Ishtar Rising Book 1 Read online

  Sagan nodded, then resumed scanning the horizon and the distant, snow-bedecked steepness of Mount Maxwell. “The amount of energy you’ll need just to cool down the atmosphere is incredible. The number of megajoules required must be—”

  “Billions and billions,” Seyetik said with a smirk.

  Sagan sighed. “I never, ever said that. Why does everyone feel obliged to make that same pathetic joke every time they talk to me?”

  Saadya felt obliged to steer the conversation back toward matters scientific and technical. “Actually, I’m taking the opposite approach, Dr. Sagan. I’ve chosen to thin the Venusian atmosphere by heating it up, rather than by cooling it down.”

  “So you must be planning to thin the atmosphere by blowing most of it off into space,” Sagan said, looking intrigued. “But how?”

  “Shaped force fields,” Saadya said.

  Sagan seemed disappointed. “Oh. Magic, then.”

  “Clarke’s Law,” said Mandl, shaking his head but maintaining a good-natured smile. “‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’”

  “But only if that technology actually works,” Seyetik said. “Terraforming Sol Two is no mere feat of legerdemain. It is an act of creation worthy of the gods themselves.”

  No pressure, Saadya thought, suppressing a nervous laugh.

  Seyetik wasn’t finished. To Dr. Mandl, he said, “But at least there are no hidden indigenous life-forms here on Venus that might compromise the project. Such things put quite a crimp into your terraforming efforts on Velara III, did they not?”

  Dr. Sagan looked horrified. A storm cloud crossed Mandl’s face. “There was no way to foresee that,” Mandl said before lapsing into a moody silence not unlike Sagan’s. Saadya had read the papers Dr. Mandl had written nearly a dozen years ago, after the partially terraformed planet Velara III had turned out to be the home of a subterranean species of sentient crystalline life.

  Saadya knew all too well that such discoveries were the stuff of a terraformer’s worst nightmares.

  Seyetik raised a hand in a gesture of truce. “Forgive me, Dr. Mandl. I know that the scanning technology your team had available then did not permit the detection of the native fauna until it was nearly too late.”

  Mandl appeared content to forgive Seyetik’s behavior. “Such are the limits of technology.”

  “Technology can be a finicky thing, indeed,” Seyetik said, nodding. “But failures of vision on the part of the powers that be have scuttled more good science than all of technology’s glitches and gremlins combined.”

  “The Federation Council,” Saadya said, realizing too late that he had been thinking aloud.

  “Exactly,” Seyetik said. He seemed to be warming up to full lecture-hall mode. “Governance is about resource allocation every bit as much as terraforming is. Unfortunately, the Federation has other resource priorities.”

  Saadya swallowed hard. “The Council will resume giving the project its full support,” he said, “once the war damage on Betazed is put to rights.”

  “Let us all hope so,” Mandl said, nodding sympathetically.

  Seyetik mirrored Mandl’s expression, but somehow made it look mocking. “Indeed. Let’s hope they don’t make you wait in line behind all the other places that need rebuilding after the war. Don’t forget the beating that Benzar took. Or Durala V. Or Sybaron. Or Ajilon Prime. Hell, they’re even sending aid to Cardassia. I hope with all that going on the Council can still afford to throw you a few scraps.”

  Saadya grinned. “As long as I have the assistance of the Bynars, you’d be surprised at how little else I need.”

  As if cued, two high-pitched voices issued from Saadya’s wristcom, disrupting his train of thought. “Dr. Saadya?” said 1011 and 1110, uttering their words in alternation.

  “Speak of the devil,” said Seyetik, a look of mock surprise blossoming across his face.

  Saadya raised his wristcom. “Saadya here. Go ahead.”

  “We are receiving an incoming communication.”

  “It is from the Central Processor Pair—”

  “—on Bynaus. They wish to confer—”

  “—with you—”

  “—immediately.”

  The uncharacteristically jangled cadence in the Bynars’ tandem speech told Saadya at once that the news couldn’t be good. “I’m on my way,” he said, already walking toward the holodeck door.

