Stalagmite

The day was so dark that Dobrynin began to wonder if something wasn’t seriously wrong. He stopped the pede-like cruiser at the foot of the great volcano, looked up through the glass at the warping sky. Black clouds continued to roil up from countless hollow, sharp-edged peaks all across the planet.

The satellite readout only confirmed what his eyes and instincts told him. Tremors and quakes shook the ground beneath him as a heavy static storm crackled white and spindly light through the poison atmosphere. Marcum-Lauries One was caught between the pull of its two suns, which happened roughly every three hundred years. But even so, internal pressures were much too high. It boded ill for the hopes of his people if the massive, ore-laden planet stopped producing.

“Damn.” Molten silicates were running down the sides of the volcano’s shattered peak. He re-engaged the flexing wheel pods and headed back toward the dome.

How he hated this war. Not just for the killing. Any fool knew that life was no great gift, and death no injury. One took care of his own, forged what meaning he could, then surrendered in the end to oblivion.

But this war. This stupid, wasteful war. How many times must the same story be told? Poverty and abuse on Canton leading to discontent, the fascists coming to power, spreading their hatred in the name of God and white supremacy. And of course a remote socialist settlement, theirs, had proved the ideal target for a tune-up campaign. If they hadn’t gone straight for the Khrushchev colony he would probably have laughed. Fascism must inevitably fail, just as humanist Marxism would never die. The Cantons would surely be put down, but not before many things innocent and beautiful had been maimed forever. Fascists! In spite of all that he knew he could almost hate them without thinking.

And their own tentative alliance with Soviet Space. How long would that last if the gold, tungsten and osmo-alloys stopped coming? This planet was the key, and at the moment not a very sure bet. All he could do was go back to the safety (relative safety) of the dome and wait for Percy’s report, and see if the Soviet astronomers had anything intelligent to say.

He suddenly realized as he crawled in segments across a gap in the high ridge ... that he loved this place. Yes, loved it. The wide valley that opened before him, even in turmoil, was beautiful to the point of pain. Who could not feel the beauty of its raw vastness? His wife and colleagues on the tamer Lauries II had always thought him demented. THE STORMS, THE LONG NIGHTS, they would say. But he had never minded the storms or the dark. They merely seemed to him a metaphor for life. Yes, life was a storm; that thought heartened him. Perhaps this was just another, if more severe. No, he knew better. The fascists were real and the planet was in trouble. The flux of power among the Space giants now favored the United Commonwealth, which remained neutral but refused to allow the Soviets to intervene. And the German States, God damn them. For all their greatness and determination they still retained a stubborn streak of the Nazi mentality. There was little question who they would side with if it ever came to such a choice. It was all quite hopeless. His people were just pilgrims and this, too, would never be their home.

“Yes, yes, yes. But I do not give up!”

The dome was in sight and he was drawing closer. He was there. He guided the high-gravity cruiser between two of the eight supporting struts arcing down from the huge floor, the raised structure. He waited for the lift to be lowered, crawled up onto it. The airlock was opened, and the cruiser raised inside it. The doors were shut below him and breathable air whispered around him. He opened the hatch, climbed down and greeted his son.

“Leon. Any news?” The young man seemed troubled, though he was doing his best to conceal it.

“Yes, and none of it good. Salnikov is on the communicator. I’d better let him explain it.”

They walked quickly to the high wall of the dock, rose in separate tubes to a curving corridor on the primary floor. From this they entered the meeting room. A large screen at the front of it showed the dispassionate face of Vladimir Salnikov, Soviet ambassador to Marcum-Lauries Independent. They pushed past the chairs of an oval table and went to the railing before it.

“Yes, Vladimir. What have you got?”

“I’ve been talking with Science Central,” said the ambassador. “We know what the problem is, but are not yet certain what is causing it.”

“Well are you going to tell me or do I have to guess it?” If all the stars in Space had suddenly gone out, it would never show on that face.

“Easy, Nicholai. I am on your side?” Dobrynin gave a reluctant nod. “Your planet is in serious trouble. She will not engage her second orbit. She only remains at the equilibrium point between the two, and loses almost six minutes each rotation. Internal pressures, as I am sure you know, are dangerously high. If something does not change soon, she will blow herself apart. You have perhaps ninety-eight hours.”

... “Why, Vladimir? Why?”

“We cannot be sure, except to say there is no natural phenomenon that would explain it.” A pause.

“Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“Not for the record.”

“What about off it?”

“Go to scramble,” said the Soviet. “Code 4.”

His son made the necessary adjustments. Salnikov began again, the words no longer corresponding to the movement of his lips.

“Can you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“Have you sent out your reconnaissance?”

“Yes, toward Cantos.”

“Deviate course. There is nothing there.”

“Where should we go instead?”

Salnikov gave a set of coordinates: a straight line out from the planet, directly opposed to its trajectory, as it sought to cross the intersection of its figure-eight orbit, and begin to move around the second sun.

“What should we look for?”

“An enormous station, over one hundred kilometers across. You won’t pick it up on laser or visual, but if you send someone out you will see it clear enough.”

