Helm Read online

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is strictly coincidental.

  Helm

  Copyright © 1998 by Steven Gould. All rights reserved.

  Cover Art by Steven Gould

  This novel was first published in hardback by Tor Books (Tom Doherty and Associates) in April of 1998, followed by paperback editions beginning in Febrary of 1999 and continuing to the present. For Print Editions, see the many fine retailers of Tor Books.

  First Electronic Edition August 2010

  ISBN

  978-0-9829119-2-1

  digitalNoir publishing

  PO Box 40493

  Albuquerque, NM 87196-0493

  http://digitalNoir.com/publishing

  In the event you discover errors in the text of this edition, we'd love to fix them. Please email us at [email protected] and not only will we fix them, we'll send you back a corrected edition in the format you originally purchased. Please send the title, chapter number, and surrounding context as page numbers vary depending on platform and font size.

  Books by Steven Gould

  The Jumper Series

  Jumper

  Reflex

  Jumper: Griffin's Story

  Impulse (forthcoming)

  Standalone Novels

  Wildside

  Helm

  Blind Waves

  7th Sigma (May 2011)

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks are due to my sempai, Ron Druva, for screening the aikido scenes in this book for accuracy. Any mistakes that remain are my fault. More general and heartfelt thanks are due to all my teachers and fellow students at Southwestern Aikikai and in the Western Region of the United States Aikido Federation.

  Acknowledgements for the eBook Edition

  I no longer had the original digital files for Helm when I decided to publish this eBook edition so I had to work with scanned pages and the consequent errors introduced by Optical Character Recognition software. Thanks are due to a host of volunteers who not only helped me stomp out these unwanted OCR artifacts, but also helped me fix errors that had long persisted in the print editions of the book. These include things that I hadn't realized were mistakes. So, I am incredibly grateful (in no particular order) to Adam Kanuchok, Charles Coons, Dennis Owens, James Kenney, Jonathan Mulcahy, Katrina Archer, Lance Baker, Lucas Young, Matthew Willson, Michael Jones, Mike Giroux, Paul Robichaux, Rob Holm, Ron Druva, Sarah Goslee, simon.kempster, and Tim Fredenburg.

  Thanks again, guys. You made it far, far easier than it would have been.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Copyright

  Books by Steven Gould

  Acknowledgements

  Quote

  Prologue: KATSU JIN KEN—THE SWORD THAT SAVES LIFE

  Chapter 1: SHOSHIN—BEGINNER'S MIND

  Chapter 2: RENSHU—REN (REPEAT) SHU (LEARN) OR LEARN BY REPEATING

  Chapter 3: KUZUSHIN—DISRUPTION OF BALANCE

  Chapter 4: KIHON—FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES

  Chapter 5: UKEMI—LITERALLY RECEIVING [WITH/THROUGH] THE BODY

  Chapter 6: KOSHIN—MOVING BACKWARD

  Chapter 7: KI MUSUBI—KNOTTING UP, CONNECTING, KI

  Chapter 8: TAMESHIGIRI—TEST CUTTING

  Chapter 9: ZENSHIN—MOVING FORWARD

  Chapter 10: HITORI WAZA— INVISIBLE PARTNER PRACTICE

  Chapter 11: SETSUZOKU—CONNECTION

  Chapter 12: TANINSUGAKE—TRAINING AGAINST MULTIPLE ATTACKERS

  Chapter 13: NANKEN—BAD SWORD

  Chapter 14: SEI—MOTIONLESS, INACTIVE

  Chapter 15: IRIMI—TO ENTER

  Chatper 16: SETSU NINTO—THE SWORD THAT KILLS

  Chapter 17: SHIKAKU—POSITION RELATIVE TO ONE'S PARTNER WHERE IT IS DIFFICULT FOR THEM TO CONTINUE AN ATTACK

  Chapter 18: SUTEMI—TO THROW AWAY THE BODY

  Chapter 19: MA AI— PROPER DISTANCE

  Chapter 20: AI UCHI—MUTUAL KILL

  Chapter 21: KAESHI WAZA—REVERSALS

  Chapter 22: KENSHO—ENLIGHTENMENT

  Chapter 23: RANDORI—FREE-STYLE (ALL-OUT) TRAINING

  Chapter 24: NINJYO—COMPASSION

  Epilogue: KACHIHA YABI—VICTORY AT THE SPEED OF SUNLIGHT

  About the Author

  Depending on the circumstance, you should be:

  hard as a diamond,

  flexible as a willow,

  smooth—flowing like water,

  or empty as space.

