Higgs Boat

Renata already had her license, insurance, and registration in hand when the officer arrived at her door. She slid open the window and handed them over. He was younger than her youngest nephew.

“Ma’am, is there a reason you were going 85 mph?”

She choked back the response, “Because my subcompact won’t go any faster,” and instead answered, “It’s an emergency!”

“What emergency?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Try.”

“A young man… well, younger than I am, older than you… he is about to make a terrible mistake. I need to stop him.”

“What sort of mistake? Do you mean suicide?”

“Yes! Well, no…”

“Which is it?”

“He is about to do something foolish that could be dangerous. Please, this really is an emergency.”

“Is this foolish thing illegal?”

“I don’t think the law covers it.”

“Then I can’t help you, but it is all the more reason for you to arrive alive.” As he handed her the ticket, he added, “Keep your speed down.”

She never would get used to being lectured by baby-faced authority figures, but she answered “Yes, alright.”

A roar assaulted her eardrums and her vehicle lurched as the shock wave struck. The officer was nowhere in sight, but the windshield of his patrol car had shattered. She guessed her open window had altered the pressure effects enough to save hers from the same fate. Straight ahead a mushroom cloud rose into the air over the small town of Griffin, Missouri. Renata was sure nothing about Konrad’s experiment could have caused a nuclear detonation, so this was something else – very likely the same thing that had destroyed his father’s experiment a decade earlier. At least that one had been conducted safely in orbit. The traffic stop was a lifesaver. Had she been much closer to Griffin the shock wave would have been lethal. In the passenger side mirror she saw the officer crawling on his knees out of the ditch by the side of the road. He was dazed but apparently unhurt. Renata put her car in gear, crossed over the center median, and headed back toward home. She doubted that under the circumstances the officer would follow and ticket her for the illegal U-turn.

The knock at her apartment door came fully three weeks later.

“Renata Grant?”

“Yes.”

“FBI ma’am. I’m Agent Morrow, this is Agent Kerkorian.”

Both agents wore black suits and white shirts, though Agent Morrow wore a blue tie and Kerkorian wore a bolo string tie. Renata wondered if her string tie was a violation of the Bureau’s dress code. She also wondered if Morrow practiced his piercing glare in the mirror. Like the officer a few weeks before, both were absurdly young.

“Come in. I’ve been expecting you,” said Renata.

“And why would that be that ma’am?” asked Morrow.

“Let’s not play games,” she said. “You are following leads about Griffin and my traffic stop is one of them.”

“We are aware of your speeding ticket. What brought us to your attention, however, is your telephone contact inside the blast zone shortly before the event.”

“I see the NHS is still in the business of collecting telephone data. Surely there were many calls in and out of the blast zone. What brought your attention to mine?”

“Please return the favor of refraining from games. Your contact was at or near ground zero.”

“Do you talk?” Renata asked Kerkorian.

“No,” she said.

“OK. Well, that would be Konrad Masing, as I’m sure you know,” Renata said to Morrow. “I worked with his father Gregor at CosmoTech Research for many years. Konrad has spoken to me a few times about continuing his father’s work.”

“Was blowing up Griffin Missouri his father’s work?”

“No, of course not, and I’m sure Konrad didn’t intend any such thing. He was just reckless. He didn’t think through the consequences.”

“So you believe he was responsible?”

“I believe you think he was.”

“Ms. Grant…”

“Doctor Grant.”

“Very well, Doctor Grant. Please answer the question.”

“Yes. I’ve little doubt he was responsible.”

“Why didn’t you come to us immediately with this information?” he asked.

“It was too late by then, wasn’t it? Besides, what if by some remote chance I was wrong? What if the explosion was set off by a third party to destroy his work? It was best to let you people look into it first without bias.”

“That was an inappropriate decision. There are others who will want to ask you many more questions about this.”

“‘Others?’ Do you mean other FBI agents?”

“Among others, yes. But for our preliminary report, what can you tell us about Mr. Masing? And, if you were aware of his plans, why did you not contact police to stop him? I must tell you at this point that you have the right…”

“I know my rights.”

“Good. I’m also serving you with a warrant,” said Morrow, removing a document from his jacket pocket. “We will be taking your computer and other devices for analysis.”

Renata accepted the warrant and dropped it on the coffee table without examining it.

“Yes, I assumed you would. Please sit down. I’ll make tea and try to explain.”

“We don’t want tea.”

“I do. I’ll bring mugs for you too. Whether you drink from them or not is your business,” said Renata.

The two agents looked at each other. Kerkorian nodded. Both sat down on the apartment couch. The couch was ugly with a floral pattern faded by sunlight, but it was well stuffed and comfortable.

Shortly after the teapot shrieked, Renata carried in three mugs, cream, and sugar on a wooden tray. She set it on the table on top of the warrant.

Kerkorian tried a sip without adding cream or sugar. “Mint?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m out of Earl Grey,” she said.

“This is fine,” said Kerkorian.

“I’m glad it’s fine,” said Morrow with a hint of irritation. He left his mug untouched. “Can you address my question now, Doctor Grant?”

“It began with Konrad’s father,” said Renata. “As I told you, Gregor Masing and I worked for the same research company up until a decade ago. I overstated the case when I said I worked with him. We worked on completely different projects in the same facility. Much of our work was classified – or at least was an industrial secret – so each team kept its project very separate. Gregor’s last project was very hush hush and ‘need to know.’ I didn’t need to know, but just from what I picked up by crossing paths, I deduced it had something to do with dark energy. Everyone on all the other teams was surprised when our parent company launched Gregor’s device into low earth orbit. That was a huge investment for the cheapskate accountants who ran it. He must have convinced them the project had a very big upside if it worked.”

“Did it?”

