by Jim Rudnick
Young, about ten or so, braided blond hair and twinkling green eyes—this one will be a beauty in just a few years was her first thought. The girl looked up at her with a frustrated look on her face.
“Hi….sorry, but I’m still using the box—trying to find out where this planet Ikaria is…” she said.
Gia nodded and said “not a problem, I’m not in a rush…but can I ask, what search did you enter into the search field to ask for that data?”
The girl shrugged and said “well, I put in ‘where’s Ikaria’ but that got me just all this recent history about these aliens. I don’t care what happened, but I can’t find out how to know where their planet is,” she finished off with a further frustrated tone in her voice.
Gia moved right up to point at the field where a search was entered.
“Try not to use contractions like ‘where’s’ as that can sometimes muddy your results. You know the name of the planet is Ikaria. Are you correct in that?” Gia asked.
The girl nodded.
“Then try this in that search field ‘distance to Ikaria from Juno’ and then hit SUBMIT.”
The girl typed that in and Gia had to only point out the one typo, and the SUBMIT button got clicked.
The results were, as Gia had expected, ranked from the best answer to the least, but there were more than 1.8 billion answers. She pointed that out first to the girl, who gulped.
“I don’t have the time to look at that many pages,” she said as she shook her head.
“Not necessary,” Gia replied, “as the link you want is the number one link titled ‘Ikaria — Gallipedia, the galaxy encyclopedia’ as that link will tell you all about the planet—including I suspect, where it is too…hit that link,” she said.
The girl did that, and as the plain page came up she scrolled a little to the left hand sidebar and looked for an answer…and it was there, in Contents under the term Distance.
“There it is, it’s…uh…can that be right? That far away? That’s like close—48 lights away?”
Gia smiled at the child and picked out her words carefully, aiming at making a point without dulling the girls interest either.
“That is not too far away at all—with our Tachyon Drive engines it’s like a month and a half away. But these aliens, the Ikarians did not have such drives—they used what they had and their top speed for their ship was a bit less than that. Much much less, as it took the Ikarians almost sixteen hundred years to get to the RIM, in their sleeper ship. Speed makes distance either great or small…”
The youngster scrolled a bit more. She made a note on her own tablet too, Gia surmised it was the number of lights to Ikaria. She nodded her head and then yanked out her ID key from the user port and the screen faded to black.
She pushed back her chair and smiled up at Gia.
“Thank you for the help, I’d still be sitting here after the busses left if I had to go through those billion or so pages, Mam” and she held out her hand.
Gia smiled and shook the youngsters hand and waved as she traipsed off towards the rest of the kids who were congregating near the far end of the public console aisles.
She plopped down in the chair and pulled out her own ID key and entered it…
“Scott, Gia. Gallipedia Employee #4987465. Current Posting: Branton, Earldom of Kinross; on sabbatical, crawled across the screen from right to left and then the search window came up.
She had a course of action for today, her sixth day here at the Juno Public Library and she was supposed to be looking at more Barony information—trying to get a handle on what must be known before she could make final plans firm and so far, she was still on her mission. But the past five days studying her quarry, had proven problematic for her brain. She knew what she knew, but this new admiral, Tanner Scott appeared to have at least not yet, shown his true colors. She knew how to fix that, but other items were getting in her way. She clicked History, went back to the Gallipedia page on Ikaria and then went to the bottom to look for See Also and the References too. There were many of both and some mentioned of course papers written by academics on everything from sleeper ships to this longevity virus that as yet had not be cloned and made available here on the RIM.
There was more of course on everything from their archery skills and how they seemed to have no match in the whole galaxy—at least so far one paper’s title said and more too on the comet that had infected their planet more than sixteen hundred years ago. How on breakup, some pieces continued on their way and were even now it was said, bearing down on more planets in their way.
She shuddered, at what that might mean, but then she remembered who she was.
Why she was here on the RIM.
What her mission was.
And what it would mean to make good on her promise to her mother as she lay dying.
She straightened her shoulders, and cleared the screen…time to go to work…today, follow up on the admiral’s time on Halberd, the RIM Confederacy prison planet…
#####
He sat in the ante-room that was so deeply buried within the Barony palace, that it might actually lie off planet. He knew that this was nonsense, but after being led by an EliteGuard for over twenty minutes up some hallways and down others. He had counted four escalators, they went up three, and down one. He had stood quietly in a tiny room and had only thought that it was an elevator, until he looked down at the sealed doorway and noted that the flashing lights came sideways not up or down. An elevator that went sideways was a new one on him and yet it was all good.
He was here, to speak to the Baroness, on matters of importance for Amasis, his planet. While he was the current Prime Minister as his party held a huge majority, he really was not here today to talk about her realm, the Barony of Neres. Instead, he was here, cap in hand as they say, to ask for an extended leave from his captaincy in the Barony Navy.
