Read Online The Transmigration of Souls by William Barton - Free Book Online Page B

their suit radio frequencies had been published, and his own hardware was equipped to transmit on it. “Chang?”
    “Here.”
    “I’m switching ever now. Will you monitor?”
    “Yes.”
    “The Americans?”
    “The missile is no more than an hour out.”
    The missile . So certain, they are. That cold, cold hand, thoughtfully fingering the spaces of my spine...
    He touched the button on his chest-mounted control panel and, in English, said, “I am Ling Erhshan,” careful to subdue the tones, say it low and flat, so they’d hear something other than ping-ping pong , “commander of Ming Tian .” A gesture, out through the dome.
    The narrow-faced man, his English thick and guttural, almost incomprehensible, said, “Alireza, commander al-Qamar .” He motioned to the other man, whose face was fatter, paler, sweatier looking. “Omry Inbar, scientist.”
    Omry Inbar... recognition. “The author of ‘The Oil Shale-like Properties of Certain Fore-Trojan Asteroids’?”
    A surprised look. “The paper I presented at the 2133 IAF congress in Teheran, yes.”
    “I was there. But not permitted to ask questions, sadly.”
    Inbar, eyes suddenly alight, opened his mouth to speak.
    Alireza interrupted, “What of your crew? Why not here?”
    Ling looked into his eyes, finally decided they were just too alien to be read easily. All those old American movies. If this was an American, I’d know what he was thinking. “Manning Ming Tian . Waiting for the Americans to arrive.”
    Inbar said, “So. You think it is manned after all?”
    Then they did know about it. Silly to imagine the Arabs would not be tracking objects in near-Earth space. “Perhaps. My companions think not.”
    Alireza said, “And if it is a missile?”
    Long stare. What are you thinking, my slim desert chieftain? “Unhappily, my government has insisted that Ming Tian be equipped with a collimated particle beam device.”
    Inbar muttered, “My God ...” Spoken as if he were quite used to speaking English. Still the language of science, after all these years, because no one wants Chinese or Arabic or Spanish or Swahili or Hindustani to predominate.
    Alireza said, “What good will that do?”
    You could see the fear in his eyes after all. But only in his eyes, otherwise, this was some army officer, like army officers the world over. Like Chang Wushi, for instance. Back in Ming Tian , calmly preparing to open fire on an unknown vessel, with unknown powers...
    Just then, their suit radios crackled and spoke.
    o0o
    First you watched the Earth grow small, shrinking visibly out the viewports, watched, silent, surrounded by gaping young gargoyles who, perhaps, never once, in all their short, immortal, playtoy lives, imagined they would be here. Then you watched the bright Moon grow larger and larger, faster and faster...
    And then, just then, you felt that savage anger grow large as well. 
    Hours to the Moon. Days to Mars and Venus and any asteroid you cared to name. A week or two to Pluto...
    Why the Hell aren’t we using this stuff? Why are we sitting home? Fortress Fucking America...
    Because we’re afraid .
    Afraid that ole Boogeyman goin’ come git us.
    But the Gates are shut. Scavengers couldn’t figure out how to build a Colonial hyperdrive and neither can we. And the Space-Time Juggernaut won’t come for us, so long as we keep our noses out of its... business.
    We could still have the stars, so long as we’re content to take the long, slow route...
    Memory. Hard, sharp memory of standing underneath a dark, blue-lavender sky, looking up at a big bright sun and a small dim sun, dim but still too bright to look at. Of standing in an Arctic parka, breathing through a respirator because the air was way too thin, thinner than the air atop Mt. Everest. But a lot damned better than the air on Mars! Standing there, staring up at a starry sky full of oh-so-familiar constellations, knowing that yellowish first-magnitude star was Home...
    But, Sergeant-Major,