Rescue Me
By Steve Bates
“Buckle up, Ginsberg. The chase is on.”
The passenger offered no acknowledgment of the captain’s
directive. Having spent the past few minutes examining
what passed for food in the spaceship’s galley, Ginsberg
decided that hunger was preferable. Turning, he picked
out a convenient target forward on the bridge and pushed
off. Despite his rotund physique, he pivoted 180 degrees
in midair and positioned both legs perfectly in order to
cushion his impact and release into a neat bank shot.
His silhouette eclipsed pale blue starlight as he sailed
past the forward view screen on a direct line toward his
seat. He settled in next to the captain and affixed his
retaining straps.
Captain Richard Tolleson nodded in appreciation of the
man’s performance. Harsh interior lighting emphasized
scattered wrinkles and deepening laugh lines on the
captain’s face. But his Hawaiian shirt, cutoff shorts,
slender build, piercing blue eyes and breezy smile
belied his age. Throw in a three-day stubble and a dense
mane of curly brown hair spilling every which way, and
he could easily be mistaken for a surfer dude. That was
just fine with Tolleson. With no boss and no crew, he
had no one to impress. Except, perhaps, Janie.
Neither Tolleson nor Interpol Officer Janie Peralta
could abide the Star Wars Cantinas--with their
genetically modified, imitation alien characters and
vastly overpriced cocktails--found on every space
station and tourist trap among the Inner Planets. During
breaks from the solitude of spaceflight, the two pilots
crossed paths often at the Bottom of the Barrel, a
spacer dive tucked away in a corner of a Mars orbital
station. As the drinks flowed, they exchanged
information--and, eventually, much more. Tolleson wasn’t
sure where the personal side of the relationship was
going, but the tips Janie shared were always gold.
Tapping worn keys on a vintage control panel, Tolleson
locked in new coordinates, boosted his engines to full
power and spoke softly into his comm unit, which dangled
from his left ear. “Thanks, Janie. That is, Officer
Peralta. I owe you.”
He tilted his head toward his passenger. “I’m tracking
three Interpol cruisers and one additional craft.
Interpol believes that the bogey is Hughes.”
“The most wanted man in the solar system,” said Ginsberg
with a double dose of sarcasm. “What I can’t understand
is how he could escape from a supermax prison buried
deep in a Brazilian rain forest.”
“You’re the journalist; you tell me,” said the captain.
“All I know is that the guy has a twenty-million-dollar
price on his head.”
# # #
Eighteen months earlier, Collin Hughes, a veteran
diplomat representing the Alliance of North and South
America, arrived at a point beyond the asteroid belt for
a much-anticipated rendezvous. Awaiting him was a
modest-sized, oblong spacecraft with a surface that
shimmered like a river of mercury. The Earth diplomat
was welcomed aboard by graceful beings with large,
nearly hairless heads and rubbery, light-gray skin. The
aliens ranged in height from just over one meter to more
than two, and each walked on three legs, though Hughes
soon realized that one leg doubled as an arm. Over the
course of 90 minutes, the aliens’ translation computer
enabled a pleasant but vapid conversation. By the time
he departed, Hughes had not even learned the name that
the aliens called themselves, though the media quickly
filled that vacuum with the moniker “Tripods”. Hughes
informed President Ortega that the visitors’ technology
was far beyond anything that humanity could comprehend.
# # #
In the decades prior to First Contact, billions on Earth
had been excited, yet somewhat unnerved, by the
discovery of invertebrate fossils on Mars and then
living, squid-like creatures in a sea on Jupiter’s moon
Europa. No one was prepared for an encounter with an
advanced civilization. Fear, anger and hatred gripped
Earth. Fueled by bloggers like Ginsberg, the
rumors multiplied: The aliens could impersonate humans,
could live forever, could disintegrate a planet just by
looking at it cross-eyed. They might even have a
flotilla of warships prepared to invade. Politicians
attempted to one-up each other with pledges to launch
pre-emptive strikes against the intruders.
Amid the hysteria, Hughes was branded a traitor for not
compelling the aliens to share their technology. He was
charged with treason, convicted, and given a life
sentence. After his astonishing escape, the Alliance was
assailed by unrelenting protests at home and
condemnation from every foreign government. Yet
the stakes were far greater than mere humiliation:
Hughes had every incentive to seek asylum from the
aliens and to assist them if they chose to wage war
against Earth.