  “I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you, Dr. Saadya,” Seyetik called out as the hatch opened.

  “Computer, delete—” Saadya paused on the threshold. He had been about to instruct the holodeck to delete the insufferably egomaniacal scientist. Then he smiled grimly as he realized that that description might just as easily be applied to Saadya himself. He was, after all, trying to accomplish the impossible.

  “Computer, end program,” he said finally. Mandl, Sagan, Seyetik, and the transmogrified Venus all vanished like morning mist as Saadya strode quickly into the corridor.

  * * *

  Saadya trotted onto the orbiting station’s observation deck, which faced the planet, whose bilious yellow cloudtops seethed some three hundred and fifty kilometers below. Ishtar Station currently straddled the slow-moving day-night terminator of Venus.

  Despite his hurry, Saadya spared a moment to glance at the clouds that concealed a surface that couldn’t have differed more from his terraformed-Venus holodeck scenario. Below that dense, poisonous atmosphere lay a surface whose temperature would quickly melt lead—and which could just as quickly destroy the string of tiny ground stations that lay along the equator, as well as their human crews, should their force-field generators suffer catastrophic failures of the kind that had burned up Ground Station Hesperus. The tiny planet Mercury was not in orbit around Venus, as had been the case in the holodeck scenario; the battered, iron-rich world still cleaved to the same sunward track it had followed since time immemorial. Here, in the unmodified reality of the inner solar system, the barren little planet would soon appear as an evening star, a bright dot visible only briefly between the setting sun’s waning glare and Venus’s gradually darkening western limb.

  I know we can make my Venus a reality, Saadya thought. All we need is more time. And perhaps a small miracle or two.

  Adrienne Paulos cleared her throat, interrupting Saadya’s reverie. One of Saadya’s senior research assistants, the young Denevan had apparently materialized out of nowhere, as had the holodeck planetologists. He couldn’t help wondering if this was a subtle hint that she, too, was destined for greatness.

  When Saadya turned toward Paulos he immediately saw the stricken look on her face. “I see Bynaus didn’t waste any time giving you the bad news,” he said as they began walking together toward his small private office.

  Paulos shook her head, and a shock of blond hair popped up from where she had pinned it back. “They won’t talk to anybody but you, Pas. But you don’t have to be a Betazoid to guess what they have to say. They’re pretty grumpy.”

  “Well, you know how Bynars hate to be kept waiting when they have data they want to upload.” Saadya smiled weakly. Though she returned the gesture, it was clear to him that his studied nonchalance wasn’t reassuring her in the least.

  1011 and 1110 stood sheepishly beside the office door, their pale, hairless heads bearing identical worried frowns.

  “The Central Processor Pair remains—”

  “—waiting on the open channel. We surmised—”

  “—that you might wish—”

  “—to speak to them—”

  “—in the privacy—”

  “—of your personal workspace.”

  Saadya thanked the diminutive computer experts and motioned for Paulos to accompany him inside the small, cluttered room. The office was dominated by a small viewport that faced Venus, several shelves sagging beneath the weight of dozens of ancient-looking hardbound books, and a battered desk topped with a veneer of half-billion-year-old Venusian igneous rock.

/>   Two aged Bynars glowered at Saadya from the computer terminal sitting at the desk’s center. “Your latest report contained little of use to us,” said the Bynars, who spoke in an impatient tandem.

  Saadya sat before the monitor and silently counted to five before responding. “Terraforming is often not subject to exact timetables, Honored Processors. There are always unknowns that require time to iron out.”

  The elderly Bynars nodded, though their expressions did not soften.

  “That is as may be. However, time—”

  “—has been at a premium for us—”

  “—ever since our primary star—”

  “—went nova.”

