Deep Freeze

by Jonathan Burke

Genres: Science Fiction; Alien Contact; Time Travel

Synopsis

Scientific progress has taken human beings to remote planes in far galaxies and enabled them to build comfortable homes there. But when that science proved a deadly enemy and had to be abandoned, the pioneers were isolated in alien surroundings. There was no way home. Earth, which had once been home, had ceased to exist. And when the men of the planet Demeter died out in space, the destiny of the human race was left to a group of women. Clare Monkton worked to establish a feminist world. She used the resources of science to assure the continuance of the race ... but the resulting children were to be brought up according to her ideas. There was bound to be a challenge. When there were once more young men growing up on the planet, it was inevitable that they should oppose the authority of the women. And when one of those young men proved to come from such a dangerous ancestry, Clare knew she had a battle on her hands...

Release date: March 31, 2015

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 108

Sample

The message came through after the second ship had been away for three days. Stephen Bailey heard it through a barrage of interstellar disturbance, and thought at first that he hadn’t got it straight. Then he turned up the volume and got a repeat; and this time there was no mistake.

He sat trembling for a moment. He tried to tell himself that it would be all right, that the words couldn’t possibly mean what they so obviously meant—that in the case of this ship, their own particular vessel, there must be some other factor that would make everything all right.

Then he sat at the transmitter and began to call the ship.

“Demeter—calling Jason. Can you hear me? Urgent message. Can you hear me? Acknowledge.”

But the receiver was no more than a mouthpiece for surging confusion. A blast of noise roared unbrokenly in his ears. The electrical storm that had been the original cause of the Jason’s rescue voyage was still raging. Again he spoke, and again waited. If any reply came, it was lost in the atmospheric uproar from the storm-ravaged satellite. Demeter’s deep-hued sun blazed in through the window of the radio hut, and here on the planet all was peace and warmth; but up there on Demeter’s moon there was stress and confusion. All Stephen could do was speak into the transmitter and hope that his words would somehow get through. Perhaps the ship was not yet on its return journey. Perhaps it would wait until the trouble had subsided, and he would be able to get that startling warning across space before the Jason took off.

But even if it worked out like that, what good would it be? If the two ships heeded the warning, they would have to remain on the satellite, Ploutos. And then how would the men get back home?

He tried to thrust the question out of his mind. It was not his business to find answers to them. All he could do was try to relay the message he had received.

He said slowly: “Message from Earth. All space ships using Capper drive to be grounded at earliest possible opportunity. No ship to be operated under any circumstances whatever if it was constructed before March 2125.”

Constructed before March 2125…. The two ships that had brought the colonists to Demeter and that were now up on the encircling satellite, four days journey away, were both of 2122 vintage. He knew that.

“Not to be operated under any circumstances whatever,” he said wildly. It wasn’t up to him to make decisions—it was the job of those men up there—but the awfulness of the problem struck a note of shrill desperation from him. He felt that he ought to be issuing detailed instructions and offering some sort of guidance instead of just mouthing the warning over and over again. “Earth reports unsuspected danger in Capper reactors. Fatigue tests show new results. Grave risk of chain reaction from any Capper tubes installed before March 2125.”

What made it worse was that maybe he was talking to nobody at all. Maybe there was nobody listening. He was tossing the words out into space, where they would drift lost and useless.

“Message from Earth,” he began again.

He went through it twice more, his voice unsteady as he reached the end. There was still no reply. He went to the door of the radio hut, leaving the receiver blaring and crackling furiously behind him, and looked out at the bright landscape. If only someone would come along who could help. If only the responsibility could be lifted from his shoulders.

But there wasn’t anyone. He felt a chill of apprehension. There was no one here qualified to make decisions. The emergency had called away all the men in the Jason, and there remained only the womenfolk, and old Bragg, and the Jamieson boys; and himself.

He saw a young woman emerging from the doorway of one of the houses. She came out of the shadows into brightness. Even at a time like this he felt a surge of interest. Just the slim shape of her, and the graceful movements….

She came closer, probably on her way to the clothing store, and when she became aware of his scrutiny she frowned and looked away.

He said: “Karen——”

“I can’t stop,” she said. “I’m in a hurry.”

“But this is important.”

“It always is, isn’t it?” she said with a grimace of distaste. “It always is, with you.”

“This is different. You don’t understand.”

“You’ve told me that before, too.”

None of the younger women had any time for him. They made it painfully clear. He burned with resentment and frustration, knowing how they laughed at him and despised him because he wanted them so much. But this was no time for personal bitterness. He said urgently:

“Karen, you’ve got to listen. We’ve got to do something. Our two ships up there—on Ploutos—they can’t get back. They mustn’t try to get back, or they may be destroyed.”

This stopped her. She stared.

“What do you mean?”

Briefly he told her of the message that had come across the vast spaces between here and Earth.

“I don’t believe it,” she whispered. “There’s a mistake somewhere. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be true.”

But even as she spoke she was turning and racing back towards the small group of buildings that nestled below the smooth slope of the hills.

In a few minutes she returned with Dr. Chesney, a tall, authoritative woman who always made Stephen Bailey feel much smaller than he really was. She approached briskly, as though determined to expose the truth and put an end to this nonsense immediately. You felt that there was nothing she couldn’t cope with.

