“But it will require a great deal of research before that is possible.”
“The Autocracy has always been eager to fund worthy research projects.”
“Our current sponsors on Mars and the Moon might not welcome that,” Sondra said. “They hope to develop such ships, and use our gravity beams to power them.
“Your gravity beams. They are yours, quite true. But we Belters are traders, and we fear monopoly. Your Ring is the only possible source of gravity beams, correct? No one else in the Solar System could produce them at present? Save the Earthpoint Ring we cannot now build?”
“You are right,” Sondra said, choosing her words carefully. “It is a point which disturbs me as well,” Sondra said. “A monopoly source of a vital commodity can very easily become a target, either for destruction or empire building—or both.”
“All quite true. It would be in everyone’s interests to forestall these problems before the first ships are built. We have a great deal to talk about, you and I.” The Autocrat paused, and then spoke again in a more thoughtful tone. “It is possible that I will be forced to extend my stay.”
Which will definitely drive the Moon and Mars crazy, Sondra thought. But you know that. So why do you want to upset them? This is going to be more interesting than I thought. “Feel free to stay as long as you wish,” she said evenly. As if I could stop you, with the Autarch and her crew armed to the teeth.
“I thank you for your hospitality,” he said.
“You are most welcome,” Sondra said. “Is there more you wish to say regarding the Graviton?”
“Perhaps at another time. Just now, I wish to focus on the central issue. Earth,” the Autocrat said. “Is there any hope at all of finding her?”
“There is more than hope,” Sondra said, surprising herself with the vehemence of her tone. “We will get a tuning lock and find the Earth. Every other use of the Ring is secondary to our hunt for Earth, and nothing else will be allowed to interfere with it. If we get a tuning lock in the next five minutes, or if it takes a thousand years, until the Hunt for Earth is a religion, an act of faith, we will keep on until we find her. We have to believe that. We have to know that. We are the only hope the Solar System has for finding the Earth and undoing at least some of the damage.”
“Then you see the Hunt for Earth as your mission, as your duty?” asked the Autocrat.
“Oh, no,” Sondra said. “Not duty. Not mission. That’s not it at all.” She stared out the porthole at the massive ring and the tiny, invisible singularity that had once been Charon and Pluto. She saw, in her mind’s eye, the lost Earth, the sundered families, the dead of all the disasters caused by the Charonians that the Ring had awakened. “Finding Earth is not our mission,” she said. “Finding the Earth is our penance.”
Five
Jam To-day
“…No previous generation was ever forced to look on mortality in quite the way mine was. Ours was the first generation wherein the matter was no longer in human hands, and the first in a long time when universal mortality was a reasonable possibility.
“For the last five hundred years, humanity has had the ability to destroy itself—and has come horrifyingly close to using that ability more than once. But we were at least secure in the knowledge that humanity, and life, and Earth itself would survive so long as we ourselves did not destroy them. We were the only threat to our own survival, and to that of the planet.
“But then dawned the day of the Charonians, and all things changed. We survived on their sufferance. We could die, at their whim, at any moment. In spite of all our learning, all our wisdom, all our power and technology, the people of Earth were suddenly as helpless as medieval peasants watching a cloud of locusts descend on their crops. There was nothing we could do. More galling still, there was not the slightest evidence the Charonians even knew we existed, any more than the locusts knew or cared who planted the crops they consumed.
“Since I was fourteen years old, I have been forced to face the possibility of my own imminent death, of Earth’s destruction, of the extinction of virtually all terrestrial life, and of the subversion, the perversion, of whatever remnant of life survived in the service of the conqueror. I grew up knowing my species and my planet were completely at the mercy of beings ready and able to destroy our world if it suited their purposes.
“There is no end to the ways this knowledge has shaped—and warped—every aspect of life and thought for my generation.”
After the ceremonies, after the memorial services, after the moment of silence, after the long day of mourning, Sianna Colette slept, and dreamed.
Sianna knew she was having her nightmare again, even as she slept. But she did not wish to awaken: this nightmare was a happy dream, until she awoke. Of course, that meant that being awake was the nightmare, but even in the midst of sleep, Sianna told herself she was too sensible to dwell on such thoughts.
In her dream, the Moon, the true and friendly Moon, shone outside Sianna’s window by night. It was Earth’s Moon, the true Moon, her cool light playing across Sianna’s parents’ yard, moon-shadows wrapping the darkness in familiar mystery.
Sianna dreamt that the Sun, the real Sun, still rose in the east every day, and that his light was a shade subtly unlike the Sunstar’s. In her dream, the real Sun cast his honest colors over the lands.
Sianna reveled in sunlight, the light of the true Sun, a warm shade of yellow-white from her childhood, a color that she could never quite recall and yet could never forget.
In her dream, at sunset, the fat, slow-moving stars of the space stations and the orbital habitats and spacecraft were still there, transiting the darkness, rivaling the real stars.
Stars. Yes, the stars were there, too. The sky was a velvet darkness spangled with stars and planets that shone as bright as hope. Proud ships still crossed the void. Earth rolled round the Sun on its comfortable and ancient orbit, and all was well.
But then she awoke, and it was all over.
Sianna opened her eyes, and the dream-smile faded from her lips.
Over her head, even the once-blank ceiling served to remind her that her dream was dead. According to the landlord, the crack in the ceiling had popped open in the pulsequakes that jolted the world when the Moon’s tidal influence suddenly wasn’t there anymore.
Because now, of course, there was no Moon. Instead there was the hateful Moonpoint Ring, hanging neatly in the sky, precisely where the Moon was supposed to be, the Ring and the black hole in the center of the Ring providing exactly one Lunar mass, keeping the tides running in their ancient patterns.
Maybe that was enough to keep the fish happy. But who would want to look where the Moon was supposed to be and see an artificial Ring instead?
The whole sky was ruined. Sianna lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, determined that this one night she would not give the Charonians the satisfaction of looking on their sky.