When his father had had that heart attack, followed by the stroke and it’s accompanying hypoxia issue which made him lose his powers of speech, movement and perhaps cognitive abilities too, he had been asked by his fathers political party to take over. Temporarily, he was told. Just till his dad got better. Just till he could regain enough of his capabilities to help run the party and parliament and govern the planet. Amasis needed him, he was told and he had felt that yes, if it would help his dad, he would do this.
The guilt of what his father was going through and that he was unable to help him he tried to make up for by doing his dad’s job. Meetings, action events, legislation, statutes, political infighting—he’d known none of it. And his distaste for all of it, he had hidden as the party provided help and aides and every single thing one could ask for.
He did wonder if this was all provided so that all he had to do was smile at a media scrum, and answer any question asked with the same sound bites no matter the relevancy—if his dad had done the same. Top of the heap on Amasis was not a strain.
But his father’s health had worsened and he wanted to revisit the deal that had been made for him to take on this job on Amasis, when all he ever wanted to was to be a navy captain. He had been told, by admiral Scott, that he could take a Sabbatical for this sole purpose, to be a stand-in for his father—based he knew on the original diagnosis that his father may be sidelined for from six months to a year.
The huge medical team meeting of just a couple of days ago had been the most heartbreaking thing he’d ever been made to endure. He and his whole family were present, as was he noted three of the party members were also present too.
Their father’s head doctor made the presentation, his voice slow and solemn at the same time.
The tests were all back and the re-tests and the re-re-tests all agreed.
His father would never recover.
His father was currently at the top of the curve in his recovery cycle.
If top of the curve meant that the drool that slowly slid down his face from the right side of his mouth. He was paralyzed on his right side, completely.
His left arm suffered a 50% disability and as such he couldn’t control a powered chair of any kind. He would never walk again. He would never talk again. He nodded sometimes when asked a question but that yes answer would happen for any kind of a question no matter how untrue the answer would be.
He had cried over that meeting, but not for his father—it was his mother who sat and listened and asked for some more information on some of the points that were presented.
She listened.
She nodded.
She eventually rose and the meeting got very silent, the medical team leader doctor stopped talking immediately.
“You are all not correct. My husband will not be set aside like a buffet item you took but did not eat. You are all terrible terrible doctors—instead of telling us that he is not going to be better—why are you not all working on making him better. I want you all to know that I not only do not agree with any of you—but that I know better. He is getting better. When I ask him questions he answers me with his eyes, by blinking. I know that means that his brain is still as bright as it’s ever been—while all of you have written him off. Shame on you—if it was in my power I’d fire the whole bunch of you,” she said almost shouting out the end of her last sentence as she turned and marched out of the room.
Kondo was saddened. The lead doctor had pointed out to them all, more than two weeks ago, that yes, there was involuntary eye blinking as a normal byproduct of the most recent meds. And until the dosage could be worked out, it was a noticeable side-effect. But that he had any real cognitive abilities that they could find and test, had proven to be impossible.
Kondo’s father was not going to recover any better than he was today.
His brother and sister walked out moments after their mother left.
He would have rathered that they had stayed, but in his mind, as they left just behind mother, they must feel the same, Kondo thought.
He was enough of a pragmatist, to know that the doctors were right. He’d lain with his dad in his bed, cuddled with him and had tried everything to get a response that he knew—that he knew for a fact, meant that his dad was still ‘in there.’
But nothing he did worked. He even cried, huge sobs coming out of his mouth as he sat right in front of his father and realized that the medical prognosis was true. His dad just stared at him, no emotion. Not a single thing happened on his face.
He sighed. He was the only family member still in the room.
So he’d listened on behalf of the family to the balance of the presentation.
Nothing really new.
Due to the fact that the patient was the Prime Minister, gave him some pretty special perks and while they wanted to discuss same, Kondo waved them off. He’d read them all later.
The meeting broke up and his father’s medical team left the room.
He remembered just sitting there lost in thought for a minute until his own chief deputy broke the silence.
He was told—not asked, but told that as the temporary Prime Minister, he should realize that as his father would now never come back to do the job—that he must step up to become the full-time leader of the party. His aide went on and on till he waved them all off. But he knew that the aide was right.
He had to make up his mind, but he knew that there was pressure from the party—as well as from his family, that he was to step up.
As he was seated on a love-seat, that was a shade of coral he’d never seen before, and he was surprised when on the far wall, a tapestry slid side-ways, and a brace of EliteGuards came through, their bright blue boots shone and glistened as they swung apart and the Baroness herself appeared behind them.
She smiled at the Prime Minister of Amasis, and walked with what Kondo thought was about the most beautiful gait, on heels, wearing a shift in a shade of peach and magnolia that he’d never seen before. She walked straight towards him and then sat in the love-seat and smiled. She glanced over to her left and from nowhere, a steward dropped off a wine glass and she smiled at him.
