I swallowed hard. I should have known too. Poor Abigail.
"Where's Gaby?" the judge said. "I need her to titrate some alcohol. Bonnie deserves a decent drink in her memory. I'll get you some scotch, too."
Gaby showed up, still mad at me. I knew because she swatted my shoulder on her way out of the room.
We drank to Bonnie Bannister and the long, long life she had left behind. And to the world that she used to live in.
"So what's happening with you?" the judge asked. "Have you found a new place to live?"
"Not yet," I said. "But I've got a plan. I'm going to ask Dave if he can find me a place out by him. There's a world out there I should get to know."
* * *
The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale
Rajnar Vajra | 11725 words
Illustrated by John Allemand
A silver Venusian, a golden Martian, and an Earthling walked into a bar.
Sounds like a joke, right? Nope. Actually an unfunny blunder the three of us made that Friday evening. We were a weekend away from our first trial mission, three young cadets in training for EE treasure hunts, out for semi-innocent fun in an unfamiliar city.
I was and am the Earthling, female by all accounts, and since my skin hasn't been tweaked to handle extraterrestrial environments, it's just the ochre bequeathed to me by my Iranian parents, bronzed by exposure to UV rays that sneer their way through SPF 200.
Most people call EE personnel "Space Rangers," but officially, in English, we're Exoplanetary Explorers. We also have nicknames; the one that even we use, "blips," comes from how far we get from Earth. Prior to our San Diego gaffe, I'd never heard it used as an obscenity.
So my two crewmates and I strolled into that bar, and because we'd asked a too-vague question of a street vendor—namely, "Where's the nearest vacuum-head hangout?"—we'd entered the wrong drinking hole.
Plus side: floating holoview mugs of beer with rising bubbles, holoview window-framing neon, a scuffed hardwood floor with interestingly varied stains, an artificial ambient haze and a genuine mahogany bar with a chromed top-rail reflecting the colorful lighting and dour expressions of the barstool inhabitants. The place even smelled right: beer and harder stuff mixed with exhaled fumes of the same. Also the surprisingly inoffensive cooked-rice odor of what Priam calls "space farts," digestive byproducts of the muscle and bone preserver REKNIT, essential for people who spend much time working in microgravity.
Negative side: out of forty or more in uniform, not one EE officer or cadet. The vendor hadn't lied, but these guzzlers were hulks, Space Navy or Sky SEALs with not a silver or golden skin among them. We'd trained in isolation from such stay-at-home beings and had forgotten they'd surely infest the part of the city closest to the Spaceport Authority.
We should've backed right out, but just then Micah stepped on something hard—maybe someone's lost tooth—and every head turned our way. The place wasn't quiet, but when Micah Abraham Cohen, our medical officer and primary technician, steps on something, it stays stepped on; the silver oaf weighs in at nearly a quarter ton on Earth, and whatever he crushed snapped like a firecracker.
"Sorry," he muttered his fog-horn bass. "Please don't mind us."
Plenty of bloodshot eyes judged us unfavorably as I tugged on the arms of my two comrades with the door in mind. Then some brawny-looking female CPO began waving us away while holding her nose. Priam Galanis, our astrogator, boy genius, and team hothead, took this behavior as an invitation to rush forward to get an unnecessary confrontation underway. He stopped scant inches in front of the offending party, his golden hair falling forward as he braked as if it wanted to attack first. Micah and I exchanged glances, me having to look way up, and hurried to flank Priam. By the time we did, the CPO had far more flankers.
Nothing good, I thought correctly, would come of this.
"Got a problem?" Priam asked with an extra rasp in his already annoying voice.
The CPO was a head taller than Priam and twice as wide. "What if I do, you puny yellow blip?" She glanced around at her buddies. "I have a problem with all conceited assholes who spend their time putting everyone else in harm's way."
Point conceded. Deep space exploration certainly involves potential risks for our species, although so far we've brought nothing but benefit. But public risk didn't much account for her hostility. Orbital sailors don't get half our training, or half the tech. They can't get the ultra-portable inertia gear we all wear, quantum-spin-liquid crystals woven into our uniforms. As for our cutting-edge individualized biomech, sorry hulks.
