Free Tomorrow’s Heritage by Juanita Coulson Page B

earphones. Umbilicals and tunnels retracted, setting them free. Owens’s voice droned along on the final reports, confirming the data showing on Todd’s boards. They made a last check of their seat restraints and Todd cued the nays and propulsion systems. Just as the clocks hit 1430, the vernier thrusters fired.
    “Good timing, sir,” Owens complimented him. That, too, was ritual.
    Thrusters pushed them away gently from the massive satellite. They went from centimeter increments to half-meters to meters. There was almost no sense of motion. Todd gauged progress by the readouts and by the way Geosynch HQ was shrinking in apparent size on his screens. They were outside the perimeter patrolled by the little orbiter maintenance watchdogs now, and he could see the whole asymmetrical crazy quilt of his office-warehouse in space. Twinkling miniature stars danced here and there—busy robot space spiders, spinning more metallic fabric over HQ’s skin.
    Far away, in a lower orbit, Todd saw a shining sail kilometers in length—a solar collecting wall, part of Goddard Power Sats’ network. Much lower, beyond visual range, there were other sails, drinking up longwave infrared for Patrick Saunder’s competing energy corporation. Everywhere you went in space or on Earth, there was a Saunder waiting to power your vehicle or supply your communications or entertainment needs.
    Sunlight bounced off Geosynch HQ. The screens filtered the glare, but Todd winced just the same. Then the shuttle swung on its vertical axis, lining up the vector. Tracking said they were standing off well enough. Nays confirmed. Main propulsion came up, the ion thrusters beginning to kick them into the climb toward one-quarter gravity acceleration. That acceleration was very gradual and muted the stresses. Yet Geosynch HQ dwindled quickly on the screens, proof of the shuttle’s building speed. Todd watched his satellite fall behind with mixed, anachronistic emotions. Leaving port. The small ship, sailing away from the docks. And he was on the ship, excited at the journey awaiting him, but sorry to be leaving Dian and his people on the floating city in space. Fear, even after many such beginnings and safe voyages. Strong awareness of death waiting a short reach away, outside the hull. Most of all, he felt a tremendous, childlike wonder, reveling in the countless sounds and sights enveloping his being.
    On the view screens, Earth floated, achingly beautiful. The Moon was a glowing pearl, a second planetfall, but not his destination. An arrow on the nay monitors marked Goddard Colony’s location, too tiny yet to see, with the naked eye.
    Geosynch HQ was gone now, lost over the visibility horizon, noted only by sensor blips. The blackness closed in. Their ship seemed motionless, suspended between Earth and Moon.
    He and Gib Owens were alone, setting forth across a sea far wider than any planetary waters, soaring up into eternal night, a night in which the Sun never set.

CHAPTER FOUR
    ooooooooo
    New Nightmares for Old
    The call had come in from CNAU Caribbean Rescue. Todd couldn’t remember who had taken it, could barely remember their climbing into the boat, bucketing through gale warnings to reach that lonely jumble of rocks off the Florida Keys. Rescue warned them not to fly. All air traffic was grounded. They tried to stop them from setting out by boat, in fact. No chance of that. The Saunders never hesitated. They went together, as a family, not daring to speak except to exhort the captain to hurry.
    The tropical disturbance had passed by the time they reached the site. It made the emotional devastation that much worse. Todd teetered on a rocky perch, staring in horror at the wreckage smeared down the cliffs and into the surf below. Rescue officers tried to lead him away, telling him and Pat to take their mother back to the boat and wait.
    It was too late. He had seen—so had Jael and Pat and Marietta. The Rescue crew was carrying a litter up from the