A Learning Experience Read online

  He smiled. “We have a very long way to go.”

  The young girl returned, carrying a large tray of burgers, fries and other unhealthy foods, which she placed on the table. Steve sensed more than heard Mariko click her teeth in irritation as he took one of the burgers and started to eat it, savouring every bite. It was a genuine burger, nothing like a piece of recycled cardboard from a global fast food company. The meat blended well with the cheese, mustard and catsup. And the fries were just perfect.

  “My wife is going to be irked with me,” the President observed. “I’m not supposed to eat such foods.”

  “It could be worse,” Rochester said. “You could be eating recycled food.”

  “Most of the bloggers on the moon seem to complain about it,” the President observed. “You’d think they’d be able to produce something that tasted good as well as provided the right nutrients.”

  “Some of our people have a theory about that,” Steve said. “The whole system is designed to encourage its users to either grow foodstuffs for themselves or work out how to reprogram the system to produce something tasty. We’re working on the first option.”

  “Once we have a proper farming system set up here, our food will probably taste a lot better,” Rochester agreed. “It will probably do wonders for morale too.”

  After they had finished the meal – the President insisted on thanking the cook and his daughters personally – they walked back to the airlock and boarded the very first lunar hovercraft. It had been a pain to build on Earth because it was next to useless in the low gravity; eventually, once the truth had come out, the designers had promised to produce a far better version. The President’s daughter seemed to fall in love at once, running forward and sitting in the pilot’s chair. Mariko had to gently push her back towards the passenger seats, allowing Mongo to take the helm.

  “This is actually a covered bus, allowing us to operate without spacesuits,” Steve explained, as Mongo started the engine. The hovercraft moved forward, balancing on a stream of gas, then inched out of the hanger. “And we added an antigravity generator, but apart from that the system is all human. We could have settled the moon years ago.”

  Silence fell as the bus made its way through Heinlein Colony. There were few signs of habitation above the ground, but there were dozens of men in spacesuits and converted tractors, working to set up a mass driver. Given time, lunar rock could be shipped back to Earth for conversion into space stations – or HE3 could be shipped to Earth for the fusion power plants.

  “That’s going to be the first aboveground apartment block,” Rochester said, pointing towards an excavation site. “Once its sealed, crews will install everything from plumbing to internet cables, then we’ll invite people to move into it. Half of the apartments have been marked down for long-term lunar residents, the other half will be sold to people who can support themselves on the moon.”

  The President’s daughter looked up. “Could I have one?”

  “Only if you come and work here,” Rochester said, not unkindly. “Or if you manage to put down the rather large sum we’re demanding from anyone who won’t be working for us.”

  Steve nodded. Heinlein Colony simply couldn't afford freeloaders. People who could work anywhere – authors, artists, consulting technicians – could settle on the moon, even if they weren't working for the colony. Or people who were prepared to pay the down sum. But someone who couldn't work, or wouldn't work ... it was going to be a right little headache for quite some time to come.

  “I will,” the President’s daughter said, firmly.

  The President and Steve exchanged glances. Having the President’s daughter on the moon would be one hell of a publicity coup – and a practical nightmare. She was young enough to adapt, presumably bright enough to learn to live on the moon ... but if it became public, it would be extremely difficult for her. If nothing else, she’d be yelled at by men and women who disliked her father’s politics.

  “We shall see,” the President said.

  We should slip a bug into that conversation, the mischievous part of Steve’s mind commented. And see precisely how that goes.

  He pushed the thought aside as the President looked over at Mariko. “I understand that you will be leading the medical teams?”

  “I will,” Mariko said. “Now the whining has come to an end, that is.”

  Steve winced. Mariko had been quietly furious about the endless series of delays, caused by her fellow doctors. The American Medical Association had filed complaint after complaint, questioning everything from the true nature of alien technology to the credentials of Mariko and her fellow doctors, even though the alien technology did all of the work. In the end, the AMA had only relaxed its opposition after it became clear that it was costing them politically and public opinion was turning against them.

  And that people were threatening to sue them, Steve thought, cynically. A terminally-ill rich man won’t hesitate to sue when he thinks the AMA is standing between him and healthcare he desperately needs.

  “Politics,” the President said. “And will you be offering treatments to all?”

  Mariko tossed Steve an annoyed look. “Adults who can pay and children will get priority,” she said. “Adults who can't pay will have to wait in line.”

  Steve winced, again. They’d come close to a screaming row after he'd insisted on taking paying customers first, even though the colony desperately needed the money. Mariko had objected, violently, to denying anyone medical care, even if they couldn't pay. He’d eventually given in on treating children, knowing that Mariko would practically strangle him if she wasn't allowed to help kids. It was necessary, he knew, but it didn't make it any easier for either of them to handle it.

