can’t sleep.”
“I know. Do it anyway. You’re safe now.”
Safe? Oddly, she believed him. “Where are we going?”
“Cleopatra Station.”
Cleopatra Station orbited Earth, out beyond the Moon. It was a major solar transfer point, as well as a big city in its own right. “I want to go to Mars to find—”
“Go to bed, Amanda! Now!”
Lying in her new bunk, she waited, every muscle tense. She knew what Father Emil would do. She knew from the way he’d said “Go to bed! Now!” And she knew because Daddy would have done the same thing. Father Emil crept in just a few minutes later, and the sleep patch kissed her neck softly.
“Thank you,” she whispered. It might not give her a very long sleep, but any sleep was better than none.
“Sleep well,” Father Emil said. “You’re a brave girl. The bravest and stubbornest and stupidest child I ever met.”
She would have answered him, but she was already asleep.
SIX
SPACE TUNNEL #1
T he ship Cascade of Stars left Mars in July, cleared as a merchant vessel to Titan and an emigration ship from Titan to the remote world of New Canaan. She was a huge ship, chartered to Liu Wang Interplanetary, New China Republic, Earth, although she had never been near Earth and probably never would be. Large enough to carry two flyers and two shuttles, her passenger manifest numbered eight thousand. Six thousand of these were Amish settlers bound for New Canaan, that quixotic attempt to create a non-technological civilization after first arriving on a high-tech starship. The crew was mostly Chinese. The cargo included plows and anvils for New Canaan and a near-AI for the government geological station on Titan.
The other two thousand passengers were a mixed group of business people, techs, scientists, government leaders, adventurers, and the unclassifiable group that travels around the Solar System displaying a polite detachment that never gives away their reasons for journeying. Some of these were crime leaders, some fugitives, some spies. Ship etiquette, demanded that you accept whatever identity a traveler chose to present. This etiquette did not, of course, apply to the government agents aboard who checked passports and itineraries.
Two of the unclassifiables were Lyle Kaufman and Marbet Grant. Lyle traveled under the name “Eric James Peltier,” a retired army colonel turned physical-security consultant. Marbet traveled under no name at all, since none of the passengers or government agents knew she was there. Instantly recognizable as the Solar System’s most famous Sensitive, she could not travel openly. However, she didn’t have to.
The Cascade of Stars included two small cabins built off the flyer bay and unknown to most of the ship’s officers, including the captain. The security chief had had them built, and rented them out at a fabulous profit shared only with such hand-picked crew as might discover it anyway. The profit provided plenty of funds for necessary operating expenses, such as bribes. No one at Liu Wang knew the vessel had been altered. There were advantages to being chartered in a different place from where you operated.
Marbet, confined to her cabin for the long, tedious journey from Mars to Space Tunnel #1, chose not to spend the time in drugged deep sleep. She had a freestanding terminal, books, some dumbbells, a music cube. Kaufman knew he couldn’t have stood it, week after week of solitary living, seeing no one except the steward in the pay of the security chief, who brought her meals. Marbet said it wasn’t a problem. She had all the data cubes from their previous expedition, and she was going to learn to speak World. “Last time, you know, I only went down to the planet once, and I had minimal contact with Worlders.”
Lyle remembered.
He couldn’t communicate with her during the voyage out; those were the rules. He played his part well, participating in shipboard conversation but never becoming personal. Probably most of the other
“I know. Do it anyway. You’re safe now.”
Safe? Oddly, she believed him. “Where are we going?”
“Cleopatra Station.”
Cleopatra Station orbited Earth, out beyond the Moon. It was a major solar transfer point, as well as a big city in its own right. “I want to go to Mars to find—”
“Go to bed, Amanda! Now!”
Lying in her new bunk, she waited, every muscle tense. She knew what Father Emil would do. She knew from the way he’d said “Go to bed! Now!” And she knew because Daddy would have done the same thing. Father Emil crept in just a few minutes later, and the sleep patch kissed her neck softly.
“Thank you,” she whispered. It might not give her a very long sleep, but any sleep was better than none.
“Sleep well,” Father Emil said. “You’re a brave girl. The bravest and stubbornest and stupidest child I ever met.”
She would have answered him, but she was already asleep.
SIX
SPACE TUNNEL #1
T he ship Cascade of Stars left Mars in July, cleared as a merchant vessel to Titan and an emigration ship from Titan to the remote world of New Canaan. She was a huge ship, chartered to Liu Wang Interplanetary, New China Republic, Earth, although she had never been near Earth and probably never would be. Large enough to carry two flyers and two shuttles, her passenger manifest numbered eight thousand. Six thousand of these were Amish settlers bound for New Canaan, that quixotic attempt to create a non-technological civilization after first arriving on a high-tech starship. The crew was mostly Chinese. The cargo included plows and anvils for New Canaan and a near-AI for the government geological station on Titan.
The other two thousand passengers were a mixed group of business people, techs, scientists, government leaders, adventurers, and the unclassifiable group that travels around the Solar System displaying a polite detachment that never gives away their reasons for journeying. Some of these were crime leaders, some fugitives, some spies. Ship etiquette, demanded that you accept whatever identity a traveler chose to present. This etiquette did not, of course, apply to the government agents aboard who checked passports and itineraries.
Two of the unclassifiables were Lyle Kaufman and Marbet Grant. Lyle traveled under the name “Eric James Peltier,” a retired army colonel turned physical-security consultant. Marbet traveled under no name at all, since none of the passengers or government agents knew she was there. Instantly recognizable as the Solar System’s most famous Sensitive, she could not travel openly. However, she didn’t have to.
The Cascade of Stars included two small cabins built off the flyer bay and unknown to most of the ship’s officers, including the captain. The security chief had had them built, and rented them out at a fabulous profit shared only with such hand-picked crew as might discover it anyway. The profit provided plenty of funds for necessary operating expenses, such as bribes. No one at Liu Wang knew the vessel had been altered. There were advantages to being chartered in a different place from where you operated.
Marbet, confined to her cabin for the long, tedious journey from Mars to Space Tunnel #1, chose not to spend the time in drugged deep sleep. She had a freestanding terminal, books, some dumbbells, a music cube. Kaufman knew he couldn’t have stood it, week after week of solitary living, seeing no one except the steward in the pay of the security chief, who brought her meals. Marbet said it wasn’t a problem. She had all the data cubes from their previous expedition, and she was going to learn to speak World. “Last time, you know, I only went down to the planet once, and I had minimal contact with Worlders.”
Lyle remembered.
He couldn’t communicate with her during the voyage out; those were the rules. He played his part well, participating in shipboard conversation but never becoming personal. Probably most of the other
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