by Meridian
‘The WatchTower” was the penultimate hurdle. Every third night, Alkema took his place with forty other cadets in the double horseshoe of workstations designed to simulate the primary command center of a Pathfinder starship, and let an electronic vine of system interfaces grow across his cheek.
The WatchTower simulated what the mission designers expected to be a typical duty shift aboard a Pathfinder Ship. Shifts lasted seven hours and once each hour, maybe twice, an anomaly would creep into the system – an unidentified ship entering the control area, a failure in one of the ship’s systems. It would only happen once or twice, and only one cadet could catch the error and receive credit for it. It was a test of stamina and attention span, and would strongly determine the likelihood that those cadets that had survived all the other ordeals would be assigned to a ship.
Tonight, they were monitoring simulated ship’s operations. The previous shift, it had been flight control. A flight of four shuttlecraft… Aves, they were called … had come back with five. Alkema had caught it first, challenged the extra ship, made the score.
That had been easy. Tonight, he had spent five hours watching numbers change on eight different ship system readouts. Then he saw it. He touched the simulated comlink on his panel. “Pathfinder X
control, Alkema here. I am reading a phase variance of 0.3 in anti-proton stream. Propulsion engineering confirm?”
He waited. It was a very small anomaly, just a hair outside system tolerances. Maybe it wasn’t the test. Finally, a voice came back. “Specialist Alkema, Pathfinder X engineering propulsion confirming phase variance, compensating.” His holographic screen showed the system returning to normal, and acknowledged that he had caught the night’s anomaly.
He breathed a sigh of relief. The cadet at the next station, a female Republicker named Marriott looked at him. “Nine for nine. You know you’re going to get a ship now.” Alkema could not tell whether she was failing to hide the bitter edge in her voice, or just intentionally being bitter.
“One more, and you’ll have a perfect score,” Marriott went on. “They may promote you straight to Tyro-Lieutenant.”
Alkema knew he could get a perfect score, and knowing would have to be enough. A perfect score would attract the kind of attention that might lead to him being on a shuttle back to Sapphire… or a detention cell.
Philip John Miller Redfire
Corvallis, Sapphire
He told no one. The next day, or maybe the next, someone would call him on the comlink and be told simply that he had gone off-world, a satisfyingly mysterious exit.
He walked down Concordance Boulevard, intending to follow it to the river and cross the Remembrance Bridge to Joshua Island, where the graceful buildings of Planetary Governance, centuries and even millennia old, stood with quiet, erect dignity. He had seen them in the day, when they bustled with busy clerks and adminicrats serving out their brief terms of public service. Now, he would walk among them, with only the shadows for company, and see the soul of the city, without a million human masks to disguise it.
This was his ritual of benediction. He had come to know each of Sapphire’s cities in this way, like studying the face of a lover as she slept. In New Cleveland and Kandor, there were people out on every street at all hours and music was continually playing. The streets of the industrial cities of Matthias, Hootch Grabr, and Sienna bustled with busy mechanoids and automechs, servicing the machines that hummed and throbbed in the daytime. New Sapporo’s streets, in the Borealan winter, had been a place of silent frozen beauty, where the moons and stars glistened on black ice and pale blue snow. Corvallis at night was like a big library after closing time. Everything in it was well ordered, most of it was interesting, and he could not help feeling he was not supposed to be there.
He paused on the Remembrance Bridge to watch the Corvallis River pass underneath. On the South Bank, the towers of the Commerce Sector shined against the backdrop of the near-vertical, 10,000-meter face of the Wall of God mountains. Would he ever, he wondered, walk the streets of any city until dawn ever again? He looked up. Thought of worlds spinning around the stars above his head and tried to imagine their cities.
A shrill voice shattered his reverie. “Hoy, citizen!” He turned to see a woman wearing a gold jumpsuit, thigh-high leather boots, and a long cape. Great, a cop.
“Is it illegal to walk on the bridge?” he asked.