“No, at least not as planned. The payload blew up. You may remember the news report with the lame cover story about an earth resources satellite that failed to reach proper orbit.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, I suppose you were too busy in high school to pay attention to such things. Well, it wasn’t an especially big explosion, I should mention. Everything just seemed to shatter. Fortunately it happened by design in very low earth orbit, so atmospheric drag brought the pieces back to earth pretty quickly without further littering orbital space. It was a several hundred million dollar loss for the company – a major accounting disaster. So, the project was scrapped. Gregor died just weeks afterward from a cerebral hemorrhage. Maybe stress over the whole affair had something to do with it. I retired from the company a year later. That was that until a month ago when Gregor’s son Konrad got in touch with me.”

“Why you?”

“Because his father liked me.”

“When you say ‘liked’…”

“Yes, he cheated on his wife with me. He must have shared this fact with Konrad, which I find a little creepy. Konrad’s mom died not long after his father, so I guess Konrad figured I was the closest thing to family he had left. It turned out Gregor also left him detailed information about the experiment.”

“If the project was classified, wasn’t that a violation of secrecy?”

“Yes, yes. But I didn’t say it was classified. I said only that it was hush hush. I have no idea what its formal status was or whether Gregor violated the law by talking to his son. Anyway Konrad told me that Gregor had attempted to diminish the Higgs field within a defined space. A device to do that was the payload that broke up.”

“Higgs field? I recall a fuss about a Higgs particle and CERN some years ago. Is that related?”

“Yes, I’m glad to see your attention wasn’t totally preoccupied by girls and football.”

“Why? I mean, what would diminishing the field accomplish?” Morrow asked.

“The Higgs provides particles with mass. Reduce the field and you reduce the mass. Imagine the advantage to propulsion if you can make your craft lighter. Or the advantage to any heavy lifting. Konrad believed that his father’s design was sound, and that whatever went wrong with his experiment involved some conventional failure such as a leaky fuel line, a problem with the conventional power source, or some such thing. So he intended to duplicate the experiment.”

“Where did he get the money to do that?” Morrow asked.

“Most of the cost of the original was putting the device into orbit. Surprisingly, most of what Konrad needed to build it on the ground was off-the-shelf technology and relatively inexpensive, though he said it took all of his savings nonetheless. For his conventional power source he could tie directly into the power grid. I warned that there was probably a reason his father’s experiment had not been tried on the ground. I suggested he show caution and assemble a team rather than go it alone. But I saw nothing in any of this that actually was police or FBI-worthy.”

“But something alarmed you enough to speed toward him on the day of the Incident.”

“On the morning of what you call the Griffin Incident, Konrad called to tell me something else. He said he had some sort of inoperable brain tumor. He said he had nothing to lose and he was proceeding with the experiment. He said he had constructed an airtight steel and Plexiglas ball as the target for the Higgs reduction. He was getting inside and trying it on himself. He said he would call me afterward. I told him not to try it, but he hung up and wouldn’t answer again. What he was doing sounded suicidal to me so I got in my car and headed toward him.”

“Why would he target himself?” Morrow asked. “To prove that whatever he was doing was safe for humans?”

“I hoped so, but another possibility came to mind that I should have considered earlier. It was why Gregor conducted his in orbit, but even there it was reckless.” 

“But you said the blow-up in orbit wasn’t very big.”

“It wasn’t, but that was just luck. It easily could have caused serious damage. You see, I think Gregor’s experiment worked – it just worked better than he expected. I think he figured that out before he died.”

“You still haven’t told us what caused the Griffin explosion? Our first speculation was the detonation of a low yield tactical nuke, but there wasn’t the right isotope signature. Besides, who would target Griffin?”

“It wasn’t a nuke. Think about this,” said Renata. “Suppose Gregor and Konrad not merely could reduce the Higgs field but cancel it in a small volume of space.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Everything in the affected area would have zero mass.”

“So?”

“So by definition massless objects travel at the speed of light. And the motions of massless particles are probabilistic, not deterministic. They can go anywhere. Suppose an object went down. As soon as it was outside the Higgs-canceled area it would get its mass back but it still would be traveling at near light speed. What do you think the effect might be of even a modest object striking the earth at near light speed?”

“Is that what happened?”

“I think so.”

“So Konrad and his sphere plowed into the ground? Why would he want to do that?”

“He didn’t,” she said. “He wanted to go into space. The capsule he built for himself was rudimentary and he knew he would die in it, but he was willing to accept that. When his sphere ran out of oxygen…well, there are worse ways to go than asphyxiation. You get dopey first so you scarcely even know it.”

“But instead of going up as he hoped he went down.”

“I don’t think so,” said Renata. “From his description, his capsule probably would have caused more damage than what happened at Griffin. My guess is that maybe some light scaffolding that held the sphere in place slammed into the ground but that the sphere itself went elsewhere.”

Kerkorian’s surprised Renata by asking a question as she put down her empty mug. “Konrad told you he would call. Is that why you called a Dawn Sanford over at Grey Ridge Observatory?”

““Yes, she is an old friend, and I suspect already you know everything about that call.”

“Whether we do or not, we want to hear about it from you. Sanford is associated with SETI, isn’t she?” Kerkorian asked.

“‘Associated’ is a strong word. She shares an interest.”

“Do extraterrestrials have anything to do with this?” asked Kerkorian.

“No,’ Renata laughed. “Not to my knowledge.”

“So, what did you talk to her about?”

“As I’m sure she told you, I asked her to search for a signal in an unusual wavelength. Konrad told me to try the wavelength if he didn’t ring me on the phone. It’s what made me finally realize what he was up to.”

“Did she find the signal?”

“You know she did. The signal was highly redshifted, but when compressed it was readable. It repeated ‘I made it’ on a recorded loop.”

“Actually, we haven’t talked to Dr. Sanford yet. She is our next stop. So Konrad Masing is in space?” Kerkorian asked.

Renata realized she had said too much, but there was no backtracking now. “By now the object is far outside the solar system,” she said, “and I’m sure its occupant is deceased, either from asphyxiation or radiation.”

“Not from acceleration?” said Kerkorian.

“You mean, was he splattered on an interior wall? Probably not. The whole object including him lost mass together, so in his frame of reference there should have been no sense of acceleration.”

