The Tranquillity Alternative Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF ALLEN STEELE

  * * *

  “An author with the potential to revitalize the Heinlein tradition.” —Booklist

  “The best hard SF writer to come along in the last decade.” —John Varley, author of Slow Apocalypse

  “One of the hottest new writers of hard SF on the scene today.” —Asimov’s Science Fiction

  “No question, Steele can tell a story.” —OtherRealms

  Orbital Decay

  Winner of the Locus Award for Best First Novel

  “Stunning.” —Chicago Sun-Times

  “[Steele is] the master of science-fiction intrigue.” —The Washington Post

  “Brings the thrill back to realistic space exploration. It reads like a mainstream novel written in 2016 A.D.” —The New York Review of Science Fiction

  “A damned good book; lightning on the high frontier. I got a sense throughout that this was how it would really be.” —Jack McDevitt, author of Cauldron

  “An ambitious science fiction thriller . . . skillfully plotted and written with gusto.” —Publishers Weekly

  “A splendidly executed novel of working-class stiffs in space.” —Locus

  “Reads like golden-age Heinlein.” —Gregory Benford, author of Beyond Infinity

  “Readers won’t be disappointed. This is the kind of hard, gritty SF they haven’t been getting enough of.” —Rave Reviews

  The Tranquillity Alternative

  “A high-tech thriller set against the backdrop of an alternative space program. Allen Steele has created a novel that is at once action-packed, poignant, and thought provoking. His best novel to date.” —Kevin J. Anderson, bestselling author of the Jedi Academy Trilogy

  “Science fiction with its rivets showing as only Steele can deliver it. This one is another winner.” —Jack McDevitt, author of The Engines of God

  “With The Tranquility Alternative, Allen Steele warns us of the bitter harvest reaped by intolerance, and of the losses incurred by us all when the humanity of colleagues and friends is willfully ignored.” —Nicola Griffith, author of Ammonite

  Labyrinth of Night

  “Unanswered questions, high-tech, hard-science SF adventure, and action—how can you fail to enjoy this one?” —Analog Science Fiction and Fact

  The Jericho Iteration

  “Allen Steele is the best hard SF writer to come along in the last decade. In The Jericho Iteration he comes down to a near-future Earth and proves he can handle a darker, scarier setting as well as his delightful planetary adventures. I couldn’t put it down.” —John Varley, author of Slow Apocalypse

  Rude Astronauts

  “A portrait of a writer who lives and breathes the dreams of science fiction.” —Analog Science Fiction and Fact

  The Tranquillity Alternative

  Allen Steele

  In memory of Dot Hill

  Contents

  Introduction

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Introduction

  SCIENCE FICTION’S GREAT question is, “What if?” Usually the rest of the question occurs within a futuristic scenario, although on occasion the setting may be in the present day. Every so often, though, the scenario takes place in the past, and therefore a somewhat different question is asked: “What might have happened if … ?”

  This is the subgenre known as alternate history. My sixth published novel, The Tranquillity Alternative, falls squarely in that category.

  In 1993, I was ready to start writing about space exploration again, after taking a break from the subject a couple of years earlier to produce my previous novel, The Jericho Iteration, which was set in St. Louis. However, I wasn’t ready to return to the Near-Space series, which had been the future-history setting of my first four novels and a dozen or so short stories. I’d enjoyed melding the near-future SF novel with the mystery-thriller and wanted to do another novel like that, only this time set in space. Yet many other writers were now doing much the same thing, with techno-thrillers like Payne Harrison’s Storming Intrepid or Dale Brown’s Silver Tower the typical result. I wanted to do something different: a novel that took place in the present day, but had the scope of my earlier Near-Space novels.

  I was born with the Space Age. In January 1958, less than two weeks after my mother delivered me into the world, the first American satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral. My earliest memories include learning about Alan Shepard’s ride aboard Freedom 7, and my childhood was spent watching Gemini and Apollo missions on TV. So while I was fascinated by space travel from an early age, my interest didn’t come from the same place older Baby Boomers got their space jones: namely, books like Across the Space Frontier and The Conquest of Space, in which authors like Wernher von Braun and Willy Ley set forth a vision of cosmic exploration far more ambitious than that which NASA turned into reality. Similarly, my cultural touchstones were Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey, not Tom Corbett, Space Cadet and Destination Moon.

  Nonetheless, I was aware of the 1950s visions of space exploration, and as time went by I became fascinated by this space program that we might have had if there had been a military US Space Force instead of a civilian NASA. My very first published story, “Operation Blue Horizon” (later revised as “Goddard’s People” and expanded even further into my most recent novel, V-S Day) was about what might have occurred if the first space race had taken place during World War II. Later, I explored this same alternate-history background with my short story “John Harper Wilson,” which depicted a different version of the first lunar landing on July 20, 1969. So I decided to revisit this scenario in a novel, The Tranquillity Alternative.