“What is its function?”

“We don’t know, and we are not about to go in and find out. But its location is suspicious. That is all I can say.”

“ ... okay. Thank you, Vladimir.”

“Good luck, Nicholai. I think that you will need it.” The screen went blank.

“Leon. go down to the lower communication room and signal all bases. I want everyone off---everyone. These domes won’t hold forever. I’m going to try and reach Percy.”

Without further speech his son was gone. He leaned over the railing and tried, and after twenty minutes finally succeeded, in reaching the racing ship.

The planet had been evacuated. The heads of the geological and mining crews, along with military, scientific and governmental heads from the three colonies, were huddled together in a briefing room aboard the space station ‘Lynx’. Dobrynin stood behind the podium and signaled for quiet, wanting desperately to get started. If only he could get his hands to work at something. He tapped the quiet buzzer impatiently.

“Gentlemen, please. We haven’t much time.” Those still standing were seated, and the last rustle of voices died away. All eyes went forward.

“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the spot we’re in,” he began. “You all know that ML One is in trouble. What you don’t know is why. I have just learned myself, and it is hard to believe. But it’s true. The orbit of Marcum-Lauries is being tampered with from outside. The problem is man-made.”

Expressions of shock and disbelief. TIMID FOOLS, thought Dobrynin, THAT IS ALL FOR THE GOOD. THAT WE CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT. But there were others who said nothing: the miners, the workers. They, too, only wanted to know what could be done.

He dimmed the lights and switched a graphic onto the wall-screen behind him: a binary system, the elliptical figure-eight of the planet’s orbit encircling two nearly identical suns. He pointed to the lower right junction of the crossover point.

“Here is where she lies now. Every 304.62 earth years, she completes her orbit around the first sun, in this case Lauries, and passing the equilibrium point between the two, begins to circle the second in the opposite direction. There is a period of instability as she lies between the pull of both; but nothing like this. Then slowly the pull of the first sun grows less, she engages her second orbit, and geological activity becomes more stable. All quite simple. There are several examples of it just in the part of the galaxy we know.”

“So how can a man change it?” came a voice.

“One man can’t, obviously. But many men, with much planning and outside help, can and have.”

He expanded the graphic, receding the orbit and two suns to a lower corner. Then tracing with the pointer a straight line away from the planet’s trajectory, he projected near the center of the screen a miniature (but still too large for scale) image of the enemy station that Percy had photographed in ultraviolet and sent back to them. This he enlarged, until it filled all the screen.

Again expressions of dismay, and this time few kept silent. Its already ominous outline distorted by the ultraviolet, it looked like the huge, black and irregular hull of an ancient aircraft carrier, with something like an enormous radar dish mounted securely to the corrugated deck. As he rotated the image its high, central tower was pointed directly at them.

“This is the cause of our troubles.” He resolved the image with the remote, turned it once more to show three similar but lesser tower structures spread across the bottom, an irregular tripod.

“The concept of a gravity or ‘tractor’ beam is nothing new. It has usually been used from ship to ship, or from static base to ship. Its principals to date have either been magnetic, the creation of artificial gravity, or kinetic, scrambling an object’s own momentum to bring it down. What we have here is the first case, a gravity beam, though on a scale, and utilizing principles that are altogether new. The towers at the bottom of the structure are pointed at neighboring bodies, and serve only to hold the station in place. The central tower, the one doing all the damage, is pointed directly at Marcum-Lauries. That is why she won’t engage her second orbit. That’s why internal pressures are ready to blow her apart. She is being pulled by three sources at once, as well as by the thrust of her own rotation ... We have eighty-six hours at the most.”

He re-lighted the room, and for a time there was silence. Then as the shock wore off, the questions began to come. He answered them with growing impatience.

“I don’t know how it is possible, vice-minister, but it is ... The Soviets confirm our theories ... Where would they get the money and technology? Where do you think? No we cannot be sure. But if it isn’t the German States then I don’t know anything. No, the Commonwealth won’t help us; why should they? The Soviets are powerless to intervene.”

“But if the Commonwealth knew what the Cantons were doing---”

“They would applaud it. They are in the midst of a right wing resurgence themselves. And the propaganda sent out against us has been most convincing.”

“They say we kill our babies,” came a grim voice near the front.

“We let the seriously handicapped and terminal disorder cases die of their own affliction. It is an act of mercy.” A doctor.

“I know that as well as you,” said Dobrynin. “But to them we kill our babies, just as we are atheists who believe in nothing, because we discourage religious extremes. That is all meaningless now. They will think what they will. We have no time to change their minds.”

“We are overlooking the obvious,” said a general, standing. “What about military action, an attack on the base? Our forces beat them back from Khrushchev well enough.”

This time another answered, Ambassador Salnikov, who had just entered.

“You beat them back because you knew they were coming weeks in advance, and because they did not send their full strength against you. Indeed, it could only have been a diversion, meant to give you false confidence. Do not think you will find the station lightly guarded, General Kopek. THEY (there was something peculiar in the way he said the word) play this game to win.”