The Exxar Chronicles: Book 02 - Emissary

by Neal Jones

  "Yes, speaking of work, what the hell if going on? Why are you here?"

  "I talked Mercer into giving us the Gateway Prime project. The rest of the team is arriving next week, and then we're all going to move to Gateway Prime for the next eight months, possibly longer. Depends on what we find in that eight months and how much more cooperation we can wrangle from Ilkara in that time."

  Laura stopped walking and turned, throwing off Keith's arm in the process. "You did what?"

  Keith turned back, nearly colliding with an older woman. He apologized and then stepped out of the flow of traffic. Laura joined him, though there wasn't much room for them to stand out of the way in the cramped corridor.

  "I know, I know," Keith said. "The wedding. I haven't forgotten about that. We've got six weeks to settle in at K'Ssala, and then we'll travel back to Mars for a month. That's long enough for the wedding and the honeymoon. Ted agreed to give us ten days instead of seven – for the honeymoon, I mean." He paused, frowning at Laura's expression. "What?"

  She shook her head. "Nothing. You're right, it's exactly what I wanted. This project, it's what I wanted. It makes sense for you and I to head it up." Laura started towards the PTL again. "So who's all on the team? Please don't tell me Doctor Klakt wormed his way on board, because if he did, he's gonna get my foot in his ass. I'm serious this time. I've had enough of his bullshit."

  Keith laughed as they waited for the next car to arrive. "No, no, I made sure of that. There is one other piece of good news."

  "Oh?"

  "You got a promotion."

  Laura gasped. "Senior director of Anthro-Tech?" Anthro-Tech was short for Anthropologic Technology. It was one of the many divisions of the FCE that dealt with uncovering, analyzing, and cataloguing the technological remnants of long-dead alien civilizations.

  Keith nodded, and then it was his turn to gasp as Laura suddenly embraced him in a fit of girlish enthusiasm. "Congratulations!" he said, his voice muffled by her hair.

  The PTL arrived, and the doors opened. Laura pulled away, her cheeks reddening as she glanced behind them to see if anyone had been witness to her celebratory display. "Thank you." She thought for a moment, and then said, "Wait a minute. If I'm senior director, what happened to Wark? Did he decide to retire after all?"

  "Yes and no. According to Ted, Wark is semi-retiring."

  "What? How does somebody semi-retire?"

  "Wark's going to stay on as a part-time consultant. 'Health reasons' was what Ted quoted to me, which means –"

  "-his wife finally nagged him into retirement," Laura finished. "Excuse me, semi-retirement." She chuckled and shook her head. "Talk about lucky timing."

  "That's what I thought, because now you're looking at the assistant director of Anthro-Tech."

  "So that's how you could afford first class," Laura teased. "Congratulations."

  "Thanks. You don't seem too surprised that it was me."

  "Who else would it be? Doctor Klakt?"

  "He's been in Anthro-Tech for the last ten years. He's got eight years of seniority on me."

  "He's an ass, and Ted knows it. That's why he gave the position to you. He's hoping that Klakt is going to get pissed off enough to either transfer or quit altogether. Especially after the way that he botched that dig on Nyvos-four three years ago."

  The PTL's computer gave a soft chime as it slid to a halt. Laura followed Keith into the corridor, sidestepping a group of officers who were waiting to board. She was already creating a mental to-do list as they entered her quarters.

  "Wow, these are pretty nice," Keith remarked.

  "Hi, Keith," Jeanette said, emerging from the kitchen. "I made some spaghetti for lunch. Either of you want any?"

  "I will," Laura said as she sat at her desk and switched on her terminal.

  "Me too," Keith replied. He followed his stepdaughter into the kitchen, glancing back to make sure the door closed behind them. "Before we go back out there, tell me about him."

  "Who? My father?"

  "Yeah. What's he like?"

  "Well, we haven't really spent a lot of time together. We went out to dinner again the other night. He told me some more about his side of the family, about his parents and siblings. He even invited me back to Earth with him on his next shore leave to meet them."

  "Wow. That sounds pretty nice."

