Earth retrograde, p.1
Earth Retrograde, page 1
ANGRY ROBOT
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Guess Who’s Back
An Angry Robot paperback original, 2023
Copyright © R.W.W. Greene, 2023
Cover by Kieryn Tyler
Edited by Eleanor Teasddale, Paul Simpson and Andrew Hook
Set in Meridien
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ISBN 978 1 91520 248 2
Ebook ISBN 978 1 91520 247 5
Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by TJ Books Ltd.
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d_r0
To Jack the Cat who woke me every day at 3:15am, and/or 4:23am, and/or 5am so I could finish this book. He’s the real hero here.
Excerpt from the First Prime Ambassador’s televised speech to the United Nations, Oct. 1, 1979.
I regret…
…the need to interrupt this period of mourning. Millions of your brothers, sisters, parents, lovers, children, and friends died over the past year because your leaders chose to ignore the First’s rightful claim to this planet and resist their directives. I will restate the latter so they cannot be misinterpreted by those who would mislead you regarding their content.
Directive One: Effective 11:59pm, Greenwich Standard Time, Aug. 13, 2036, any humans remaining on Earth will be euthanized and disintegrated without appeal.
Directive Two: Prior to that deadline, humanity will mitigate the damage it has done to this world, its moon, and its gravity well to the furthest extent possible. Your settlements, infrastructure, and monuments, with very few exceptions, will be rendered to raw materials and returned to the earth.
It is the responsibility of your governments and corporations to create the means of planetary evacuation. Limited technological and organizational assistance will be made available to this end. Questions may be communicated via the numerous embassies we have established.
We have prepared a sanctuary beneath the surface of the planet you know as Venus. It is the native world of the First, but humanity may make use of it until the First have need of it again.
Regarding the planet Mars, the planet’s native species was well established when the First traveled there four billion years ago, but it has since departed. We have no indication when or if it will return but see no reason why you should not make use of the planet until that time.
Humanity may make proportional use of the resources of the asteroid belts as well as those of Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn, and Pluto.
People of Earth, you have seen our evidence, and you have experienced a measure of First capabilities. This planet belongs to the First by right of a claim made millions of years before your species evolved. You cannot remain here, and you would be wise to come to terms with that reality sooner rather than later. To put it simply, we were here first.
CONTENTS
TIMELINE
PART ONE: Fall 1999
ONE
TWO
THREE
PART TWO: Jigsaw Youth
FOUR
PART THREE: Gangster Glam
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
PART FOUR: Nothingman
EIGHT
NINE
PART FIVE: Given to Fly
TEN
ELEVEN
PART SIX: Resist Psychic Death
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
PART SEVEN: Do the Evolution
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
PART EIGHT: Acknowledge Me
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
PART NINE: I Hate Danger
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
PART TEN: Alien She
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
PART ELEVEN: Endorphinmachine
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
PART TWELVE: Thieves in the Temple
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
PART THIRTEEN: Spin the Black Circle
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
FORTY-THREE
FORTY-FOUR
FORTY-FIVE
PART FOURTEEN: The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
FORTY-SIX
FORTY-SEVEN
FORTY-EIGHT
FORTY-NINE
FIFTY
FIFTY-ONE
FIFTY-TWO
FIFTY-THREE
PART FIFTEEN: Star-Bellied Boy
FIFTY-FOUR
FIFTY-FIVE
FIFTY-SIX
FIFTY-SEVEN
FIFTY-EIGHT
DEC. 31, 1999
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
TIMELINE
1945 – Robert Oppenheimer invents the Atomic Engine.
1950 – Humanity walks on the Moon.
1951 – Brooklyn Lamontagne is born.
1956 – Brooklyn, age five, listens to coverage of Chuck Yeager’s landing on Mars.
1961 – Topeka, Kansas and Ufa, Russia are destroyed by meteorites. Jet Carson and the Freedom 7 face off against the so-called Mercurian Menace.
1967 – John F. Kennedy, saved from assassination by an alien agent, begins his second term.
1972 – Cleveland, Ohio is wiped out by a meteorite. George McGovern, a pacifist – and secretly an alien, loses campaign momentum, and hawkish Richard Nixon wins election to the U.S. presidency.
Fall of 1976 – Brooklyn enlists in the Earth Orbital Forces to avoid a prison sentence. Jimmy Carter and Jessie Jackson are elected to the White House.
July 1978 – Brooklyn and Designed Ambassador “Andy” Andromeda fly from Venus in an antique spaceship to save New York City from a meteorite and the Earth from a suicidal war against the returning First. Brooklyn sacrifices his life so the mission will succeed.
October 1978 – Responding to First demands, Earth forces attack the Designed ambassadors. Using First Tech, the Designed shut down all electrical power on the planet for several months.