  —Morihei Ueshiba

  Prologue

  KATSU JIN KEN: THE SWORD THAT SAVES LIFE

  They huddled on the floor, shoulder to shoulder, in a rock pocket off the main corridor, moving their heads carefully to avoid banging them on the low roof. A single low-wattage light shone down on dirty hands clutching notes and data screens. Unkempt hair floated above wrinkled brows and sunken cheeks. The fresh, sharp tang of acetic acid from caulk-covered cracks mixed with the ever-present smell of sweat, ammonia, and feces.

  Those crowded into the corridor outside envied them.

  “Is the recorder on?”

  “Yes.”

  “This meeting of the executive committee is in session. Minutes are accepted as filed. The only item on the agenda is the emigration vote.”

  A minor quake shook the rock slightly and Dr. Herrin stopped talking. Eyes widened and down the corridor somebody started screaming and thrashing around. Dr. Herrin ignored the noise and concentrated on her breathing.

  She was sitting seiza, on her shins, composed, her shoulders relaxed, a sharp contrast to the others, who were sitting cross-legged or leaning back against the rough rock walls. Many of those clutched their knees and squeezed their eyes shut.

  If the section was holed badly, there wasn’t anything that could be done. There weren’t enough pressure suits to go around. She hoped that the panic in the corridor wouldn’t spread. They had to keep the pathway clear so that the emergency squads could get to smaller leaks—the ones that could be repaired.

  The month before they’d lost forty-nine men, women, and children when a quake holed a corridor. Vacuum decompression is a violent death, and any death was hard to face after so many dead on Earth. Two of the cleanup crew went back to their niches and poisoned themselves.

  The quake subsided and the screams down the hall died to violent sobbing. Dr. Herrin continued. “There is high confidence in the accuracy of this data?” Novato, a woman wearing a faded pair of NASA/ESA coveralls, nodded.

  Herrin swallowed convulsively, then put her fingertips to her temples and closed her eyes. “Let’s reiterate.” She opened her eyes and held up five fingers. “The probe data is more than conclusive. Epsilon Eridani has an Earth-sized planet with a CO2 nitrogen/water vapor atmosphere. The probe has initiated phase one seeding and initial results are excellent—the tailored bacteria are reproducing exponentially and already producing detectable oxygen. And, as you know, these results are twenty-five years old. Based on this data, current estimates indicate that by now, though there are still toxic levels of CO2, the atmosphere is at least ten percent oxygen.

  “However, in the hundred and thirty years it will take the ship to reach the system, the bacteria will finish the job. The atmosphere will be fully breathable. Resulting temperatures will be in the Earth-normal range.

  “These are not only encouraging results—they’re optimal.”

  Stavinoha, a middle-aged man with a shaved head, said, “It’s certainly better than we can get from this solar system.” Stavinoha had been the last person off Planet Earth, launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in a converted ICBM six weeks after the Earth’s mantle was breached at Tehran and, miraculously, snagged at the peak of his ballistic arc by an American Epsilon-Class orbital
tug. Unlike the rest of them, he knew firsthand how bad conditions were on the planet.

  The temperatures at Earth’s equator hovered around 4 degrees Centigrade.

  Snowstorms and high-altitude dust clouded the planet.

  Herrin continued. “There are seven thousand humans on the moon in facilities designed for six hundred. If we don’t do something about reducing the load on our current resources, everyone will die. Given our current status, we might die even if we do reduce the load.”

  More nods.