  “There will be hundreds of rich men waiting in line too,” the President said. “People are funny that way.”

  Steve couldn't disagree.

  “Here we are,” Mongo said, breaking into their thoughts. “Apollo 11.”

  Steve stared out of the porthole as the sight came into view. The American flag was still standing, looking faintly uncanny; NASA had treated it to ensure it looked unfurled, even though there was no wind on the moon. Beyond it, the landing stage stood on the lunar surface, utterly unmarked by the passage of time. But then, there was no atmosphere on the moon either.

  “We won’t be going any closer,” Mongo said, as the bus came to a halt. “I don't want to risk damaging the landing site.”

  The President said nothing. Beside him, his daughter was twitching with excitement as she stared at Apollo 11. Steve felt an odd lump in his throat as he took in the magnificent scene before him. Americans had done that, he knew. Americans had reached for the moon and landed on the surface of another world. But would Armstrong and his fellow moonwalkers have imagined that mankind would fumble the ball so badly? That no one would set foot on the moon again using purely human technology?

  They didn't know, Steve thought. They never thought that we would lose our nerve.

  It was a purely human achievement, yet it was so trivial compared to what the Galactics had done. A single large starship, manned by competent aliens, could smash all three captured ships and overwhelm Earth's defences in a moment. Earth’s teeming billions would vanish without trace amidst the trillions upon trillions who thronged through the galaxy, never sparing a moment to think of a primitive blue world called Earth.

  “This is a mark of what humans can do,” he said, out loud. “We built this on our own; we cracked the secret of producing rockets, nuclear fission, steam engines and so much more on our own. The Horde did not. We have the basics of scientific enquiry; the Horde does not. They have no hope of duplicating Galactic technology for themselves, we can and we will. And we will reach for the stars.”

  “Fine words,” the President said. “Do you plan to run for election?”

  Steve gaped at him, then realised he was being teased. “I think we will be holding elections in two years,” he said. “That should give us a
large enough population to make them meaningful, while giving us time to finalise the constitution and the legal code. I ... don't know if I will stand for election.”

  The President leaned forward. “Who elected you now?”

  It was an awkward question, Steve had to concede. But he had a rejoinder. “Who elected the leaders of over half the states with membership in the UN?”

  “You need to hold yourself to higher standards,” the President said.

  “There will be elections,” Steve said. “At that time, I will decide if I want to stand for office or gratefully retire to the moon. There’s a whole universe out there to explore, after all.”

  He looked over at the back of Mongo’s head. “Can you take us back now?”

  “Just a moment,” the President’s daughter said. She plucked a cell phone out of her pocket and started taking photos of everything from the bus’s interior to the view outside. Steve sighed as she took a photograph of him and the President seated together, then one of Mariko standing against the large porthole. “These will go on my facebook tonight.”

  Steve rolled his eyes. He'd always disliked watching his children post their pictures on facebook – or anywhere else online for that matter. He was mildly surprised the President’s daughter was even allowed to use facebook. Quite apart from the threat of her being stalked, her posts and check-ins would pose a definite security risk. Terrorists would be able to follow the President and his daughter wherever they went.

  “I’m sure you will get lots of likes,” he said, finally.

  He waited until the bus had returned to the colony, then invited the President to join him in the secure room. “I need an update on weapons delivery,” he said. “Has the USAF thrown another fit?”

  “Congress is making a fit instead,” the President said. “They’re not keen on transferring nuclear warheads to anyone.”

  Steve snorted. Once, there had been a time when he would have adamantly opposed sending weapons to any country, at least unless it was a genuine ally. And nukes shouldn't go anywhere outside American control. But now he needed those nukes. The plan to set up a breeder reactor on the moon – or even out in space – was going slower than he would have liked. Most of the people with experience in producing modern nuclear weapons were unable or unwilling to leave their home countries.

  “You need to make them listen,” he said, urgently. “Bomb-pumped lasers might be the only surprise we can produce before the Horde comes back.”

  “I've already pushed things as far as I can,” the President said. “You do realise just how badly you shocked the world?”

  Steve nodded, sourly.

  “Congress isn't sure just where it will all lead and they’re getting mixed messages from their constituents,” the President continued. “And there are fears that it will change the demographic map of America permanently.”

  Steve rather suspected they had a point. The culture wars had turned America into a deeply divided country. If all the conservatives or libertarians left to set up home on the moon, he asked himself, what would it do for the rest of America? They’d be talking about millions of people, but it was quite possible that there would be a major demographic shift. And what would happen then?

  “It will definitely change the map if the Horde bomb America into radioactive ash,” Steve said, tartly. “And besides, maybe they should learn to think of America ahead of their own interests.”

