Deep Space Dead

by Chilvers, Edward

  Arianna shuffled awkwardly in her seat, not quite sure how to respond. The Admiral turned around, sensing her discomfort. “But you did not come here to discuss your personal life, did you Arianna? You’re here to talk about the Suki II and the failure of the last expedition?”

  Arianna gaped at the Admiral, temporarily unable to speak.

  Kalp smiled. “I have had an alert put on the file,” she told her. “Every time the chip is removed I get to know about it. Do you know in all the time we have been travelling you are the only one who has withdrawn it? Such an interest you have in the distant past, Arianna, although I am not sure it is a healthy one, worrying yourself unnecessarily over such things.”

  “Aren’t you in the least bit curious as to what happened to them?” Asked Arianna.

  Kalp smiled. “Tell me Arianna,” she said gently. “Does your love of history encompass knowledge of the tales of the old Earth?”

  “Why of course,” replied Arianna, not quite sure what the Admiral was getting at.

  “Then perhaps you will have heard of shipwrecks,” said Kalp. “When primitive humans constructed boats made of wood and set sail for distant continents which seemed to them as far away as the nebulae from Jupiter. Sometimes those ships didn’t make it, sometimes they sank and no trace of them remained. There was nothing sinister about this, nothing mysterious. The sailors on those ships simply drowned, they perished because their crafts were not good enough, because circumstances were against them. Five thousand years ago the Suki II set out for Hearthfire in what to us would be a very primitive craft, using extremely primitive methods. They arrived and sent back some messages but then something went wrong. Perhaps their nuclear fuel rods imploded and caused a catastrophe which wiped them all out; those things were always pretty volatile and it wouldn’t have been the first instance of them doing so. Perhaps the arboretum failed before they could sustain themselves and they starved. Perhaps they landed too close to an active volcano and were wiped out that way. All of these things we are now, in this new epoch, able to counter. I have been trained not to make such mistakes, and a mistake is what it was that wiped out the Suki II. Do not worry yourself unnecessarily, Arianna, not when we have so much still to do.”

  “With respect Ma’am that doesn’t answer my question,” said Arianna. “As the librarian I need to know the full facts in case something unexpected happens and we need to act accordingly. People come to me for advice, Ma’am, for knowledge. I can’t give it to them unless you put me in the picture.”

  The Admiral smiled again. “Of course,” she said quietly. “And in answer to your question the Confederation did indeed consider the fate of the Suki II. In fact I was given orders that we are to look out for signs of wreckage and when we find it we are to conduct a full investigation as to what happened to it. But do you know who has commissioned this order, Arianna? The culture department. The report is required for historical purposes only for it is widely believed any lessons the Suki II may have taught us have already long been learned.”

  Arianna left the council chambers feeling deeply dissatisfied, although at the same time she couldn’t help feeling that perhaps the Admiral was right. No answers as to the fate of the Suki II were going to be unearthed, not after so many years. Right now everybody was looking towards the future, and Arianna knew she must do the same. Everybody was busy. Everybody was going about their business with a new urgency, everybody glancing hopefully out of the window in the hope of catching sight of their new home. Arianna should have been excited too, if not for herself than for her daughter who was soon to experience a real world for the first time. But leaving aside the unease over her historical research Arianna had other worries as well. She knew a confrontation with Sol was coming. At the moment the police officer was forcing himself to be polite, was swallowing every indignity she and Jak were inadvertently heaping upon his head and trying to remain absorbed in his work, but she knew it would not last. She remembered how he had begged her not to leave, how Ambra had held on to him and wept and refused to let go; even at eighteen months she had known, the pain of parental separation on a young child. Arianna felt guilty every time she thought about it.

  Jak was busy preparing his rangers for arrival and conducting a training session on the simulators. Ambra was being babysat by Jen Henna the librarian. Sol would pick her up later. With nothing else to do Arianna returned to the library. Maybe she read and researched too much. Everybody thought it would be a positive paradise down on Hearthfire but she had read enough to know how difficult colonisation was. She had heard reports of colonists starving or freezing to death, of toxic winds that blew in and turned people to dust as they went about their daily business, of starships that broke apart upon entering the planet’s atmosphere and scattered the remains of the passengers like rain across the breadth of the entire continent. Arianna tried to snap herself out of her malaise. Those reports were from a long time ago. The pioneer probes were much better equipped now, the starships far more reliable and resilient and the training the best it had ever been. It will be fine, she told herself, and she imagined she could almost convince herself completely were she not haunted by the final message relayed by the colonisers of the Suki II, sent out just a fortnight after the disembarkation date.

  “Conditions remain warm, the sky clear of rain although readings taken from the meteorology section indicate bad weather may be on the way. Building work continues apace whilst the arboretum has rooted nicely. Fields continue to be fenced and ditched and the ploughing has already started. Initial reports indicate the seeds will be ready for drilling in four weeks time. Earlier today we ran into what may well be the first problem we have encountered since arrival. A workman was injured whilst probing for oil in the Katuss cave around three miles west of the city. It appears he drilled into an unforeseen gas deposit or something like that. He was taken straight to the medical bay and all he would do was scream, ‘it burns, it burns.’ Science officer Xen is currently attending to him. The source of the gas or the potential long term effects is as yet unknown. We’ll endeavour to find out more in the coming days. Until that time the mine is closed, all workmen who might have come into contact with the gas confined to quarters as per Confederation policy. Doubtless we’ll know more in the coming days. Otherwise everything is coming along as it should.”

