“Acknowledged. Do you think it will work?”
“Sir, may I speak freely? And will this go no further than between the two of us?”
Zhang nodded.
“I don’t believe them. Uh… I’m not saying they’re lying,” she nervously backtracked, “it’s just that it would take some effort to get a rescue ship out to us, and, well, I don’t think we’re Beijing’s most favorite people right now. You in particular. I mean no offense, sir, but many of the crew consider this to be your failure, and they’re people who have worked with you and like you and respect you. I can’t imagine our superiors in Beijing have a higher opinion of you. I think this could start off with the best intentions and if the wrong people decided not to push the project, well, schedules slip. And then where are we?”
Cui looked about the room nervously. It was apparent she was worried that perhaps she had spoken a bit too freely.
“Relax, Zhuo, I share your concerns. I don’t think we can count on Beijing to get us out of this predicament. Amend that: I’m almost certain of it. I think we must turn to the Americans for assistance.”
“Sir? Is that a good idea? Beijing—”
“Zhuo, my time has evidently passed. Your time may or may not arrive, depending on what happens next. Let me suggest something to you. Again, to you only. One of the last things you elicited from Narcy was that the Americans had taken away some memory capsules, with technical specifications for entire alien industries, and, through the I/O port, they’d taken away scientific information that would give a boost of decades in hard science, and who knows how much in soft. Have I expressed this accurately?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So if this ship dies, then Beijing will be left with two options: let the Americans have those industries, or shoot down the Nixon. If they shoot down the Nixon, and I think they might do that, then there might very well be a war. I don’t know what would happen in a war—”
“Sir, I’m sure there are options other than a nuclear war.”
“Of course. Like a trade war. If the Americans put an embargo on Chinese goods, and threatened anyone who traded with us with further sanctions, well, they’d fall into a Depression. But we would fall into something much worse. With a billion people sloshing around the country without food or work… who knows what might happen? I’m sure Beijing has worked through these scenarios. What I’m suggesting is, we request a rescue: actually, we leave them no choice in rescuing us. And we suggest to Beijing that once we are aboard the Nixon, we may have some… mmm… influence on the distribution of the alien information.”
“Sir… you would try to seize their ship? The Americans must have countermeasures.”
“Let’s not look that far ahead, Zhuo. Let’s just say our presence might have some effect on how things work out.” Zhang looked at the time panel on his slate. “Beijing will be waking up. I’m going to go talk to them. About this possibility.”
“Sir, do you want me with you?”
“No. I have other things for you to do. How’s our reaction mass?”
“We’re only about ten percent, on the remaining tanks, sir.”
“Hmm, we’ll need more like fifty percent and we’ll need it soon. Assign everyone we can possibly spare to ice collection and hydrogen refining. Round-the-clock shifts. Also, I need some orbital calculations done that Beijing won’t find out about, depending on how they receive my suggestion. Our navigator, Lieutenant Sun, how does she feel about me?”
“Oh, she almost idolizes you. She’d follow you to the end of the universe. She’s very young.” Cui touched her lips. “Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“That’s all right, I get your point. In this situation, it will perhaps be a plus. Her service record shows that she’s ambitious. Few yuhanguan rack up so much flight experience so quickly. Landing on the crew of this mission at the age of twenty-eight shows that she’s bright and good at what she does.”
“Sir…”
“A bright, young yuhanguan with ambitions will take risks an older one would not, and what I’m planning will be risky. Send her up, would you? I’ll talk to her as soon as I finish my argument to Beijing.”
“Sir…”
“Zhuo, you need to get busy. One way or another, we’re going after the Nixon. With Beijing on board, or without them.”
Zhang’s proposal made the hour-plus-long trip to Earth. Beijing considered it for four hours. The reply made its hour-plus-long trip back to the Celestial Odyssey.
When the reply came in, Zhang was alone in his private quarters; had Duan been alive, she would have been with him, but Duan was now an ever-expanding cloud of atoms. The message came in a highly encrypted block of vid from the defense minister himself, who smiled tightly as he said hello; the smile disappeared as he continued.
“Admiral Zhang, your suggestion had already been considered here in some detail. Your analysis is correct: we really cannot afford to let the Americans get all of this technology to themselves. They are pushing us into a corner and they must be aware of that and the dangers that creates. I’m quite sure they don’t want us cornered. They had hoped to get away with this banditry, of course, but we cannot let them. We understand that much of the damage to your ship was done by what, in retrospect, was the inadvisable midcourse burn and then the necessity of the aerobraking maneuver.
“We accept responsibility for those errors: they were ours, not yours. We believe that two things could be done to rescue you: you could return via the two-year transit plan, and we could build a ship to pluck you from that orbit, or you could simply wait there, in a safe orbit, and we could send a rescue ship. We could, in fact, build that ship and get it there in time to rescue you. But that would not solve the problem of the Americans getting the alien science and technology. Therefore, we are going to announce, with great loss of what the West thinks of as our face, that our ship is so damaged that no feasible rescue is possible, unless done in cooperation with the Americans. We will announce that you will attempt a rendezvous. What happens then… we shall see. Now, you have on board, as a survivor, your first officer Cui. I have seen photographs of her and she is quite attractive. She also speaks English. We will have her interviewed by a reputable Xinhua reporter, in which she expresses the desperation of your condition. That script is being written now. We have created an attractive husband for her here, and two children, and they will add to the plea. Our… experts… tell us it will go viral, worldwide.”
When they were done, Zhang had to laugh. Not a happy laugh: the cynicism of international politics had always astonished him, and he’d not been disappointed in this latest example.
He floated out to the bridge, where Cui was waiting nervously. She said, “Yes?”
“Congratulations, Cui.”
“Sir?”
“On your marriage. And the babies. You have such pretty babies.”
“Sir?” She thought he’d lost his mind.
“Did I mention that you’re about to become a movie star?”
52.
A week and a half after the Nixon departed the Maxwell Gap and the alien depot, the Celestial Odyssey followed. It was a very different kind of departure. The Nixon’s exit had been excruciatingly slow, tiptoeing away from the debacle of humanity’s first contact with an alien intelligence. It had only managed to fully escape Saturn’s pull a day earlier.
In contrast, the Chinese left with a massive push. Ten blue-white plasma jets poured from the reactors at full thrust. In a few hours, they generated as much boost as the Nixon managed in three days. The Chinese gamble was a race between the tortoise and the hare, turned on its head. In the long run the Nixon could outpace the Celestial Odyssey tenfold. The short run was a different matter.