  Saadya was well acquainted with the 2364 Beta Magellan supernova. It had threatened not only the planetary computer network upon which the entire Bynar civilization depended, but had also nearly extinguished all life in their solar system. During the latter phases of the Dominion War—when Project Ishtar hadn’t been able to count on the unwavering support of either Starfleet or an understandably preoccupied Federation Council—Saadya had turned to the planetary government of Bynaus for help. Still recovering from the decade-old Beta Magellan disaster, the Bynars had been happy to lend their computational personnel to Saadya’s Venusian terraforming effort—so long as the data it yielded proved useful in their own long-term ecological recovery efforts.

  “Please be patient,” Saadya said. “I’ve only been working with the Venusian environment for six years, after all. That’s hardly a drop in the ocean, so to speak, of the planet’s four-billion-year history. Nevertheless, we are very close to being able to implement an accelerated terraforming program. It will be only a matter of a few weeks before we can begin making permanent physical changes to the planet.”

  The Bynars appeared unmoved by Saadya’s entreaty.

  “You have promised imminent success before—”

  “—but it seems that you are also—”

  “—on the verge of disaster. Need we remind you—”

  “—that the Bynar pair we lent you—”

  “—could easily have perished when the shielding—”

  “—collapsed in your surface facility?”

  Saadya ground his teeth together involuntarily. He and Paulos had both nearly died that day as well. “That’s why I had Ishtar Station maintain a constant transporter lock on all of us. 1011 and 1110 were in no more danger than I was myself. Ask them yourself.”

  The Central Processor Pair sniffed as one.

  “We do not wish to continue—”

  “—placing them at risk—”

  “—indefinitely. Not in the furtherance—”

  “—of a project that appears rapidly—”

  “—to be approaching a rather hazardous—”

  “—dead end.”

  “What are you saying?” Saadya said, a foul taste appearing in his mouth.

  The Pair’s black eyes flashed.

  “We will recall our Calculation Team—”

  “—in another two of your weeks. Unless—”

  “—you can give us a tangible reason—”

  “—to refrain from doing so.”

  A black hole yawned open in the pit of Saadya’s stomach. “You know I can’t guarantee—”

  “We have never asked you—”

  “—for guarantees, Dr. Saadya. However—”

  “—our resources are limited—”

  “—and our world’s ecological problems—”

  “—remain vast. If—”

  “—you are indeed as close—”

  “—to a breakthrough as you say, then—”

  “—two more weeks should afford you—”

  “—ample time.”

  The screen abruptly went blank.

  The office remained silent until Paulos cleared her throat and said, “That certainly went well. There’s only one problem.”

  Saadya nodded. “A two-week deadline will put us on a completely impossible schedule. We’d never have enough time to finish the chaotic Hadley-cell atmospheric modeling, to say nothing of the lithospheric response simulations.”

  “Not if we want to maintain a margin of safety when we activate the entire planetary force-field grid for real,” Paulos said, leaning against the bookcase. She clearly hadn’t forgotten the near-catastrophe that had resulted the last time their numbers had failed to jibe closely enough with the unpredictable vicissitudes of the real world.

  “What if we were to ask the Federation Council for some additional short-term help?” she asked.

  Saadya shook his head wearily. “It would probably take at least two weeks just to get a formal request in front of the Science and Technology Committee. No, Adrienne. I’m afraid we’re on our own.” And that could mean that six years of work is about to get tossed right out the airlock.

  He realized glumly that none of Seyetik’s projects had ever come to such an ignominious end.

  “Then what we really need,” she said, “is more Bynars to help Ten-Eleven and Eleven-Ten with the number-crunching.”

  “That’s not funny.” Saadya said, scowling. How could she make jokes at a time like this?

  “No, I’m serious, Pas. So the authorities on Bynar are being stingy. Why can’t we look elsewhere for what we need?”

  Saadya sighed in resignation. It was obvious that she was determined to draw this out. “Look where?”

  “The last time I checked,” Paulos said, “there was a Bynar pair working as civilian observers aboard a Starfleet Corps of Engineers ship. One of those retro-looking Saber-class jobs.”