  Jeanette nodded. "Yeah, it does." She scooped some casserole onto a pair of dinner plates. "But that's not what you really wanted to know, was it?"

  Keith looked sheepish as he admitted, "No. It's not."

  "So what do you want to know?"

  It was a good question. Keith thought it over for a minute, and then said, "I assume that they've had more than one conversation together."

  "Obviously. She had to tell him about me, and about why I was here."

  "And after that? Have there been any dinner dates?"

  "What do you think?"

  "How many?"

  "Two that I know of."

  Keith frowned at his plate, absently stirring his spaghetti with his fork.

  "She hasn't cheated on you, Keith. Mom's not like that. She and Marc just have a lot of stuff to work through. They haven't spoken for twenty-three years."

  "I know, I know," he sighed. "And I trust your mom. It's just..." He shoved a forkful of pasta into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.

  "You want to meet him, don't you?"

  Keith smiled and nodded. "I guess so."

  "You were never this interested in Alec or Braden."

  "That's because your mother told me all about them. Well, not everything obviously, but enough that they weren't such a mystery. Your father, though..."

  Jeanette nodded. "It wasn't until I was in high school that she finally told me his name. Look, I honestly don't think you have anything to worry about. She's marrying you. Marc is part of the past."

  Yeah, so are Alec and Braden, Keith thought as he followed Jeanette into the living room.

  ( 4 )

  Marc strolled the length of the promenade's second level, not really seeing the storefronts or the other shoppers. He stared at the ground, tired, lost in thought, with no particular destination in mind. He didn't remember telling the PTL to bring him here, but this was where the lift stopped so he must have said something because he'd been the car's only passenger. His stomach growled again, reminding him how long it had been since lunch, and maybe that was why he'd come to the promenade. But now that he was here he didn't feel like waiting in line for takeout, and he liked even less the thought of sitting down somewhere and suffering the background noise of a restaurant at this hour.

  Marc turned left and headed for a PTL. He would go back to his quarters, open a bottle of Scotch, and order up something from the food dispenser. But as soon as the doors closed, he changed his mind once more.

  "Recreation deck," he told the lift's computer.

  It was an idea that had occurred to him late last night, as he stared into the dark, calming himself in the aftermath of another nightmare. He'd been thinking of Laura again, as well as the conversation he'd had with Grax about what his life would have been like had he left the academy. He knew that dwelling on the "what-if" scenario at this point was only going to deepen his current depression, but he couldn't help it. A part of him was morbidly curious, and last night he had decided to use the Hiver to bring that scenario to virtual life.

  There were six rooms available, and Gabriel chose the last one on the right. Hiver rooms were usually 24x24, with blank, gray walls and ceiling. Three of the walls had four wide stripes that were spaced evenly apart. Inside each stripe was a column of five, circular devices set inside the wall. These were the holographic emitters, responsible for creating whatever physical illusion the user desired. The fourth wall was occupied by the entrance, and thus had only two columns instead of four. Gabriel tapped the computer panel next to the entrance to wake it up, and then accessed the 3D interface.

  Commands could be either be entered vocally or m
anually. Because the commodore would be creating the scenario from scratch rather than using one of the thousands of templates already in the Hiver's memory, he chose to input his commands manually, as it would save time. His first task was to open a file, save it, and then create the characters. He started with himself, accessing his own psychological profile as a foundation, and then proceeding from there. This Marcus Gabriel was not an officer in EarthCorps. Instead, he would be a financial systems analyst for a private investment firm on Mars.

  Next, Laura Sysko. Except in this scenario her last name would be Gabriel. She and Marc would have been married for ten years, and she would be a systems analyst also, but her forte was the engineering systems of long dead alien civilizations. She was what is officially known as an anthropological engineer, studying the remnants of technology that has been left behind from ancient civilizations that once occupied this quadrant of space. The psych profile for this Laura was harder because Marc didn't have access to her official FCE profile. But he had known Laura intimately for two years, and he felt confident in the profile that he constructed from scratch for this fictional character. After all, the scenario he was creating would take place only ten years after their marriage ceremony, which occurred six months after this version of Marc dropped out of the academy at the end of his junior year. It wasn't hard to guess how Laura would behave and act after only ten years' time.

