The Loneliness of Stars

by Z. M. Wilmot

  ~Fineas Sparten, in his personal diary

  I woke up at 0430 to help Joseph. I don’t know how many times I messed something up, but the breakfasts must have been interesting, to say the least. Immediately after that was done, before I could have more than a few bites, Fetherkap stole me away and told me which rooms needed cleaning. The main engine room was one of those rooms. I was hesitant to do it, but then I realized that neither Mather nor Korzos were alive, and felt a little better. Cleaning it still took longer than I had intended.

  I also had three other rooms to clean before I helped with lunch, and so had to do a rushed job on those. I was going to have to learn to manage my time better. On the bright side, my panic at the possibility of being late for lunch preparations certainly woke me up.

  I did a much better job making lunch than the day before. Joseph was pleased, and even paid me a compliment. After lunch, I polished various pieces of machinery for a while, then went up to one of the ECU (Environmental Containment Unit) rooms.

  Ezekiel had shown me this room in passing on our tour, as well as the other five of them, but I had been more interested in him than the rooms at the time, and hadn’t paid too much attention. The interior of the room was filled with four massive tanks of water, stretching from the floor almost up to the ceiling. Pipes came out of black bases at the bottom of these tanks, and went into the walls and floor. The water was filled with more green algae than I had ever seen in my life (though that isn’t too surprising, considering Raheera wasn’t a coastal city). A low hissing sound filled the room, seeming to come from large air filters set into the ceiling.

  The floor was absolutely filthy, covered with muck, algae, and dirty water. I began mopping immediately. After a few minutes, I heard footsteps. I jumped, startled. I turned to see a fellow crewmember, dressed all in gray, walk in and stop. He looked rather startled. “My apologies… Jak, is it?” I nodded.

  He extended his hand. “My name’s Stephen. Stephen Krafting.” After glancing at my disgusting, gloved hands, he hesitantly withdrew his own. “Cleaning?” I nodded again. He smiled sympathetically. “It’s about as fun as it looks – not at all. This one is worse than the other five. Units one and two are just air filters, and five and six have land plants. Three and four have the aquatic algae and most of the water filtration.” He grinned. “Yes, the water in here is the water you drink.”

  I looked at the tanks filled with green gunk, and I shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

  He raised one eyebrow at me. “Have you now? Where’re you from?”

  I lowered by eyes, embarrassed. “Baja. Raheera.”

  “Ah. I should have known – that’s where we took off from.” He laughed. “I’m from Miridian.”

  I didn’t recognize the country. “Miridian?”

  He nodded. “Aye. One of the smaller nations on New Dominica. My journey to Raheera was my first visit to Earth – and it might be my only one. I’m the EO on the ship.”

  Most environmental officers were scientists, or at the very least had some limited scientific experience. Considering he was a member of an all-star crew from the entire Terran Home Rule, I guessed that he was a scientist, and I asked him if he was.

  “Not really – sorry to disappoint you. I have the minimum scientific training required for the job. I was picked for my managing experience. Allon Lazu, my co-EO, is the… ‘scientific’ mind, if you could call it that, though he really only does closed-system ecology – not useful for much other than air and water circulation.

  “Anyway, I’ll let you get back to work. I have to make sure everything’s working in here. Enjoy your cleaning.” He walked behind one of the tanks before I could mutter my thanks, and I kept cleaning.

  I finished a few minutes before I was supposed to help with dinner, and I had to run to get there on time. Dinner went well. Afterwards, I slept again, as I had done the day before, then again rushed to the observatory when it was time for my shift.

  The cycle repeated endlessly. We began to move out of the system again after two days. On the day before we resumed our journey, we had a memorial dinner for all who had died (except Korzos – which Ivor was quick to point out). That was hard. All of the memories I had of Ezekiel came back then, and much of the grief that I had missed out on manifested itself. I don’t remember much of it, being wrapped up as I was in my misery. There were speeches given. Vincent himself gave a spectacular, heart-warming one that earned him a standing ovation. The food was good, too. A lot of work had gone into making it – I would know. It had taken us longer than usual to prepare. At least we got to eat it with the rest of the crew.

  The day after the feast, we left for the next star, which was a mere week away. On the third day of our journey, the monotonous cycle of my schedule was interrupted by an invitation from Vincent. He asked me to see him in the captain’s office after lunch was done. He said I didn’t need to worry about my other duties.

  I hadn’t talked to Vincent in a while (I knew he was the captain now, but he had taken time out of his job to see me before), and I was happy to see him again. Despite having never been in the office before, Ezekiel had shown me where it was. I found it without trouble.

  I had just raised my hand to knock on the door when it slid open. Vincent stood in front of me. His face broke into a smile. “Jak! Good to see you made it! Come in!” I wondered idly if he had expected me not to make it as I stepped over the threshold. The door slid shut behind me.

  His “office” was nice. It was really his room – it didn’t resemble an office at all. He had a loft bed on the far side, a writing desk next to it, and several book-cases. I wondered how much of it was his, and how much was Korzos’. In the center of the room was a map. I walked up to it and looked down at it. It displayed a carpet of stars, set on a monitor that had the appearance of a tabletop. Vincent came up behind me.

  “A map of the known galaxy. It functions much like the viewers on the observatory, including the ability to adjust the screen however you wish to.” He pointed to a small, flickering dot moving away from one star and towards another. “That’s us. It’s twinkling because we’re making periodic jumps into the Ethyr. It’s easy to think the distances portrayed here are smaller than they really are. Maps are deceptive.” I nodded in response, wondering why he had invited me here.

  He walked over to a nearby table with chairs at both ends of it. “Please sit, Jak.” I did, and he did the same on the other chair.

  “Now, I’m sure you’re wondering why I asked you here.”