News headlines scrolled across the lower portion of
Ginsberg’s field of view, courtesy of the latest
implanted chips. He was attired in the black,
body-molded suit that was all the rage back on Earth,
even though it accentuated his excessive weight. Dark,
dispassionate eyes were sunken in a flabby, round face.
Maybe it was his displeasing appearance, or perhaps it
was his often-controversial reporting, that made him
notoriously reluctant to leave his cabin on an isolated
Idaho mountaintop. Regardless, the writer had a huge
following on Earth and the settlements on Luna and Mars.
The latest-generation fusion ion engines sent a faint
purring through the spacecraft. The captain had not
slept since picking up Ginsberg from a station in Earth
orbit 28 hours earlier, so he popped another stimulant.
Before long, he was buzzing in sync with the engines,
willing them to a higher gear. Catching up with the
Interpol cruisers wouldn’t take long. Reliant One
was the fastest rescue ship around, despite its hulking,
old bridge and body. Tolleson had spent his last dime
making sure of that.
“You know, I rarely pick up passengers at space
stations. But business is slow, and your offer was too
generous to turn down,” said Tolleson. He paused to
verify that he was trimming the distance to the Interpol
ships and their prey. “It seems like every month some
pilot advertises a new space tourist rescue service.
These guys are undercutting my prices, making false
claims and ganging up against me.”
“And you certainly can’t be everywhere at once,” the
journalist observed, with no pretense of sympathy.
“Not unless I steal the aliens’ ship and get my hands on
the jump drive you wrote about in your blog,” Tolleson
said with a wry smile.
Ginsberg offered no rejoinder.
The jump drive, the holy grail of space travel, was the
stuff of countless sci-fi yarns, graduate student
dissertations and research grants. There was still no
proof that anything could move faster than light. Yet
attaining one-tenth or even one-hundredth of that speed
would be a spectacular advancement. Ginsberg’s dubious
blog posting on the subject featured a little-known
scientist warning that the aliens might employ a jump
drive to sneak up on Earth and wreak unspeakable havoc.
A crackle heralded an incoming message.
“… trying to reach Deep Space Rescue Services. Do you
read? Over. Do you read?”
Tolleson’s computer identified the source of the signal.
One Federico Martin, a Texan and part owner of a diamond
mine in South Africa. He was flying his own ship, not a
rental.
Tolleson activated his comm. “Mr. Martin, aloha. This is
Captain Tolleson of Deep Space Rescue Services.”
“Oh, thank God. I need immediate rescue. Do you read me?
Immediate.”
“What seems to be the problem?”
“My fuel and oxygen levels were fine when I left Mars. I
took a little detour to get a close look at the comet
everyone’s talking about, and it nearly dragged me out
to oblivion. I’m stranded, and I’ll be out of air in,
like, 24 hours. Maybe less.”
“Mr. Martin, everything’s going to be fine. I’m checking
your policy now and … oh dear, it seems that you
purchased the Silver Rescue Service Plan. Did you know
that?”
“Uh, well, I guess so. But you have to rescue me. That’s
what you do, right?”
“Correct. But understand that you will be my lowest
priority. Now, if you would like to upgrade to the Gold
or Platinum Plan, I can move you to the top of my list.”
Martin’s tone changed. “I’ll be goddamned if I’m going
to be blackmailed by some hustler in a space junker. I
should have bought a policy from a legitimate rescue
service.”
“I understand, sir. For now, I recommend that you move
to your airlock and cut off oxygen to the rest of the
ship. That should buy you another couple days. For your
next journey, may I suggest one of the Disney or
Marriott resorts on Luna or Mars? I’m partial to the
Cthulhu’s Caves theme park on the back side of Luna,
myself.”
Martin said some very bad words, so the captain killed
the connection on his wearable. The device was rapidly
approaching antique status, but he still resisted
implants. Chips had obvious appeal: identification,
communications, money and entertainment systems all
linked directly to one’s neurons. But Tolleson was old
school.
“We’re about 1,500 kilometers out and closing fast on
the Interpol cruisers, with the fugitive another 500
klicks or so beyond,” he told Ginsberg. “Soon we’ll have
a vid connection.”
