The Far Horizon

by Patty Jansen

  'Yes?' His father's grey eyes met his.

  At that moment, Erith came back, and the opportunity was lost. She gave him a parcel in shiny purple wrapping that glistened in the sunlight. It was about the size of a school reader, and it was just as heavy. Some sort of study thing no doubt.

  But as he ripped the paper, sunlight hit a glittering smooth surface of . . . a reader? One of those devices made with Union technology that recorded your thoughts, stored and read every kind of file and played holographic movies as if you were inside them. He slid it onto his lap, letting the paper flutter to the floor, staring from the crystalline surface to Erith and back again. 'For me?' His voice was barely more than whisper.

  His father smiled. 'Come on, son, turn it on.'

  Cory pressed the top left corner of the screen. It flickered into life, showing a picture of himself. He remembered how Erith had taken the picture and marvelled how it came out as if the image floated over the screen. When he moved his eyes, the picture on the screen moved, too.

  'You'll need to set it up,' Erith said.

  Cory nodded; he knew that. The thought sensors were not easy to use, either, but he would learn, oh yes he would. 'Thank you very much.' His words sounded lame. Wow, what a present.

  Erith smiled. 'Now you won't have an excuse not to do your work.'

  Cory grinned. School work. As if he'd use it to do any of that. He clutched the reader to his chest. 'I'm going upstairs.' He'd transfer all his movies, and then—

  His father interrupted his thoughts. 'Did you want to say anything to me?'

  Cory had almost forgotten about that letter. But did it really matter? The person who had sent it, and the man at the wedding, were not going to Midway. The people at Midway wouldn't think twice about having Union people around; no doubt they came to the station all the time. He shook his head. 'No, it's not important.'

  Upstairs in his room, he took the letter out of his pocket and, because he could see nowhere else to put it, stuffed it in the very bottom of his box of things that were coming to Midway.

  Chapter 3

  Strapped in his bunk, Cory stared at the screen in the ceiling, or that part of the wall that had been the ceiling during much of their three-month trip. This morning, the pilot had turned off the ion drives in preparation for their arrival at Midway. The ship was coasting at low speed. Without the engine's constant braking force, gravity had dropped to nothing and ceilings became walls, walls became floors and floors became ceilings. At first it had been tremendous fun, floating upside down and propelling himself through the cabin with a single push of a finger, but then Cory got motion sickness, which was why he spent so much time in his bunk watching movies—at least they had a clear up and down.

  His new reader was really cool. Besides the thought sensor, which he was starting to master, it had a transmitter that connected directly to the Venture's communications channel, so he could chat with Garreth. Garreth's face became so real that Cory felt like he had never left. That was only if the reader wouldn't keep sliding sideways in its holder.

  He had propped it up into the brackets above the bunk that was designed for old-fashioned computers. His father had told him the Venture was more than seventy years old, and used to ferry passengers between the Earth launch pad and the pad circling the moon, from where the shuttle would take people to and from Moon Base. Seventy years! That was even before the first official contact between Earth and the Union, although Erith had told him primly that Union people had lived on Earth for as long as humanity had existed. She said that scientists had found the ancient link between Earth humans and the human species that had first colonised the universe. To Cory, it sounded like she thought humans were stupid.

  Speaking of Erith . . . The catch on the door lifted and it slid aside. Erith came in, pulling herself forward on the railing that surrounded the walls of the cabin. 'Cory, your breakfast and your pill.'

  'Thank you.' Cory took the food bag from her. Her face looked pale and her eyes even more deep-set than normal. 'Eat it quickly. The pilot wants us strapped in our seats within half an hour.' She hesitated, as if she wanted to say something else, but she didn't, and used the side of the bunks opposite him and the railing to push herself back to the door.

  Half an hour? Cory paused the movie and switched to the flight information channel. There it was: ETA 1.12. It meant Estimated Time of Arrival and had always been a figure with many numbers. He switched to the visual, the view through the telescope on the outside of the craft. The screen turned black, dotted with specks of light, with one spot brighter than all: Midway Space Station.

