Resister: Space Funding Crisis II
Page 1
Resister: Space Funding Crisis II
Title Page
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Space Funding Crisis II
Resister
Casey Hattrey
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
Version 0.9
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
Cover Image adapted from:
John Martin - Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still by DcoetzeeBot
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Martin_-_Joshua_Commanding_the_Sun_to_Stand_Still_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
EVE Online - Caldari Freighters by Perplexing
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EVE_Online_-_Caldari_Freighters.jpg
For my supervisors. Sorry.
With thanks to S. Land for editing.
Prologue
It is finally night on Planet Conference. Meetings have disbanded, arguments put aside or hushed, break out rooms have broken up. The back-of-envelope ideas now stymie the drip, drip of beer from bar tables. Empty podiums stand guard over rows of seats folded like flowers and screen stand dumb. Silence has smothered the smooth white domes of the conference halls and cafeterias into a jellyfish sea of buildings speckled with a Milky Way, milky, whey of Li-Fied lights.
The speakers are sleeping, the debaters, the discussants, the glancing timekeepers, hosts, editors, show runners and mic runners.
Listen. Only you are awake to hear their dreams.
Yarran Idris, sweating in a stage-fright dream woven from the truth he must speak, and the lies he must not, has a vision of the future. He fights an old man in a theatre in a tomb in a cave. A smile comes Cheshire-catting out of the darkness and crushes his bones up against a wall. A riddle is set. There is a reunion, a hunt and a rescue. A woman dies, and is reborn. A voice comes, from outside:
“No, darling, it’s never aliens.”
And everyone disappears in forty-two seconds.
Time passes. Listen ... time passes. For some.
From where you are, you can hear all the dreams of all the researchers in the great expanse of the galaxy.
Then again, you do have very good neuroimaging technology.
Chapter 1
Arianne rolled under the rapidly closing stone door, scrambled to her feet, dodged right to avoid the scythe slicing out of the dark, then flung herself against the wall as a gigantic oak battering ram lunged past her. The deep wrenching impact was almost enough to mask the faint percussion of cogs and pulleys behind the rough stone walls of the corridor. She was already running as rusty spikes began shuddering out of crevices at all angles. The end of the corridor was just a black void, and she launched herself into it, tucking herself into a ball. With a stinging shock, she hit a slick body of water. The searing heat of flames bit at her back as she went under. A slimy something sucked past her in the soundless depths, and she kicked for the surface, gripped the cold edge of the far side and heaved herself out of the pool. She stood and wiped the greasy water and matted cobwebs from her face.
So far, thought Arianne, the interview was going well.
She was standing in a large chamber with a gray shaft of light coming from an opening high above. Behind her, other people were emerging from corridors and pools similar to the one she had just escaped from. In front of her were entrances to three wide corridors, reaching back into darkness. Arianne exhaled carefully, looking at each one in turn. There was a crude relief carved above each entrance. The one on the left depicted a human form, eyes closed and meditating, sitting in a smooth halo which kept away tormented figures on the fringes. The one in the middle was of a person sitting at a desk, whose eyes gazed longingly at dusty books, but whose hands diligently worked a grindstone. The one on the right featured an exalted figure, with carved beams of light flowing from a head of trendily disheveled hair onto rows of tiny stick figures.
She wondered how long it would be possible to analyze each and every facet of the carvings and puzzle out their meanings, and come up with the best strategy. But some part of her sensed a pull in one direction, like reaching for a familiar door handle in the dark. It felt right, and she walked towards the middle entrance.
“When in doubt”, murmured Arianne in the damp air, “always follow your nose”.
The other people huddled silently before the entrances, and slowly began peeling off into the different corridors. In a few moments, she was one of only a handful of people carefully edging into the darkness. A dull echoing clunk sounded from the corridor on the right, accompanied by a short scream. Arianne thought she heard the flick of flying darts from the other side. Her group crept forwards.
After minutes of darkness, Arianne could see the faint flicker of torches reflected off damp rock. They turned a corner and were faced by a torchlit corridor with a high ceiling. At the end of the corridor was a doorway between two huge statues of harpies. Their claws stood on cracked skulls, their wings were spread and their grizzled faces contorted in furious screams. Piercing eyes of polished gemstone stared out between wild locks of hair. The walls danced with carvings of rays of light slicing through tormented souls. Above the door between them was an illuminated sign:
Room 11.3b
Arianne checked the time in her ebrain. Not late, yet.