  (As a quick aside: no, the second word of the title isn’t a typographical error. The Sea of Tranquillity has two l’s in it, a misspelling which goes all the way back to the original lunar maps. I went with what’s on the map, not what’s in the dictionary.)

  The difference here, though, was that instead of taking place in the past, the novel would occur in the present; that is, the 1990s, a world in which we have not only the Internet, cell phones, and post–Cold War international politics, but also a stall-out of American space exploration due to public indifference and government budget cutbacks. Our world today, in other words, but with a giant wheel-shaped space station in orbit and a now-abandoned military base on the Moon.

  The Tranquillity Alternative was originally intended to be little more than a thriller, yet as it emerged from my keyboard, it became something more: a novel of protest, in which I condemned the factors that led to the US abandoning its plans to explore the Moon and venture outward to Mars and beyond. At times, the story took the form of satire—hence the segments about an alternate-history Star Trek and a late-night talk show whose host makes Jay Leno look like a Rhodes scholar—and I also took the opportunity to come down hard on anti-gay bigotry. But it’s a thriller that wears hobnailed boots, which I kicked against some bloated and self-satisfied backsides.

  Yet at its core, it remains a science fiction novel. A tale of space adventure—just not as we know it. With V-S Day coming out, I’m very pleased that The Tranquillity Alternative has returned as an eboo
k. It’s not necessary to read one to understand the other; indeed, a minor inconsistency or two have probably cropped up between these two novels and their associated short stories. All the same, they form an alternate history of their own, and I hope you enjoy visiting this world that we might have had if only things had worked out a bit differently.

  Allen Steele

  Whately, Massachusetts

  May 2013

  The space station, with all its potentialities for exploration of the universe, for all kinds of scientific progress, for the preservation of peace or for the destruction of civilization, can be built. When the decision has been reached and the funds have been appropriated, the rest is only a matter of time. Many factors make the station inevitable—not the least the insatiable curiosity that has sent man across the oceans and finally into the air. Perhaps the military reasons for building such a station are in the long run the least significant, but in the existing state of the world they are the most urgent. Unless a space station is established with the aim of preserving peace, it may be created as an unparalleled agent of destruction—or there may not be time to build it at all.

  Under the impetus of their considerations, perhaps the space station will become a reality, not a generation hence, but in—say—1963.

  —Wernher von Braun,

  Across the Space Frontier (1952)

  If we had a base on the moon, either the Soviets must launch an overwhelming nuclear attack toward the moon from Russia two to two-and-a-half days prior to attacking the continental U.S., or Russia could attack the continental U.S. first, only and inevitably to receive from the moon some 48 hours later sure and massive destruction.

  —Brig. General Homer A. Boushey, director of advanced technology, USAF

  (as quoted by Aviation Week; September 29, 1958)

  President Harry S Truman; White House radio address to the nation, May 26, 1944

  “My fellow Americans …

  “Early this morning, a giant rocket was launched from a secret military installation in Germany. Unlike the V-2 missiles and buzz bombs which have been previously launched by the Axis against France and Great Britain, this rocket was a manned space plane, piloted by a single human being. This space plane, which is known to have been code-named the Amerika Bomber, was believed to have been carrying an eighty-ton incendiary bomb, which the Nazis intended to drop from high altitude above Earth’s atmosphere into the New York City metropolitan area.

  “This sneak attack on American soil, the most scurrilous assault against a civilian population since the beginning of this war, was unsuccessful. It was foiled because our allies in Europe became aware of Nazi Germany’s efforts to develop such a weapon, and they warned us that an attack from outer space was forthcoming, thus allowing our own scientists to develop a countermeasure.

  “At 5:35 A.M. Pacific War Time on the West Coast, another space plane, this one built by the United States Army Air Force, was launched from a secret location in the southwestern United States. I can now tell you that this manned space-faring vessel was christened the Lucky Linda, and its single pilot was a young U.S. Navy captain named Rudy Sloman. In a feat of great daring, Captain Sloman flew his craft above Earth’s atmosphere, whereupon he intercepted the Amerika Bomber above the Gulf of Mexico and destroyed the invading space plane before it could complete its foul mission.

  “Captain Sloman then piloted the Lucky Linda through fiery reentry in American skies and successfully landed his craft at Lakehurst, New Jersey, not far from the city he saved. Because of Captain Sloman’s heroism and the great efforts of the scientists and engineers who designed and built his craft, the United States of America has nothing to fear from Adolf Hitler and his Nazi war machine.

  “I realize that many of you may be incredulous at this news, and that much of it sounds like the stuff of newspaper comic strips. Yet I assure you, as your President, that these events have occurred just as I have spoken of them. The first American has braved the airless reaches of outer space, and surely there will be more to follow.

  “This is a great victory for our nation, a great day which will be remembered throughout history, and a great step into the future for the human race.

  “May God bless us, and thank you.”

