Boundary Read online

  By now, they all knew her personal history. She felt herself shiver, slightly. "Not since I was a child have I ever been able to forget that the universe produces Washington LaFayettes just as surely and just as inexorably as it produces butterflies and buttercups. So it's my job—my life, if you will—to keep an eye out for them."

  Silence, for a minute or so. Then A.J. said: "Now, I see. Jesus, you are one smart cookie."

  "Thanks. Like I said, I had to meddle in policy issues I normally wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. But I didn't see where my responsibilities—even my oath, when you got right down to it— gave me any choice." She took a deep breath, letting it out almost like a long, protracted sigh. "They would have fiddled and faddled and done their best to keep a lid on it. Put the brakes, as soon as they could, on the space program of our country because they wanted the money for something else—and put them on, even harder, on any other country's. Now, they can't. With every American citizen—the whole world—knowing of the tremendous advances we could get from studying the Bemmie base on Phobos and here in Melas Chasma . . ."

  "And Rich and Jane say there are plenty of indications there may be other installations on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn," Helen added.

  Madeline nodded, still looking up. "They can't keep a lid on it, now. If nothing else, even if it turns out we can't decipher any of the Bemmie secrets, we'll have several interplanetary ships built that'll last for decades and an ongoing and self-sustaining presence on Mars. The genie will be out of the bottle. It'll be a mess, I know. But at least it'll be a dynamic mess, that gets us out into space and starts providing us with protection before anything happens."

  She shrugged, the gesture being as difficult as it always was in the tight-fitting suits. "I'll still keep any military secrets restricted. But that's never more than a short-term business, anyway. The main thing is that the human race will now come boiling out into space. Where we won't be sitting ducks, any longer. Hopefully, my country will remain in the lead, but if it stops being so at some point . . . Well, in the end, I figure that the national security of the United States doesn't mean much if it isn't part of the security of the whole human race. So piss on it. These things all tend to even out in the wash, give it long enough."

  Finally, she lowered her head. She could never stare at that starblaze, for too long. As glorious as it undoubtedly was, eventually she started seeing LaFayette's face in the constellations of a maniac galaxy.

  "I'd like to go to our bubble now, Joe. I love it, in there."

  "Sure, sweetheart." He took her by the hand and started leading her away. "Me, I'm just happy to still be here. My notion of 'security' is a lot more tightly-defined than yours, I'm afraid. After all that's happened—two crashes, exploding lab, collapsing tunnel—Joe Buckley is mainly just wondering why he's still alive."

  "Oh, look!" exclaimed A.J. "Is that a meteor I see streaking toward us?"

  The chorus responded. "SHUT UP, A.J.!"

  Rich Skibow emerged from the rover. "Hey, A.J.—can you make up another of those rings? Jane said 'yes'!"

  AFTERWORD

  For various timing and printing reasons, four diagrams were left out of the printed version of Boundary: maps showing the journey of Thoat across Mars to finally reach Bemmie's home base and the illustration of NIKE. These pictures can be accessed online at my LiveJournal gallery: http://pics.livejournal.com/seawasp/gallery/00004pq8.

  I can also be contacted through my LiveJournal itself

  (http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/),

  |where I will also often talk about my current and future projects and anything else that interests me. You can also find both myself and Eric Flint on Baen's Bar

  (http:bar.baen.com);

  my conference is Paradigms Lost, while his is Mutter of Demons. Come visit; we love to talk with readers. Thanks very much for reading Boundary!

  Ryk E. Spoor October, 2005

  IMAGES

  THE END

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  * * *

  Boundary

  Table of Contents

  PART I: FOSSILS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  PART II: QUARRLES

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  PART III: FAERIES

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  PART IV: BLUEPRINTS

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  PART V: NIKE

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  PART VI: PHOBOS

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  PART VII: MARS

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  AFTERWORD

  IMAGES

  * * *

  eBook Info

  Title:Boundary

  Type:Novel

  Identifier:1-4165-0932-1

  Identifier:978-1-4165-0932-5

  Identifier:10.1125/Baen.1416509321

  Publisher:Baen Books

  Creator:Eric Flint

  Creator:Ryk Spoor

  Contributor:Kurt Millar

  Subject:Science Fiction

  Rights:2006 by Eric Flint & Ryk Spoor

  Date:2006-03-01

  Language:US English (en-us)

  meta:

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