A woman in her group strode forwards, crossing the space between them and the harpies. Arianne held her breath, but she reached the door and disappeared into the gloom beyond it. Heartened by this, a man broke away from the group and started heading towards the door. Halfway across the floor, a faint humming sound appeared. After a few more steps, Arianne could see that the eyes of the harpies were beginning to glow. The man looked up and stopped walking.
“Wait!” he said. The glow from the eyes became a fierce glare. The man started backing away.
“Please! I can explain!”
The humming ramped up into a whistling roar.
“Those publications will definitely be out by the next assessment cy-”
His words were cut off as a torrent of light poured from the harpies’ eyes. Arianne shielded her face, and when she looked again the corridor was still and dark, with a small pile of ash on the ground between her and the door, already drifting into the crevices in the floor.
Arianne gulped, checked the time again, and strode forwards. She kept her eyes fixed on the doorway, and tried to keep her mind free of thought. It was superstition, of course, to think that the beasts before her could read her mind, regardless of the technology that lay behind their eyes. But unconscious thoughts did have a habit of activating stored memories in ebrains, decrypting them for the brief transition between tech and tissue, at which point a probing field might pick up some whiff of data. As far as she knew, nobody bothered with this because nervous ticks were much more reliable signs of deceit. But this was the Assessment Dungeon of the most powerful force in the galaxy - the Central Academic Funding Council Administration. Anything was possible. And so she kept away thoughts of life outside her chosen profession, of people who were not colleagues and of aims, goals and objectives beyond the current matter: getting funded. A distant whisper reflected how easy that had become.
She passed through th
e door, and was surrounded by light.
“Dr. Karen G. Arianne, thank you for joining us.”
The room was poorly carpeted. Clinging to one poorly painted wall was a flimsy projector screen, which was in poor repair. The combination of colors was poor, despite sticking to a general swamp palette. Three people in poorly fitting suits were sitting behind a table. Arianne knew they were some of the richest, most powerful people in the galaxy.
“Did you manage to find the room alright?” asked the woman in the mould-gray jacket.
“I got a bit lost on the second floor” replied Arianne, trying to wring out the last drops of moat water from her sleeves.
“Well,” said the woman, leaning forward and picking up a pen in a gesture clearly intended to convey how dare you continue this small-talk, “As you know, the content of funding proposals and presentations is very important, but we can’t be expert assessors in every topic. We’ve found that the best predictor of success in interviews is how people cope under pressure. Hence the second floor labyrinth and so on.”
As the mold-gray woman leaned back, the woman in the mire corduroy leant forwards, like switching levers.
“We’re ready for your presentation, Dr. Arianne. You can start now, and please try to keep within the allotted time.”
Arianne’s hand shot out to reach for the slide controller, though the rest of her body was flooded with a sudden rush of fear ten times worse than falling into the dark pool of water. Suddenly, she was no longer experiencing life first-hand, but could only see herself as if from a security camera. As she hit the button to show the first slide, she had entirely entered an automatic state of behavior. She was shocked at how frightened she was, despite all the practice, but her body seemed to be going through the right motions.
The first part of the slide revealed itself: an image of a road winding up a mountain. Arianne’s arms came up before her, palms toward her face and her fingertips almost brushing her temples. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
The rest of the image revealed itself in a sweeping blossom: an oil painting in staggering detail. The mountain was framed by dark clouds smouldering into the distance, rain lashing around distant peaks as night closed in. But the rocky pinnacle of the mountain in the foreground still clung to a narrow shaft of light pouring from a tear of blue sky. Beyond the pinnacle, on the high plateau was a white city, angular marble edged in brilliant sunlight. Climbing their way towards the pinnacle, battling against wind and rain and the dark was a column of weary people dressed in robes of white and red, carrying books of ancient understanding. In the centre of the painting, at the head of the column and standing on an outcrop before the final ascent was a heroic figure with a gold cape whipping around in the wind. They leant on a spear, their right hand reaching towards the pinnacle - half desperate reach, half warrior-prayer: commanding the sun to remain a little longer so that they might reach the top.