  ONE

  2/15/95 • 1834 EST

  SATELLITE BEACH, FLORIDA, IS a small town on Cape Canaveral, located on Route A1A at the doorstep of Patrick Air Force Base. Once a tiny fishing village whose original name is long forgotten, it received its more glorious nomenclature with the beginning of the Space Age and the arrival of the Air Force. Even so, it’s still little more than a wide spot in the road: a handful of residential neighborhoods and retiree trailer camps, some strip malls, the inevitable fast-food restaurants. One has to drive north to Cocoa Beach or south to Melbourne before finding much more on the highway than a line of motels built for visiting servicemen.

  The night was cool—64 degrees, chilly by Floridian standards even at this time of year—but compared to the harsh Massachusetts winter he left behind two days ago, the man in Room 176 of the Satellite Beach Holiday Inn thinks it’s a balmy summer evening. He had wanted to leave his motel room door open to allow in the sea breeze and the dull sound of the Atlantic surf from across the highway, but the plainclothes security escort the company had assigned to him wouldn’t hear of it. Just normal precautions, the private dick whom he had taken to thinking of as Mister Mom had said as he gently closed the door. I’d rather keep it shut, sir, if you don’t mind …

  Yes, he minded. In fact, he minded just about everything right now. This motel, purposely selected because it was out of the way and unlikely to be found by reporters covering tomorrow’s launch. Having Mister Mom for a roommate on his last night on Earth for the next ten days, when he’d just as soon be left alone until morning. And the job itself—Jesus, why hadn’t the Germans picked someone else instead of him? Someone who really wanted to go to the Moon?

  But if anyone had asked what the single most irritating thing in his life was right now, the one thing that irked him the most in a universe seemingly determined to make life insufferable, he would have replied that his pizza was late.

  It had been almost a half-hour now since Mister Mom—whose real name, almost forgotten by now in his disdain, was Mike Momphrey—had used his cellular phone to call some no-name pizzeria just down A1A and place an order for a 12-inch pizza. A half-hour ago, for Christ’s sake … in Boston, it would have been delivered ten minutes ago, and not just because it came from Domino’s. It was this kind of lousy service that drove him straight up the wall. No wonder the country was going down the toilet; twenty miles from the place where rockets are launched into space, and you can’t get pizza delivered before it’s cold.

  Of course, he realized upon further reflection, if the country wasn’t heading down the tubes, he wouldn’t be killing time before he boarded a ferry rocket almost as old as he was. Pizza and the American space program: they were much the same thing these days, when you stopped to think about it….

  He didn’t want to think about it. He tried to shut it out of his head as he hunched over his Tandy/IBM, set up on a table at the far end of the room and wired into the room phone’s dataport. Meanwhile, his jacket off and cast aside to expose the black leather shoulder-holster strapped across his shirt, Mister Mom lay on the single bed near the door watching the ATS Evening News on TV. The volume was turned down low, but the man at the computer could still hear the anchorman’s droning voice …

  American forces in Sarajevo reported heavy casualties today due to mortar assaults upon the city airport. Five Marines were killed and six were wounded when a convoy was attacked at dawn. U.S. Navy warplanes from the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk bombed suspected Serbian strongholds in the hills west of the city and claimed to have inflicted considerable damage, according to Pentagon spokesmen, but …

  Nothing new. This foul little undeclared war had been going on for almost four years now, and the nightly body count had long s
ince assumed the innocuousness of football scores. He shook his head as he concentrated on keeping up his end of the real-time conversation. About ten minutes ago he had signed onto Le Matrix, and his girlfriend was on-line right now. Her cyberspace presence was the only thing keeping him from going completely apeshit.

  R U nervous? Mr. Grid had just asked. Her question appeared as a short line of type next to her screen name.

  Fuck, yes, I’m nervous! he typed. Using obscenities was a TOS offense on Le Matrix, but they were in a private room where no one else could hear them, and Mr. Grid had long since become used to his salty language. Wouldn’t you be?

  In Los Angeles, entertainer and civil rights activist Michael Jackson led two thousand marchers through the city’s South Central neighborhood, in a peaceful demonstration against alleged assaults against black residents by L.A. police officers. At the same time, across town in Hollywood, Jackson’s common-law wife Brooke Shields held a press conference in front of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, in which she turned down last week’s Oscar nomination for Best Actress as a protest against what she called American apartheid …

  Why nervous? I’d LOVE to go to the Moon!:) she responds.

  He scowls. He hates it when she uses smiley-faces. How many times has he told her that he considers cute on-screen emotons to be the last resort of the illiterate? Sure, she’s trying to cheer him up, but still …

  A spokesman for Bob Dole told reporters today that the former President saw no wrongdoing in recent disclosures that he had accepted sizable contributions from European-owned companies during his 1992 reelection campaign. Mr. Dole, present in Wichita this morning for the dedication ceremonies of his presidential library, refused to answer questions from reporters …