“I would like to monitor the situation from a safe
distance,” said the writer. “Please get just close
enough for the vid, then drop me off at the nearest
station.”
“As you wish. Remember, you promised not to disclose
anything about me or my business--other than to credit
Deep Space Rescue Services for your transportation.”
“The agreement is indelibly etched upon my mind.”
Ginsberg wasn’t a likable person; no journalist was.
Tolleson was grateful that, at least so far, the blogger
had not spoken a word about Tolleson’s own day of
infamy.
The Second Manhattan Project, begun in 2041 amid great
fanfare, had been designed to wall off, drain and
reclaim lower Manhattan from the risen sea. Never mind
that Tolleson, as project manager, had fought resolutely
against budget cuts and was cleared of wrongdoing after
a temporary wall failed, whereas two public officials
served time for their culpability in the deaths of 78
workers. Tolleson’s rising star had flamed out. With no
career or family to fall back on, he invested in an
aging cruiser and launched the first space tourist
rescue business. He had never returned to the surface of
his native planet, but he had never outrun the pain,
either.
# # #
A grainy image of three spaceships appeared; the captain
projected it onto the forward view screen. The two large
ships in the foreground were Interpol cruisers; the
third craft likely bore Hughes. As the vid gained
clarity, a shuttle could be seen detaching from one of
the Interpol ships. A female voice demanded that the
fugitive shut down his engines and surrender. That was
Janie Peralta aboard the shuttle.
Tolleson noticed that Ginsberg was gripping his
armrests tightly. His face was pallid, as if he had left
all of his blood back in Earth orbit.
“Space sickness?” the captain inquired.
“N-no, I don’t think so. Just, ah, wondering if Hughes’s
ship is armed.”
“We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?”
The bridge of Tolleson’s ship was lit up by rotating
orange strobe lights.
“This isn’t good,” said Tolleson. “Engine two is
starting to overheat.”
He throttled back power, studied readings for a long
minute, then let out a deep breath. “Okay, the coolant
system became overtaxed, but it should be fine.”
Interpol chatter indicated that the fugitive’s engines
had shut down.
“Prepare to be boarded,” Officer Peralta broadcast.
As the shuttle advanced to about 300 meters from its
target, Hughes fired up his engines and headed directly
toward Peralta. She began to maneuver, but it was
obvious that she would not get clear in time.
A fierce explosion illuminated Reliant One’s view
screen and reflected mercilessly throughout the
interior. When the captain and his passenger recovered
their vision, they could make out the shuttle tumbling
in the distance. The fugitive’s craft had been
vaporized.
“Shuttle returning to bay,” Peralta reported, her voice
cracking.
Tolleson whistled, adding: “Those Interpol boys sure can
shoot.”
His passenger seemed to have recovered from his
discomfort. “Now that the fugitive ship has been
destroyed, we’ll never know with certainty whether
Hughes was on it,” he said. “Will the authorities
continue to search for him?”
“No. The Alliance--and, of course, your blog--will
announce that the traitor has been killed after a
thrilling chase. End of story. Everyone lives happily
ever after.”
Ginsberg returned his attention to his news feed, not
bothering to record anything about the battle for what
surely would be his career-defining blog posting.
Presently, blaring klaxons and flashing red
lights pierced the calm. Tolleson cursed as he
scanned readings and mashed buttons. A bank of controls
lit up in front of Ginsberg.
“You’re in command of the bridge,” the captain
announced. “I’ve got to determine what’s wrong with the
coolant system. If it’s a leak, well, it damn well
better not be. Keep your comm open, and don’t touch
anything unless I tell you to.”
Tolleson vaulted through the rear hatch and raced toward
the engine room. He was less than 30 meters from it when
his comm buzzed.
“Deep Space Rescue Services, I demand that you rescue me
immediately.” It was a much-too-familiar voice.
“Mr. Martin? Are you in your airlock?”
“Yes, but I’m claustrophobic, and I can’t put up with
this nonsense much longer. How long before you get
here?”
“Look, Mr. Martin, I’ve got a situation, so you’re going
to have to make do.”
“That’s it. I’m calling Interpol.”