But when she spoke, her voice was for once surprisingly uncertain. She said: “Is this true. Is there really a danger to the Jason?”

“If a chain reaction does get set up——”

“There never has been one so far. Couldn’t the ship chance just one more trip? Once it was back here, it could be dismantled—or inspected, or something.”

“On that four-day journey it might break up. Particularly as it will be working at full pressure, with a double load—its own crew and the men taken off the other ship.”

“It carried far more than that on its way here from Earth,” said Dr. Chesney. Then she glared into the hut and snapped: “Why aren’t you continuing to send? Have you made contact with Captain Jamieson?”

“I’ve tried, but——”

“Keep trying.”

She wasn’t a woman to be argued with. He went inside again. She followed him in. While he once more sent out that desperate message of warning, she switched on the scanner. He hadn’t thought of that. Continuing to speak—“Urgent. Calling Jason. Urgent”—he watched the screen as she applied top magnification. Erratic lights sparked and spluttered, hurting the eyes. The pattern of stars was blurred and distorted. There seemed to be too many stars: some of them were no more than momentary flashes on the screen, bright deceptive coruscations. Dr. Chesney juggled with the focus, trying to bring up a clear image of the satellite Ploutos. She had difficulty in holding it steady. The storm that had crippled the first ship was evidently continuing to rage around the small moon.

Suddenly their attention was distracted by a faint yet urgent voice from the receiver.

“Earth calling colonies. All colonies and exploration ships linked for urgent communication. Earth calling all stations.”

Karen, in the doorway, looked fearfully at the impersonal black speaker over the switch panel. Dr. Chesney stood motionless, one hand resting on the focus knob of the scanner. Stephen wished that something would happen—something that would make it all definite one way or the other.

“The Capper process must be abandoned,” said the remote voice. “Earth is disintegrating.”

Karen gasped.

“A reaction has set up that threatens to disintegrate the entire planet. The power plants in New York, London and New Petrograd have been destroyed by a great cloud of atomic dissolution, and the effect is spreading. We cannot stop it. Stocks of Capper bombs in the great arsenals of the world have been touched off, and major cities are being engulfed. All colonies and ships are warned.”

Karen said: “But the Earth itself can’t—it just couldn’t….”

“We will continue to send,” said the voice, “but the President of the Capper Control Commission has issued a statement to the effect that the complete annihilation of the Earth within the next few days is a strong possibility unless….”

There was, abruptly and horribly, silence.

“No,” breathed Karen softly.

And at that moment a spark blossomed into fire in the centre of the scanner screen. It might have been another atmospheric phenomenon, but somehow they knew it was not. It burned for no more than a few seconds, a dazzling flare against the dark bulk of the moon.

“My father’s on the Jason,” cried Karen.

“Nearly all the men of the colony are on the Jason,” said Dr. Chesney grimly.

“We’ve got to do something.” Karen lurched towards the switch panel, pushing Stephen aside. “There must be some way of reaching them—telling them….”

Dr. Chesney shook her head. “I doubt if there’s any way of telling them anything now. There’s nothing we can do.”

“But——”

“There’s nothing we can do but wait. And I don’t really think there’s any hope: there isn’t really anything to wait for.”

She was right. There were no further messages from Earth. And the Jason did not return.

The meeting was held in the community centre. Only a few nights ago there had been a dance here, and the air had been filled with laughter and the throb of conversation. Now the atmosphere was quite changed. Some of the women were sobbing. Many looked utterly blank, still not comprehending. Their husbands and sons had made the trip to Ploutos many times before and returned; it was unthinkable that they should not return this time.

A self-appointed committee of three sat on the small platform. None of the others were disposed to argue: they numbly accepted the authority of the three who had taken it on themselves to call this meeting.

Dr. Beatrice Chesney was, as befitted her profession, naturally looked to by all the women in the colony in times of stress. Her brusque, resolute manner and professional competence inspired confidence.

Then there was Margaretta Jamieson, shrewd, kindly and level-headed wife of the Jason’s captain and mother of two boys. She was well liked. Despite the claims her family made on her time, she was the one with the reputation for organising things—parties, socials, community events and celebrations of all kinds. It was inappropriate and yet somehow natural that she should be on the platform at this time of sadness.

The third member of the group was Professor Clare Monkton, who was something of an unknown quantity. She was admitted to have a brilliant mind, but that very brilliance had tended to keep many people away from her. She did not make friends easily, and was usually engrossed in her work. An experienced biologist and an expert on all recent developments in hydroponics, she had watched over the food tanks during the long voyage to Demeter, and the purification of the ship’s atmosphere by means of plants which were in themselves essential as food had been her responsibility. She had developed agriculture on the planet, and studied the edibility of the indigenous flora. Unmarried, she had a dignity and self-assurance that could be intimidating. Her mouth was beautiful yet severe. She was not seen much in the normal social life of the settlement, but it was noticeable at this moment, as the room filled with murmuring, apprehensive women, that she appeared to dominate the other two on the platform. It was she who judged when it was time to begin spea. . .