“I have to ask you come with us, Doctor Grant,” said Morrow.

“Am I under arrest?”

“There are people who will want to ask you questions in this matter of national security. Do I need to arrest you?”

“No. I’ll come along, but I really can’t tell you any more than I have.”

“Well, tell it again to the others.”

Renata gathered a few of her things and preceded the agents into the hallway. She decided not to mention something else that Konrad had told her. Gregor’s and Konrad’s engineering drawings already had been emailed to scores of colleagues and laboratories around the world. It was amazing no one had leaked the information yet. Maybe no one at this point fully understood the significance of what they had received, but some soon would. Then everyone would. She figured the technology would have been rediscovered eventually anyway. It might as well be now, and was probably better in multiple hands now rather than just in one – or so she hoped. The Masing Effect could open up the galaxy for exploration, or it could make a lot more Griffins, maybe by intent. But the world hadn’t been safe for a long time. She hoped for the best.

Higher Education

Princeton Pickering Prep (PPP) was not in Princeton, NJ. It wasn’t even in Mercer County. There was nothing unusual in this. Numerous businesses and real estate projects in neighboring Monmouth and Middlesex Counties, some of them distant enough to raise eyebrows, long had co-opted “Princeton” into their names in order to borrow some swank from the reputation of the Ivy League university. Nor was the founder of the school named Pickering. Rather than use his own name, which contained more consonants and fewer vowels than native English-speakers found easy to pronounce, he borrowed the name of an 18^th century farmer who once had owned the parcel of land which became the school campus. Neither as large, as historic, as famous, as well-endowed, nor as expensive as Lawrenceville, which wasn’t much further away than Princeton proper, Princeton Pickering Prep nonetheless successfully had attracted offspring of well-to-do parents since 1934 in numbers sufficient to be economically viable with the help of alumni donations. Students tended to call the place “Peeps” or “P-cubed.” The student population, grades 7-12, peaked at 200 in the 1950s and had hovered slightly below that number ever since. Though founded as a school for boys, PPP became co-ed in 1972.

Paige had little interest in the history of the school she attended. She presently was distracted by Basil, who blocked her way on the steps to the library building. He had attended the school as long as she, but her interactions with him always had been minimal. She preferred it thus. Several of Paige’s classmates were nerdy or eccentric, but Basil was simply weird. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her now. It wasn’t libidinous in the poorly disguised manner one expects of socially awkward teenage boys; her understated comeliness attracted a lot of that. Instead he looked directly into her eyes with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. He had little about which to be self-satisfied in her opinion. He was a better than average student but otherwise he barely registered on campus at all.

“Move,” she said.

“We need to talk,” said Basil.

“I can’t imagine about what,” said Paige trying to bypass Basil in the steps. He moved to block her. “Do you have a death wish?” she asked.

“Interesting phrasing. No, Paige, but you really should talk with me. More precisely, you should listen.”

“I doubt it. Well, make it quick.”

“Not here. Someplace private.”

“I don’t think so. I have to get to class.”

“No you don’t. That’s why you are here. You have trig in Monmouth Hall and then a free period.  You usually spend it in the Library because of the wifi.”

“You know my schedule? How creepy is that?”

“Paige, there are only 28 students in the Senior class. It’s April. By now I know everybody’s schedule. I share 80% of your schedule with you.”

Basil allowed two Junior girls to pass them on the steps. The girls glanced at Paige being bothered by the weirdo and giggled.

“OK, briefly. Over on the bench there,” she said, pointing to a bench by the tennis court between Monmouth and Bailey Halls. The court was used only for practice and presently was unoccupied. Formal matches were held at the courts by the Gym. “This had better be good.” She turned and walked toward the bench without looking back at Basil. The paved path to the tennis court led through a stand of apple trees.

 “You like Wednesdays, don’t you?” Basil said as he followed her.

“Why do you say that?”

“You like the way the school uniform looks on you.”

PPP had a peculiar dress code that varied by the day of the week.  Paige assumed there was some kind of rationale behind it, but never tried to discover what it was. On Wednesdays the school blazer was required attire.

“I don’t think you’re privy to my likes.”

“Some of them are obvious. The blazer brings out the hint of red in your hair. Those boots aren’t regulation though. I’m surprised you get away with wearing them. What did they cost? $1000 maybe?”

“$2500,” she said as she sat down on the bench. “Unless fashion is really what you want to talk about, get to the point.”

“I shall,” he said far enough away from her on the bench not to impinge on her personal space. “First of all, though, I’m flattered you are willing to be seen with me out in the open like this where everyone can see us.”

“Don’t be. Why should I care? Only social climbers care about things like that.”

“Whereas you’re already on top,” he said while nodding. “So you can pass this off as noblesse oblige.”

“Your words, not mine. Besides, at worst everyone will just think you’re my gay friend.”

“I’m not gay.”

“Of course you are. If you don’t know, it’s time someone told you. Weren’t you just fawning over my hair and boots?”

“I’m not gay – or straight. I don’t like labels. They’re tools of social control used by manipulators to segregate people into categories: divide and conquer.”

“Whatever. I really don’t care. Get it on with whomever you want. Enjoy carnal knowledge of English sheepdogs. I don’t care. Wait a minute, you’re not asking me for a date are you?”

“Would it be so strange if I were?”

“Yes. Aside from you being gay, you’re too young, too poor, too unfit, and too short. No offense. Are we done now?”

“No. I want to tell you a story my grandfather told me.”

“Look…” Paige hesitated as though groping to remember his name. “…Basil, I don’t want to hear about your grandfather. We’re finished now.”

“No, not yet. You’ll want to hear this. You see, he was a gunner on a PBY reconnaissance aircraft in World War 2 – you know, one of the flying boats. Near the end of the war he was on patrol over the Philippines with two other aircraft. All three developed engine trouble. Two went down in the jungle. Only my grandfather’s aircraft survived because they managed to get out over water before the engines quit completely.”

“What is wrong with you? Are you aware that I lost my father last month in a plane crash?” she said.