  Excitement flooded him. He ripped open the food bag, tore the foil off his motion sickness pill and washed it down with the contents of the other packet: milk and cornflakes all in one, a gooey sludge mixed from powder supplemented with water from the on-board tanks. Carefully, he unbuckled the straps and slid out of his bunk, holding onto the wall railing.

  The last time when the pilot called for all passengers to be seated was when they went through the jump point, the one that led from somewhere near the orbit of Saturn to another point at about three weeks' flying distance from Midway. Cory hadn't liked that experience much; it felt like being sucked through some giant plughole.

  In the narrow corridor, several other people floated on their way to the communal cabin, a room the size of a classroom with rows of seats facing a screen that took up most of the wall. Many seats were empty. There was room for about seventy people on board, but some crew member had said on these long flights, they couldn't carry more than thirty.

  His father and Erith already sat in the front row. His father wore headphones. His gaze distant, he spoke into the microphone. '. . . Yes, and check the cargo holds, too. Yes, I know it will slow you down, but we must ensure the best security.' Every time his father spoke to people at Midway, it was about security, and in the past three months, he had spent a lot of time speaking to them.

  Cory half-floated to the seat next to his father, past Erith who looked like she might vomit on him any minute. He hadn't actually noticed her being sick on the voyage, didn't even know if ethies vomited, but he wasn't going to hang around to find out. He buckled himself into his seat.

  'All right, son?' His father had taken off the headphones.

  Cory nodded, clamping his jaws. He shouldn't think about vomiting.

  Erith gave a deep sigh. 'I don't know why you put up with this silly . . . weightlessness.' Her face was white.

  His father stroked the back of her hand. 'We'll be there soon, and I'll get a doctor to look at you.'

  'Thank you, John. I feel so awful.'

  Cory leant back and hoped she wouldn't go on complaining. This type of space travel was ancient, and if Earth only joined her darling Union, they could benefit from their much superior technology. Union ships did not have to travel through space to available jump points—their Exchange Network created them where needed. Blah, blah, blah. He had heard it all before. If she hated humans that much, why didn't she stay where she belonged?

  But she said nothing, leaning on his father's shoulder, the fingers of her hand intertwined with his. Both wore silver rings on their middle fingers.

  The screen now projected an enhanced view of Midway Station, floating in space like a giant spinning top made of a full-size bike wheel with on top a smaller scooter wheel. Cory had seen it before, in pictures. The outer ring, the bike tyre, was fattest. This was where the station residents lived. The smaller, scooter tyre had a few irregular 'bumps', which he knew were the docks.

  While the rings and spokes rotated slowly but incessantly, a square hole in the middle of the station, the hub, remained still. That was where the Venture would connect. The image of the station was so clear now that he could even see the rails which would transport the ship from the hub to the docks.

  It was exciting to see it in real life, and it made Cory forget his nausea. This was Midway Station, built by humans. It might be silly and old-fashioned in Er
ith's mind, but people had built this, people who had once been boys and girls with dreams, like him. If he had a chance, he'd like to travel to Taurus and New Taurus, and who knew what other planets people would colonise soon.

  The light dimmed in the cabin and the pilot's voice crackled through the intercom. 'Passengers and crew, prepare for docking procedure. The braking engines are engaged. All passengers please be seated. Crew check cabin for loose objects.'

  His father bent over to check Cory's seatbelt.

  On the screen, the image of Midway station had enlarged. The floor vibrated; the wall panels rattled. Cory's chest felt like an elephant sat on it. He squeezed his nose and popped his ears, but had to keep doing it. With sweaty hands, he clamped the armrests and concentrated on the image before him, the two rings, the little protrusions of antennae or whatever else he could now discern on the surface of the station. Still, the image enlarged.

  The cabin went dark. The screen flickered and turned black. Only a tiny light somewhere up in the ceiling pierced the darkness. Cory grabbed his father's hand. 'Dad?'

  His father's deep voice sounded to his right. 'It's all right. We're almost there.'

