Worlds Apart Read Online Free PDF Page A

destroy New New would take a direct hit from a large hydrogen bomb.”
    “I understand.”
    “Well, that’s just what we’re faced with. They have a hydrogen bomb and they plan to use it on us.” He waved at the cube on the wall, which was showing a map of Africa. “From Zaire.”
    She stared at him. “
Who
has a hydrogen bomb? How could they get it here?”
    He sorted through papers and handed her two sheets. “Read this. It’s utterly fantastic.”
    It was no secret that many of the survivors on Earth thought the Worlds were responsible for the war. An energy boycott against the United States had precipitated the revolution that within hours escalated into nuclear war.
    So here was a group that had decided to do something about it: revenge.
Die Schwerter Gott
, the Swords of God, a group of young Germans who had managed to remove the warhead from a missile that hadn’t fired. They were moving it to the spaceport in Zaire, one of two launch facilities that had survived the war. There was a shuttle on the pad; they planned to load the bomb into the cargo hold and launch a suicide mission.
    “But that’s not possible, is it? There aren’t any engineers left, no pilots.”
    “It is barely possible. That shuttle is one of the luxury designs from Mercedes. Very fast, very wasteful of fuel, but it can take twenty or so people from Earth to high orbit in one go, two days’ flight. It’s automated to a fare-thee-well; anyone who can read the manual and punch acomputer could get it here. They couldn’t dock safely, not without a skilled pilot, but that’s immaterial to them.”
    She handed back the papers. “You want us to go to Earth and stop them?”
    “Actually, what we hope is that you’ll get to Zaire before they do. They’re having trouble transporting the bomb; there’s no air transport left in Europe. They’re moving it overland to Spain, where they’ll get a boat to Magreb. That’s how we found out about them, intercepting radio messages while they were arranging for the boat.”
    “What if we get there too late?”
    “You’re stuck. Our shuttle will get you there, but you have to take theirs to get back.”
    “Is there anybody there, at the spaceport?”
    “The telescope shows a few people wandering around. No organized activity; no communications we’ve been able to monitor.”
    “But they aren’t likely to let us just walk in and hijack their shuttle.”
    “Who can say? You might scare them all off when you land.”
    “I suppose.” She shook her head. “I have to make a decision right away, can’t talk to anybody?”
    “Just to me. You have to decide before you leave this room.”
    “When would we be taking off?”
    He looked at his watch. “About seven hours from now. You go from here straight to the hub.”
    O’Hara stood up and crossed the room. She stared at the cube for a minute. “I just don’t understand. Why me? Just because I’ve been to the Zaire spaceport?”
    “Partly because you’ve been there. Partly because…there may be violence. Not many people in New New have any experience with that.”
    “You seem to know an awful lot about me,” she said evenly. “Who gave you that bit of information? One of my husbands?”
    “Says here… it’s from a transcript, um, of the therapy sessions you had last year.”
    “How the hell could you get your hands on that?”
    “I couldn’t. But if the Coordinators want something, they can generally get it.”
    “You want me to believe that one of the Coordinators sat down and went through confidential medical records, just in case something useful might show up?”
    “Of course not; it was done by someone in my office. But under the Coordinators’ authority. It was a simple computer search, semantic association—and we didn’t single you out. Everybody’s records were searched.”
    “That’s nice to know. Nobody has civil rights.”
    “It’s temporary. You have to admit that the situation—”
    “I guess we