“Very much aware. And it was more of a splash, much like my grandfather’s. Your father’s Cessna wasn’t a seaplane, so…”

“What kind of sick bastard are you?”

“As I said, I don’t care for labels. You’ll find this part interesting: it’s about you. Something about your father’s accident brought an amusing thought to mind. At first I looked into it just out of whimsy, but then one datum led to another and I became intrigued. You see, my research reveals that your biological mother divorced your father before he made his pile on Wall Street, so she didn’t benefit much in the settlement. She didn’t even ask for custody of you. Why was that? Well, no matter; it is off topic. Then daddy hit it big, so it was your first stepmother who walked off with millions. By then you already were accustomed to being a spoiled little princess, but everything was OK because daddy was still earning the big bucks after the second divorce.”

“You’ve been investigating my family and our finances? Why? You are jealous of me, aren’t you?” she said. “You would like to be me.”

“You or Toby,” he answered honestly.

“Toby is a moron.”

“Well yes, but I thought we were referring to physical attributes and social status. Between the ears I’d like to remain me either way. But let me continue. Despite his weakness for expensive younger women, your father rebuilt the family fortune and sent you here. All was well until last year when his investments turned sour. Then there was that investor lawsuit over the wind farm that went bankrupt. The legal fees were crushing. Money became tight – maybe not by the standards of average people but by the standards to which you were accustomed. If you weren’t in your final year at P-cubed he’d probably have pulled you out of here and sent you to public school. What is worse, you were facing the entirely unexpected prospect of having to earning your own living at some point in the future. There remained the chance he might earn back a fortune a third time, of course, and set you up comfortably, but then he got engaged to that ‘model’ you ever so sweetly call The Bimbo. Any third fortune likely will go to her. As far as I can tell, he didn’t even get a prenup.”

“My lawyer will attend to your illegal invasion of my privacy later. Say goodbye to your college fund. Where are you going with this?” said Paige.

“There is nothing illegal about it. Very little of our lives is not a matter of public record anymore, and I broke no laws finding all this out. Besides, I don’t have a college fund. Anyway, your father and his bride – excuse me, The Bimbo – flew off in daddy’s Cessna to the Bahamas for their honeymoon. They never made it: two more victims of the Bermuda triangle. You know, just the other day I drove out to look at the small private field where he kept his plane. Do you know what is interesting about it? The total lack of security. As in many small general aviation fields, you can just drive on and off as you like, especially if you are a familiar face. No one is likely to challenge you or even remember exactly when you were there.”

“Once again, what is your point?”

“I need to note one more item, which may at first seem unrelated. There was a life insurance policy with you as sole beneficiary. It was nominally in the amount of 2.5 million dollars, but had a double indemnity clause in case of death by accident, so in this case it paid off 5 million. This is a modest amount for a young woman of your proclivities but it is better than nothing. It’s a shame about the accident, of course, but, if it had to happen, the timing was fortuitous since it was very likely daddy would have cashed in that policy at some point in order to meet his current expenses. Also, since you turned 18 a couple of months ago, you don’t have to worry about any trusts or guardians for the estate.”

“What makes you think you know anything about my insurance?” she asked.

“Toby’s mom is on the board of the bank where you deposited the check.”

“Right, and you say you’re not gay.”

“I don’t like labels.

“You still haven’t made a point.”

“I’ll tie it all together now. The reason my grandfather’s plane went down was a mishandled procedure for flushing the fuel tanks with sea water prior to certain types of routine maintenance. The workers messed up: the tanks weren’t drained properly before the planes were refueled and sent on their mission, so they were still half water. The planes flew just fine for a while because…” Basil accessed a website on his cell phone, “…because gasoline and sea water separate… ah, here we are…" He displayed the page describing the characteristics of aviation fuel and sea water. "So the plane can fly until it burns up the gas. Other liquids exist that might be better yet, of course, but sea water is hard to detect. If grandfather’s plane had sunk no one ever would have figured it out, even if they had fished out the wreck. After all, sea water in a damaged plane under the sea is not a surprise.”

“What are you suggesting?” she asked.

“I’m suggesting that all of these separate bits of information are best not brought to the attention of your insurance company. Besides, I’m sure I misspoke when I said there was a total lack of security at the airfield. I’m willing to bet there at least are cameras there. There are cameras everywhere these days. What could be on them? Any records of surprise midnight visits by…oh, say, you?”

“Are you blackmailing me?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

“Relax, I don’t want money… not directly anyway. That would leave a record and implicate me as an accessory after the fact in the unlikely event you get caught. I don’t have rich parents, you see. My grandfather was a former student here when it was cheap in relative terms, and he left me a scholarship to go to this school. This was much to the annoyance of my parents who would have preferred money without strings. And, of course, he left me the legacy of his war stories. Toby’s mom is on a scholarship committee so I probably can get her to swing me money for college, but I need what you have, too.”

“What?”

“Connections with all your dad’s Wall Street buddies: a job, an internship, or maybe just a foot in the door. Use your investment capital as bait to get them to do favors for a friend. For me, that is. With the right breaks I can make my own fortune.”

“No one gave my dad that kind of help. He did it on his own,” she said.

“He did it his way, you did it yours, and I’ll do it mine. We can talk over more of the details at the prom.”

“You expect me to be your date for the prom? Won’t Toby object?”

“Not if my date is a girl. He confines himself with labels, you see, but he accepts that I don’t.”

The Saturnine Solution

Chief Propaganda Officer Daina repositioned the two cameramen. They were her only film crew on this expedition – besides herself. She checked their angles through the zoom of her own camera, though to her annoyance her hair once again obstructed her eyes. Somehow her tresses had extricated themselves from their bonds. She removed her helmet and tied her hair back. She was inclined to cut it short but her flaming red locks were instantly recognizable in a politically useful way. As soon as the Revolution had succeeded, however, she would put a pair of scissors to work. She doubted Morik would object. He never objected to her appearance, or praised it for that matter, which under the circumstances was peculiar. But then he was an unusual man.