  “So, we send four thousand in the ship in cold sleep for one hundred and twenty-five years. However, since it was designed for one thousand, we’ll have to use cargo space as well. This is acceptable because we can’t afford to send all that equipment and supplies away. We need it here to survive on Luna and, eventually, to rehabilitate the Earth.”

  “But they’ll need that equipment!” said the NASA/ESA rep. “It was in the original mission specs!”

  Dr. Herrin shook her head. “Yes and no. They’ll need that equipment if they’re to have a high-tech society at that end. It’s been estimated that they won’t need it to survive. It’s a certainty that we do need it here to survive.”

  She paused to look around the room. “So…our main problem is how to insure they have the highest chances of survival given a low-tech environment.” Dr. Herrin looked now at Dr. Guyton, a small man wedged into the corner outside the circle of the executive committee. “I’d like the Focus Committee to summarize the proposal.”

  Dr. Guyton, an anthropologist, leaned forward and cleared his throat. “We feel that there are three areas we must concentrate on: nutrition, hygiene, and literacy. As you know, the ship already holds a comprehensive and nearly indestructible library. If we can get the colony to retain literacy while surviving the initial colonization effort, we think they can build back to a comparable technology within three hundred years. In the meanwhile, maintaining good hygiene and nutrition will take care of ninety percent of their health problems. Other problems can be taken care of by practical nursing, but, no matter which way you stretch it, they’ll lose people that we could save with our current technology.”

  He looked around to make sure everyone understood. “What is needed is a strongly enforced code of behavior that will insure good nutrition and hygiene as well as keep succeeding generations literate.

  “Codes of this kind have been a part of every viable culture in our planet’s history, but the most striking example is that of the Talmudic Laws followed by Judaism. Not only do they provide specific instruction on nutrition and hygiene, they also require a Jew to demonstrate literacy as he comes of age.”

  “We don’t have four thousand Jews on the moon,” said Spruill of Logistics. “No, of course not. Besides, we need a much more abbreviated version than the Talmud. It contains much that is inapplicable and, frankly, counter to survival under these circumstances. My staff has prepared the basic tenets, and we are fleshing them out. We will be ready by the time the ship is.”

  Bauer, a former congressman from Connecticut, spoke. “What’s to make them follow your code? When they’re scrambling to stay alive on that distant world, what’s to make them take the time to teach it to their children? Are you going to hand it down to them on clay tablets?”

  “No.” Dr. Guyton exchanged glances with Dr. Herrin. “We propose using the imprinter.”

  Bauer recoiled. “Jesus Christ!”

  Another voice said, “You want to do what?”

  There was a moment of chaos as everybody tried to speak at once. It subsided almost immediately, but faces betrayed rage and fear.

  Herrin raised her hand and let the silence stretch a bit before she spoke.

  “Consider carefully, please. Everything depends on what we decide here today.” She waited a moment. “Bauer, you object to the imprinter?”

  “Our fellow humans destroyed each other because of the imprinter! I’m outraged that there’s even one on the moon! How could this happen?”

  Dr. Guyton shook his head. “There isn’t an imprinter on the moon…but we know how to make them.” He leaned forward and held out his hands. “Look, it’s true that the French dropped Mag Bottle Seventy-four on Tehran because the Iranians were using the imprinter to forcibly convert Muslims and non-Muslims to their particular brand of Shiite fundamentalism. But this is an argument against antimatter as much as it is against the imprinter. We can’t ignore the fact that it could make the difference between life and death for the human race! If we imprint the tenets on the colonists, they’ll adhere to them automatically—with almost religious fervor. This will assure that they pass it on to their children at the earliest age. It’s not as if we’re inducting them into a particular political or religious philosophy.

  “And we must also consider the imprinter’s ability to drop a lifetime of experience into the user’s mind. If we were to send loaded imprinters with the crew, we would have a further hedge against failure.”

  Bauer exploded. “At what cost? You know that information instilled by personality dump is useless without adequate preparatory education. You do that to an ignorant man and you’ll end up with a dangerously confused ignorant man. Besides, no matter whom you choose for the template, there’s no such thing as slant-free information. A political bent will still be imparted!”