One such gift, reserved for pilots and pilots in training, allowed me to see something our hosts couldn't: a subtle purple shimmer around Priam's body. That meant he'd just gone far overbound, bulking up his inertial field, and the latest biomech allowed him to do this without any hulks catching on.
So when he let his facial expression do the trash talking for him, and some Sky SEAL gorilla so enormous that his head nearly reached to Micah's chin threw a mighty punch into Priam's solar plexus, the snap of oversized wrist bones breaking made me wince but didn't surprise me. In effect, every part of my Martian crewmate had, temporarily, become almost unmovable. Naturally, Priam himself couldn't move in that state. So he began varying his inertia to accomplish his wonders. First, a fist that some Sky SEAL made the mistake of treating like a joke. Then hands reached out to grab him but he bounced away with every touch. He had the gall to laugh.
Lecture time, quick I promise. On, say, the Moon, ignoring minuscule mutual attraction effects, objects of differing masses would fall at the same speed, yes? Not necessarily! Our ability to control inertial moment has rendered Newton's Laws of Motion to be special cases. Inertia being the resistance of mass to any change in motion or direction, limit both that and air resistance for one mass, and it would fall progressively much faster than an unmodified mass.
Here's another tidbit. It isn't only gravity that limits jumping ability. It takes a heap of muscular energy to overcome inertia and get your body accelerated enough to get off the ground, not counting the raw strength required for liftoff. But it also takes inertia or some other force to keep rising once your feet leave the floor no matter how hard you push off. So if a jumper removes their personal inertia entirely, some truly exotic things can happen.
While Priam was keeping the masses entertained with a floatation trick I'd read about but never seen performed, two especially observant hulks noticed Micah and I standing around. They discounted Micah, assuming he was a harmless pacifist, and focused on me.
Venusians. While they tend to be big, they aren't all weak due to our sister planet's somewhat lower gravity. Being forced to spend much of their time within environment domes under cramped conditions has encouraged most to become contemplative mystics of one flavor or another. But many practice various arts including the martial variety, and more than a few make their oversized bodies as strong as possible.
Micah was a tad slow and a peaceable sort of fellow—a Zen enthusiast, in fact—but weak and harmless he wasn't. He intercepted the pair headed toward me, shoved them back into the swarm around Priam, then he waded into the swarm himself and began grabbing whatever limbs were convenient, using those as handles to throw hulk after hulk aside. I almost smiled at the way he kept apologizing, and noticed how careful he was to avoid hurling anyone into knives, glass, or table corners. Of course, he kept smiling gently. Still, none of the thrown tried to return to what Priam, whose words tended to be somewhat legacy, would call "the fray."
Don't know who alerted the MPs, but they made a spectacular entrance while tossing hissing canisters around, and I figured the shark-like snouts they wore were gasmasks when everyone else starting falling. Didn't feel the gas affecting me, but being upright seemed too much of a bother.
The dressing-down went pretty much as I expected except for who did the dressing, and our punishment. The pecking order at the Academy goes plebs, cadets, explorers, mentors, supervisors, envisions, and at the summi
t, the commandant, Dr. Leslie Go, popularly known as "the Chief." Getting our lumps from the Chief herself came as a shock. She wasn't pleased with us, and while her voice remained quiet, I got the full message.
"Cadet Emily Asgari," she murmured at one point after turning sad eyes my way, "I am particularly disappointed in you. You are team leader and therefore responsible for controlling your crewmates. Furthermore, you alone are native to this planet and should be capable of navigating its challenges."
It took all my willpower to keep myself from turning to glare at Priam. I wouldn't have minded adding a second glare aimed at Micah. The big goof smiled as if getting reamed was all in a day's blessing.