  “And exactly how,” the President said, “do you intend to ensure that your politicians put the interests of your ... colony ahead of their own affairs?”

  “Carefully,” Steve admitted. “Very carefully.”

  “Best of luck,” the President said, cheerfully. “And thank you very much for this tour.”

  His expression softened. “My daughter really enjoyed herself, Mr. Stuart, and so did I.”

  “Thank you,” Steve said. He couldn’t fault the President for pointing out the elephant in the room. How did one screen for integrity in one’s politicians? “And please tell everyone that it’s a good place to live up here.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Captain Perry, Ying

  “Ready to disengage drive,” Jackson said. “All stations are standing by.”

  Kevin nodded, feeling tension running through his body. They’d prepared as best as they could for a month, but none of them had ever set foot on an alien world before. Even those of them who had experience with different human cultures had never experienced anything so completely alien. It was quite possible that they would make a very simple mistake and doom their mission.

  “Disengage drive,” he ordered. He’d made the decision not to come out of FTL with shields up and weapons ready to fire, but all stations were ready to snap to alert if necessary. Who knew how the system’s authorities would react to a starship coming out of FTL at full battle readiness? And yet, there was no overall authority in the Ying System. “Take us out of FTL.”

  There was a faint indescribable sensation and then the display suddenly filled with light. The stars didn't look too different to the stars from Earth, at least to Kevin’s untrained eye, but the system was crammed with starships and industrial stations. There were thousands of starships and spacecraft making their way to and from the system’s inhabited planets, while the entire system seemed to be thoroughly developed. Each planet had at least a dozen habitable asteroids surrounding it, while countless more drifted in free orbits around the primary star.

  Cold awe threatened to overwhelm him. This was the dream, a solar system so heavily developed that nothing could threaten to exterminate its inhabitants. The human race would be safe from all harm once the Sol System was as heavily developed as this one. And yet it was a very minor system by alien standards, their version of a free city, somewhere without an overall authority. Who knew just how heavily developed an alien core system would be?

  “Send the locals our IFF,” he said. It had been carefully modified, although the alien had advised them that hardly anyone on Ying would care. “And request permission to approach the planet.”

  He looked down at the display while waiting for the response. A stream of alien starships were making their way through normal space towards the gravity point, a tear in the fabric of reality. The aliens, masters of gravity and antigravity, had concluded that streams of gravity between stars created natural folds in the fabric of space-time, allowing spacecraft to hop from system to system without an FTL drive. Many of the oddities of galactic history, Kevin suspected, came from the simple fact that FTL was a comparatively recent invention. Before then, they’d been completely dependent on the gravity points.

  “There’s no defences around the gravity point at all,” Edward Romford pointed out. “You think they don’t consider the system worth defending?”

  “Or maybe they think it would be pointless,” Kevin said. “There’s no single authority in this system to coordinate a defence.”

  He shrugged. Prior to the invention of FTL, the gravity points had provided a bottleneck that had forced any aggressor to appear in a known location if he wanted to attack. The defenders might be outnumbered, but they would be able to counter with fixed defences and minefields. But FTL had completely undone the defender’s planning and allowed the aggressor to appear from anywhere. It must have been an awful surprise, Kevin considered, for the defenders when FTL had first been invented.

  But the whole system was yet another illustration of just how colossal the galaxy actually was, compared to Earth. Kevin had been in lawless cities, in places where enemies met and traded despite mutual hatred, yet they had always been isolated places where no outside power wanted to establish control. Here ... it was the same, but scaled up to a whole solar system. Part of him just wanted to collapse in horror, his mind unwilling to grasp what he was seeing. The rest of him just wanted to get on with the mission.

  “They’ve assigned us an orbital slot,” Jackson said, shortly. “And they’ve sent us a full set of charges too.”


  Kevin accessed the interface, then smiled. They weren't being charged for being in high orbit, but moving to low orbit would cost ... as would hiring a hotel on the planet’s surface or hiring a heavy-lift shuttle. He smiled at just how human it was, despite the inhumanity of the planet’s settlers. Planetary orbit might cost nothing, but everything else came with a pretty steep charge. He'd been on holidays where the flight was cheap, yet everything else was expensive as hell. The basic idea was the same.

  “Understood,” he said. “Take us into orbit.”

  It was easy to see, as they approached the planet, why no larger interstellar power had laid claim to Ying. The planet might have been habitable once, but it had suffered a massive ecological disaster centuries ago. If there was a native race, it had died out as the surface slowly turned to desert. Even now, sandstorms rolled across the planet’s surface, far more powerful than anything recorded on Earth. The planet’s authorities, such as they were, seemed reluctant to invest in terraforming their homeworld.