First Folksman Morik had invented the Movement by the force of his own personality, and now he held total victory in his grasp. Nonetheless, he readily took direction from her, trusting her instinct for dramatic camera shots. He appreciated Daina’s propaganda skills. She, in turn, basked in his appreciation. Daina directed one camera to pan up to Saturn directly overhead and then back down to the plain below where the red sun touched the horizon and lit the landscape in dramatic shades of red. The frame steadied on the silhouette of Morik looking out over the final objective from the mountain slopes. Below, the Citadel looked for all the world like the toy miniature with which Daina had played as a child. One of the spires on the toy had pricked her finger. What awaited in the real spires would do more than prick. Morik anticipated 30% casualties and his general staff thought he was optimistic.

Morik’s risky plan to flank the Loyalists through the mountains had been opposed by his Folk Troop commanders, all of them former officers in the regular army. Morik dismissed their objections, saying that the time had come for a bold stroke. In the end, they obeyed him, however reluctantly. Daina quietly berated herself for having shared the commanders’ doubts. But then, she knew Morik in a way they did not – a great man, to be sure, but a man and far from infallible. Daina’s relationship with Morik was an open secret in the Inner Circle, and a matter of rumor with the public, but nearly everyone pretended ignorance to his face and to hers, and wisely so. She knew from her private conversations with Morik that his decision had had not been made solely with regard to the military situation. He was concerned that the disparate elements of the Movement were fraying and that the political risk of inaction was higher than the tactical risk of action. As usual, his gamble paid off. The passes, as he had predicted, had been completely undefended. The Citadel lay ripe for the plucking. At the very least it had been isolated.

The Citadel’s location had been chosen millennia ago by the very first Luminary Crealla, though there was much debate among skeptics over whether Crealla was a real person or a later legendary construct. The spires of the Citadel on tidally locked Titan perpetually pointed at the gas giant. According to tradition it was the spot where the human race was created by the gods and where Crealla was tasked as intermediary between gods and men. It was here that the Luminary could hear the gods speak most clearly. Daina didn’t believe in such things, at least intellectually. Yet, whatever reason told her, she could not entirely shake a superstitious fear that the current Luminary at any moment might unleash the powers of Saturn on the rebels. Was a trap waiting below for the Folk Troopers? If Morik had any such concern, he didn’t voice it, even in private.

Tactical Commander Etson approached Morik. “I don’t like it,” said Etson. “It is too easy.”

“First you tell me it is too dangerous and now you complain it is too easy.”

“It makes no sense for them to have left the passes undefended. They must be preparing something desperate,” said Etson.

“All the more reason to strike before they are fully aware of our presence and strength. Ready the assault.”

“Yes, Folksman. I need half an hour to assemble.”

“You have 15 minutes.”

As Etson set about organizing the troops, Daina marveled at the storybook appearance of the plain. It was not just the Citadel that looked unreal. A charming Village beyond it fronted the shore of a broad lake that reflected sun and Saturn. The Village existed solely for the purpose of supplying the Luminary and her staff with basic needs. Few roads led in or out of the plain. Most supplies were brought in by air or were produced locally. Only the airport with its workaday industrial hangers, aircraft, warehouse structures, and oddly oversized radar dish contrasted with the quaintness. She wondered how much damage the scenery would sustain by the end of the day.

Through the zoom of Daina’s camera more divergences from the picturesque became visible. Flak guns surrounded the Citadel. At the airfield a dozen fighter aircraft were lined up outside their hangers. She wondered why they weren’t they in the air. Surely by now Loyalist forces were aware of their presence. The Movement’s fighters were hanging back, ready to intervene when Loyalist aircraft took to the skies. She could discern no personnel at the airfield. Not even the usual maintenance crews were milling about. Paralleling the runway was the strange delta-winged craft mounted on a rail that baffled the Movement’s intelligence officers. The craft was assumed to be a weapon but they had no explanation for the shape. She turned her attention to the Village. She could see no activity there either, civilian or otherwise, but she was too far away to be sure.

The Folk Troopers were ready in 15 minutes. At Morik’s order they would swarm into the air, each trooper flying under his own power with bat wings. Morik and his commanders had agreed on this tactic. At such a close range transport planes for paratroopers were worse than unnecessary. They would provide the enemy with easy targets packed with soldiers. Instead, troopers using their individual wings would descend on the airfield and Citadel in a two-pronged attack, overwhelming Loyalist flak guns with too many targets. Morik would join the assault despite the risk. Sharing the dangers would reinforce his legitimacy with the people and, more importantly, maintain it with the troops. His charisma was all that held the Movement together. Despite the blood red sky, there was plenty of daylight left. The Titan day was 16 standard days, so sunsets lasted a long time. The movie cameramen would stay behind and film the attack long-range from the mountains, but Daina would fly alongside Morik with her still camera. Daina unfolded her wings and inserted her arms into the appropriate straps.

When Etson indicated the troops were ready, Morik waved the final signal, and the first wave of bat-winged troopers took off from the mountain passes. They rose over the plain, flying easily in the thick atmosphere and the .14g. Daina tested her wings and fluttered above the ground. Morik and his personal guard rose into the air amid the second wave of attackers. He wore a standard Folk Trooper uniform except for insignia too small to see at a distance; there was no sense asking to be a special target. Daina flew into position on his left. The flak guns remained mysteriously silent as they approached and then flew over them. Daina could see the first wave converge on the airfield. As far as she could tell, shots had yet to be fired. At the Citadel the second wave cleared the wall. No defenders were in evidence. Morik altered his initial plan to land at the Plaza amid the bulk of the forces. Instead he proceeded to the Central Spire itself, alighting with his guard outside the grand portico. He contacted Etson on his personal radio to make him aware of the change. Daina smiled. Whatever his faults, Morik was not without courage. The portico to the Spire was empty of Loyalists. Two of his guards, in response to Morik’s hand signal, ran up to the massive doors to place explosive charges.

A small door within one of the two large doors opened. A servant in a frilled shirt and purple jacket peered out.