"Because of all this, cadets," the Chief continued, "you will not be undertaking a normal trial mission." She paused and I could hear someone swallowing hard—maybe it was me. "Instead, your leave is cancelled and you are now assigned to the Abreathon World project where you will assist Explorer Team 32 dismantle their safe-camp prior to abandoning the planet. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Commandant," we all said, but not quite in unison.
"If you comport yourselves impeccably, I may consider allowing you to resume your chosen career path. If you do not, there will no longer be a place for any of you within this organization. Report to Supervisor Clark at ohsix-hundred Sunday for new transportation assignments. Dismissed."
"She was smoking mad," Priam remarked in midair after we'd jumped from the twentieth-floor leaping bay, falling toward the enclosed courtyard below. "Did you see the way her little finger kept twitching? I bet she wanted to strangle us." He giggled.
We all went unbound before our feet hit the pavement, and came to an instant, soft stop with the first contact between shoe-soles and concrete. With all the practice at this we'd had, we could probably do it in REM sleep.
I blasted Priam with the eye-beams I'd been withholding for the last half-hour. "Wouldn't mind strangling someone myself."
"Oh c'mon, Em. You know that she-hulk started it; besides, it was fun."
"Not for me. And you'd better hope we never run into any of your playmates again. I think you made an impression."
Micah chuckled, a sound like a clogged sink un-stuffing, but said nothing.
The shuttle trip was typical. Five other cadet triads infested the cabin plus two mentors and one lofty envision deposited in the only single-seat row. Some pilots as a courtesy do a verbal countdown before takeoff, but our guy didn't bother and we eased up into the air like a bubble rising in the beer we never got to drink on Friday.
I sneaked a peek at some other cadets. They seemed universally perky if somewhat tense. Clearly, they were headed toward something other than a punishment assignment. We arrived at the orbital station on time, probably to the picosecond.
The station smelled of citrus disinfectant, machine oil, sweat, onions, and long unwashed clothes just like the previous two times I'd been here. Nasty, but you adjust. From the virtual ports in the shuttle, it hadn't appeared particularly big or impressive. Inside, it was both.
A team of station "priests," glorified traffic cops, waited for us in the debarkation terminal and distributed us new arrivals between various corridors with brusque gestures and without asking questions. "Data implants," Priam explained unnecessarily and too loudly.
Of course Team Asgari was the only triad sent down the leftmost corridor. After a few hundred yards of nothing but wide and tall hallways encased in accordion pleats, we took a sharp right turn and stepped over a high threshold through a doorway with bank-vaultthick walls. Gravity increased suddenly enough to make us stumble. Priam groaned dramatically but before I could fake feeling sorry for him he said, "airlock," which might've been helpful if Micah and I had misplaced our brains during the trip.
Seeing as company waited for us in the form of a mentor I'd never met, I kept my thoughts sequestered.
The mentor was a Martian at least two generations older than Priam. His golden skin had developed a grayish cast that I'd never seen on one of his kind. Welcome," he said with reverse enthusiasm, "to U. W. Flightship Skylark. I am Mentor Hector Michealides and have received detailed instructions from god concerning you."
Micah's omnipresent smile widened. "Sir, what do you mean by 'god'?"
"Moron," Priam snapped, "he means the Chief."
"Just so," Michealides stated, "but in the future, I will handle all questions directed to me. Is that understood, Cadet Galanis?"
"Yes, sir. Clear as clarity."
After giving Priam a look that would freeze hydrogen, the mentor studied me.
"Cadet Asgari, you are the pilot and triad leader, yes?" It wasn't a question. "You are responsible for your crewmates."
"Yes, Mentor."
"Listen carefully, all three of you. Since we are evacuating all personnel on Abreathon, we carry minimum crew plus a few camp-disassembly specialists. Thus we have an abundance of cabins available for this leg of our journey. Each of you will be assigned an individual space on level delta. I suggest that you treasure the privacy because you will have precious little on the return lap. You must remain fit. Therefore, you will perform specific exercises at specific times each ship-day and will receive instructions for doing so. You will remain in your cabins for the journey's duration. Cadets Asgari and Cohen may converse on your personal triad channel; but you, Cadet Galanis, will find your communications bio mech disabled until landing."