Arianne swayed forwards, letting her hands fall as her knees buckled, ending with her arms spread wide and low, kneeling before her panel.
“FUND ME!” she cried, eyes wide and unwavering.
A title flashed up on the screen:
Exploring greeting styles in an asteroid mining community
“Thank you” said the mire corduroy lady, “though that was a little over the time limit, so we’ll have to keep the questions short.”
She turned to the third member of the panel, an elderly man in a sludge flecked sweater.
“Do you want to start, Professor Tarry?”
“Thank you, yes,” he said, getting slowly to his feet. “Dr. Arianne, I read your submission with great interest.”
Arianne looked at the table where she could see her application form, still in its protective wrapping. The professor pushed back his chair and walked towards the wall to one side.
“And your goals seem interesting and worth exploring.” He continued, perusing the rack of weapons.
“I especially appreciated the detailed literature review,” said Tarry, selecting a six-foot ceremonial stone sledgehammer with inlays of gold and meteorite nickel. “But is your project really feasible within the time frame?”
Tarry hefted the sledgehammer high above his head and swung it at Arianne. She rolled away as the podium splintered into pieces. “A ha,” thought Arianne, “the old good cop/bad cop/sledgehammer routine.”
“Thank you for your question,” said Arianne, lowering into a crouch to anticipate Tarry’s next move. “In section five hundred and forty-six, I have a detailed schedule which estimates the project will be finished in twenty-four months.”
Tarry brought the hammer around in a horizontal arc, missing Arianne’s head by an inch and slamming into the projector screen.
“Plus three hundred years for interstellar conference travel,” continued Arianne, spinning onto her back, gripping the shaft of the hammer between her legs and prying it out of Tarry’s hands.
“So what you’re saying,” said the professor in the mold-gray jacket, drawing a sword from behind her desk, “is that the answers you’re looking for are obvious.”
She lunged forwards, forcing Arianne to parry several stabs with the upturned sledgehammer.
“Not at all,” replied Arianne, realizing that the golden weapon currently trying to pin her to the wall was in fact the original Sugari no Ontachi. “In fact, the risk analysis in section four thousand estimates the probability of success at sigma-6 levels – that’s based on our insurance premium. This is definitely high-risk, high-gain.”
Arianne abandoned the sledgehammer and cartwheeled through Tarry’s brace of throwing stars, picking up a short wooden plank from the broken podium.
“That’s interesting,” said the mire corduroy lady, uninterestedly, while lifting a propane tank onto her shoulders. “Because we looked into your recent activities, and you appear to have already done extensive work on this topic.”
Arianne batted away several thrusts from the mould-gray woman. Tarry sprang towards her.
“Those were preliminary studies,” said Arianne, deflecting a punch from Tarry with her left forearm, “which were designed to get some basic guiding feedback.”
“And two book deals” said the mire corduroy lady, attempting to light the end of her flamethrower. “We’re only interested in funding cutting-edge research.”
Arianne was beginning to sweat. She grabbed Tarry’s wrist as it came hurtling towards her, stretching his arm across her chest and levered his body around to put him between herself and the priceless ceremonial sword.
“Those books were the first in an extensive series,” said Arianne “the project will be broken up into smaller parts ...”
The mold grey man cut her off, almost literally.
“Unfortunately, so will your mining community” he said.
“What?” said Arianne, before receiving a fist to the gut. She almost forgot herself and tried to hit back.
“A large comet is due to hit them in 4 hours. How will your research adapt to this?”
Tarry threw Arianne over his shoulder and she landed on her back in the middle of the room.
“Well,” wheezed Arianne, “I propose to study the way people say goodbye?”
Her three assailants exchanged a glance, but Arianne already knew what was coming.
“Thank you, Dr. Arianne,” said the woman in the mold-grey jacket “we’ll let you know the outcome.”
Professor Tarry pressed a button on his wristwatch. A trap door opened beneath Arianne and she sank into nothingness, watching helplessly as a small square of mildew-white light above her was swallowed by darkness.
Chapter 2
Air. A tearing sound. A cocoon of weightlessness, the gut-tingling dread of vertigo. Stretching of nerves in her fingers. The sensation of leaving her body. White panic and the timid premonitions of her beating heart, counting down the moments to … what?