“Oh please don’t do that,” he said to the men with the explosives. “Who is in command here?”

Morik rose to the moment. Morik waved aside his guards and strode forward without regard to the danger. Daina clicked away with her camera as her pride in him swelled.

“Oh, it’s you,” said the servant. “The Luminary said you would be here, but I doubted it. My apologies.”

“Don’t doubt it! Open the gates!”

“As you wish.”

The servant closed the small door. A moment later the huge ones swung open. The servant stepped out again. “Follow me,” he said. “The Luminary wishes to see you.”

“So she shall!” responded Morik. “On my terms. We will take the Citadel in its entirety!”

“Oh, it is yours. There is no need to smash anything. The Citadel Guards were sent to the Village so no one would get hurt. They are unarmed and under instructions not to resist, so please don’t smash the Village either.”

A company of regular Folk Troopers who had been detached by Etson began to fill the courtyard.

“‘First Folksman’ is your preferred honorific, is it not?” asked the servant. “Will you please follow me?” he repeated.

“Subcommander,” Morik said to the highest ranking officer present, “take control of the building and the grounds. Inform Etson to move on the Village when the Citadel is secure. Suppress any hint of resistance with any force necessary.”

“No one will offer resistance,” said the servant.

“You’ll forgive me if we don’t take your word for it,” Morik answered. “Daina, you come with me. You two also,” he said to two of his personal guards. “Let’s go take the Luminary’s surrender.”

“But sir, why trust this fop?” asked the subcommander, taking a risk by questioning Morik’s judgment.

On this occasion, Morik responded mildly. “If it is a trap and I am killed, you and your fellow officers can vie for my job.”

Though said in good humor, Daina knew this was the truth. Morik never had arranged a plan for succession, deeming it useful to seem irreplaceable. She also knew he enjoyed displays of bravado in front of the troops. Besides, he always had a good sense of who was a threat and who was not. When he did make mistakes, they were on the side of seeing threats where there were none. If he saw no threat from the servant, she would trust his instinct. “Call me on my radio in 15 minutes,” he ordered.

Morik, Daina and the two guards followed the servant into the building. They strode through the grand halls that had featured in so many newscasts and photos. The Gothic arches overhead were of breathtaking height. The five passed beyond the grand stairway and through a series of doorways into a very different section. The scale of the architecture compressed to more human size with each passageway and turn. At the end of a corridor they entered a cage elevator in the center of a circular stairway. Daina guessed this was the center of the tower. The elevator rose. Daina wondered offhand if the electric power for it was generated on site. The elevator stopped at a floor that was remarkable for being bland and unimpressive. Daina could hear faint echoes of Folk Troopers stomping somewhere on the floors below.

“Is this the Luminary’s private quarters?” asked Daina.

“Yes. I see you are disappointed,” said the servant. “The Luminary has no need of ostentation in her own life. The grand ball rooms down below are to impress the gullible. I’m sure the First Folksman will find them equally effective.”

“Do you speak to your mistress this way?” asked Daina with an overtone of threat in her voice.

“No, but I do speak to the Luminary this way. Or was that whom you meant?”

He led them down the hall and slid open pocket doors to reveal a comfortably accoutered sitting room. At small table at one end sat the familiar figure Daina had seen so many times in photos and broadcasts, but never in such a mundane setting or in such casual attire. She was thin and white haired but appeared spry.

The radio strapped to Morik’s shoulder crackled, “Is everything all right sir?”

“Just fine. I have the Luminary in custody.”

Daina remembered to start taking snapshots.

Morik turned to the guards. “Search the other rooms on the floor. Then take a post outside the door.”

“No one is the other rooms, but send your guards out anyway. I would like to talk to you alone if I may,” said the Luminary. “Would you look like me to look crestfallen?” she asked Daina with a smile.

“Yes, ma’am, if you would,” said Daina in all seriousness.

“Is this better?”

“Excellent. Sir, please stand by the table.” Daina snapped rapidly while Morik posed.

“Is it better with or without the handgun?” he asked.

“Leave it holstered,” said Daina. “It looks more confident.”

“Are you audio recording?” he asked Daina.

“I’ll start now.” She clicked on a small tape recorder.

“You can go, too, Ferdly,” said the Luminary to the servant. He bowed and withdrew.

“Luminary, I hereby depose you in the name of the People,” announced Morik.

“Any people in particular? Never mind. Have a seat and some tea, Morik. May I call you Morik?”

“You are ordered to surrender.”

“Yes, yes. I surrender. I thought we had covered that. Sit down and have some tea.” She poured two cups. “And you might as well call me Reena, unless you want to redefine my office as a purely ceremonial one and keep me in place as Luminary. That might help you appease the Loyalists, who still outnumber your followers even though they lack your zeal and combativeness.”

Morik had made just this very demand of the Luminary at the beginning of his political career when his success seemed improbable, but after his success in the Southern Putsch he had dismissed the idea. The Luminary had proven determined to fight his further aggression after the putsch, which made today’s sudden surrender to him all the more puzzling. Daina could see him calculating the pros and cons of the offer. He looked the cups on the table.

“Oh really, choose either cup,” she said.

He sat down and sipped the one in front of him.

“How brave. Your social revolution is impossible, you know. It has too many conflicting components. All that has held it together so far is your silly rhetoric and the excitement of the war against me.”

“The territories under my authority are thriving.”

“Superficially. They are on a war footing so people there are employed. They are producing war materiel, but people can’t eat bullets or wear armored cars. When peace comes, your followers will want you to deliver on your promises to make their lives better. You can’t, of course, so you will have to rely on brute force to hold the state together.”

“As you have done.”

“Hardly. The people of Titan don’t know what brute force is, not having experienced the real thing in generations, but I fear they will learn about it from you.”

Daina knew that the Luminary, despite her disrespectful phrasing, was right about the disparate elements of the Movement. The party was a hodgepodge of religious conservatives, radical secularists, workers, social levelers and business people. They were united only by their opposition to the Luminary, who, in the midst of an economic depression maintained an austere budget, kept taxes high, and eschewed democratic reforms, thereby giving the Movement a boost in popularity. Even so, Morik’s first successes were achieved by guns, not ballots. Daina assumed he would sort things out after victory.