  Cory's head pounded. He knew, or at least his father had explained to him, that the Midway flight system would be guiding them, but it sure didn't feel very safe.

  All of a sudden, the vibrations and the feeling of being squashed stopped. Something clunked hard against the outside of the craft. Light went on to relieved gasps from passengers.

  The intercom crackled and a dry voice said, 'Welcome to Midway Space Station. You have successfully connected with our landing platform. The ship has engaged with the conveyor rails which will transport you to the receiving dock within half an hour when the door will be opened and we will start disembarking. When your name is called, please leave all your belongings on board and come with our staff for quarantine.'

  A man behind Cory said, 'Quarantine? What's this nonsense?'

  His wife next to him cast a quick glance at Erith, and the man replied, 'Oh, I see.'

  Chapter 4

  Cory's heart thudded. Did he understand correctly that all passengers had to go through extra checks because of Erith?

  She bent over his father's shoulder and whispered something into his ear; he smiled. Obviously they hadn't heard the comment.

  The door which had been shut for three months slid open; a strip of light grew on the floor and a cool breeze wafted in.

  A tall figure in a white poncho-like garment, hood and face mask walked in. 'Mr Wilson, Sir, can I ask you and your family to come forward?' The voice was a woman's.

  Under the gazes of the other passengers, Cory rose from his seat, his heart still hammering. His father helped Erith, whose face had gone grey.

  The woman in the poncho said, 'How was your trip, Sir?'

  'Well enough. You will have to excuse my wife. She is still suffering space sickness.'

  'You're first off the ship, Sir. We will have you in your quarters as soon as possible.'

  'Thank you.'

  Cory followed his father and Erith to the door. As he passed the woman, she winked at him over her face mask. 'Hey, I have a little son, too. He's having a wozy time at the school.'

  Cory grimaced. Wozy? He'd heard that people at Midway and Taurus had developed a very odd kind of talk, but what did wozy mean? Was it good or bad?

  They emerged into a huge hall. A solid gangplank, about two storeys off the floor, connected the Venture with a balcony which ran along the side of the hall.

  To the right, the conveyor rails emerged from the huge air lock through which the ship had just entered. Below him, people in blue overalls wheeled trolleys towards the ship. Under the overhang of the platform, rows and rows of tools hung in workshops.

  'Come, Cory.' His father took his arm. 'People are waiting for us.'

  'Can't I keep watching while you talk?'

  'No, son. Quarantine is an important procedure. You're the director's son. From now on, we set an example.'

  Cory grumbled, but went with his father into a room where Erith sat on a couch facing another poncho-clad nurse, who pressed the skin at the base of her throat with a gloved hand.

  'I tell you, it's the weightlessness. I will be fine soon.' Her voice sounded distressed. A silky sheen of sweat coated her cheeks.

  'You haven't been feeling well—since when?' the nurse asked, his voice muffled by his face mask.

  'For the last week or so, ever since we've had no gravity.' She leaned back, closing her eyes.

  Cory's father came to stand behind her chair. 'We have the on-board doctor's reports. It's motion sickness. I would appreciate if you could let her go or continue the examination elsewhere. She's really unwell.'

  As if to illustrate his father's comment, Erith whimpered and bent forward, her hand covering her mouth. Just in time, the nurse reached out for a bowl.

  Cory gazed out the door, clamping his jaws. He hated the sound of people vomiting. It made him feel sick and reminded him of mother's illness. He only dared turn around again when the nurse spoke to an assistant. 'Give her some water.'

  Sweat beading on her forehead, Erith gulped from the cup, which the assistant took from her with gloved hands and then deposited it in a slot that said contaminated waste.

  The nurse cleared his throat and addressed Cory's father, who had his arm around Erith's shoulders. 'You do understand, Sir, that we can't allow her in the station like this?'

  His father nodded, grimly. 'But surely she can come to our accommodation and recover there?'

  The nurse hesitated. 'It's our policy to put anyone who is sick on arrival in isolation in quarantine, Sir. We need to protect Midway staff from extra-terrestrial diseases.'

