Deep Space Dead

by Chilvers, Edward

  Arianna heard the ceremonial clock in the arboretum chime the hour. It was strange, she thought, how humankind had never grown tired of the chiming of a simple clock. Arianna took the chip from the computer, turned off the holoscreen and left the library. Outside a small crowd of people were heading off to the theatre to see the latest show. A Confederation directive stated that no colonisation ship was to set out on a deep space mission with less than eight thousand colonists on board and this was in order that a separate culture might develop and the passengers might keep one another entertained. It was for this reason that the entertainment corps on the ship were highly regarded. They even got a seat on the Council. All the same Arianna found the entertainment on board the Tula IV to be substandard and amateurish and much preferred attending the hologram theatre where the best films of the Confederation were regularly played.

  The colonists and crew of most pioneering starships were young, ambitious and filled with grand plans for the future. It was a relatively easy life at the Confederation headquarters on Jupiter and the affiliated administration planets but for the hungry and ambitious there was only really the pioneering life. Arianna was professional and accomplished in her vocation and dedicated to her job. Her personal life, on the other hand, was disordered and complicated although it had shown signs of improvement in recent months and Arianna was hoping for a more settled existence once they landed on Hearthstone. She told herself she was older now, and wiser too and although she considered the birth of her daughter to be the greatest single gift of her life the circumstances of the little girl’s birth had been both painful and embarrassing for Arianna. To fall pregnant at the age of twenty had been bad enough. To fall pregnant to the Chief of Police was a positive scandal, especially when that same Chief of Police was forty at the time and old enough, as everybody never ceased to point out, to be her father. For a while Arianna and the police officer, whose name was Sol, had tried to make it work. He had been there at the birth of their daughter, whom they christened Ambra, and they had remained together for a further eighteen months until their already volatile relationship had imploded and she had moved out of his large apartment and into much smaller quarters of her own, taking her daughter with her. Since then her and Sol had enjoyed a fairly cordial relationship. The police officer took care of Ambra as much as possible whilst Arianna was at work and the fact of them both being on the Council meant they were required to work closely together on occasion. Indeed the two of them had been getting on just fine up until a year ago when Arianna had begun a new relationship with one of their fellow councillors.

  Jak Roj was thirty-four years old and the captain of one of two ranger units who would eventually take the rovers out to start exploring the new planet. Rangers were essential to the initial colonisation phase but during the long journey on the starship there was relatively little for them to do except train and offer general assistance when required. Jak was a tall man with a lean and muscular body and blonde hair cropped close the sides. He had a jutting, determined chin and eyes that were almost navy in colour. With his good looks and natural charm it was no surprise that Arianna had fallen for him.

  Jak was waiting for Arianna inside her apartment when she arrived back. He had his own key and had taken the time to prepare her a meal. The two of them kissed warmly. “Working hard?” Asked Jak lightly.

  “Like you wouldn’t believe,” replied Arianna.

  “There’s been much more for me to do now we’re getting closer and its bound to get even busier over the next few days,” said Jak as they sat down together to eat.

  “And once we’ve landed they’ll be even more for you to do,” replied Arianna with a sigh. “You’ll be away all the time and we’ll hardly see one another. Meanwhile there won’t be much cause for a librarian when we’re all busy setting up the city.”

  “They’ll always need the library,” said Jak.

  “Yes but they won’t need as many of us,” replied Arianna. “I suppose they’ll start laying us off once the mines and lumber mills are up and running and everyone knows what they’re doing. I’ll have to find another job.”

  “You’re a worrier,” said Jak with a knowing smile. “I knew it from the moment I laid eyes on you. Even when there isn’t anything to worry about you’ll make something up in your head and dwell on it until a real problem comes along.”

  Arianna smiled. It was an insightful comment given her recent investigations into the fate of the Suki II.

  Dinner had not been finished five minutes when the door to the apartment burst open. “Mummy!” Exclaimed Ambra, running forward into Arianna’s open arms. She had her mother’s features but the jet black hair of her father.

  “Hello sweetheart,” said Arianna happily. “Did you have fun with daddy?”

  “We went to see where we’re going to live!” Exclaimed Ambra excitedly.

  “We went to see the film of Hearthstone,” said Sol, coming to stand in the doorframe. Sol was a stocky man of medium build, a slightly snubbed nose, absurdly old fashioned moustache and jet black hair which was slightly balding at the temples. His eyes were grey and his features fairly forgettable and many had remarked on the mismatch in looks when he and Arianna had been together. Sol served as Chief of Police with a certain plodding diligence. He was an easy going man and this was just as well, because there was very little crime here on the starship and the only time the brig had really had to be used throughout the last eight years was for the odd case of drunk and disorderly conduct.

  Ambra moved from her mother to Jak. The ranger picked her up and swung her around as she laughed delightedly. Arianna noticed a pained expression come across Sol’s face. She knew he was still in love with her, wanted them to be a family once more. In many ways Arianna felt sorry for him. He had not mistreated her when they had been together and she had never doubted his decency. It was simply not meant to be and had it not been for Ambra their encounter would have ended with that brief fling six years ago and they would have carried on as friends.