“Hoy, shiv out. I just wanted to make sure you’re not a jumper,” she yelled back. Sapphire was a largely crime-free planet. Cops were more like free-lance do-gooders,
“Do I look like a jumper,” he asked.
She shrugged. “They look like everybody else.” The cop studied him. Philip John Miller Redfire cut a lean figure in a black leather jacket and jeans. His red hair was cropped short, accenting his sharp cheekbones and soft jawline. The cop moved closer, and he raised his hands, showing black leather, fingerless gloves. “You’re an artist?” she exclaimed.
“Za, a pyro-kineticist – not a jumper,” he answered. “I blew up the Ur Building.”
“I saw that one. That was you?”
He favored her with a slight bow. “Za, it didn’t work out the way I wanted. My original proposal was to embed debris in the surrounding buildings, but they wouldn’t let me use enough monohydrazine.” Her tone turned more cordial. “Are you planning to blow up the bridge?”
“Neg, I already blew up a bridge once … in Matthias… part of a classical music concert… I’m just…
saying good-bye.”
The cop fondled her paralyzer. “Good-bye to what?”
“To Corvallis.”
She gasped. “Hold! Are you going to blow up the city?”
He laughed. “Neg, my grant got turned down. I’m leaving tomorrow for Republic, and this is my way of saying good-bye. I take a long walk around the city at night, try to fix the memory of time and place in my mind, and … connect with the spirit of the metropolis.”
“That’s so unique,” said the cop, drawing her cape around her shoulders against the early morning chill.
“So, officer, with your consent, I’m going to walk to the Plaza of The Thing and wait for the sun to come up.”
She nodded and bade him Good Night. He continued his walk toward the capitol.
Eliza Jane Change
Somewhere in the Asteroid Belt of the Sapphire System
Eliza Jane Change had been sitting in the control couches of mining ships since before she could walk.
Born on a Guild hospital frigate, she had never been outside a Mining ship or support facility. She had never breathed unprocessed air nor felt her weight in normal planetary gravity. The Guild had taken care of her when her mother died and given her a job as soon as she could reach the controls.
Change killed the ship’s artificial gravity and closed her eyes. Moving a mining ship into position next to an asteroid was a delicate ballet in space involving a precise and exquisite balance of forces. The mining ship was huge, 2 000 meters across at its longest axis, the rock was larger still. She had instruments that gave her a three-dimensional understanding of the position and motion of both her ship and the rock, but she rarely needed them. When she closed her eyes, she could almost sense the gravity of the giant rock and feel the motion of both bodies. She touched her controls and felt the ship move into position.
“Entant-464, we show you in perfect alignment,” came a tansmission from the guidance team on the asteroid’s surface. “Well done, Eliza Jane Change.”
She ignored the compliment, opened her eyes, and stretched. The rock she had just parked next to had enough exploitable reserves of platinum, titanium, molybdenum, and manganese to keep the miners busy for months. She had earned her salary for the period. This was the life of a guild pilot. A few minutes of intense concentration followed by months of boredom.
As she finished locking the controls, the rear hatch slid open and Mining Chief Do floated in. “How’s your status, Eliza Jane Change?”
“
All is normal. We’re locked in orbit at LaGrange V. I’m getting ready to calculate compensatory thruster burns to keep us in position.”
Do waved her off. He was a heavy man, with a curly-black beard and a face pock-marked from too many accidents involving explosive decompression. When gravity was disengaged, he didn’t wear his prosthetic legs, and Change was accustomed to seeing his legless torso floating through the corridors of the ship. “I didn’t come up here for a position report. I came up to see if you had decided to accept the Guild’s offer.”
“I made my decision a long time ago. I am staying here.”
The MC pulled himself up by the OhShit handles on the cockpit wall. “If you refuse, you may find yourself on the slag line in the belly of an ore-processing ship.” Change’s voice grew sharp and flinty. “I don’t understand why they are trying to get rid of me. I’m their best pilot.”