November 1978 – Andy leads an unsuccessful attack against the Prime Ambassador’s ship in an attempt to get the power back on. She flees into space.
November 1980 – Bob Dole is elected President of the U.S.
Spring 1981 – Salvagers recover Brooklyn’s frozen body from high-Earth orbit, and thanks to treatments he received from the mysterious Dr Paul Carruthers, he returns to life. The EOF discharges Brooklyn with prejudice because of his alleged collaboration with the enemy, and his Earth citizenship is revoked.
1983 – Designed scientists create an airborne AIDS vaccine and release it worldwide.
1984 – Dole rides his ‘wartime’ presidency status to a second term.
1985 – The first of the United Nations evacuation flights heads to Venus.
Fall 1987 – Designed scientists unleash an airborne virus that destroys the fertility of fifty percent of humans who contract it. Andy and the Designed outlaws liberate a vaccine for the contagion and give it to the United Nations.
Oct. 14, 1987 – Baby Jessica falls down a well. She is saved within two hours by Designed engineers.
Spring 1988 – The original Designed are replaced by the so-called Angels and the First Cathedral of the Cosmos. The Cardinal of the Cosmos becomes the First’s representative on Earth.
1988 – Donald Rumsfeld is elected president of the United States.
1990 – The U.S. and U.S.S.R. announce they will evacuate their citizens to Mars instead of Venus.
1992 – Pat Buchanan, with support of the First Church of the Cosmos, wins election to the U.S. Presidency. The presidential term limit is revoked.
1995 – The third U.N. evacuation flight leaves for Venus.
Fall 1999 – Brooklyn gets a message.
PART ONE
Fall 1999
ONE
The old ship rocked, the forces of re-entry buffeting and scorching. A lot of the tell-tale lights on the control surfaces blinked to yellow or red. Too many stayed that way. The pilot tapped one of the more important ones, and it flickered reluctantly back to green. He wished he could set himself straight so easily. Fifteen words. Fifteen fucking words that change everything.
Overhead, a conifer-shaped air freshener danced on the end of
“You check the thing?” the pilot said.
“Did.” The copilot was wearing a bulky exosuit. Inside it, her mouth, arms, and tentacles moved languidly through a chilly, fishy brine that mimicked her natural environment.
“You check it, check it, or just look at the lights?”
“Jelly Tech doesn’t break.”
Do you know anythin’’bout this? The pilot’s attention leapt back to the coded message he’d received moments before initiating reentry. Fifteen words. Two decades living under a sword, millions dead, millions more displaced, billions terrified. And the fuckin’ sword decides to split! The First Cathedral of the Cosmos still loomed over the planet. Jury-rigged scavenger ships labored daily to sweep human garbage from orbital space. Construction crews lived and died in the vacuum, piecing together the latest evacuation fleet.… There was a large, glaring absence of proof, but the messenger was generally reliable.
He rubbed his face. Present tense. Stay in the moment. “Ain’t the Jelly Tech I’m worried about. What does Bugs say?”
“Your toy computer has crashed. Again. Shall I reboot it and ask more politely?”
“Don’t understand why you ain’t freaking out about any-a this,” he said.
“Jellies don’t break, either.”
Something in the ship’s living section fell over with a bangclatter. “Nice work locking things down back there.”
The copilot gurgled. “It was your turn to secure the–”
An explosion off to port rocked the ship. The radio crackled. “Unknown vessel, this is Earth Emigration & Customs, identify yourself immediately.”
“They talking to us?”
The copilot manipulated the radio with one metal hand. “It appears so. The camouflage may not be functioning correctly.”
The radio again. “Unknown vessel, identify yourself.” A second explosion, this time from starboard. E&C picket ships bracketing the target, showing off, or just aiming badly. The pilot had made hundreds of successful clandestine landings on Earth over the years – from Venus, from Mars, from the Belt, from the Moon – but today of all days…
“You said you checked it!”
“Our tech doesn’t break.”
“Something fucking did!”
“Unknown vessel, identify yourself or number three is going right up your ass.” The voice on the radio was not pitched to amuse.
The copilot folded her arms across her broad chest. “We should have armed the ship.”
“The hell would a few guns do?”
“Far more than your panic. Earth ships are not insuperable.”
“Unknown vessel, this is your final warning.”
The pilot jammed his finger at the radio, triggering its transmission function. “This is the Sweet & Low out of De Milo.” He rattled off a string of numbers; counterfeit, but they’d worked a decade before. “See, nice and friendly.”
A projectile hit the ship somewhere, creating a spin the pilot barely recovered from. Then another, nearly worse. “That ID doesn’t wash. Next shot’s gonna coun–”
The pilot stabbed the radio again. “It’s Brooklyn Lamontagne, damn it! Brooklyn Fucking Lamontagne! On board the Victory!”