“Well, no matter,” sighed the Luminary. “You, too, are transitory.”

“We shall see,” said Morik. “You brought this end on yourself. You failed to meet the demands of the people for change.”

“Oh my goodness is that really what you believe? I gave you credit not to believe your own propaganda. Change is what made your Revolution possible. If I had been as reactionary as my predecessors everyone would have remained contentedly obedient peons, tilling fields with mules and burning candles for light. If I had established an elected legislature without restricting its powers, they would have voted to restore the old order. Turmoil happened not because I progressed too slowly, but because I allowed progress at all. I promoted technology and let common people grow rich through industry.”

“And thereby created inequality and class struggle…”

“Oh come, Morik, the classes were much more rigid before. But now we have an industrial economy where we did not before. That is the real revolution, not your power grab.”

Daina allowed that there was some truth to the Luminary’s remarks. Assisted by the release of remarkable series of scientific textbooks by the Citadel’s scholars, a wholesale deregulation of social life had fueled a technical and economic explosion around the world during the four Long Years (64 standard) of her reign. People had grown so accustomed to ever expanding wealth that a financial panic which threatened their new lifestyles had radicalized much of the population. Morik had capitalized on the discontent, by promising everything to everyone in terms obscure enough to be read in opposite ways. Much of the public, unaccustomed to demagogues, had risen to him.

“Why did you permit the depression?” Morik asked, genuinely curious.

“You sound as though it was intentional. My economists tell me that complex economic systems will have occasional crises, though I understand this explanation may be merely an excuse for their failure to predict this one. They say it will correct itself in time. If so, you were right to use the crisis while you had one.”

“But why did you upset the social system in the first place? You must have known it could threaten your power base.”

“Finally an intelligent question,” she said.

“I’ll edit this recording,” reassured Daina.

“Because there are more important things than political power, First Folksman. I’m hoping you’ll see that. Tell me, do you believe that I’m the interpreter of the voices from above?”

“That’s what Luminaries have claimed since the beginning of time,” he answered.

“Not since the beginning of time, but since the beginning of civilization on Titan. Do you believe our origin story? Do you believe that our souls go to Saturn when we die?”

“Stop recording, Daina. The faithful are part of our coalition. They oppose you because they think you are a false Luminary, not because they have abandoned their basic beliefs.”

“In other words it would be politically unwise for you to comment. Do you mind if I address your photographer instead?”

“Be my guest.”

“May she speak freely without fear of punishment?”

“Of course.”

“Daina… Are clan Levieh, by the way?”

“Yes.”

“Some of your family works for me.”

“I know. They are misguided.”

“Are they? As that may be, what do you believe about the origin of life?” she asked.

“I believe in science.”

“And what does science tell you?”

She glanced to Morik. He nodded. “There are no remains of people or other creatures in the geological record more than several thousand standard years old,” she said.

“And what is your conclusion?”

“We and all life on Titan were indeed planted here by somebody. Gods like the stories say? Travelers from one of the moons of Jupiter? Maybe from the stars? Who knows?”

“I do, despite the best efforts of the Chronoclasts, the string of several Luminaries a millennium ago who decreed our library of ancient records to be heretical. They ordered the works destroyed lest they corrupt future generations.”

“They suppressed inconvenient history in order to consolidate their power,” said Morik.

“See, the First Folksman understands perfectly. I’m sure he’ll do something similar. In any case, most of the earliest data was lost. Fortunately, some defiant scholar hid some texts for the benefit of the future. Workmen uncovered them while installing a new heating system in the cellars while I was still a student here. They had no idea what they were, but mentioned them to me. I removed and re-hid them. The records were technical manuals. They were the basis of the science and engineering texts released at the beginning of my term. We’ve uncovered no early texts besides these manuals, but within them are clues about our real pre-history. The book on astronomy, for instance, is written from the perspective of humanity’s planet of origin – one with rotational and orbital characteristics that make sense of our standard time units and standard gravities. They are not just ceremonial and mystical, as most people assume.”

“What planet?” Daina asked.

“Earth.”

“But that’s a burnt rock scraping the sun.”

“Now, yes. Once the sun was smaller and cooler.”

“That must have been millions of years ago,” said Daina.

“You are underestimating by an order of magnitude.”

“But that makes no sense. We’ve been here no more than 10,000 standard years. Tops.”

“Which raises questions to which I have no answers. Why are we here? How is it possible we are here eons after earth burned to a crisp? Also, I have reason to believe the founders, whoever they were, were capable of genetic manipulation. So why did they make us fragile and mortal if they could have made us otherwise? What was their point? What is ours?”

“What does it matter?” asked Morik. “We are here. We make the best of it.”

“It matters, Folksman, because toys and games aren’t enough. They weren’t enough for you. You came up with your ridiculous Revolution in order to give your life meaning. Your photographer seeks it in her devotion to you, though I suspect she questions her own wisdom sometimes. Now that you have power you may soon realize power is not enough either. Besides a ‘how’ it is human nature to want a ‘why.’ We invent answers for ourselves, but our answers are follies – and some among us allow ourselves to recognize this. If there is a cosmic answer to ‘why,’ don’t you want to know it?”

Morik did not appear convinced.

“So, just ask the gods,” said Daina, annoyed by the Luminary’s dismissal of her admiration for Morik. “Your kind always told us you communicated with them.”

“Strangely enough, I am in contact with something, as were all my predecessors. But I can make no sense of it. As far as I can tell it is nothing supernatural. It is just a locator beacon. Perhaps it is a pointer rather than a beacon. Perhaps it is saying ‘This way to lunch’ to galactic predators who will show up someday. Maybe that’s our ultimate destiny: to be snacks for creatures higher on the food chain.”

“I’ll take that as a joke,” said Daina. “What frequency is this beacon? Where is it? Why hasn’t anyone else heard it?”