“The Guild doesn’t need great pilots. Good ones are good enough and less expensive to the pension plan.” He took a swig from a blue-metal flask. “Eliza, girl, I have known you since you were a child… since before your father disappeared and your mother died. Do you know what awaits you if you stay with the Guild?” He jerked a finger at the forward monitor. “You spend ten, twenty, thirty years putting ships into orbit around rocks in space. One day your thrusters fail or you miscalculate, and you and the ship end up as part of the rock. Even if you should live to be as old as me, you will squander your youth and vitality wrenching metal from rock, and that, Eliza Jane, is far less than you can achieve. All the time you work, the fruit of your labor goes to the Guild. The committee members live well in their beautiful homes and send you a box of cookies at Sidereal New Year.”
“You think I would be happier on a ship with 7,000 groundlings?”
“I am telling you that whether you stay or you go, your life won’t be as you planned it. The Guild never forgets or forgives an act of defiance.” The MC looked out through the tiny viewing port into space.
With that, he shoved off from the wall, and let himself out through the hatch.
Eliza Change closed her eyes. Much as she hated to admit it, the MC was right. She had no future in the Guild Not anymore, and nothing could alter it. Whatever future she had lay out there.
Goneril Lear
City of Alexander, Republic
Lt. Commander Goneril Lear took a vertical transporter to the 503rd level of the Ministry of Defense Space Command Edifice. The lift had transparent walls and slid up the exterior side of the building.
Sunlight dazzled through the perpetual mist that shrouded the City of Alexander, making the sky shimmer over the huge, interconnected buildings in which forty million citizens lived and worked.
The transporter opened onto a broad internal corridor. Goneril Lear walked into the busying herd of uniformed people. She was a short woman with the finely drawn features, pale gray eyes and nearly white blond hair typical of Republic women of a certain age. The slant of her chin and her purposeful stride left no doubt that although she walked among the clerks and officers of the Ministry, she did not consider herself one of them. She was, after all, a Lear, a Senior Liaison Officer and Command Designate, for her, people below the rank of Chief Administrator did not exist unless she required them to. She approached the office of Acantha Dassault, Executive Administrator for the Republic half of the Odyssey Project, already knowing what the Executive Administrator was going to tell her. Lear touched the Reception Panel. “Goneril Lear,” she said. The door slid open.
“Come in, Lt. Commander Lear. Let’s sit down and talk, shall we?” The Executive Administrator smiled pleasantly, emerging from behind a desk that looked like a large oblong plastic slab suspended in mid-air. (Lear guessed it supports must have been non-reflective composite. Even an Executive Administrator would not have warranted the extravagance of a localized anti-gravity field).
With a grace that was almost grandmotherly, the Adminstrator took Lear by the arm and escorted her to a white-cushioned chair of sharp and square design that nestled in an alcove of her office suite with another chair. The two seats were arranged before a huge perfectly round window that looked out over the vast cityscape. “As you know, the Odyssey Project originally called for the construction of twelve ships” she began. “You were to command Pathfinder Eleven. However, the mission has been redefined, and it is now believed that nine ships will suffice for Phase 1.”
“I heard news to that effect some days ago, but I was unaware that a final decision had been made.”
“It has, and I regret that there is no longer an opportunity for you to command, the other commanders having all been confirmed. The Odyssey Project can only offer you the position of first officer on Pathfinder 3 or Pathfinder 6.”
Lear nodded. She had mentally prepared herself for this moment, but she could not help feeling betrayed when it was confirmed, one-to-one, in its finality. “If I turn down the first officer positions, would I be in line for a Phase II command position?”
“You would be past mandatory retirement age by the time Phase II is ready, unless you choose to go into stasis and…”
“I have a family. Stasis is not an option.”
“I regret that it is the only option I can offer you.”
“Or, I could remain here.”