  Cory frowned. Extra-terrestrial diseases? How could Erith have any of those? She had lived on Earth for years.

  'I have a statement from Union medical personnel that my wife was of good health when we left Earth.' His father's voice sounded as fragile as burnt paper. 'Anything she might have caught afterwards, if this is a disease, which it isn't, would have been an Earth-based infection. Please continue with your procedures so that she can rest in her own bed.'

  The nurse gave a tiny nod. 'All right, Sir, I will continue with the boy. I do insist that you provide me with those health declarations for your wife, translated by a certified interpreter.'

  Still looking at his father, the nurse motioned for Cory to take off his shirt. Cory stiffened while the nurse listened to his chest and his heart; he didn't like this man. Meanwhile his father sat down next to Erith, closing a white-knuckled hand around her wrist.

  She gave him a weak smile. 'I'm sorry about this.'

  'How do you feel?'

  'I feel fine now. It must have been something I ate.' Some colour had returned to her face.

  Silence in the room lasted until the nurse had finished the examination of both Cory and his father and went back to his desk. 'You can get dressed, now, Sir. I will process the blood samples later today. Your wife's, though . . .' He set the tube containing dark red blood aside, '. . . will have to be returned to Earth on the Venture and be analysed there. We don't have the facilities here to analyse ETH blood.'

  His father pushed himself up from his seat. 'We've had all the tests before we left. There was nothing wrong with her. We have proof of that.' Oh, was he angry.

  At that moment, there were voices on the balcony and a sharp-faced man strode into the room. He wore a military uniform with glittering buttons and decorations. No poncho, no face mask. Grey eyes glared at the nurse. 'What is the meaning of this, Vaitsas?'

  The nurse flinched and straightened himself. 'Station Procedures, Sir.'

  'Stop the procedures.'

  The nurse opened his mouth.

  'That is an order, Vaitsas.' The man crossed the room to Cory's father. 'Don Sullivan, at your service, Sir.'

  Cory recognised that name. He was the man who had been in change in absence of a director. 'Sullivan, I am gl
ad to see you.' Cory's father shared two-handed handshake.

  'The pleasure is mutual, Sir. Please excuse my staff. It seems that there has been some kind of misunderstanding. Vaitsas?' He gestured at the nurse.

  'She is ill, Sir. I cannot abandon procedures without approval.'

  'I'm sure for our new director, we can relax the procedures, although in consideration for the workers of Midway, it might be wise if your wife stays in your quarters in a separate room until the doctor sees her. Sorry Sir, you will understand these procedures are important to protect Midway staff.'

  For the walk to their quarters, the nurse insisted for Erith to wear a white poncho and a face mask. Erith stood stone-faced while his father put the garments on her. Cory thought she looked rather sad. He agreed with his father; he didn't think she had a dangerous disease.

  Once out of the room, his father seemed keen to put the incident behind him. 'So, Sullivan, how have things been?'

  While they waited for the lift to arrive, Sullivan spoke of events at the station, arrivals of important ships, and about the upcoming Union-Earth talks. Cory only half-listened, his neck craned to see as much of the activity in the large hall as possible. If only he could stay here a bit longer and see how the crew took the panels off the Venture's engines.

  The lift arrived and took them on a long and smooth ride, where gravity slowly declined until once more Cory's feet lifted off the ground. He knew that the only way to get from the inner ring to the outer ring was through the hub. Sullivan hung onto the railing around the lift wall, and continued talking as if nothing happened. When the door opened, he propelled himself out with a push refined through practice, and then helped Cory's father. Cory followed, giggling when he missed the railing and hung upside down. Zero gravity was really a lot of fun, until it made you sick.

  'Boy.' Sullivan's hand closed around his upper arm. Cory looked into hard grey eyes. 'Let me say this once. The place for children is the outer ring. The lifts, the central hub and the inner ring are strictly off limits. The access key, which I'll give you, is programmed not allow you in these areas, but even if you go there with an adult, there is to be no clowning around in any of those places. Understand?'