  Now the children. The commodore took a few moments to think about this part of the scenario. Jeanette would definitely be present here, nine years old, the firstborn. Then perhaps a boy? Six...no, seven years old, and he would have his father's face but his mother's attitudes. His name would be...Jackson, after Laura's grandfather on her mother's side. And then the last child. Another girl, or another boy? Another boy, Marc decided. Three years old. His birthday party, in fact, would be the first chapter of this scenario, and his name would be...Logan. No special significance, except that it was the first to occur to Gabriel in that moment.

  The next step was to have the computer extrapolate what the three children would look like at their present ages given that Marc and Laura were their parents. This took the Hiver's computer exactly four-point-six seconds, and then Marc commanded it to display the Gabriel family in the center of the room, standing together, as if posing for a photo. The computer obeyed, and the commodore took a few moments to look over the holographic portrait. His counterpart was wearing a suit and tie, Laura was dressed in business casual, and the children were wearing play clothes. Logan was being cuddled in his mother's arms, smiling at nothing in particular, his green eyes wide and expressive. They were all smiling, in fact, and they looked like a happy, normal family.

  Marc nodded his approval, and then turned back to the 3D console. He pulled up the template menu and selected a house for his family. They would be living on Mars, of course, because that was where FCE headquarters were located, and where Marc and Laura settled after the honeymoon. A lovely town named New Churchill, in fact. Population was only 35,000, and the young couple had selected this particular place because of its remote location along the eastern coast of Sherman's Continent, Mars' second largest. And also because of its schools. Jeanette was in fourth grade, Jackson in second, and they both were pulling excellent grades. Because of the size of New Churchill, the student/teacher ratio at every school was in good balance, and Laura had been especially pleased about this. Marc was more than happy to go along with her decision because whatever made his wife happy made him happy.

  The commodore smiled to himself as he programmed the final touches. This was a good idea, much better than sitting alone in his quarters and drinking himself into dreamless oblivion. His last task was to tell the computer the level of conflict for this scenario. Because of the detailed psych profiles of Marc and Laura, the computer could extrapolate on its own what a probable level of conflict would be, but the user also had the option of inputting further external or internal conflict, or both. Put simply, it all depended on whether or not one wanted to enjoy a family sitcom/drama or a sudsy soap opera.

  In this case, Marc wanted something that was true to life, and for most people who lived this type of life in the civilian world, the level of expected conflict was somewhere around thirty percent. The computer recommended thirty-two-point-seven percent, and Marc upped it to an even thirty-five.

  His last command was spoken. "Computer, begin scenario."

  The family disappeared, and the living room of a five bedroom, two story house materialized in their place. Three tall, wide windows in the east wall gave a panoramic view of the coast, which was currently being bombarded by the frothy, foaming emerald tide of the Shanghai Sea. Today was particularly windy, which was often the case at this time of year on the coast. Thanks to decades of terraforming in the late twenty-first century, the crimson planet had possessed a breathable atmosphere for several centuries now. And judging by the position of the sun in that red and cream sky, it was probably early or mid-afternoon.

  The coffee table had been moved aside so that Logan and his friends could play a game of duck-duck-goose. Laura and two other mothers were supervising, and Jeanette was helping Jackson assemble the presents in the large easy chair near the east wall. Marc had instructed the computer to fill in the other players in this scenario with a random assortment, extrapolated logically, of course, from current statistical information about the population of the real New Churchill.

  There were two types of holographic scenarios: interactive and spectator. The commodore had opted for the latter for this scenario, and that meant that no one could see him, hear him, or touch him. He could walk through the center of the room, passing through the holographic characters like the Ghost of Christmas Alternative Past, if he wished. He settled for a seat at the bar instead, watching the fictional Marcus Gabriel kneel beside his youngest son and whisper something into his ear. Logan laughed, looking across the circle at one of his toddler guests, and it was clear that the father had told his son which one to choose.