  I nodded.

  “It was partly to check up on you to make sure you’re doing okay. Are you?”

  I nodded again. “The memorial dinner was wonderful. I… I’ve gotten over it. I really was fine even before then.”

  He smiled warmly at me before continuing. “That’s good to hear. I won’t apologize for what happened, though I wish I could have stopped it. Apologies are useless, anyway.” He sighed. “However, checking up on you was only part of what I was doing. I also want to ask you to do something for me, in addition to your other duties.”

  I groaned, causing Vincent to raise his eyebrow at me. Admonished, I sat up straighter in my chair. “Yes sir?”

  He smiled. “Much better. Although no sirs, please – I still prefer Vincent.”

  “Yes sir.”

  He leaned back and let out a mock sigh of exasperation. “What will I do with you? You’re just full of insubordination!” I smiled in response. I decided that I still liked him, even after his promotion.

  He waited a moment, probably to see if I had anything to say, and then continued. “As you may or may not know, there are always issues with having an international crew, let alone an interplanetary one. No one ever gets along.” He smiled crookedly.

  I had to disagree. Most of the crew seemed to get along rather well. “I haven’t noticed that… they seem to be perfectly fine.”

  Vincent leaned forward. “You’ve encountered some of it, I’ve heard. Ivor Ka
ranov. Adam Sansson. Menthus Crydgar.” He leaned back. “And Daniel Fetherkap.” I blinked. Fetherkap had seemed like such a nice person the few times I had spoken with him.

  “You’ve had encounters with the first three, I believe. Karanov… is more than he appears. Ryussa has a vested interest in seeing this mission fail. They released Ivor from prison shortly before the Ambassador set off. He was a former diplomat, spy, rapist – and assassin. He is not the fool you might think him to be.” I never thought he was a fool. It was hard to think that about someone who had held a knife to your throat.

  “There is a chance he might be trying to sabotage the mission. Korzos had tried, as you saw. Ivor may very well take up the slack now that his puppet is out of the picture.”

  “His puppet?” I asked. Although I trusted Vincent and believed that he was telling the truth, I couldn’t picture Korzos being anyone’s puppet.

  He nodded. “Aye. Korzos despises Baja – his hatred is legendary, as you very well know. He wanted to see the mission fail, in a fantastic way that would shame Baja before the entire Terran Home Rule. As angry as Korzos was, he also wasn’t really very bright. Doubtless he planned to have the ship return, severely damaged and with no results, and probably come up with a half-thought out story about how the Bajan stowaway and the commando ruined the whole mission.”

  Vincent took a breath. “There is at least one other who wanted – and still does want – to see this mission fail. And he is much more intelligent that the late captain. He convinced the captain that they had the same goal, but that the captain was going about it wrong. He supplied the captain with the tools and knowledge that he needed to effectively sabotage the mission, while also keeping his own hands clean.

  “And who is it?” I asked, wondering why Vincent was telling me all of this.

  “I told you already – Ivor. I explained to you what he was – but the most important aspect of what I said is Ryussan spy. Being on the security staff, I did background checks on all of the crew. Valerius managed to get me into Ivor’s confidential files. He went through Moscau’s biggest RGK training facility, and… ‘graduated’ early. He is, without a doubt, the most dangerous man on this ship.”

  Vincent leaned forward. “Ivor, however isn’t a trained saboteur. He knew he might very well fail, so he used Korzos’ anger to turn the captain into a tool. That way, he had two chances to succeed.”

  He sighed. “Now, however, Korzos is gone, and his first chance used up. Ivor will likely try to find another puppet. Failing that, though, he will do it himself. I want you to watch him when you can, and report to me. Pretend to be cleaning, but follow him. As stealthily as you can. He might not notice you.” That wasn’t likely – he had threatened to kill me. “Most of the information I gathered is from faint audio – there are no cameras in the captain’s quarters. Accusing him now with no evidence to back it up would be foolish. If you can give me any concrete evidence that he is the saboteur that I think he is, then we can get him.” I nodded.

  He leaned back. “Now, Sansson is in a similar situation. Yes, I know who he really is, and that you do, as well. The Bajan government released him and returned him to Ireland, in secret, so that he could be their representative. However, I believe he was conditioned or bribed in some way to support the Bajan cause. Crydgar, then, is essentially Sansson’s boss. Crydgar also has access to security records, being a sort of security member himself.” Vincent was clearly not happy about this. “Fortunately, he rarely uses the videos.

  “They both, however, have a vested interest in keeping this mission going, so they’ve been helping us. Unofficially, of course. I’d prefer you didn’t drag them into this, so avoid them.”

  I nodded. “Follow Ivor, avoid Sansson and Crydgar. Got it.”

  “Good. Lastly, Fetherkap. He’s up to something – our cameras show him doing some strange things to the engines. None of the security staff being technologically inclined, we don’t know exactly what he’s doing, but it looks… wrong. Nothing bad has happened to them yet, but something very well might. He could easily just claim repairs if confronted about whatever he’s been doing, but they don’t look like repairs to me. Try to avoid him as much as you can. If he does anything strange, watch him and report to me. We’ll meet like this every few days. Sound good to you?”

  It sounded dangerous, and a lot like he was using me as an expendable spy. I really wanted to stay on his good side, however, so I nodded and saluted. He grinned. “Thank you, Jak. You’ll be amply rewarded when we return.” He stood, and I followed suit. He saw me to the door and bid me farewell. I still had an hour to kill, so I went to my room and napped until it was time to help prepare dinner.

  13

  “I remember a time when the engine of a ship was all that separated the crew from life and death – thank God there’s more than that now, and all the engine really provides now is movement. It makes ship maintenance easier, too – everything’s more spread out and easy to see.”