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  Starfire

  ( Aftermath - 2 )

  Charles Sheffield

  The sky is falling — again. Following up on 1998’s excellent Aftermath, Starfire subjects planet Earth to yet another cosmic blast from the Alpha Centauri supernova. But while the blast that hit Earth in Aftermath simply cooked the Southern hemisphere and knocked out unshielded technology with a flash of gamma rays, this wave promises to do some real damage, with a sleet of trillion-nuclei bundles moving at one-tenth the speed of light.

  Warned by the first catastrophe, Earth began building an electromagnetic shield out of the orbiting SkyCity station to divert the incoming apocalypse. But not only will the storm come earlier than expected, the carnage may be worse than anyone imagined — preliminary data shows that the supernova was no accident, and that the wave of particles may in fact be a beam. Crackerjack hard-SF author Charles Sheffield brings back much of the cast of Aftermath for this suspenseful, well-paced follow-up, the two most satisfying returnees being sociopath-savant Oliver Guest and his former patient Seth Parsigian. In the book’s subplot, the brilliant Guest and gruff Parsigian must team up to solve a string of grisly child murders on Sky City that threatens to push the shield project even further behind schedule.

  Starfire

  by Charles Sheffield

  1

  From the private diary of Oliver Guest.

  Entry date: June 25, 2053

  When you have died once, you become most reluctant to do so again.

  I had been watching the man since early afternoon, ever since my Alert system detected his presence five and a half miles to the south. He came on foot, much closer to the sea edge than I would ever go. On his back he wore a light knapsack, and in his right hand he held what looked like a solid walking stick. Ten steps to his left the three-hundred-foot cliff dropped sheer to the crawling waters of the Atlantic.

  He was in no hurry, pausing from time to time to turn and stare seaward. He might be a solitary and contemplative hiker, wandering the wild west coast of Ireland from Donegal Bay to Tory Sound, admiring the scenery and enjoying his own company. He might; but that hope vanished when at the point of closest approach to the castle he made a sharp right turn and headed straight for it.

  I studied him under maximum magnification as he came nearer. He was of middle height and medium build. A strong west wind blew his long hair over his forehead, and that, together with the dark beard and moustache, hid most of his features. There was, surely, nothing about him to make me nervous. Wasn’t it reasonable that a walker might ask for a drink of water, or even inquire about accommodation for the night?

  It was long years of caution and a determination never again to be captured that speeded my pulse and tingled along my spine.

  Above all, do no harm.

  Therefore, assume that the man is an innocent stranger, and he will come and go peacefully.

  He ignored the scullery entrance, closest to his direction of approach. Instead he walked around the building to the leeward side and found the solid oak door of the main entrance. I am sensitive to loud noises, and I had covered the massive iron door knocker with felt. The triple knock was soft and muffled, as though he knew he was observed and had no need of a loud announcement of his presence.

  I opened the door and confirmed my first impressions. Outside the threshold stood a stranger, a man of uncertain age and nondescript clothing, long-haired and full-bearded, four or five inches shorter than me. He was not smiling, but there was an expectant look in his brown eyes.

  “Good afternoon,” I said. “Can I help you?”

  “I don’t know about that.” He raised dark eyebrows and took a step closer. “But I sure as hell hope so, Doc. Because if you can’t, I’m beat to say who can.”

  The voice and West Virginia accent provided the link, far more strongly than the casual “Doc.” It had been twenty-seven years, but I knew who he was-and I knew that he knew me. My instincts shouted, “Kill him!” but instincts are highly unreliable. Moreover, I lack a talent for unpremeditated murder.

  Instead I said, “Seth Parsigian. Would you like to come in?”

  I did not offer my hand. He nodded, grinned-l would have recognized that smile, after much longer than twenty-seven years-and stepped through into the hallway of gray slate. He stared around him.

  “I wondered if you’d recognize me,” he said. “Where are the kids?”

  “They are away in Sligo, and they will be gone for two days. Furthermore, I cannot believe that you are unaware of that fact.”

  He winked. “Could be. Not very smart of me, eh? Coming here alone, nobody else around. Might be dangerous. But I don’t think it will be. You an’ me, we got too much to offer each other.”

  That short exchange told me several things. He knew about my darlings, and I must assume that he had possessed the information for some time. And he could not be the only one with knowledge of my whereabouts. Seth Parsigian merited several unpleasant adjectives, but stupid was not one of them. His best insurance was that I would realize others knew where he was and would pursue me implacably if he failed to return. He was also telling me, very clearly, that the reason for his presence was not to recapture the infamous child murderer Dr. Oliver Guest, and return him to the blind cave of centuries of judicial sleep. He was here because he needed something from me.

  Otranto Castle is, as castles go, of mean proportions. The short entrance hallway leads to the long dining room, and off to one side of it lies my private study. “Come in,” I said, and led the way there. “Come in and sit down.”

  As I poured whiskey and put the pitcher of peat water beside it, I studied my visitor. My first thought, that he was here because the telomod therapy was failing, did not bear up under examination. Seth Parsigian appeared no older now than when I had last seen him, over a quarter of a century ago. If anything, he was healthier.