They were escorted to a porta-office. It was like a semi-trailer with one end tapered to an acute angle, made to be easily transportable and one day packed into an evacuation ship to serve as housing on Venus.
The E&C official was middle management, human and sour. He failed to introduce himself, but a nameplate ratted him out as ‘Special Agent Peter Cramm’. The distaste showed in his face as he pointed out an object on his cheap, foldable desk. “What’s this?”
“A rock,” Brooklyn said.
“I see it’s a fucking rock.” It was gray, veined with crystal. “Why do you have half-a-ton of them boxed up in your hold?”
“Ballast. Keeps the ship from rolling in rough weather.”
“Bullshit.”
Brooklyn leaned back in the chair. “Old ship. Doesn’t handle like the new ones.”
Cramm directed his attention to the copilot. “And who are you?”
“That’s Float,” Brooklyn said.
“That is not my name,” the medusozoa said. “Brooklyn tends to abbreviate the names of those familiar to him.”
“What’s your real name, then?”
Float helped him with the spelling so he could type it into the desk computer.
The guy’s eyes flicked back and forth, scanning the records. “Says here you have diplomatic immunity.” His eyes landed on Brooklyn. “But you don’t. In fact, you weren’t ever supposed to come back to Earth. Any reason I shouldn’t seize your ship and turn you over to the judge?”
“Saved the world a while back.” Brooklyn stroked the patchy stubble on his jaw. “That count for anything?’
Cramm tented his hands on his desk. “Computer says you were discharged with prejudice from the Earth Orbital Forces and nearly got your ass jailed for treason.”
“Working with the enemy.” Brooklyn smirked. “An’ here you are working for them. How’s that going? Sleepin’ okay? How’re the job prospects?”
Not a nervous swallow, not a nostril flare, not a dilated pupil. Cramm wasn’t in the know, or he was hell at the poker table. “You’re also a known associate of the leader of the Designed Liberation Front.”
“Dated a while in the ’70s. Haven’t seen her since before she went all Pancho Villa on you.”
Cramm tapped the computer monitor. “Record says you were born in 1951.”
“Sounds right.”
“You don’t look forty-eight. Had to guess, I’d say you haven’t cleared thirty yet.”
“Atkins Diet. Keeps me lean and mean.” Brooklyn let the front legs of the chair touch down. “Look, take my prints if you want. They’ll check out. I’m the one and only, and ain’t no warrants out on me.”
“What are you doing back here?”
Brooklyn pulled a lazily folded piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and dropped it on the desk. His get out-of-jail-free card for this trip. Better than some he’d had, weaker than others.“Class reunion. Big three-oh.”
Cramm looked the paper over. “Says here you’re a day early and twenty thousand miles too low. Reunion’s on Eisenhower. You were in a landing approach.”
“The navigation system crashed, and I lost track o’ where I was. Then some asshole shot at us. You gonna pay for the repairs?”
Cramm reddened. “You got twelve hours down here to arrange for ship repairs and get back into orbit.” He stamped the visa. “Next time we see your ass down here, we shoot to kill.”
The Emigration & Customs inspectors hadn’t limited themselves to the cargo hold. The team was finishing up in the engineering section. Float excused herself to check the ‘ballast’, and left Brooklyn to negotiate.
“Damned antique is what we got here,” said the team’s boss, a cigar-chomping woman of about fifty. She wiped her hands with a greasy rag that she stuffed into her pocket. “Didn’t know any of these were still flying.”
“Might be the only one,” Brooklyn said. “Got it as salvage in the early ’80s.”
Her cigar bobbed. “EOF the only ones who made fuel for the Type Threes. Got an old depot you been raiding or somethin’?”
“Stealing from depots is illegal, ma’am,” Brooklyn said. “We get our fuel in the Belt, mostly.”
“In the Belt.” She pulled the rag back out and blew her nose in it. “You can get anything in the Belt. That’s what they say. Right, Paul?”
The guy she called Paul was about her age, balding. He whistled. “Never heard that about the Belt, boss. That’s where the Reds send their political prisoners, right? I don’t remember reading anything about them being well-provisioned.”
“They’re doin’ a lot better now,” Brooklyn said. “Ought to go out and see.”
“Maybe I will.” She beckoned her flunky. “Paul, show the man what we found on his ship.”
“You did some nice modifications on this thing.” Paul led the way to something Brooklyn had hoped they wouldn’t spot. “Used to be you couldn’t get one of these off the ground without a launch sled.”
“Put a set of First Tech lifters in as soon as I could. Cleaner, quicker, a lot less fuel.”
“Saw the field generator, too. Lets you get up to speed helluva a lot quicker, I bet.”
“Fuck physics, right?” Brooklyn said. Fucking things is what the First do best.