“Interpol ignores private pilots unless they commit a
serious crime. If you don’t upgrade your policy and your
oxygen runs out, you’ll have to use your ship’s
cryogenic suspension unit until I arrive.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. Those things have only an 80
percent survival rate.”
“Actually, it’s closer to 60 percent.”
“Sixty!”
“Your choice,” said the captain before he terminated the
connection again and stood before the massive, pulsating
monster that was his ship’s engine complex.
“Ginsberg, this is Tolleson. Do you copy?”
“Loud and clear, Captain.”
“Good. Now listen carefully and do exactly what I tell
you. On the console in front of your seat there are two
blue lights. Beneath the one on the left is a dial. Turn
it to “Preset 3”. Then find the button beneath the
second light. Press it firmly.”
“What does it do?”
“It saves our asses, that’s what it does. This is the
jump drive that the Tripods developed. It will take us
almost instantaneously to Mars Orbital Base Four, which
has the closest repair bay that can prevent a
catastrophic coolant system rupture. We have literally
no time. Activate the drive now.”
“But--but we can’t. This will cause an unknown amount of
collateral damage--if not here, surely at our
destination. We might kill everyone on the Mars base.”
“Just press the button, Ginsberg! Press the goddamn
button right now!”
After a few heartbeats, the passenger responded: “I am
very sorry. I cannot.” He clambered over his seat and
made his way to the rear of the cabin, where he located
the hatch to the shuttle bay. He braced himself, gripped
the latch and turned it hard.
# # #
The captain found Ginsberg seated in the shuttle,
attempting frantically to separate it from Reliant
One.
“The shuttle is keyed to my brainwave pattern,” Tolleson
said calmly. “Please join me back on the bridge.”
The captain located the twin blue lights. He turned the
dial to “Preset 3”. He pressed the adjacent button.
Instead of traveling instantaneously to the Mars
station, the ship filled with the sounds of an ancient
recording.
Wasting away again in Margaritaville
Searching for my lost shaker of salt…
The blogger appeared utterly confused.
“The engines and coolant system are fine. No problem
that a little duct tape can’t handle for a few days,”
said Tolleson.
His passenger looked at him askance.
“I suppose I owe you a better explanation,” Tolleson
continued. “About two years ago, I detected a strange
transmission. Some sort of repeating message; no
language I could recognize; unusual frequency; very low
power. I traced it to a dense region of the asteroid
belt and came upon a small, heavily damaged ship. A ship
like none I had ever seen.
“I linked my airlock to it, but the pilot resisted
coming aboard. I guess he--I think it was a he--wasn’t
sure that he could breathe our air. We traded gestures,
and he moved tentatively into my ship. Once he reached
the bridge, he sent a brief transmission. Then he just
stood there, like he was asleep or in suspended
animation. This went on for a few minutes. Then suddenly
the mother ship arrived, in all of its glory.”
The blogger listened intently.
“Apparently, the juvenile Tripod had taken the family
shuttle out for an unauthorized spin and crashed it all
to hell in a region of ricocheting rocks that few sober
human pilots would dare approach. The aliens were very
grateful that I had rescued him, so I asked them to meet
with an official representative of our planet. I
thought: What a great opportunity for Earth to establish
relations with this species and to learn from them. And
I hoped that my small role in fostering this
relationship would help make amends for.…” Tolleson
dropped his eyes momentarily. “Anyway, I used a contact
from my days in the business world to notify the
Alliance government that I had encountered an alien ship
and that a parlay was possible. About two weeks later,
the infamous meeting between Hughes and the Tripods
occurred.”
The captain came almost nose to nose with his passenger.
“Fast forward to the present,” Tolleson said. “Maybe I’m
paranoid about spies working for my competitors, but
from the minute you came onboard I sensed that something
was not right. You seemed surprisingly familiar with
space travel for a person who rarely leaves his home.
You appeared quite agile for a man of your size. Your
speech and clothes were rather sophisticated and formal
for a blogger. You looked unusually tense when it
appeared that Officer Peralta was about to confirm the
identity of the occupant of the fugitive ship. And you
were overly concerned about proof of Hughes’s death and
whether there would be any further pursuit of him. So I
concocted a little experiment.
“Back when I met the Tripods, I asked them how they were
able reach my ship so quickly after Junior phoned home.
