“That little Japanese man asked many other questions, but I tried to respect your privacy.”
“Thank you. Actually, I was flattered by what you said. ‘The Rossman Maneuver,’ eh?”
“Oh, indeed. What you did with the magnetic field was one for the textbooks. It never would have occurred to me. So there are no hard feelings?”
Aaron smiled. “None about the broadcast, as long as there are none about the football game. I understand my boys whupped you good.”
“The Hangar Deck Stevedores are an admirable team. But my Engineering Rams are getting better, yes? Next time we will be victorious.”
Aaron smiled again. “We’ll see.”
Quiet, except for the regular plink-plink of water dripping from the ceiling.
“You’re not busy?” said Chang at last. “I’m not inconveniencing you?”
Aaron laughed. “Of course not. There hasn’t been a lot for me to do these last couple of years.”
Chang chuckled politely at the tired joke. “And you are well?”
“Yes. You?”
“Fine.”
“And Kirsten?”
“Bright and beautiful, as always.”
Chang nodded. “Good,” he said. “That’s good.”
“Yes.”
There was silence between them for six seconds. “I’m sorry about Diana,” Chang said at last.
“Me, too.”
“But you say you’re okay?” said Chang. His great round face creased in sympathy, an invitation to talk about it.
“Yes.” Aaron declined the invitation. “Was there something specific you wanted to see me about?”
Chang looked at him for three seconds more, apparently trying to decide whether to pursue his friend’s pain. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do have something to discuss. First, though, how are you going to vote tomorrow?”
“I thought I’d use my thumb.”
Chang rolled his eyes. “Everybody’s a comedian. I mean, do you favor Proposition Three?”
“It is a secret ballot for a reason, Wall.”
“Very well. Very well. I personally do favor the proposition. If it does pass, well, then, I won’t be needing your help. But if the people don’t take that chance for salvation, I have an alternative. Come.”
He led Aaron over to his workbench, its plastiwood surface nicked by hacksaw blades and marred by welding burns. With a proud sweep of his upper left hand, Chang indicated a cylindrical object that was mounted on the top of the bench. It was a metallic casing, 117 centimeters long and 50 centimeters in diameter—a section of reinforced plumbing conduit, cut to length with a laser. Its ends were closed off by thick disks of red plastic. On its side was an open access panel. Although at this moment I couldn’t see within, six days ago I had got a good look at the interior when Chang had rotated the cylinder to do some work through another, smaller access plate that was located ninety degrees around from this one. It had been filled with a grab bag of components, many only loosely mounted by electrician’s tape, a collection of circuitry breadboards stuffed with chips scavenged from all sorts of equipment, and a thick bundle of fiber-optic strands, looking like glassy muscle. The whole thing had a rough, unfinished look to it—not the smooth, clean lines technology is supposed to have. I had had no trouble determining what the device was, but I doubted Aaron would be able to figure it out.
“Impressive, yes?” asked Chang.
“Indeed,” said Aaron. Then, a moment later: “What is it?”
Chang smiled expansively, the grin a great arc across the globe of his face. “It’s a bomb.”
“A bomb?!” For a brief moment, Aaron’s telemetry underscored the shock in his voice. “You mean someone planted a bomb on board? My God, Wall! Have you told Gorlov—”
“Eh?” Chang’s grin faded fast, a curving rope pulled tight. “No. Don’t be a mystic. I built it.”
Aaron backed away from Wall. “Is it armed?”
“No, of course not.” Bending, the engineer gently prized another access panel off the curved surface. “I don’t have any fissionables to—”
“You mean it’s a nuclear bomb?” I was as surprised as Aaron. That part of it hadn’t been obvious from my quick peek at the device’s innards.
“Not yet,” said Wall, pointing into the newly revealed opening in the casing, presumably the place where he intended the radioactive material to go. “That’s what I need you for.” He stepped closer, one of his giant strides being enough to narrow the gap Aaron had opened between them. “There are no fissionables within the Starcology. Doubtless you’ve heard that garbage about reducing radiation exposure.” He made an unusual sound deep in his throat that might have been a laugh. “But once we get to Colchis, we can mine for uranium.”
Aaron took back the lead in their little dance, circling around to the other side of the workbench, interposing its bulk between him and the big man. “Forgive me, I-Shin. I must be missing the obvious.” He met the other man’s gaze, but after holding it for several seconds, blinked and looked away. “What do we need a bomb for?”
“Not just one, my friend. Many. I plan to make scores before we return home.”
Aaron swung his eyes back on I-Shin’s watery brown orbs. They had yet to blink or move since Aaron had first tried to make contact with them. “Why?”
“Assuming Proposition three is defeated, and my deepest fear is that it will be, a hundred and four years will pass on Earth before we get back. Relativity, damn it all. What will the world be like then? A lot can happen in a century, yes? Think of what’s happened in the last hundred-odd years. True artificial intelligence, like our friend JASON here.” He pointed at my camera pair, mounted on a buttress supporting the sculptured ceiling. “Life created in the laboratory. Interstellar travel with crewed missions. Teleportation, even if only over a distance measured in millimeters. Artificial gravity and antigravity, like the system used to augment the perceived gravity due to Argo’s acceleration.”
“Granted the world will be different when we get back,” said Aaron.
“Yes!” Chang’s grin had returned. “Yes, indeed. But different how? What kind of welcome are we going to get?” He sidled around the workbench to stand next to Aaron again.
Aaron tried to sound jaunty. “You kidding? Parades. Talk shows. The first interstellar travelers.”
“Maybe. I hope so. But I don’t think so.” He put his arm around Aaron’s shoulders. “Suppose there’s a war on Earth. Or a disaster. Things could be very hairy by the time we return, each person carving out an existence in a savage society. We might not be welcome at all. We might be resented, hated.” He lowered his voice. “We might be eaten.” He gave the steel casing a pat. “My bombs could make all the difference. We can take what we want if we have bombs, yes?”
Aaron peered through the large access panel, looking at the gleaming electronics. He shuddered. “What do you want from me?”
“Two things,” Chang said, holding up thick fingers in what used to be a symbol for peace. “You’re in charge of scheduling the Colchis survey flights. You must organize a search for deposits of uranium that we can mine.”
“It’s over six years until we arrive at Colchis.”
“I know, but the other project will keep you busy from now until the end of the flight. You’ve got to modify those boomerang craft of yours to carry my bombs. Picture those ships, zooming over fields of savages, dropping bombs here and there to keep them in line. Stirring, yes?”
As always, Aaron’s EEG was calm. Ironically, so was Chang’s. “Come on, I-Shin—,” began Aaron, but he ground to a halt. He looked into Chang’s brown eyes, almost invisible behind epicanthic folds, then tried again. “I mean, seriously, Wall, wouldn’t it be better if we find we’re unwelcome on Earth to just take Argo somewhere else? That’s the beauty of a ramship, isn’t it? We’ll never run out of fuel.”