  4

  The next week was the slowest of Arianna’s life and everybody she spoke to said the same. Officially they were supposed to be making the final preparations for the landing but such was the ship’s efficiency that this had all been done months ago and there was little left to be done except wait. Ambra, like most of the other children, was completely out of her mind with excitement and it was beyond anybody’s abilities to control her.

  But at last the fabled day dawned. The people rose from their beds expectantly, passengers for the last time. All but the most essential work was cancelled for the day and they congregated in the corridors, chattering in hushed voices until the great announcement which finally came mid-morning. “Ladies and gentlemen. My fellow colonists. This is Admiral Kalp speaking. Please make your way over to the observation decks. We are about to decrease Tachyon speed after which a view of Hearthfire will be visible immediately.”

  Arianna seized hold of Ambra’s hand and hurried with her to the nearest observation deck just above the arboretum. The wide corridors were thronged with people hurrying to get a good view. They need not have worried. The observation deck was on a ramp so that everybody could see what was happening. Jak joined them a few minutes later and they pressed their noses towards the glass in unison with the eleven thousand others. Suddenly the stars outside blurred. Arianna felt a strange sensation of weightlessness and then, in an instant, everything was back to normal. Everything except the view. She saw it all in that perfect marble orb before her: the blue and green of the oceans and continents, the grey of the mountain ranges, the yellow deserts and the white of the swirling clouds and the snow at either of the Poles
. She had expected cheering and wild, ecstatic dancing. Instead everybody just looked upon the place with open mouthed wonderment. Here was home at last. Ambra gripped her hand tightly. When Arianna looked down she saw the little girl’s eyes were bulging with wonder. Her head was full of questions and she danced around in a state of extreme over-excitement. Other children who had never known anything except the starship did the same.

  Sol pushed his way through the crowds, his eyes scanning every face. He had been to three viewing platforms already by the time he finally found them, at which point it was too late. The slowdown had come and gone. He had missed the magical moment with his daughter. Sol stood to one side with his back to the wall, watching the three of them, the perfect happy family. He looked around at the families holding hands and embracing and now Arianna turned to kiss Jack before bending down to hug Ambra. Sol felt like an outcast, a miserable island in a positive sea of joy. Eventually Ambra turned and saw him and ran to greet him. He picked her up in his arms and walked over to the viewing platform with her. “Jak says he’s going to go out in the orbit machine!” Said Ambra excitedly. “That means he’s going to be the first to explore this new planet!”

  “Not just me,” said Jak bashfully, looking awkwardly at Sol. “There’s going to be the engineer there too.”

  “You never told me where you were going to be,” snapped Sol, when he had put Ambra down to go and play with the other children around the viewing platform. “At the very least you could have come and found me.”

  “There was no time,” replied Arianna awkwardly. “And besides, we thought you’d be working.”

  “Nobody is committing any crimes at a time like this,” snapped Sol irritably. “This is a time for celebration, a time to celebrate with your families.”

  “We didn’t think,” began Jak apologetically. “We should have done. I’m sorry.”

  “Its fine,” said Sol, his tone suggesting it was anything but. “I just hoped I’d be there when she saw it for the first time, that’s all. It isn’t as though there’s ever going to be a next time.”

  Jak and Arianna tried to remonstrate with him but Sol turned and walked off without another word. The two of them stared guiltily after him but in the end there was nothing to be done except shrug their shoulders and go back to staring at their new world outside. This was, after all, a happy time.

  Now the landing would be made ready, a process that would take two days. This time nobody was worried about the wait. Mesmerised by the planets captivating beauty they were all content be hypnotised by its slow rotation and gently moving clouds. That evening the entire starship would celebrate. Fireworks would be set off in the arboretum and the food and drink would flow freely. The entertainers had spent years composing songs in preparation for this very day. Bunting had been prepared and would be hung the entire length and breadth of the ship. Special food would be laid out. Throughout the entire ship everybody celebrated, all except one man who returned to his quarters and sat by himself the entire evening with the lights off.

  Jak spent the night at Arianna’s apartment and got up as the last of the stragglers from the big party at the arboretum was making their way back home. As he was examining his uniform in the living room mirror Ambra hurried out to see him. Even though she too had gone to bed late last night she had heard about Jak’s mission and was excited for him accordingly.

  “Mummy says you’re going to the big planet,” she said happily. “Mummy says you’re going to go there before everyone else.”

  “In that case your mummy is exaggerating,” laughed Jak, reaching down to ruffle her hair. “I’m going to fly down over it with the engineer and we’re going to look for places to land, but we won’t be going down there just yet.”

