Free James P. Hogan by Migration

of the specifics. It would be good if you can find out more about these drive-sequencing adjustments and what they are likely to involve.”
    “The engineering assessment has already been prepared,” Lubanov said. “I’ve requested a copy.”
    “How long would you expect it to take?”
    “It could be when I get back, if I press for it. Say, tomorrow at the latest. I’ll have it summarized in time for the meeting.”
    Dreese nodded. “Good.”
    Lubanov allowed a pause and regarded him meaningfully. “Do you think it’s Winter Rain ?”
    Dreese said nothing, but held Lubanov’s eye for a long moment. Then he nodded almost imperceptibly.
    It was no coincidence that the military units that had been moved closest to the ground bases were all commanded by officers who had been recruited to Torus.
     

EIGHT
    After Dreese left, Lubanov sat finishing his drink for a while, and then rose to walk slowly along the waterfront. He walked for a long time, deep in thought, taking in the bay, its bridge, and the far shore. The day was sunny and clear, the water blue from the reflected sky. A mild breeze was blowing from the west, bringing freshness from the hills fringing the ocean. At one point he stopped to lean his elbows on the rail above an embankment built upon concrete footings that once formed part of a vast system of docks, from which ships had carried commerce to the far reaches of the world. Some miles farther south along the same shore of the peninsula was an aircraft base serving mainly other places around Sofi and accommodating typically twenty or so machines at any time. Remains could still be seen there of what had been one of hundreds of hubs between which huge air fleets had traversed a global network. Maybe the world would one day know such things again. But if so, Lubanov would never see them. His time for gazing at mountains, bays, and distant shores, feeling natural sunshine and ocean breezes, would soon be over. In a mere few days now, his would be an artificial world in miniature, voyaging toward another star that wouldn’t be reached in his lifetime. He would die out there somewhere, and Earth would be just a memory.
    Lubanov’s placement in the Sofian military internal-security apparatus had been arranged some years earlier, when it became apparent that opposition to Aurora was growing, and a need for close inside intelligence became crucial. The precaution was well-taken. The original case put forward by the disaffected Progressives was not unreasonable in some ways, and could maybe have been open to deliberation even without occupation of the launch bases. But as time went by and more extreme views added themselves to the movement, its mood became uglier. Now there was talk of stopping the project permanently, to be claimed as a national resource, with some advocating the open use of force to achieve it. This was exactly what some of Aurora ’s strategists had prophesied would happen. The final weeks of preparation were critical, and there could be no question of allowing the project to be jeopardized by the risk of rogue military units with access to space-capable vessels and Sofian weaponry taking matters into their own hands. Lubanov’s disagreement with the Traditionalist philosophy made him an obvious candidate to be approached by the Torus conspirators as a sympathizer and potential inside informer. That his objections were genuine and not a cover story helped camouflage the direction in which his true commitment lay.
    If that was how he felt, why, then, was he going with Aurora at all? Why not work for the success of Torus, in precisely the way its planners believed him to be doing, and if better terms were negotiated as a consequence, remain on Earth in the stronger and more stable Sofi that he would have helped bring about?
    It was a question of weighing up odds, and Lubanov was, if anything, a pragmatist. He had fled to Sofi and changed his name to escape a revenge vendetta that had arisen