  But if it were not the telomods, what could I possibly have to offer that might guarantee my continued freedom and safety?

  He was examining me as closely as I scrutinized him.

  “Looking good.” He raised his glass. “Here’s to the Oliver Guest telomod protocol. Been taking it yourself, haven’t you?”

  It was not a question that required an answer. I also appeared no older than at our last meeting. The mystery was that everyone did not employ the protocol. The teratomorphic potential, I suppose, frightened many. Speaking for myself, it interests me little what I may resemble at my death.

  “How did you know that I was still alive?” I asked.

  “I was pretty sure you weren’t killed in the fire. The body we found had dentures. But I didn’t have evidence that you weren’t dead an’ rotting until eleven years ago.”

  A most comforting statement. He had known of my existence for eleven full years, and I was still a free man.

  “How did you learn that I was living, and where I could be found?”

  “Oh, through the kids,” he said casually. So much for all my precautions. “I figured you’d find a hiding place an’ lie low for as long as you could stand, but eventually you’d not be able to resist. You’d get around to cloning ’em. I knew that if you did it one at a time, I’d never find you. But you did all eighteen too close together. I had a long-term screen on the data net for that type of anomaly, and it popped right up with the first six.”

  “Starting eleven years ago.”

  “Right.” Seth picked up on my unasked question. “So why haven’t I turned you in? You can answer that as well as I can.”

  “Because I am a specialist in telomod therapy, and if I were to be placed again into long-term judicial sleep, you would have no access to my knowledge.”

  I knew what Seth apparently did not. Although a pioneer-hubris tempts me
to say the pioneer-in the techniques of telomod therapy, I left that field many years ago. I have since gone on to new researches, and others have developed protocols less risky and more routine than mine.

  “A bit of that, at first.” Seth, disdaining peat water, refilled his glass with neat whiskey. “But it’s really a lot simpler. Try again, an’ let’s put it the other way round. Why should I turn you in?” • I considered. With Seth Parsigian there was no need for pretense. “Because I am Oliver Guest, a murderer and monster. Because I killed eighteen teenage children. Because I was sentenced after due process in a court of law to spend six centuries in judicial sleep, and most of that sentence has yet to be served.”

  “Not my department. Justice wants you, let Justice find you. If they can’t, screw ’em. I told you, it’s simpler than you think.” He leaned forward. “I get you locked up an1 iced down, you’re gone. History. No way you can ever help me. But I leave you free, you owe me-big-time. If I need help, you can give it to me. An’ I’m telling you, Doc, I need help now.”

  I had been living in western Ireland for twenty-seven years, far from the scientific mainstream. True, I had indulged my own interests and followed progress in related fields through the web, but that did not add up to an ability to serve Seth Parsigian’s needs.

  However, it would be unwise to suggest that. Instead I said, “I’ll be glad to help you. But how?”

  “First, you can answer a couple of questions. I’m pretty sure I know the answers, but let’s get ’em out of the way. You were a world expert on cloning-don’t go modest on me an’ deny it. Did you ever clone yourself?”

  The idea was so ludicrous that in spite of my internal tensions I snorted with laughter. “Clone myself? Certainly not. Do you think the world is ready for a second Oliver Guest?”

  “Not ready for the first one, if you ask me. But I wanted to be sure. You see, I knew you were living here and had been for ages, so cloning was a natural thought.”

  Not to me. But before I could comment he went on. “All right, tell me this. How much do you know about Sky City and the shield? And have you ever been out there?”

  More easy questions, although disquieting ones because of their possible implications. We were moving to an area of expertise where my chances of helping Seth Parsigian were negligibly small. “I know very little about Sky City, and even less about the space shield. Far less, I suspect, than the average interested ten-year-old. I have never been into space, and furthermore I never intend to go there.”

  “Don’t be too sure on that last one. How much have you heard about the deaths in Sky City over the past six months?”

  “I have heard not one word. Don’t deaths happen all the time during space construction work?”

  “Not these deaths. Twelve of ’em. All teenagers. All girls. All beauties. Your personal specialty, an’ you’ve not heard a word? Jeez.” Seth stood up and walked through to stare at the dining hall, with its long, solid oak table that we used only when all my darlings were home. “I hope you got some way of feeding me tonight, Doc, because we gotta talk about those deaths on Sky City, an’ we gotta figure out what’s goin’ on out there. An’ I can tell you, from a standing start that might take us quite a while.”

  interlude 1

  interlude: Sniffer, Model A.

  The Sniffer had been built to serve a single purpose, but in their eagerness to achieve that goal its human creators had overengineered their product. They had intended no more than a robust machine, a versatile and long-lived sensing mechanism able to protect itself in the interstellar environment. Instead they had built an entity that inhabited the hazy boundary between sentience and nonsentience.