The Executive Administrator spoke again, still sounding grandmotherly, but this time like the grandmother who hadn’t survived the rough-and-tumble politics of the Space Ministry by handing out cookies. “We need our people on those ships, in command positions, or ready to take command should the need arise. There have already been security breaches on Pathfinders 2 and 3 . Nine days ago, we arrested four Sapphirean Isolationists who were trying to gain access to Pathfinder Three’s fusion core.” She paused. “Needless to say, that information does not leave this chamber.” Lear nodded. “Of course, Senior Commander.” For a moment, neither of them spoke. Outside, an air-limo plowed through the mist, stirring the clouds from which only the tallest towers of the city protruded. Lear wondered what Minister or Executive might be inside.
“Look at that, Goneril” the Administrator said. “A city of forty million, and two hundred forty more like it across the surface of our planet. Our ancestors would be proud, don’t you think, of the civilization we’ve built on this forbidding world, through strength, discipline, and necessary sacrifices for the greater good.”
Lear looked up in surprise. She could not have imagined the Executive Administrator addressing even her own husband by his first name.
She was not yet finished. “I have been preparing you for the last fifteen years to command a Pathfinder Ship, not a Ministry, or a HomeGuard Base, or a diplomatic mission, and I am well aware you could have any of those if you wanted it. Your duty is to go where you are needed, and you are needed on a Pathfinder Ship.”
“I would never have seriously considered the option of remaining behind,” Lear told her.
The Executive Administrator seemed pleased. “Good, very good.” She stood. Lear stood. The meeting was over and Lear knew, it was time to find the door.
“Just one thing, dear,” the Administrator called out, just before Lear exited. “When we discuss your position with the Odyssey Directorate, do not surrender your bargaining chip so easily. Let them think you will leave the program if you aren’t given the right ship, and the right range of authority. Do this, and I will make sure that you get exactly what we need.”
William Randolph Keeler
New Cleveland, Sapphire
The University of Sapphire at New Cleveland’s Grace Auditorium seated six hundred. Its transparent walls looked out on the quad-rangle. On this, a brilliant spring day in Sectember when the girls in the quad were wearing shorts and the boys were shirtless, or vice-versa, being indoors was almost too much to bear and the lecturer knew he was up against both cabin fever and adolescent hormones.
Chancellor William Keeler was a substantial man, well-fed and large-framed, with a full head of steely gray hair and
a round face that wore an expression of perpetual self-satisfaction. He was 52
Sapphirean Years old , at the prime of his professional life. Middle age was still twenty or more years in the distance, the foolishness of youth a pleasant memory. When he was ready to speak, he tapped a long, ceremonial staff against the side of the lectern.
“Good afterdawn, everyone. Before we begin, I have an announcement. The orgy with the gymnastics team has been moved back to next Firesday owing to a delay in the delivery of cinnamon oil…” Keeler paused and looked up from his notes.
“I’m sorry, class,” he said to the suddenly silent lecture hall. “Those were my notes for the faculty meeting this afternoon. It appears that you are here for Colonial History 101. So be it.” He made a gesture to the teaching assistant who ran the holographic projectors.
“Your knowledge of our planet’s history probably begins with the discovery and survey of this world by the starship Carpentaria.” Images formed over his head of an ancient star-faring vessel entering orbit over the familiar blue and green sphere of the planet Sapphire. “However, for purposes of this course, the history of Sapphire begins on the planet Earth. Now, you have probably been taught very little about our mother planet. There is a simple explanation for that. Very little is known and what think we know, is highly suspect.
“To understand why this is, one must first understand the lengths of time with which we are dealing.
Our Sapphirean civilization is, roughly 3,000 years old, and we’ve spent nearly half that time on our own.
Nevertheless, our language, our concepts of art, science, and religion were all handed to us from Earth.
Sure, we have devised our own unique innovations, our own flavors, but the foundations for all we have were laid out thousands of years ago on a world on the other side of the galaxy, about which we know almost nothing.”