  “Good evening Jak,” said Sol formerly, and he looked nervously down at his feet.

  “Sol,” replied Jak, his tone equally officious. There followed an uneasy pause during which the atmosphere was almost unbearable. “Are you already for the meeting tomorrow?” Asked Arianna eventually, speaking with artificial brightness, for she was unable to bear the tension any longer.

  “As ready as I always am,” replied Sol with a forced smile. “I hate the damned things and I’m looking forward to getting to Hearthstone so we might all be too busy to hold them.”

  “I want to get to Hearthstone too, daddy!” Said Ambra brightly.

  Sol bent down and placed a hand on the little girl’s shoulder. “And you’re going to love it,” he told her. “You’ll be able to touch earth for the first time. Not that synthetic stuff we’ve got down in the arboretum. I’m talking about the proper stuff. There will be real grass there too, and real air, and rain. So many thing we took for granted that you’ll be seeing and feeling for the first time, Ambra.”

  “And we can explore!” Exclaimed Ambra enthusiastically.

  “Of course we can,” said Sol benevolently. “I’ve been looking at maps of where we’re going to be living. We can walk up into the mountains and look down the valley to the city. We’ll be able to see for miles. All the plains and rivers and maybe even the sea in the distance.”

  “Jak says he’s going to take me up in the rover!” Said Ambra innocently. “He says we’re going to fly into the clouds and I’ll be able to see the whole world, and we’ll be able to fly over the mountains.”

  Sol’s smiled tailed off at this. Jak shifted uncomfortably on his feet. The uneasy silence descended once more.

  The three of them made excruciating small talk for a few minutes longer after which Sol made his excuses and left. “He needs to find himself a good woman,” said Jak, after the door had closed behind the police officer. “He’s just sore because you’ve moved on whilst he’s still
stuck in the past. Well he’s got his daughter and it isn’t as if we’re going to move anywhere in a hurry once we get to Hearthstone. He’ll still get to see her. I won’t stand in his way.”

  “You men and your pride,” laughed Arianna with a wry shake of her head. “Thousands of years of genetic engineering and non-stop progress and we still can’t breed it out of you.”

  3

  Admiral Stenna Kalp was a tall, thin woman in her mid-fifties with iron grey hair cropped closely to the sides. For many years she had laboured away diligently on the cargo and mining ships. The charge of the Tula IV was her final reward for years of good service. Now they were so close to arrival on Hearthstone the Admiral could barely contain her excitement and she turned to beam at the Council as they filed in for the morning meeting. Arianna and Jak arrived together. Sol, as usual, was there first, primly seated at his desk with his hands folded in front of him and his papers ready.

  Bratten Jorg was the Chief of Engineers. She was a still attractive woman in her mid-forties with a slim figure and lush black hair swept back into a tight ponytail. Arianna rarely saw her in the library and this, she supposed, was because Bratten already knew all there was to know about her field. She was certainly one of the most respected councillors on the committee, with a knowledge stretching into many varied areas from agriculture to mechanics.

  Prima Blak was the ship’s chief geologist, a short, round-faced woman in her late thirties. If Jak and his rangers had little to do on the voyage over, Prima and her team had even less to occupy them. Arianna knew her very well from the library where she spent most of her days going over research she already knew and whiling away the days until she could step up to her important role in the eventual colonisation.

  Jung Penn, the chief architect and city planner, was a short and studious man of forty. He was polite and well-presented and usually kept to his own counsel. Notwithstanding he had used his time during the journey wisely in order to map out a grand design for the first city, models of which were on permanent display throughout the starship.

  Banda Ure was the head of the naturalists, an enthusiastic woman of thirty who was the youngest of the councillors after Arianna. Like Prima Blak she’d had little to do throughout the voyage but kept herself busy in the arboretum experimenting with crops and methods of plant growing, a project she’d carried out in liaison with Gan Cuk, the head of agriculture.

  Gan Cuk was a large bear of a man in his late thirties whose responsibility it was to keep the food coming in via the arboretum. His was widely considered the most crucial of tasks on board the ships, for the greenery was needed for the oxygen supply as well, although he bore the pressure admirably.

  Dr Harman Palk was the chief medical officer and would be responsible for overall public health once they reached Hearthstone. He was a jovial man of sixty, one of the oldest colonists on the ship; a fountain of knowledge and a vocal, dedicated councillor.

  Barra Herr was the councillor in overall charge of communications and the ship’s electronics. He was a bald, red faced man in his mid-forties with a prickly demeanour and a heightened sense of his own importance, and only just competent enough in his vocation to be bearable.

  Baac Gorr was the councillor representing the ship’s pilots, a thin and weedy looking man of thirty-seven with a pronounced limp. Because the starship’s course was pre-set, many assumed the pilots did not have a great deal to do but in fact this was far from the case. Their duties, which involved speed control and navigation, took a great deal of skill and training and as the days towards arrival on Hearthstone drew closer Bacc Gorr and his team were becoming increasingly on edge and this was reflected by the pilot’s nervous fingers which tapped incessantly upon the table throughout the course of the meeting.