“Prime Minister, so good to have you drop by—but a gentle reminder that we do have a regular meeting on RIM Confederacy Council meeting days on Juno. Still, nice to have you drop by. Tell me how is your father?” and she leaned back.
He was pretty sure, that his father’s complete medical history and prognosis were already in her possession, but he still went over the whole sad story for her.
She showed no emotion but sipped at her wine and nodded occasionally.
When he was done, she put down the glass and leaned in.
“Your news is sad news, Prime Minister. Do I assume that you came to tell me this information, or is there another reason that you are here?”
She probably knew the answer to that one too, Kondo thought as he went into his pre-planned request speech.
He told her that being a politician was not for him—yet he knew that he had to fulfill the role that he’d accepted until the party could find a replacement. He’d approached his own brother and sister and both had backed up as far away from him as they could as they shook their heads no. He told her that his mother—at this point needed him to hold the Prime Minister’s position as that gave some stability to the family. He told her that he would like to continue to be the Prime Minister for another year, or thereabouts, and that would give the party enough time to find and groom a replacement. And of course, that his captaincy in the Barony Navy would then be returned to him and he could once again, captain the Atlas. Or any ship, Mam is how he ended his short three minute pitch.
He looked over at the aide like he’d also appreciate a glass of wine and he got a simple stare back.
He looked at the Baroness. She was sitting, toying with the wine glass, spinning it in it’s ring of condensation on the coffee table between them. She looked up at him.
“Prime Minister, my sympathies on your father’s prognosis. It is a cross that he must bear—and you and your family must bear. But not the Barony—I am sorry about that point, but you must remember. The Barony has more than 100 billion citizens, with more to come. I can not take a strong leader like yourself, who will rise to the job of being a real Prime Minister, and put him back in a captains chair. For the good of the Barony, I am sorry, but I will not let you come back to our Navy. You will remain and grow as the Amasis Prime Minister, as I hereby rescind your captaincy immediately,” she said as she raised her glass and took another sip of her white wine.
He was stunned. He thought that the admiral had okayed at least a six month or one year Sabbatical—and now the Baroness had just cut him off.
The admiral, he thought—
“And do not think that appealing to the admiral will help either—he’s so deeply involved in the marriage to my step-daughter that nothing will shake him loose of what he’s told to do, either,” she said, her voice hard and firm.
He looked at her.
“I’ll notify the Barony HR ministry and your paperwork and funds will follow you to Amasis. And while this may not seem ‘fair’ to you at this point, in ten years when you’ve really got your teeth into the running of a planet, you’ll know I was right in this decision…
She smiled and sipped again…
And he sighed…it was all that he could do at this point…
#####
He was in a meteor storm, as all around him were meteors that were hurtling towards Branton.
They were of all sizes and shapes and the ship that he was in though bigger—was surrounded by them all. There were smaller ones that seemed to be on the same trajectory but slightly off center.
They bumped into some of the rest of the shower; which made them spark and then veer off on a vector that might include his ship.
He knew that as long as he could maintain a slight speed edge, that he had a chance.
He was alone on the ship he knew because he looked around and the room was empty.
He was coming up on Branton fast, but for some reason, he could not find a way to change the speed.
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He knew controls and the only one he had was the stick.
Like all ships he knew how to change his position, to yaw or roll or pitch—but that was not the way that a spaceship worked out in space. Controls to do just those kind of maneuvers included the throttle as well as thrusters—and his dashboard was a complete steel smooth topped counter. Not a single thing there to help any pilot, just the stick.
He moved it left and almost hit a small meteor but pulled it back in time to regain his position in the middle of the pack.
On the view-screen, he could see around the ship—and this meteor storm was big, wide and from what he could see, there were thousands around him.
He paid more attention to the direction and tried to second-guess what was going on.
There was no meteor storm, he knew.
This was a dream, he knew.
He was in a meteor storm for a reason, he knew.
He thought of Nora.
This was because he had killed her.
Not with a gun or a knife, but with a ship.
He’d been the pilot and had made a pilot’s decision to save the ship and had veered to port.
The meteor that had pierced the hull and taken out a whole row of seats, came from the port side.
It had taken out the three seats, and Nora was strapped into the window seat, the other two empty.
He had tried to keep her safe after the first meteor strike just moments ago.
But he had failed.
He failed his sister.
He failed his mother who he promised that as the brand new captain, not a single thing would happen to his sister.
He was the older brother, he was a pilot in the Looper Service.
And he killed his sister.
It wasn’t his lack of experience, as the Tribunal afterwords showed that it was the luck of the draw. He’d reacted like any pilot should have. He had done the right thing, veering off to one side to avoid the swarm of rogue meteors. The fact that this meant that moments later, one more hit the ship was not his fault, they had judged. He was found not guilty and brought back to active duty.