Priam's eyes widened in outrage. "Why only me?"
"Your recent behavior in San Diego was recorded. You needn't feel entirely singled out. None of you will have access to the many entertainment options available to the more deserving. All necessities will be delivered. You will be monitored. Constantly.
"Once we reach our destination, prepare to work harder than you've ever worked in your short and foolish lives. You will find this to be the kind of work aptly described as 'backbreaking' and you will receive no praise or appreciation from the explorers who have la-bored in vain for over thirty standard years to make their project successful. Any final questions? We will not meet again until we set down."
"Two questions, sir," Priam said. "Why is the gravity here set so high? I've read that Abreathon's gravity is reported as only 3 percent higher than Earth's."
"I'd be surprised, Cadet, if you are fully acclimated to even 1g given your history, and you will not find a 3 percent increase trivial considering the physical efforts awaiting you. All tasks ahead will be arduous, and everyone aboard will benefit from six to eight hours a ship-day of Earth-plus gravity. What is your final question?"
Priam nodded. "May I peruse the project reports during the trip?"
Michealides's expression shifted. His face didn't radiate joy and goodwill.
"For what possible purpose, Cadet?"
"For a chance to salvage the project."
That bold statement stunned the mentor into a not-so-brief silence. "You believe that you, with no practical experience and without ever having set foot on the planet, could make a discovery that has evaded fifty trained minds for well over a quarter century?"
The Martian smiled in a way that I hoped didn't appear as offensive to Michealides as it did to me.
"Why not? I'm probably more intelligent than anyone you've ever met."
Another show-stopper, but the mentor recovered faster this time around. "You may be more arrogant than anyone I've previously met, but I will grant your request with one condition: if you can offer nothing new and useful after studying the reports, I will consider your triad as having failed this mission. You will still be required to do the work involved, but upon our return to Earth, you will all be discharged from the EE."
Before I could object, and before Micah could even begin to react, the conceited loudmouth said, "Accepted."
The injustice of all this made me feel as if my eyeballs were about to pop out, and I was a split-hair away from letting the Universe know it and damn the consequences, but I remembered a trick that I'd figured out through bitter exp
erience. In crucial situations, the idea is to say whatever I want to say in my head and listen to it before letting it out.
So no satisfying and disastrous venting, just "I request access to the same material, sir, for both Cadet Cohen and myself so long as that doesn't, um, increase the number of useful insights you demand."
He eyed me, tilting his head slightly as if dubious about my sanity. "Are you also more brilliant than all those dullards I've previously encountered?"
"I doubt it, sir."
"Then I approve your request." He made no sign or signal that I could see, but two big crewmembers strode out of a corridor and joined us. "Ensigns Gopal and Lincoln," he stated without looking at them, "will guide you to your cabins. You will not converse on the way."
He turned and shambled off without a parting word for anyone or a tear of regret at being separated from us. The ensign I assumed was Gopal from his Dravidian features suddenly grinned at us and made a wide after-you gesture with one long arm. Ensign Lincoln, who had Afro-American features but whose skin was two shades lighter than mine, was less polite. He put a hand on Priam and Micah's backs and shoved. Or tried to. With the moment of advance warning, the Martian had gone over-bound and it takes more than a light push to shift Micah. As though they'd just been waiting to take a stroll, both of my crewmates took off on their own just as Lincoln began to put some real muscle into his follow-up shove. As a result, he stumbled and from the adoration on his face I guessed we hadn't made a new friend.
Since they may need to accommodate Venusians on occasion, not all starship cabins are cramped. Joy! Mine was. I hoped Micah had fared better and Priam had been stuffed into a closet.
A datagon arrived with my hospital-grade lunch, delivered by a smirking but silent Ensign Gopal who departed with more haste than I appreciated since I hoped to get a little more info out of him. I pulled the datagon from its case and was pleased to find the charge circle showing full power. I booted it up while munching a burrito-like object with a faint odor that made me grateful the thing was almost flavorless. Probably an example of recycling's downside.
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