Nancy Kress - Crossfire 02 Read Online Free
Author: Crucible
physicist in charge of Mira’s dwindling array of space sats, David Parker. Contain the information, Jake had said immediately, and for once Alex had actually listened to him.
“The ship is coming in at a tiny fraction of c, and it’s just beyond Cap,” said Buder, and everybody shut up because that put a new spin on everything. Cap was the farthest-out planet in the star system; in Mira City, major landmarks were given nonsense-syllable names to avoid favoring any one of its three dominant cultures. So the planets were Mel, Jun, Greentrees, Par, and Cap. Cap was 2.6 new AUs from the sun, David said, while Jake tried to remember what a new AU was and failed.
“So if it’s coming in that slow,” Alex said, “it isn’t using a McAndrew Drive? And it’s not Furs or Karim Mahjoub?”
“No way to tell,” David answered. He was a thin, nervous, balding man with startling blue-green eyes, undoubtedly the legacy of a vanity genemod three or more generations ago on Earth. He was some sort of distant cousin to Alex, Jake remembered, but, then, three-quarters of the scientists on Greentrees belonged to the vast Cutler clan. As Parker spoke, he plucked at his left ear. “There’s no reason I can think of why either Karim or attacking Furs wouldn’t use the drive to come in, if they had it. If this ship keeps on the way it is, it won’t be here for eleven days. Our orbital probes are giving us plenty of warning.”
Mayor Shanti said, “Then I don’t see how it could be Furs. An enemy wouldn’t do that.”
Lau-Wah Mah said, “I don’t think Karim would, either.”
The Cheyenne leader, whose name Jake had forgotten (he forgot too much these days), and who had been asked to the meeting only because he was in Mira City for the celebration, said nothing.
In the general silence that followed Mah’s remark, Jake shifted his chair for a better view of the Chinese governor. Shifting the chair cost Jake effort and pain. Once the chair had been powered, but a few years ago the parts had worn out and Alex as tray-o had, rightly, not deemed powerchair replacement parts the best use of limited metal-factory resources. There was a limit to how many different things a pioneer society could manufacture. More important things than powerchairs had gone to the bottom of the list. Still, Jake missed his old chair.
Lau-Wah Mah’s face gave nothing away. Did he know yet what had happened at the genetics lab? In his second year of his six-year term as governor, Mah was the third most important man in Mira, after his fellow triumvirates Mayor Shanti and Alex Cutler. Mah was a quiet, focused man with a smooth blank face like a peeled egg. So far he had let the other two, advised by Jake, make most of the decisions.
Jake couldn’t remember when the triumvirate system had informally devolved to mean one Arab, one Anglo, and one Chinese, but he didn’t like it. This wasn’t the way he and Gail Cutler had designed the political system on Greentrees to work.
Well, nothing had happened as designed. How could it, when they’d discovered sentient Furs living on Greentrees, and then it had turned out that the Furs weren’t native to Greentrees but imported, part of a vast biological experiment by another alien race at war with the real Furs. Mira City had been caught in the crossfire between these two technologically superior races. Jake and eight others had been kidnapped by the Furs to send them to the Vine planet to destroy the Vines’ defenses, but of course the Fur plan had failed because Karim Mahjoub—
“Jake,” Alex said gently, and he realized he’d been doing it again, letting his mind wander back to the vigorous past. Ah, it was no fun being old. He forced himself to pay attention to the here and now.
David Parker said, “We haven’t had any radio communication from the ship. But I agree with Lau-Wah—I can’t see why Karim would come in that slowly, when he can use the McAndrew Drive for rapid balanced
“The ship is coming in at a tiny fraction of c, and it’s just beyond Cap,” said Buder, and everybody shut up because that put a new spin on everything. Cap was the farthest-out planet in the star system; in Mira City, major landmarks were given nonsense-syllable names to avoid favoring any one of its three dominant cultures. So the planets were Mel, Jun, Greentrees, Par, and Cap. Cap was 2.6 new AUs from the sun, David said, while Jake tried to remember what a new AU was and failed.
“So if it’s coming in that slow,” Alex said, “it isn’t using a McAndrew Drive? And it’s not Furs or Karim Mahjoub?”
“No way to tell,” David answered. He was a thin, nervous, balding man with startling blue-green eyes, undoubtedly the legacy of a vanity genemod three or more generations ago on Earth. He was some sort of distant cousin to Alex, Jake remembered, but, then, three-quarters of the scientists on Greentrees belonged to the vast Cutler clan. As Parker spoke, he plucked at his left ear. “There’s no reason I can think of why either Karim or attacking Furs wouldn’t use the drive to come in, if they had it. If this ship keeps on the way it is, it won’t be here for eleven days. Our orbital probes are giving us plenty of warning.”
Mayor Shanti said, “Then I don’t see how it could be Furs. An enemy wouldn’t do that.”
Lau-Wah Mah said, “I don’t think Karim would, either.”
The Cheyenne leader, whose name Jake had forgotten (he forgot too much these days), and who had been asked to the meeting only because he was in Mira City for the celebration, said nothing.
In the general silence that followed Mah’s remark, Jake shifted his chair for a better view of the Chinese governor. Shifting the chair cost Jake effort and pain. Once the chair had been powered, but a few years ago the parts had worn out and Alex as tray-o had, rightly, not deemed powerchair replacement parts the best use of limited metal-factory resources. There was a limit to how many different things a pioneer society could manufacture. More important things than powerchairs had gone to the bottom of the list. Still, Jake missed his old chair.
Lau-Wah Mah’s face gave nothing away. Did he know yet what had happened at the genetics lab? In his second year of his six-year term as governor, Mah was the third most important man in Mira, after his fellow triumvirates Mayor Shanti and Alex Cutler. Mah was a quiet, focused man with a smooth blank face like a peeled egg. So far he had let the other two, advised by Jake, make most of the decisions.
Jake couldn’t remember when the triumvirate system had informally devolved to mean one Arab, one Anglo, and one Chinese, but he didn’t like it. This wasn’t the way he and Gail Cutler had designed the political system on Greentrees to work.
Well, nothing had happened as designed. How could it, when they’d discovered sentient Furs living on Greentrees, and then it had turned out that the Furs weren’t native to Greentrees but imported, part of a vast biological experiment by another alien race at war with the real Furs. Mira City had been caught in the crossfire between these two technologically superior races. Jake and eight others had been kidnapped by the Furs to send them to the Vine planet to destroy the Vines’ defenses, but of course the Fur plan had failed because Karim Mahjoub—
“Jake,” Alex said gently, and he realized he’d been doing it again, letting his mind wander back to the vigorous past. Ah, it was no fun being old. He forced himself to pay attention to the here and now.
David Parker said, “We haven’t had any radio communication from the ship. But I agree with Lau-Wah—I can’t see why Karim would come in that slowly, when he can use the McAndrew Drive for rapid balanced
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