gauges in the Drive compartment."

There was a strong magnetic field in the sterile, barren compartment that housed the Drive. Ilya took off his cap and mopped his forehead.

"Air temperature in here is up to eighty-five degrees," someone told him.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Ilya was stumped. He could think of no reason why the Drive chamber was not cooling, and there was certainly no reason why the cooling system was not being effective in the engineering control room.

On a hunch he said, "Ivan, please give me temperature readings from the fuel-storage areas."

That took a moment. Ivan, young, handsome, came hurrying back, his face tense. "With the cooling systems going full blast, it's still over a hundred degrees in the storage areas, Ilya."

Ilya went to the computer and began to work, his cap tossed aside, his dark hair glistening with perspiration. The temperature in the room continued to climb.

"Ilya," young Ivan said, "at the present rate, the temperature will be critical inside the Drive chamber in just over one hour."

"It is not the Drive chamber that concerns me at the moment," Ilya replied. "There should be nothing butspent fuel left, the residue left after the annihilation process. There is nothing there to cause a buildup of temperature."

"Comrade Ilya," a young, frightened voice said, "the temperatures are rising rapidly in the fuel-storage areas."

A terrifying thought made Ilya squint his eyes. He rose swiftly and ran to a bank of instruments across the room from the main console.

"The radiation sensors are not functioning," he said, tapping their gla.s.s covers.

"Ilya," said young Ivan, "the temperature in the fuel-storage areas is reaching toward dangerous levels."

Even as he spoke the sprinkler systems responded to the heat and began to release their liquid fire-extinguishing chemicals. The sharp rise in temperature in the storage areas slowed, but it still rose.

"Ivan," Ilya said, "there is a portable radiation detector in the storage area. Get it quickly."

Ivan was back in less than two minutes.

Ilya took the detector and went through the shielded door into the Drive chamber. A sudden realization caused him to grow cold and shiver-he knew that he was a dead man. In the brief time he kept the door open to the Drive room he took enough hard radiation to a.s.sure him a quick death. He slammed the door behind him and examined the various dials of the counter. There were enough free electrons radiating from the Drive to cause him to raise his eyebrows in surprise. In that moment he accepted his death and wished only for the time to figure out why the Drive had gone wild. He only knew that streams of antimatter particles were coming from the Drive housing and causing the stored rhenium to heat up.

Theresita knew that something was terribly wrong, but she did not feel real danger until she saw Ilya's face as he emerged from behind the shielded door.

"You will all put on radiation suits immediately," Ilya said. "And prepare to abandon ship." No one questioned him.

"It was the surplus fuel," Ilya went on, as he reached for the back of a chair for support. "Somehow it extended the reaction inside the Drive chamber. Now the entire area is acting as a Drive chamber."

Ivan understood. He ran to get two radiation suits and gave one to Theresita, who immediately began to put it on.

"You are all aware of your abandon-ship a.s.signments," Ilya said. He punched up the communicator.

"Get me Denis Ivanov," he said.

"What's going on down there?" Denis's petulant voice asked.

"There is a continuing reaction inside the Drive chamber," Ilya said, having to pause to take a deep breath. He was already teeling very weak. "Within a very few minutes one of two things will happen: Either there will be a ma.s.sive explosion, or the entire ship will be irradiated. You must abandon ship immediately."

"What the h.e.l.l do you mean?" Denis was demanding as Ilya turned off the communicator. "They have been warned, comrades," Ilya said. "You and I know that only a small fraction of those on board will find seats on the scout ships. What you do now is up to vou.

Theresita pushed a radiation suit against Ilya's arm. "Put it on," she ordered.

"I will not be going with you," he said. He fell, slumping almost instantly into limpness, and as she knelt beside him, his breathing stopped.

"Come, comrade," young Ivan said, pulling her to her feet.

The heavy radiation suit made movement difficult and tiring. She ran as best she could behind Ivan, following him toward the outer rim where the scout ships waited in their individual pods. They ran directly into bedlam. Panicked colonists were fighting to gain access to the hatches leading into the pod areas.

Ivan took one look and seized Theresita's arm.

"We will never make it through that way," Ivan panted, his voice metallic as it came through the radiation suit's speaker. "The captain's ship-"

As they made their way around the congested, screaming, fighting people who clogged each hatch, he halted only once, to grab a cutting torch from a storage area. The access hatch to the captain's private scout was programmed to open only to the handprint of the dead Fedor Novikov, but it opened rapidly to Ivan's cutting torch.

"We can take a few of them with us..." Theresita said.

"Let them know there is a ship here, and we'll have to fight to get on it."

"We can't just abandon everyone," she insisted. "We can quietly find six people."

"I will board the scout," Ivan said. "I will give you ten minutes to find six people. If there are more with you when you return, I will blast off without you or any of them."

"Ten minutes," she said. She ran awkwardly back down the corridor. She could hear the panicked screams ahead where pa.s.sengers fought to get inside the hatch leading to the pods. She was close enough to distinquish individual curses, shouts, and screams when the ship shuddered and there was a m.u.f.fled explosion from deep inside, near the hub, where the engineering areas were. Then the entire ship seemed to convulse, throwing Theresita forcefully against a bulkhead. Ahead of her a bulkhead bulged outward, then shattered, blocking the corridor. A howl of wind came from behind her, making her think that the hull was holed between her and the captain's scout until her reason told her that the wind was blowing toward the rupture. Fighting against the howling wind, she fell, crawled, and finally reached the hatch that Ivan had opened with his torch and, once inside that bay with the door closed behind her, was out of the wind. She slipped out of the radiation suit and ran as fast as she could run, being hurled forward once by another explosion. Ivan's head was sticking out of the scout's entry hatch.

"Hurry!" he called.

She leaped to the footholds on the side of the scout and clambered up, diving headfirst into the hatch.

She heard the hatch slam shut behind her, and then Ivan was pushing b.u.t.tons. "I'm going to open the outside lock without decompressing the pod," he said. "Secure yourself in the couch. When we go, we'll go fast." It took the operation of three fail-safe devices to set off the charges that blew the outer hatch. It exploded outward, and the decompression sucked at the scout even as Ivan activated the rockets, heedless of the damage done to the pod as the scout leaped into s.p.a.ce.

G-forces pushed Ivan and Theresita down hard against the couches, but Ivan kept the rockets burning.

The rear cameras were activated, and theKarl Marx , Yuri Kolchak's answer to Dexter Hamilton's great dream, grew smaller and smaller, the central area near the hub seeming to flake outward like a fast-blooming flower.

"If it all goes at once," Ivan said, "it will take us with it."

It seemed incredible that theKarl Marx could explode with enough force to reach them, already miles away, but she didn't question Ivan's comment.

The rockets ceased firing, and the sudden weightlessness sent Theresita forward against her harness.

"Which star is the Cygni A star?" Ivan asked.

She didn't answer for a moment. What had the navigator said? "The one to the right," she said. But even as Ivan's fingers flew, programming the small rhenium drive aboard the captain's scout, she wasn't sure.

"Here we go," he said.

As the Americans before them had learned, Theresita and the young engineering officer whose last name she did not know learned that Harry Shaw's theories were wrong in some aspects-the rhenium drive in the captain s private scout ship did not detonate when the scout emerged in the primary gravitational pull of a large celestial object. And it was a very large celestial object, a planet of white clouds and golden land areas and purplish oceans.