  The orbiter was only ever to be used once but the task it performed was indispensable. It was a great honour for Jak to have chosen to pilot it. As he walked towards the orbiter people came forwards to pat him on the back and shake his hand. Sometimes the police were obliged to step in and part the crowds so he might pass through. Arianna and Ambra were waiting for him at the orbiter, as was Admiral Kalp. His departure was to be a strictly stage managed affair, a means of building the new mythology which would come to shape the new and distinct culture that was expected to develop. His name and deeds would be recorded in the libraries and he would go down in the history of the planet, tales of this day retold by the future generations of Hearthstone. Arianna came forward to kiss him and he bent down to Ambra and picked her up, spent some time showing her inside the orbiter before all was ready for him to depart. Bratten Jorg, the head of the engineers, was going with him. She was to operate the computer system, with the side plates collecting data and relaying it back to the computer to be analysed and interpreted later.

  Jak had spent a long time in the flight simulators practicing for this moment but nothing could prepare him for the real thing. A variety of different instruments buzzed and whirred as the data was collected. Lights flashed. Soon they would know all they needed to know about the place.

  “Let’s hope it turns out okay,” he laughed. “It isn’t as if we can go back any time soon. We don’t have the fuel. We’re stuck here whatever it turns out to be.”

  The flight chamber closed around them. People pressed their noses to the glass to get a better look as Jak brought the Orbiter up in the air and brought it out of the upper hatch into the infinity of space. He turned it around steadily so that they were facing Hearthstone. The jet engines purred smoothly as he brought the orbiter forwards, flying at a steady speed until they touched the tip of the planet’s atmosphere. Jak flew low so that it appeared they were almost breaching the clouds although in fact they were still many hundreds of miles from the atmosphere.

  Now the clouds parted and Jak imagined he could almost see the froth of the waves. He looked towards Bratten and saw that the previously imperturbable engineer was looking forwards keenly, an almost mystical smile playing on her face. “Is it good?” Asked Jak.

  Bratten looked down at her computer monitor. “Really good,” she breathed. “I’m picking up some of the clearest air in the Confederation as well as the purest water. Why we could make a spa planet out of this place, a positive holiday destination.”

  “And it’s all ours,” said Jak wistfully. “Reckon we should send back a false report to the Confederation HQ saying it’s a sinkhole? After all, we wouldn’t want too many people coming over when we can hog the place all to ourselves.”

  Bratten laughed. “I’m sorely tempted,” she replied. “But judging from the data I’m picking up there’s plenty of paradise to go around.”

  After two hours the orbiter returned, the memory banks of the computers brimming with information, all of it positive. The people cheered as it touched down. As soon as the airlocks opened Ambra was through, rushing up to Jak and embracing him happily. He took her in his arms and brought her outside with him where together they lapped up the adulation of the happy crowds of colonists.

  Sol had tried to spend time with his daughter that morning but all Ambra had wanted to talk about was Jak. She had been eagerly awaiting his return, glancing out of the windows at the blue and green planet beyond in the hope of catching a glimpse of the orbiter. In this she was not alone of course, thousands of others were doing the same, but it still irked with Sol and in the end he came close to harshly telling the little girl to give it a rest.

  Sol was now forty-five and it seemed the older he got the less he had going for him. Back on Jupiter he had been a mid-level police officer fast approaching middle age living by himself in a one bedroom apartment. He had volunteered for the colonisation mission precisely because he’d had nobody to leave behind. Arianna had been young, vibrant and energetic and Sol had at first been flattered that she’d taken such an interest in him. They had shared a love of history and got talking one evening when he’d come in to request some research. Soon they were meeting for lunch and dinner and before he knew it Sol had been in a relations
hip, the first of his life and with a nineteen year old girl to boot. Those two and a half years he’d spent with Arianna had been the happiest times of his life, although to Arianna it would have seemed that all they’d done was argue. He had tried hard to make it work, but he was aloof and priggish. The large age gap between the two of them hadn’t helped either. Sol’s problem had always been that he wasn’t able to properly articulate his feelings. Had he been able to do so perhaps his relationship with Arianna wouldn’t have turned out as badly. He desperately wanted her back, still loved her more than he had imagined was possible, but he loved Ambra even more than that. The little girl was his life. Her holograms filled the corners of his apartment and yet it seemed as Hearthfire approached she was becoming more and more distant from him. Jak was a hero, the first hero of this new world. He, Sol, was nothing more than a shambling policeman; underworked and almost completely superfluous to requirement. It was inevitable that Sol’s already fragile emotions would turn to anger and this was exactly what happened when he returned Ambra to Arianna’s apartment later.

  Arianna knew there was going to be trouble as soon as she opened the door. Sol had that look in his eyes, that sort of bulging, red faced expression when he had something on his mind he was unable to suppress any longer. She decided to try and pre-empt him. “Look Sol,” she began, her tone conciliatory. “I wanted to apologise again for what happened yesterday. We were just caught up in the excitement of the moment. We didn’t think. I know there was no excuse for it. Jak has been in the spotlight for these past few days so of course Ambra is really excited about it, but we don’t mean to eclipse you or anything like that.”