  Despite having served in Starfleet decades ago, Saadya hadn’t kept up with the starship configurations of the past several years. These days, he wasn’t sure he could distinguish a Saber from a Sovereign.

  But he cautiously allowed hope to rise within him anyway. “What ship?”

  “The da Vinci, I think.”

  The da Vinci. The name triggered a sudden avalanche of memories. What spectacular luck.

  “Would you do me a favor, Adrienne?” Saadya asked.

  “Shoot.”

  Saadya grinned. “Find out if David Gold is still in command of that ship.”

  Chapter

  2

  Captain David Gold headed straight to his ready room the moment Pascal Saadya had finished making his somewhat oblique request for assistance.

  “So he didn’t say what help, precisely, he was hopin’ you could provide?” said Captain Montgomery Scott, the Starfleet Corps of Engineers’ official liaison, and Gold’s immediate superior, from the small computer terminal on the ready room’s desk.

  “Not exactly.”

  Scott offered a good-natured scowl. “Typical. But you also say he’s one of your oldest friends.”

  “That’s right.”

  Gold thought he saw a wistful look pass across Scott’s face. “Old friendships are something I can appreciate,” Scott said. “But I have to be honest with you, lad—I’m not thrilled about Saadya’s plans to play billiards with the inner solar system.”

  “Haven’t you played a bit of planetary pool yourself, Scotty?” Gold said. “I seem to remember reading about a tide-locked planet that you once helped spin up to something resembling an Earth-normal day-night cycle.”

  Scott sighed. “Aye, I have to admit to helpin’ the Dumada put the planet Rimillia to rights. But that was a very long time ago—very nearly came to a bad end for millions of people.”

  “You’re not saying you regret it, are you, Scotty?” Gold said, grinning.

  “Not at all. But that mission did give me a healthy respect for the forces of nature.” Scott paused contemplatively for a moment before continuing. “I suppose I must seem hypocritical.”

  Very deliberately, Gold adopted a demeanor of wide-eyed innocence. “Perish forbid I should even suggest such a thing.”

  Scott appeared to have come to a decision. “An old commander of mine once warned me that I ought to be more tolerant of fresh id
eas. All right, then. Far be it from me to stand in the way o’ progress. Besides, maybe havin’ an S.C.E. contingent watchin’ over the critical phases of his experiment will keep Saadya’s haggis out of the fire. Just give me a detailed report once all the shoutin’s over.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Gold said, smiling. After Scott had signed off, Gold tapped his combadge. “Wong, this is the captain.”

  “Aye, sir,” came the conn officer’s response.

  “There’s been a small change in plans. Best speed back to the Sol System.” The da Vinci had only just departed Earth a few weeks earlier. “And tell everyone to bring their suntan lotion. We’re in for some warm weather.”

  “Sir?”

  “We’re off to Venus. Gold out.”

  * * *

  “Dropping into a standard equatorial orbit,” said Lieutenant Songmin Wong, still working the conn station.

  “Very good, Wong,” said Gold, sitting in the command chair at the center of the U.S.S. da Vinci’s busy bridge. He stroked his chin with his biosynthetic left hand as he stared contemplatively at the amber, cloud-shrouded world that already half-filled the main viewer.

  He couldn’t help but recall that it had been in a similarly hellish planetary atmosphere that he had lost his hand not very long ago. But Galvan VI had cost him a good deal more than that—half his crew had died there, and the da Vinci herself had very nearly been pulled down to a fiery demise in the superdense core of that gas-giant world.

  So many good people lost, he thought, his mind conjuring faces out of the broad swirls of the cloudtops. He would never forget McAllan, the tactical officer who had always insisted on such spit-and-polish formality on the bridge—and who had died while pushing Gold away from several collapsing bridge ceiling support beams. Or Barnak, who had been immolated along with most of his engine-room crew while saving the ship from an imminent warp-core breach.

  And Duffy, whose sacrifice had saved not only the da Vinci but Galvan VI’s resident global civilization as well, a race of energy beings who called themselves the Ovanim.