Their computer got tripped up on several words that
probably have no equivalent in English; I could make out
terms such as ‘space-time’ and ‘fissure’ and
“temporary’. I understood them to say that they have two
drives--a conventional propulsion system and one that is
highly advanced but can damage anything near their ship
while it is engaged. That seemed odd to me, as I had
detected no anomalies when they came to recover their
young shuttle pilot. I suspected that they were testing
me in some way.
“When I contacted the Alliance government, I told them
that the Tripods claimed to have a jump drive that poses
a danger to populated areas. Only a small number of
Alliance officials--including Hughes--know about this
supposed side effect. None of the rumors and blog posts
even hinted about it. Your stated reason for refusing to
activate what you believed to be a jump drive--while
noble--told me exactly what I needed to know.”
The passenger floated slowly toward the forward view
screen and gazed longingly at the heavens. “I had so
little time,” he said. “After some influential friends
of mine lavished gifts on certain prison officials, I
slipped out and made my way to Hong Kong. I had come up
through the intelligence community, so I had a habit of
stashing hard currency and ID chips in strategic
locations in case of something unforeseen like … that
witch hunt.
“Because he is a recluse, Ginsberg seemed like a safe
person to impersonate for a brief interval. I paid
substantial bribes to have a new ID chip programmed and
implanted and for prosthetics making me appear to gain
120 kilos. When I hired you, I was hoping for an
uneventful journey to some remote outpost where I could
alter my identity yet again and vanish forever. It
nearly worked.”
He spun slowly, found a handhold, and raised his chin.
“Twenty million dollars. That’s some reward, captain.
How do you plan to spend it?”
“Yes, that’s some reward. Enough to settle on a private,
terraformed asteroid without a care for the rest of my
life. But that’s not me, Mr. Hughes. I might be pushing
80, but I would be bored to death if I retired.
“I have a much greater need than money,” Tolleson
continued. “I need a partner. One I can trust. I figure
that a man with a price on his head is one who would be
supremely motivated to cooperate in all matters. Don’t
you agree?”
For the first time since they met, something approaching
a sincere smile formed on the passenger’s face.
“Let me determine whether I understand you correctly,”
he said. “You are willing to keep my identity secret and
employ me in your business?”
“Yes. But only if you ditch that awful suit for
something more appropriate. Once we can afford a second
ship, you’ll be its captain. You don’t happen to have
any money left from that stash of yours?”
“Not enough to purchase a spaceship. But perhaps it will
be adequate for a down payment.”
Tolleson shook Hughes’s hand vigorously and exclaimed:
“Welcome to the company.”
“Just one question,” Hughes said. “With all of Earth
stirred up about the aliens, aren’t you concerned that
there will be a war? That would severely restrict space
tourism.”
“There isn’t going to be a war. The Tripods had entered
our solar system on a little vacation. They had heard
great things about Saturn’s rings and the vapor geyser
emanating from its moon, Enceladus, in particular. Once
they had recovered their misbehaving family member, seen
the sights and left you heading back to Earth
awe-struck, they were anxious to push on to their next
destination. They are long gone.”
“Shouldn’t leaders on Earth be informed that the danger
is past?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, there have been no serious
threats of war among adversaries on Earth since we
learned of our three-legged visitors. And, preparing for
possible confrontation with an external foe is good for
the global economy.”
“Have you ever considered running for office?” inquired
Hughes.
Tolleson laughed heartily.
Hughes frowned. “Obviously, I was not aboard the craft
that Interpol blasted to atoms. Who was?”
“The ship was empty and remote controlled. It made for a
hell of a show, though, didn’t it?”
“And of course you knew all along.”
“I have a close relationship with Interpol. The Alliance
feared that you had left Earth and would never be
caught, so they decided to save face by manufacturing a
heroic end to the saga. The fact that you were nearby to
witness it was simply fortuitous.”
“With all due respect, captain, what else aren’t you
telling me?” asked Hughes.
A crackle commenced once again.
“Hold on,” said Tolleson.
“… decided to pay your outrageous extortion demand, but
only if you rescue me right now. Are you coming or not?”
The captain manipulated controls. A pale violet haze
enveloped the ship. A cluster of stars directly ahead
danced, then dimmed, then all but disappeared.
With a wink to Hughes, Tolleson assured his customer:
“We’ll be there in no time at all.”
END