  Jared Bynce was the councillor in overall charge of mining, forestry and industry, a heavy set, muscular man of forty-two. He too had little to do on the starship but made up for that by being a dedicated and vocal councillor with views on all kinds of topics, regardless of whether or not he properly understood them.

  Magnuj Bol was the councillor in charge of the ship’s administration and overall day to day governance. By comparison to others his department was vast, bureaucratic and, to Arianna, incredibly boring although essential. Bol himself, a slightly overweight, grey haired man with an owl like face in his mid-fifties, seemed to have been almost genetically engineered for the role.

  Last of all was Col Gayze, a thin, dark haired man with an upright bearing who served as the councillor representing the entertainment wing. He was an actor by profession whose embarkation on the starship had been somewhat forced by his affair with the wife of a high ranking Confederation civil servant. Condescending and arrogant in his demeanour he was by far the least popular of all the councillors although unfortunately also one of the most vocal.

  “We’re on course to arrive exactly when we should and with a good surplus of fuel with which to convert into the power station,” said Kalp with satisfaction after the pleasantries had been exchanged and the meeting itself got underway.

  “I’ve calculated we’ll have enough in the tank for three years,” put in Bratten Jorg. “Once we get close the temptation is always to speed up so we might get there quicker but I’d advise against that. It’s always handy to have a backup supply of power even if you’re not using it. You have to be prepared for anything on these new planets, especially when they’ve barely been set foot on it before.”

  Arianna looked up at this statement, wondering whether the engineer was really as ignorant as she seemed, but her face gave nothing away and none of the other councillors spoke up to correct her mistake.

  “Extra fuel is indeed a good idea,” said Jung Penn. “The power plant I have in mind is a complex one, being comprised of both wind and solar energy, and will take time to build. We’ll certainly need a steady supply of fuel to power the city and mines in the meantime.”

  “And I’d like to get mining straight away,” said Jared Bynce. “I know the Confederation likes to give colonies twenty years to harvest a stockpile before they come to take any of the resources for themselves but from what the explorer pods have sent back about Hearthstone conditions are so abundant I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to start running a surplus within half that time.”

  “We don’t need to go brown nosing to the Confederation just yet,” said Barra Herr in his customary haughty tone. “The more resources we dig up in the first few years the better the colony will fare. The Confederation is hardly short of ore and mining materials.”

  The talk turned quickly to matters Arianna found mundane and uninteresting and she stopped listening for the most part. Besides, she had something else on her mind and now they were so close to reaching Hearthstone she intended to address the Admiral after the meeting and get the matter of the Suki II off her chest once and for all.

  The council meeting lasted two hours. Some of the councillors drifted away before this time, busy with preparations for the landing date but Arianna had no such luck. She lingered behind after the Admiral had dismissed them. Kalp spent some time studying her holoscreen before noticing her. “And how are you, Arianna?” She asked pleasantly. “Ambra is well, I trust? And looking forward to the big day?”

  “Completely out of control with excitement,” replied Arianna.

  The Admiral laughed. “As are we all,” she said enthusiastically. “I never had any children of my own, Arianna, as I’m sure I must have told you, but I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying the enthusiasm of our young people as our day of reckoning draws closer.” Suddenly her tone became serious. “And how are you and Sol these days?” She asked perceptively. “I noticed you didn’t make a great deal of eye contact at the meeting.”

  “Officer Hanns and I enjoy a perfectly cordial relationship,” replied Arianna awkwardly. “We talk all the time because of Arianna and there are rarely any arguments these days. In fact I think we get on better now than when we were together.”
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  “When you were together there wasn’t the tension there is now,” said Kalp. “There is tension between the three of you. I can see it and I can sense it. We all can.”

  “I daresay these tensions will iron out when we reach Hearthstone and we all have more space to call our own,” replied Arianna, regretting ever having stayed behind.

  The Admiral got up and went to stand at the window, looking out at the stars beyond. “Once upon a time the Confederation tried to eliminate the very notion of love and monogamy,” said Kalp. “They attempted re-education programmes, encouraged a culture of free love and sex without consequences, even outlawed marriage. Some even went so far as to call for people to be genetically modified so that they were incapable of such emotions. It failed of course as it was always bound to do. No matter how far we come, what we discover and what knowledge we possess I don’t think we’ll ever quite be able to leave behind the primitive notions of lust, jealousy and heartache that singular love encompasses. Once upon a time culturists imagined we would make robots more intelligent than ourselves, and that we would imbue these robots with human emotions so that they took us over, wiped out and enslaved us completely. It was all nonsense of course. Robots and computers are built to be clinical and calculating. We would never dream of building something containing such a flaw as an emotion. As a species we are riddled with flaws; flaws so bad that if they were reflected on to the design of a starship they would cause the thing to crash straight away. And yet somehow we have known nothing except unbroken success.”