Read Online The Sunspacers Trilogy by George Zebrowski - Free Book Online

that.
    “A quake on Mercury,” said a woman’s giant face, “has taken three more lives among the miners. But the production of metals is not likely to be affected, Earth Authority has announced in New York. There was no public statement from the Mercury community.”
    Boos and hisses exploded among the students. I felt a wave of sympathy for the dead miners. How could this still be going on? People were dying, and yet there seemed to be no urgency in doing anything about it. I looked at Morey, but he shrugged.
    “The Russian Commonwealth,” the reporter continued, “has again claimed to be able to stalemate the Western Alliance space cyber-force, but the Far Eastern Alliance claims that this is just another bluff, despite the fact that China has given up six disputed border zones in the last six months without one return threat claim. The UN Sec-General describes the affair as just another routine probe in the give and take of peaceful process politik , and not a prelude to the return of armed conflict. If they had a real check threat on Western Alliance peacekeeping forces, he says, then the call committees would already be meeting to determine the move’s technical credibility with a view to reaching a new accommodation of gains and concessions. But no such meeting has been asked for by either side in over a decade …”
    Most of the students were paying no attention to this part. Morey and I headed for the snack bar.
    “What do you think?” I asked. “Is anyone hiding anything?”
    “Who cares? I don’t have time for politics.” We walked through an arch and found a table near the window.
    “What do you think would happen if someone were to threaten Earth directly instead of just off-planet forces?”
    “Can’t happen.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because the panic of even a war scare would hurt business more than real wars have done in the past. Even if someone wiped out some bloc’s space-borne force, the result would still be some accommodation. No one wants to attack Earth directly. Couldn’t even if they wanted to. The beam weapons are nearly perfect. War has been impractical for some time now, but no one wants to admit it. So they go through the moves, but it’s just a way of making agreements. That’s why I don’t care. It’s a waste of time.”
    He stood up just as I was about to bring up the Mercury situation again.
    “What do you want?” he asked. “I’ll get it.”
    “Tall carob shake,” I said, realizing that he wasn’t going to give me a chance to bring it up just then.
    He went to get on line, and I tried to seem as if I’d been sitting there since the year one. It was all unreal, I thought as I gazed out the tall band of windows at the sunsplashed greenery, my feet set firmly against the spinning world that humankind had set in motion out here in the blackness. We had enclosed a bit of space and filled it with dreams; but close in around the Sun, on little Mercury, people were still suffering, paying the price of providing the rest of us with raw materials to keep the dreams running.…
    “Over there, center of the room,” Morey said as he put the shakes on the table and sat down.
    I looked and saw Kik ten Eyck sitting with Jake LeStrange.
    “I don’t think they like us,” I said.
    Morey shrugged. “Who cares? Not my problem. I’m here to become a physicist.”
    I was still unsure about wanting to do the same, not if it meant I had to close my eyes to everything else.
    We chugged our shakes and pushed the cartons into the drop at the center of the table. I glanced at Jake. He was watching me, so I nodded to him. He smiled and wiggled his fingers at me. I looked at Kik and got a blank stare.
    “I’m going for a walk,” I said, standing up.
    “Want company?”
    “Not really,” I said without thinking.
    He looked at me, and I felt that he didn’t care; he knew what he wanted, and nothing else mattered.
    “See you later,” he said as I walked away.
    I felt restless.
    At