The squads of men and women, grouped by fives, assembled in the barn, those in front checking their weapons a last time. The realigned GATE didn’t look any different. It still generated the same sounds, the same tenebrous darkness beneath the metal arches. Only the direction had been reversed. Some hailed Eric a genius. He demurred, insisting he was no more than an efficient sponge.
If his math was wrong, not to mention the work of the engineering team, they might step through to limbo. It would be a quick death, and fail-safe instrumentation in the barn should detect such a failure. That would be the end of the grand experiment. The 25,000 would mutter awhile, then return to their shuttered homes. Eric gripped his stun rifle tightly. It must not happen that way. It must not happen to Lisa or to any of his newfound friends. There were too many depending on him for it to fail.
But it would take more than good intentions to convey them safely across the void.
Jeeter stood close behind him. “There has to be a first step, Eric,” he said gently. “Let’s get on with it. I want what my parents and grandparents were promised. Let’s go slay the lie.”
Eric nodded, signaled to the technicians manning the remodeled equipment, made a final check of his watch. Then he stepped through.
It was dark in GATE Station. Telltales glowed brightly on deserted consoles, showing that everything was still properly powered up, but there was no sign of a night watch. For a terrible instant Eric thought the LED’s were stars and that they’d emerged somewhere infinitely far out in empty space. Then the outlines of the consoles came into focus and he relaxed.
They’d timed it perfectly. A wall clock showed that it was just after midnight, GATE Station time. Since there was no transposition in progress, the area had been secured for the night. They would not need to use their weapons.
Morning might prove otherwise.
Moving to his right, he sat down at the main console and began familiarizing himself with the controls, a task made easier by his eidetic memory. His well-drilled companions hurried to take up their preassigned positions around him. A few lingered briefly at the ports, staring at the Earth orb rotating below. Third-and fourth-generation Edenites, they had never seen it before.
Jeeter urged them on.
Eric did not glance toward that green world. It was not his home, never had been. It did not pull at him. Home was a world named Paradise, which he had yet to set eyes upon.
The takeover was anticlimactic. Several members of the team rushed to secure the airlock door from the inside. This was done mechanically, bypassing the electric locks so that no alarm might be raised at Security Central.
By pressing close to the acrylic of a port, an observer could see the lights of the floating city. The two hotels were alive with light, and a shuttle was just departing, its huge delta-winged shape turning like a top in slow motion as it oriented itself for the drop to the surface.
“It’s beautiful,” said a young woman staring at the planet below. “I never thought it could be this beautiful.”
“Want to stay?” Lisa asked her. “That’s part of the arrangement. Anyone who wants to can stay here.”
She turned to face the main console. “No. I want a new life, not an old one.”
“You’re going to get it,” Eric promised her.
Other technicians were assuming their assigned positions, inspecting strange instrumentation. Eric had sketched much of it from memory. Now the weeks of study on Eden were going to pay off.
The Terminus was filling up with Edenites. The airlock had been secured, there was still no sign of alarm, and the crew was in place. It was time to locate Paradise.
The computer mainframe readily accepted the new co-ordinates. Techs carefully positioned the hastily transposed receive station and shoved it into darkness at Eric’s command. It would travel only to a place where it could operate. It would not materialize beneath a thousand feet of ocean or a thousand feet up in the air, but would make the minute final adjustments itself.
Eventually a telltale flashed incandescent green on the GATE master’s board. The receive terminal had successfully established itself and was standing by. Muted applause rose from the tech crew as the tension was released. A destination had been gained and Eric’s promise at least partly fulfilled.
“It’s time,” he told the first cluster of anxious volunteers. The man in front nodded, stepped into the waiting circle with his four companions. Hugs and handshakes were exchanged. “Ready,” Eric said calmly. A thousand years ago he’d listened to another man seated in the same chair utter that same word, so rich with promise yet fraught with peril.
“Ready,” the five echoed.
“Step through.”
They were gone. Seconds ticked away, the first of millions. Lisa’s fingers dug into his shoulder, and this time the cheers from the tech people were unrestrained.
The Paradise Express was rolling.
Then it was time to readjust the GATE again, and greet the next batch of fifty from Eden. There was time only for a few handshakes and kisses before they followed the first contact team through.
The excitement gave way to determination as the process settled into a routine. Fifty from Eden together with supplies, fifty to Paradise, back to Eden, thence to Paradise.
It was early morning, eight o’clock Station time, when the first city tech appeared before the airlock. The word was passed back from the guards who’d been assigned to keep watch.
“There’s two of them out there, Eric,” said Jeeter. “They can’t figure out why they can’t get in.”
Eric didn’t look up from his work, spoke without turning. “Did they see you? Ready,” he said in the same breath to the next five transposées.
“No. We’ve been waiting for someone to show up for over an hour. From outside you have no line of sight into the work area, and we’ve been careful to keep the lights out. Not that they’re needed now.” That much was true. The city had swung around the eclipsing mass of the Earth and now rode in sunlit orbit.
As far as the rest of the city was concerned, GATE Station was still empty and secured. It drew on its own solar power supply for energy, monitored its own activity, and no one had noticed the shift in the position of the huge dish every ten minutes.
The peace lasted another couple of hours, until the growing knot of concerned GATE technicians finally called upon a security repair crew, operating under the logical assumption that something had gone wrong with the airlock mechanism.
The technicians and scientists retreated up the corridor to the next checkpoint. Since Eric’s people had turned off the airlock instruments, there was no way of determining the atmospheric pressure on the inside, and the repair crew wore full spacesuits. Eric wanted them functioning under just such a misconception. It would slow them down.
Several more hours passed before the repair crew requested and received permission to cut the lock seals. Lasers were in the process of being unloaded when the airlock suddenly slid aside and the armed colonists yanked the clumsily clad repair crew inside, together with their equipment.
As the lock was quickly resealed, Jeeter was able to report to Eric. “We’ve got ’em.”
“That should make them think long and hard before trying again,” Eric replied, concentrating fully on his work, "but next time they’ll bring weapons along. I think it’s time we made contact with Station authorities.”
It wasn’t necessary. Before he could compose a suitable greeting, the communications speakers throughout the Station roared to life.
“This is Commander Karl Rasmusson, of City Security! You are in illegal possession of WOSA property, whoever you are. Identify yourselves!”
