Omar returned to his work in silence, the mountain of data sets seemingly impossible to conquer. Whenever he thought he was making headway a spacer would bring him more files to sort. The rest of the day passed slowly, his thoughts returning to Veronika again and again. Feeling her body next to his and in moments becoming the officer once more was like watching a mirage disappear. He just wasn’t sure which was the illusion and which the woman.
The next day he told himself he would refuse her if she came to him again, tell her that he wanted no more of the torture he felt when he thought of her. When she entered his room in silence though, he said nothing. The sex was gentler and more sensuous than before, yet he felt as though they were touching from a great distance. He found it difficult to catch her eyes and she would turn away if he did. They did not talk afterward though they lay together for some time. Before she left, Veronika turned back to Omar.
“I’ll see what I can do…” She said slowly, as though the words hurt her. “…about the food.” Before he could reply, she was gone.
The next morning as he began his work a spacer entered the room. The man was young and stocky. He had a relaxed air about him, as though he had not a worry in the world.
“Hey, you’re Omar, right?” Omar nodded. “I’ve been told to ask you to compile a list of supplies in the city you think the people down here could use that we don’t need upstairs. Get it to me by the end of the day.” Omar nodded again and the man left.
Omar waited all day for Veronika to visit him again so that he could thank her, but she did not appear. Omar gave the report to the young spacer at the end of the day and was told to report to him the next morning.
The next day he found the young spacer standing outside with a group of conscripts and some transports. Everyone seemed in good spirits. He climbed into one of the transports with a couple of conscripts.
“Did you hear?” One of the men asked him as the transport started moving.
“Hear what?”
“The spacers are going to give supplies to the poor. They’re calling it a goodwill mission. I didn’t think they had it in them. Kinda makes you wonder, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Omar spent the day helping the spacer allocate supplies to the poor. Mostly it consisted of telling him what the markings on the warehouse crates meant. He found the spacer easy to work with. The man liked to talk and Omar was content to listen. It wasn’t until near the end of the day that the man prompted him to speak.
“I’m sorry.” Omar began, “What did you say?”
“Oh I was just talking.” The man replied. “I said that the Fleet could use a few more guys like you up there. You know, honest hard working types. We’ve got plenty of thrill seekers, and hardasses like Colonel Kharzin aplenty but we got precious few guys that just know how to get the job done, you know?”
“I fear there are few enough anywhere.”
“Ain’t that the truth. Anyways, I was just saying that I seen the way things are down here, with the poor getting the shaft and it sucks pretty bad. Say the word and I’ll get you in the motor pool upstairs. You could leave all this behind.”
“This is my home.”
“Yeah, I guess, but your home has treated you pretty bad it seems like to me.”
“Besides, I have no skills that your ships would need. I’m only useful right now because I can read the local language.”
“We can teach skills. They got these things you put on your head that shoot facts into your skull. I learned how to take apart a flux manifold in five minutes. The thing you can’t teach is work ethic. I seen you working at the shipyards the last couple of weeks and our time today confirmed it. It’s not like you wouldn’t be doing me right as well. Standing contract pays me a finder’s fee if you stick around for three legs.”
“Three legs?”
“Yeah, a lot of guys sign on thinking that they’ll love space and stuff. They spend a couple of weeks stuck on a ship and get off at the first stop. Others quit once they’re asked to do something they disagree with. The smart ones wait until we finish transitioning to a system before telling their bosses. Seen a couple of entitled feeling guys do a spacewalk in the void between stars for talking a little too loud about ‘unfair working conditions.’ Last three legs and you’re probably hooked for good. That’s when I get my finder’s fee. Anyways, just think about it. If you want in, just tell the guys at the port that Ducky sent you.”
“All right, Ducky. I’ll think about it.”
Think about it he did. Omar spent the night staring out at the sky, imagining himself aboard a starship. In his mind’s eye he was tall and proud, his uniform crisp and clean. Beside him stood Veronika, sometimes soft and vulnerable, sometimes fierce and indomitable. It was the dream of the very poor to one day be raised up to a high station. He had often looked at the towers of the wealthy in Keikruit with envy. Perhaps he could rise above even them.
The next day he returned to working in the office but Veronika was nowhere to be seen. Three more days passed before he saw her in passing. He started to walk toward her but a sharp shake of her head warned him off. It was with surprise that he heard that the Fleet was planning on leaving before the end of the week. The thought of returning to the drudgery of his other jobs, if they had even held them for him, filled him with an existential dread he had not foreseen. He had seen a glimmer of something better.
Omar walked up to the foreman at the end of the day and told him what he wanted. The foreman looked incredulous at first but when Omar told him that Ducky had given him a pass he was sent to see the field commander, a man named Eliot Nasi.