  Dr. Herrin leaned forward. “We are wasting time.”

  “It’s important!”

  “As important as the survival of the human race?” Dr. Herrin turned to Dr. Guyton. “Is that the extent of the proposal?”

  “I just want to point out, again, that this also gets all the antimatter manufactured to date out of the system. But yes, that’s the extent of the proposal,” the anthropologist said.

  “Then I call for a vote.”

  The tally of the main committee was seven in favor, one against.

  Dr. Herrin looked at the next page of her clipboard. “Very well. Prepare the catapult. Initiate the ship modifications after the cargo has been removed from the holds and put in stable orbits. We currently don’t have the fuel to bring it down to the moon’s surface, but it’ll be safe up there until we do. As soon as the passenger bags are ready for the launch buckets and the ship is moved to the L-2 point, we set up a catcher crew. As proposed earlier, imprinting will be done after the first stage of cold sleep prep. If they wake up at the other end”—she spread her hands and exhaled—”well, they’ll have religion.”

  After the vote, Bauer had rested his face in his hands, but he looked up at she said this. “You’re not going to tell them?”

  “No,” the chairman said.

  Bauer’s face turned white. “You must! If you don’t, I will!”

  The chairman looked at his furious face and thought about her two daughters, now among five billion humans dead. “Consider how many lives your announcement would end. Panic leading to riots could kill us all.”

  “Nonsense,” said Bauer. “That’s the sort of argument that’s been used to control people through the ages. The only way I’ll keep quiet is if you abandon this plan to use the imprinter.”

  She placed the palms of her hands together, fingers up, and bowed from the waist. “Then I’m sorry.”

  He frowned, puzzled. “Sorry? What do you mean? If you think for one minute that an apology will change my—”

  She moved, then, forward in shikko, samurai knee-walking, skimming the floor, really, in the low gravity.

  He raised his hands as she closed, uncertain, surprised. She was a small woman, unarmed, after all, and he was a large man.

  She brushed her right arm against his right wrist and then pivoted, sliding beside him, faster than he could turn to follow. As he tried to twist around, she swept his right arm down with both of her hands, to the floor and back, then the edge of her left hand cut down into the back of his shoulder as she moved behind him, twisting her hips. He bent over abruptly, facedown, his own arm a crowbar levering his torso down.

  She reached across
the back of his head with her right hand, slid it down across the side of his face, and reached under, to cup his chin. Then she pulled, twisting her hips and shoulder back in one abrupt movement.

  Bauer stared up at her, his torso still facing down, his neck twisted one hundred eighty degrees.

  Everyone in the small chamber heard his spine snap.

  Dr. Herrin laid him on his back, carefully, folding his hands across his chest, then backed away, still on her knees. She bowed again, to the body.

  The rest of the committee stared, shocked, shifting their eyes between her and Bauer’s lifeless form.

  When Dr. Herrin finally spoke, her voice was calm. “The vote on emigration stands. I depend on you, Dr. Guyton, to handle the imprinting procedure with appropriate candor. As to my behavior in this incident”—she nodded toward Bauer’s body—“I tender my immediate resignation.”

  She slumped then, her hands folded on her lap, her eyes downcast. In a quiet, empty voice she said, “I have betrayed my training. If the committee decides I should live, I would like to go with the colony.”

  Chapter 1

  SHOSHIN: BEGINNER’S MIND

  First there was the cyanophyta, the blue-green algae, a hundred different kinds, tailored to float at various strata of the atmosphere, to lie in puddles of water, to infest the shallow seas. They were injected into the upper atmosphere in ablative capsules that exploded when they’d sloughed off enough heat and velocity and floated on the winds.

  Some varieties went extinct, never finding their needed habitat, but others thrived, harvesting carbon out of the all-too-plentiful CO2 and releasing oxygen and, at an exponential rate, reproducing.

  Next, when the temperatures began to subside, came the lichens, desert, arctic, jungle, temperate—tiny filaments of fungus surrounding algae cells. These soredium fell like fine ash, scattered through the atmosphere to fall gently to the rocky surface.