“The beacon is a highly directional beam of coherent microwaves sent to this precise location and nowhere else. The emitter appears to be in orbit around Titan but radar can see nothing but an occasional smudgy return signal that could be a glitch or interference. Whatever it is up there is very small or it deflects radar somehow. You see how politics are unimportant compared to this. I needed an industrial economy competent enough to construct the craft on the railway by the airport, which I sincerely hope your troopers have left undamaged. It is weeks away from completion. When done, it will reach orbit. That is why I permitted social and technical change: to make space accessible. To preserve the Titanic from damage I surrendered.”

“The craft is called Titanic?”

“Yes, why?”

“I don’t know. It makes me uneasy somehow,” said Daina. “It really can go into space?”

“Yes. It is not such a grand feat really. I only can imagine what it must have taken for our ancestors to get out of a 1g gravity well, but we can get out of this one with our present limited technology. The hard part was heat shielding for atmospheric reentry, but we developed a ceramic composite for that.” The Luminary turned her attention to Morik. “I have no respect for your politics, Morik, but as a human being, do you have enough curiosity to allow the Titanic to fly?”

“This is utterly unimportant,” he said. “We need to consolidate our power here on Titan and meet the needs of the People. Metaphysics are for effete intellectuals.”

“Sir, for our own safety we should learn what is up there,” said Daina, playing on his occasional paranoia. “It could be dangerous.”

“Well, there is something to that.”

“Yes, Morik,” said the Luminary. “Besides, when your people realize you can’t deliver to them anything more than a boot in the face, news of this flight may distract them from their woes. I suggest you allow the young lady to go with my pilot while you’re busy betraying your promises. You obviously trust her, and so do I.”

**** **** **** ****

The charred Titanic sat on the runway. It would need a complete overhaul before flying again, if it ever would. Re-entry had been rougher than anticipated, but the craft had taken Daina and the craft’s pilot into space and returned them safely to the surface. The flight had been unannounced. As far as anyone outside the program knew, Titanic was just some experimental aircraft. Morik had decided not to risk a public failure; a success always could be revealed afterward. Daina had some fine footage for him, though she no longer had quite the enthusiasm for propaganda she once did. If the pilot, an unprepossessing man named Wonik who had been selected by the Luminary a year earlier, had any political views about the Revolution, he kept them to himself. He simply had done his job and done it well. Morik was not on hand to greet Daina’s return to Titan. This probably was a deliberate safeguard against associating himself with a possible failure. He was off visiting troops somewhere.

Daina made her way to Reena’s quarters. She lived under house arrest, but Morik had taken her up on her offer to remain nominally the Luminary, leader of the faithful. She was, however, stripped of political power. Morik’s security apparatus meanwhile tightened its political grip on the populace. Tea was waiting for Daina in the Luminary’s sitting room.

“That was a very exciting landing,” said Reena.

“More so than I would have preferred, Luminary.”

“I think we’re past honorifics, don’t you dear? You look awfully subdued considering the adventure you have just had.”

“Yes, Reena.”

“So, what did you find in orbit?”

“Everything is recorded on video and audio. You can review it all.”

“I shall, but summarize it for me.”

 “There is an enormous machine,” said Daina. “How it avoids radar I don’t know. It maintains itself with robots that feed on asteroids for resources.”

“And how do you know that?”

“It told me. In our own colloquial language. It is intelligent, sort of, though it denies being conscious in a sense I would understand.”

“How did Wonik react to this conversation?”

“He didn’t. He didn’t hear it.”

“Really? So how do you know it wasn’t your imagination?”

“The voice came over my earphones. I was able to record it so you can hear for yourself. The voice was real.”

“Well, out with it,” said Reena. “What did it say?”

“It said it awaited my orders.”

“Excuse me?”

“My very response. I asked it what it was and what it wanted of us. It said it was constructed as a seed vault. It oversaw the seeding of life on Titan by its subsystems thousands of years ago. It says it was dormant until certain parameters were met on one or more of the gas giant moons. Titan met the bill when surface temperatures on Titan could sustain liquid water and provide a habitat for life. Humans were modified from our proto-genotype only to the extent necessary to keep us from being weakened or harmed by low gravity.”

“Where are the other humans? The ones from earth who built the machine.”

“I asked. The machine said there is no evidence of them anywhere but on Titan. It didn’t know whether they died out or left the solar system or transformed into something else – it was dormant until it awoke some thousands of years ago, long after earth fried, so it doesn’t know.”

“Why didn’t the ship tell us this before?”

“It did, back at the beginning. But your predecessor, the first Luminary Crealla herself, ordered it not to communicate until contacted in person. I’m guessing she decided it was politically inconvenient for the truth to be widely known. The machine continued to send a beacon on her authority, too. I only can guess at her reason for that. Apparently the machine decided Titanic’s rendezvous qualified as ‘in person.’ I think the machine has an almost human capacity to stretch a definition. But it was designed generally to follow human instructions. Frankly, it seemed relieved finally to have someone to tell it what to do. I realize I may be projecting emotions onto it when I use the word ‘relieved,’ but it really seems that way.”

“It offered no insight into what our purpose on this world is supposed to be?”

“It said our ancestors wanted to ‘restore humans to their natural state.’”

“But there is nothing natural about human life on Titan,” observed Reena. “Or about any life on Titan.”

“Don’t argue with me about it. Tell it to them.”

“I’d like to. So the machine was looking to us for its purpose.”

“The irony has not escaped me. So, what do you think we should tell the public? Morik will want recommendations.”

“They might have to wait until Morik and your execrable Movement are history before they are allowed to hear anything about it.”

“Maybe. But whether they hear it now or later, what should we tell them? That we were seeded by a billion year old program that was probably little more than an afterthought by some ancient conservationists? That we fundamentally are a zoo, but one that has no visitors?”

“I think we should tell them they were established here by our ancestors to redeem mankind,” said Reena. “They’ll like and respond to that better.”

“Another lie?”

“A noble lie.”