Albumarak’s mind raced. “Something spinning! It’s rough on one side and smooth on the other, so it only catches the sun at certain angles!”
“Exactly what our most eminent astronomers suspect,” Yull said, reclaiming the pictures. “In addition, though, they can show that it’s very far out, beyond Sluggard.”
“Then it must be huge!”
“Yes. As big as the moon. And what little of its orbit has been analyzed suggests it may be going to intersect with ours in at most a score of years. Even if it misses us, it will certainly crash into the sun.”
IX
Albumarak felt unbelievably old as she strove to judge the relative merits of a score of rival projects competing for time on the world’s only full-scale sparkforce launcher.
Yull’s inspiration had been justified over and over. Cylinders had been flung skyward first to where half the mass of the air was below, then four-fifths, then nine-tenths, the magic altitude from which the drivers could reach escape velocity. Now it glowed vivid blue ten tunes every moon-long, summer and winter alike, and the air for padlonglaqs reeked of sparkforce stink, and the night sky was crowded with artificial stars, one of which loomed brighter than the moon at full: an orbital colony-to-be.
But should she recommend to Theng that their precious future charges be expended on yet more automatic linkup systems, in the hope of making that “moon” habitable by more people than the schedule called for, or should priority be given to this new scheme to win time by crashing on the wild planetoid a load of rockeater spawn modified to digest it into dust? Now it was crossing the orbit of Stolidchurl, so even if all went perfectly the encounter could not occur earlier than when it reached the distance of Steadyman…
Life at Slah had grown hard over the past five years.
But there were others it had treated worse. She didn’t look up at the visitor who entered her bower in the control-house. A familiar aroma preceded him, tinged with mingled rage and weariness. As soon as she could, she uttered a greeting, and was horrified to see, as he slumped into a crotch, how limp Karg’s posture had become.
“I heard how you were received at Hulgrapuk,” she said.
“No worse than last time,” he sighed. “Same old story! ‘There’s no means of avoiding the impact of this greater-than-greatest meteorite, so…!’ But I do have some good news. I bet you won’t guess where it’s from.”
“Fregwil,” she offered, intending a joke.
“Correct. Quelf’s coming here.”
Reflexively she rose to full height. “Incredible! Why?”
“Officially they’re talking about a fact-finding mission. Our local informants say different. There’s likely to be a revolution at Fregwil if the city officials don’t start actively helping our project.”
Albumarak slowly subsided. “There are some kinds of aid we’d be better off without,” she muttered.
“Don’t I know it!” Karg winced, flexing his regrown pad; it continued to give pain, especially when he was under stress. “As we came in to land, I had a fine view of the campfuls of ‘volunteers’ outside the city. I gather they’re proving more of a nuisance than a blessing.”
“Our propaganda has been too successful. They expect to be lofted into orbit right away. When they find out their role only involves making sure there are enough raw materials, enough food, enough of everything that has to be at a given place at a given time, they turn nasty on us.”
“Figures. But they’re leaving Hulgrapuk in droves, you know. And the exodus from Fregwil is scaring Quelf and the rest of her coterie. Their young people are simply moving out, flying here if they can, or taking passage on any old barq or junq that might carry them to Slah. I saw the port at Fregwil. I think a lot of them may get drowned.”
After a pause Albumarak said, “I’ve been asked if I’d like to go to orbit one of these days.”
“Grab the chance! I still dream of how wonderful it would have been if I—”
“But everything is still theory! We’re investing this colossal effort, and we still haven’t sent anybody into space, let alone proved that folk can survive up there!”