  "Oh, Marc, stop it," Laura chided. "Let him decide who to choose."

  "'Whom to choose'", Jeanette corrected her mother. "We learned that yesterday in class."

  "Oh, excuse me," Laura replied with mock chagrin. "Hailey, will you help me with the cake? Jackson, stop that!"

  "What?" He put down the package he'd been shaking. "It sounds like a Lego set, and Logan's too young for Legos."

  "Well, then, it's probably not Legos."

  "But it's so big –"

  Their voices were cut off by the swinging door that separated the dining room and kitchen from the living room. The commodore turned his attention back to the game where Logan was running full speed around the circle, and he passed the empty spot of the boy he'd picked to chase him.

  "Logan, stop!" the other Marc called, laughing. "Right here. Sit right here."

  "All right, everybody, it's time for cake," Laura announced, returning to the living room with the birthday centerpiece in hand. She set it on the coffee table while Hailey and the other mothers herded their toddlers into a group around it. Marc picked up his son and plopped him into the middle of the crowd, right in front of the cake. "Only three candles, buddy, you can do it."

  "Marc, did you see where I put the camera?" Laura asked.

  "Right here, mom!" Jeanette passed it over.

  A burst of laughter turned Laura's attention back to her son, and she was shocked to see Logan stuffing his face with chocolate cake and vanilla icing. "Logan!" she exclaimed, trying to smother her own surprised laughter with motherly indignation.

  "What?" he asked with the type of innocence that only a three year old can muster. "Good cake, mommy!"

  "I want some!" Two year old Megan reached out and scooped up a fistful of icing.

  It was too late to stop the chain reaction, as the dozen or so toddlers dove in with all the fury of a starving mob. Laura passed the camera off to Marc so she could help the other mothers contain the mess before the eating turned into an all
-out food fight. The party guests were quickly herded into the kitchen, and Jeanette followed with the cake – or what was left of it.

  "When are we gonna open presents?" Jackson asked, bringing up the rear.

  In a matter of moments, Commodore Gabriel was alone, still seated at the bar, looking around a living room – a house – that wasn't his; in a city that he had never lived in; on a planet that he had only visited once in his life. He stood and walked to the east windows, watching the sea as the Martian wind whipped and stirred the green and white tide. The sun's rays passing through the panes warmed his face, and he smiled as he closed his eyes. It was all an illusion, a perfectly constructed illusion, but an illusion nonetheless.

  Yet Gabriel felt as if he'd finally come home.

  ( 5 )

  She stands far off, a safe enough distance from the crowd that he won't be able to see her. She's in the shade of a pair of tall evergreens, watching the graduation ceremony, waiting for them to call his name.

  The baby, whom Laura named Jeanette, is with Laura's aunt. Jeanette's only two months old, and she looks so much like her father that it makes Laura's heart ache sometimes, and that's partly why she's here today. She needs to see him one more time, even if it's from a distance. The ache is so deep, so painful at times, that Laura can hardly breathe, and she chastises herself for being so dramatic.

  It's over, and it was the right decision, but as she stands here now, watching the cadets in their dress uniforms crossing that massive stage, she wonders yet again if she's made the right choice. He was willing to sacrifice all of this – the uniform, the admiration of his parents, the promising career – all of it for her, and for that she broke his heart. Even now she doesn't completely understand why she did it, but she knows in her gut that she did the right thing.

  Laura closes her eyes, giving a rueful sigh, knowing how utterly irrational she's being, but she can't help it. What's done is done, and this is all for the best. Marc will do what he was destined to do, and he will carry on the Gabriel legacy with pride and distinction. And she...she will complete graduate school. She's already been guaranteed a position with the Federation Corps of Engineers, in their anthro-tech division, as soon as she graduates. Laura's always been driven by two things: ambition and discipline. Some deep part of her, a part that she's reluctant to give voice to, knows that Marc is just as driven to succeed as she is, and that he would have bitterly regretted someday sacrificing his career for hers.