The commander of the ground forces sat in a desk stolen from some elite’s personal office. It was opulent in the way things were for the very rich on that world but the commander seemed immune to its excesses. The office was adorned however with many objects no doubt liberated from the homes of the elite, artwork and sculpture. The man himself looked perhaps of middle age, balding, with a bluish tinge to his skin that Omar would later learn resulted from certain life extending techniques. The man’s uniform was both simpler and more casual than that worn by his subordinates. The man looked Omar up and down before motioning for him to sit.
“Omar? That’s your name, right?” Nasi asked.
“Yes, sir.” Omar replied.
“Well Omar, I should tell you that you’re the third person Ducky has sent up to me this week. He’s a decent tech but I think he’d recommend a monkey if he thought he could get a commission off it. I’ve turned down all three. Why should I take you?”
Omar started to answer but held his tongue. His words would no doubt be no different than those the others had given before to no avail. His mind searched for something which would give him unique standing to this man. The words of his namesake came to him almost without thought.
“Surely not in vain,” Omar began hesitantly,
“My substance from the common earth was taken,
That He who subtly wrought me into shape
Should stamp me back to common earth again.”
Omar lapsed back into silence, uncertain if his meaning was clear. The commander stared at him a moment, confused. Then the man’s features softened, reminding Omar for a moment of Veronika’s hidden demeanor.
“I’ve often felt the same young man.” He replied at last. “That the universe would create me and give me consciousness is a question seeking an answer. Why do this thing if my life were to have no meaning? I’ve tried my best to understand my place in the universe but I have found no certain answer.” Nasi seemed to be speaking rhetorically but Omar answered him regardless.
“I think we must give our own meaning to our lives. It is not something we can find outside ourselves.”
“Yet you want to join my crew and travel the stars. Can you not find meaning just as easily here?”
“Perhaps I could. I believe, however, that the universe is guiding me away from this place. It is as foolish to shrink from our destiny as to
embrace it too easily.” Nasi laughed at that and shook his head ruefully.
“You’re an odd one, Omar Hadi.” The field commander said. “I should probably send you back to wherever you came from. You’ll probably hate life aboard the Westinghouse and the Fleet in general. We’re an ugly bunch and proud of it. I don’t know if there is a place for poets and dreamers on a ship full of thieves and monsters.”
“There was a place for you, sir.”
“I’m no dreamer. Maybe I was, a long time ago but that man is dead a dozen times over. I’m not sure I want the same thing to happen to you.” He paused, rubbing his balding forehead. He seemed to make a decision and looked directly at Omar. “I’m not one to stand in the way of destiny though. If you want in, I’ll sign you.”
Chapter 17
Omar stood in the center of his hovel, trying to decide what he should take with him. The transport which would take him to his new life was leaving within the hour. He frowned as he searched for something of value among his possessions. He settled for a picture of his parents which he placed inside his copy of the Rubaiyat. The officer told him that uniforms would be provided to him, their cost deducted from his wages. Training would be handled much the same. As near as he could tell he would be in debt for several months at the least.
Standing on a platform near the shipyards, Omar looked out on his world for a final time. It seemed that Travail wanted to send him away with a pleasant memory. It was nearing dusk and as the sun set it lit the sky with color. It was as beautiful as his homeworld had ever looked, the city rising out of the clouds as though thrust with some dire purpose upward by an angry god. Though it had given him naught but a hard life, Omar found the idea of parting with the city that had been his home a difficult one. With a sigh he turned and entered the ship that would bring him to his new life.
If Omar had held hopes that his new life would be like living among the rich and powerful of Travail, he was quickly disillusioned. In many ways his new life was much like the old one. Having no skills, he found himself listed as a third class technician aboard the Industrial ship Westinghouse. It was the largest ship in the Fleet and the least military vessel of the bunch. He cleaned areas the automated systems could not be trusted to clean and verified other machines were operating correctly. He listed problems so that other, more qualified, technicians could repair them.
By far the most fascinating change for Omar was the teaching chambers Ducky had spoken of. Free to use when the subject matter related to his job, Omar was captivated by the easy availability of such knowledge. He spent most of his off time in the curved pods with his brain wired into the frame. At first the experience frightened him, his brain flooded with information via a process he understood even less than the ideas being rammed into his mind. At night his dreams were painful as his ravaged brain tried to arrange the data into useful forms. His mind swam with mathematical symbols and equations alien to a poor man from a semi-primitive planet. He feared his mind was not capable of learning the material until the end of the first week when he woke to find all the data had snapped into place during the night. He felt an understanding of higher math and physics ready in his mind for use. The new knowledge felt different than his personal memories but it was clear and reliable nonetheless.