  Certainly Sniffer-A lacked emotion and a true sense of its own place in the universe. Equally certainly it was self-aware, knowing of and concerned with the protection of its multiple parts. And certainly the Sniffer knew its own history, even if that history consisted only of the catalog of experiences since the probe was launched from Earth orbit.

  The internal clock placed pointers at the key events:

  The origin, before which there was nothing, not even the markers of time itself.

  A few thousand seconds after the origin marked the moment of first acceleration. The Sniffer measured the Doppler frequency shift of Earth’s beacon signal and approved it. As planned, the increase in speed was a uniform ten meters per second squared.

  One and a half million seconds after first acceleration, Sniffer-A came to the end of the heliosphere, the great bubble of gas controlled by Sol’s influence. The Sniffer was more than eleven billion kilometers from the Sun, twice as far out as the orbit of Pluto. The event came a little sooner than predicted. The Sniffer added that information to the data stream sent back to Earth and hurtled on its way, still adding to its speed.

  Two million seconds after first acceleration, the mirror-matter engine ran out of fuel. The Sniffer had reached the end of acceleration and the beginning of coast phase. Terminal velocity was measured as almost twenty thousand kilometers a second, matching the mission profile to better than one part in a million.

  Nothing built by humans had ever traveled so fast. The Sniffer registered small reductions in its speed as the fading gravity field of the distant Sun slowed its progress. The deceleration was in the flight profile, and it called for no remedial action.

  The Sniffer checked that the guide star of Alpha Centauri lay directly ahead. Then it banked down into power-conserving mode, with the internal clock speed slowed by a factor of four million. Almost dormant, the spidery structure glided through the void between the stars. The main functions of the mission still lay far in the future.

  At four hundred and eighty million seconds, almost fifteen years after launch, the incident particle flux rose above a preset threshold. The Sniffer activated all sensors and began a fine profiling of the medium through which it was now moving. At once it found differences from the projected situation.

  The supercooled central brain of Sniffer-A had no circuits that might be described as worriers, but it was built to register, record, and transmit anomalies. The great bow wave of charged particles generated by the Alpha Centauri supernova had been reached ahead of time. Also, the particle mixture was grossly different from that in the mission profile.

  The Sniffer began its comparisons. The particle flux was more energetic than anticipated, but that was consistent with a greater overall velocity and early arrival. A more significant oddity lay in the unexpected abundance of nuclei heavier than the protons of bare hydrogen. Everything was too plentiful, from deuterium — too weakly bound to have survived the fires of the supernova — to uranium. Odder yet, the data suggested patterns within the particles, as though the ions were somehow maintaining their exact relative separations over large distances.

  Sniffer-A’s analytical powers were confined to a comparison between the observations and the predictions loaded into it before launch. It contained no physical models or programs to perform correlations, and it lacked the concept of a structure that ions or other units might follow as they moved through space.

  The data went to the communications channels, for return to Earth and to entities with the power to speculate. The Sniffer flew on. In another year, thirty million seconds on the steady internal clock, the main wave had passed. The flux of particles steadily became less.

  The reduction was consistent with the onboard math models. Sniffer-A’s closest equivalent to human contentment came when observations matched a preloaded profile. The Sniffer’s activity level gradually decreased.

  One more year, and the power levels were down to preencounter values. Sniffer-A cruised quietly on.

  It would coast for another half a century. Then it would rouse itself for one final frantic spell of recording and transmission before plunging to its immolation in the turbulent supernova remnant of Alpha Centauri.

  2

  If you average seven meetings a day and there is a fifty-fifty chance that any given meeting wil
l be a stinker, then about one day in every four months all your meetings will be stinkers.

  President Celine Tanaka reviewed her list of appointments and decided that today was the day. In five meetings through mid-afternoon, all held outside the White House, she had heard nothing but bad news, complaints, attempted money grabs, and self-serving excuses.

  In space, the mirror-matter thrustors on one whole segment of the shield were below par. But instead of correcting the problem, the manufacturer’s and integrator’s representatives were busy pointing fingers at each other. In other space activities, half a dozen congressional groups were pushing to have another Sniffer built and launched. Celine detected a distinct whiff of pork barrel. She made a note: Check position and status of Sniffers. A dozen of the high-acceleration probes were already racing to sample the particle wave front on its way from Alpha Centauri. How would another one help?

  More likely, lobbyists for the Sniffers’ manufacturer were behind the political moves. The game never ended. If Sol were guaranteed to go nova tomorrow, today she would hear from lobbyists for sunscreen.

  Meanwhile, closer to home, the Cabinet officer in charge of energy allocation did not seem to know the differences between fossil fuel, nuclear, and solar power plants, or be able to estimate the country’s base load capacity of each. The head of the United States census had just informed Celine that “sampling errors” were responsible for the obvious and grotesque inaccuracies in the population count of the West Coast states. The chief of health services offered no explanation for the rise in the infant mortality rate in the rural South, except to suggest “unusual weather.” They didn’t know it yet, but all three men were out of a job. Incompetence was something you might be able to tolerate in easy times. These were not easy times. There had been no easy times in the twenty-seven years since Alpha Centauri improbably went supernova.