As some of the information was also meant to orient him to life on the ship, Omar found himself amazed at how much of the vessel he understood in such a small time. He found a detailed map of the ship imprinted on his mind so clear that by simply thinking for a moment he could plot a route to anywhere in the ship. As well, he began to understand what the machines he worked on did and how the various sections of the ship acted in concert to move the vessel through the void of space. Having the knowledge so readily at his disposal awed and humbled him. He eagerly returned to the chambers again and again.
The next few weeks blurred together as he learned all he could from the teaching chambers. His superiors noticed the improvement in his skills as his lists of instrument flaws first grew and then began to shrink as he made minor adjustments which eliminated common problems. He was praised and told that he had high potential. Omar had never thought of himself as having potential. In his old life there had been no opportunities to achieve. Social movement on Travail was not forbidden but it was nearly impossible. Even rank in the military was mostly based on family and social status.
The Fleet didn’t care where he came from, only what he was capable of doing. Omar began to consider options he never would have before. Many of those options involved Veronika, a woman whose station in life would have precluded a relationship on his homeworld became suddenly a possibility. The only problem he faced was that Veronika stationed on the Damascus, the great warship so close he could taste it but there was no travel between the ships while the Fleet moved between the stars. Omar would have to wait until the ships reached a friendly system before he could surprise her.
When the next two systems turned out to be hostile, Omar feared Veronika would have forgotten about him by the time he could actually reach her. When a coworker suggested he contact her via the net, Omar decided that he could wait no longer. The call was easy enough to place and Omar barely had time to tense up before the call connected.
The screen in his quarters lit and Omar saw Veronika for the first time since making the decision to join the Fleet. The dark haired woman looked annoyed, as though taking the call was an inconvenience. She looked as severe and as beautiful as he remembered. She began to snap out a query when recognition crossed her face. Then she laughed, not soft laughter of happiness but hard cold laughter.
“You damned fool!” She said between fits of laughter. “You have got to be the stupidest man I’ve ever met.”
“Veronika, I’m on the Westinghouse. I decided to travel to the stars. I wanted to see you in person but it seems that fate has not allowed it.”
“Please don’t tell me you came for me.” She said, her laughter subsiding. “Please tell me you’ve always dreamed of being a repairman on a stellar manufacturing platform. Don’t make me be responsible for such an absurd decision.”
“And if you were?” He replied, anger rising in his voice though he fought to keep calm. This was not going as he had anticipated. “Was I giving up so much for a chance to be with you?”
“Considering there is no chance of that, giving up your old life would be monumentally stupid.”
“Why is there no chance? I thought…”
“Oh god,” She interrupted. “Save me from thinking men. I said I wanted sex without commitment. Why do you think I chose a local in the first place? I could have my pick of Fleet cocks.”
“Then why did you help my people after I asked?”
“Why? A whim. It cost us virtually nothing. I can’t believe you read that much into a few boxes of rations. I… I can’t deal with this. I’m sorry Omar, you’ve made a terrible mistake. Please don’t call me again.” The picture cut out before Omar could reply.
Omar sat for a long time staring at the blank screen. Slowly, he turned his head and took in his quarters. Beside his bunk lay his only possession. Omar took the book in his hands and flipped the pages idly, looking for an answer in the ancient poet’s words. He found but one quatrain and no solace did it provide.
“Heaven but the Vision of fulfilled desire,
And Hell the Shadow of a soul on fire,
Cast on the darkness into which ourselves,
So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.”
The next days passed slowly. Omar had no energy to work, his movements listless. He made mistakes and was reprimanded. He took it silently and his deepening despair took the fire from his superior’s angry words, leaving them with ashes in their mouths. It seemed that he existed in a shell of silence. Wherever he passed, voices would lower to whispers. If they spoke of him, Omar neither knew nor cared.
Omar took to sitting in an airlock near his quarters, in an ill used section of the ship. Though he would never have admitted to
thoughts of suicide, he felt comforted by the silence of the void which lay but a meter away and turned his back on the world which he had come to occupy. Sometimes he would place his cheek against the cold metal of the airlock door, the stinging pain a balm to his tortured soul. The pointlessness of his existence tore at him far more than the memory of Veronika’s harsh words. He came to realize that he had placed his faith in a thought of love with this woman to avoid the pain of his lonely existence. He had loved an illusion of happiness far more than the stern woman who had approached him for sex a lifetime ago.
When he received the call to see the XO it was almost with relief. His failure had become apparent to those above and he would be sent away, either to whatever rogue world they visited next or simply passed through the final door of the airlock to eternity. He cleaned himself up and dressed carefully, wanting his final acts on this ship to have more dignity than the rest.
As he entered the XO’s office he was surprised to see that the man seated behind the desk was Eliot Nasi, the man who had offered him a chance on Travail. The office was in a section of the ship spun up for artificial gravity and Nasi motioned for Omar to take a seat.
“Mr. Hadi, I have been following your work here.”
“You have?” Omar couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice.
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