The Ochiran Chronicles

by Joe Horan

  “Don’t worry, it’s just the forcescreen pushing through the atmosphere,” said one of the cabin crew.

  The alarm abated, but it didn’t vanish entirely until they finished atmospheric entry and the flames disappeared. The thrusters started with a rumble, then the VTOL thrusters fired and they came in to land in the muddy field that rejoiced in the name of New Ochira Spaceport. The door opened and they started to disembark. The Bondo girls helped her down the steps and Shania stood once again on the surface of a planet.

  I’ve made it!

  Tears ran down her face as thoughts ran through her head, thoughts of their lost world and the new one they had reached. Most of the refugees were crying. It had been such a long and terrible journey. They had survived, but there were some who had not and so many perished in the disaster that struck their old home.

  A large crowd was waiting, kept back behind barrier guarded by a handful of warriors. This looks like a lot of people for the arrival of one refugee ship. They were led to a large marquee where registration was taking place. Shania waited for her turn.

  “Shania Enterada of Clan Lindus,” she said to the woman behind the desk.

  She was passed through to an area where the refugees were being met by friends and family. Some, of course, had no one waiting; they were being sent in another direction. Two men came towards her; for a moment she didn’t recognise her father and brother. They embraced her gingerly – they know how frail I am – and the tears came again.

  “Everyone’s safe,” said her father. “They’ve given us land in the west and the Star People have given us machines to clear it. At the rate things are going we’ll be able to plant six acres this autumn. You’ll stay with the cartographers, I presume.”

  “Yes,” she said; she would be no use whatsoever on a farm.

  And two of her friends from the Institute had come to meet her too. Grant Scendlisan and Jess Lombar, who had worked with her on the calculation team. They waited until her family finished greeting her before coming forward.

  “We were so worried about you, particularly when we heard what happened at the end,” said Jess.

  “Is there much to do?” she asked.

  “We’re mapping a new planet starting from scratch. What do you think?”

  “The Institute’s got a place at the front,” said Grant. “Your family can come too.”

  “The front of what?”

  “The crowd.”

  “The crowd?”

  “Yes. They’re here to see the princess arrive.”

  After being dropped at Main Base C2 by the Garatomba, which was going to be out of action for some time while her clogged filters and various other parts of her environmental system were replaced, Princess Desiree and about five hundred other refugees waited for a few days, but it turned out the Chalize was more badly damaged than they thought and needed major dockyard attention. Eventually they were taken on to somewhere called Support Base DV19 on a type of interstellar battleship called a vinu. After another wait they were picked up by the Grande, which then had to divert to pick up the refugees stranded on the Noquelia. Shania had no idea that Princess Desiree was on the Grande; it was a very large ship and the princess was in another section. Anyway this was worth seeing, so they all proceeded to a fenced off section at the front of the crowd which had been assigned to the Institute of Cartographers. Nyassa was sitting on a chair at the front and she called Shania over as soon as she arrived.

  “Glad to see you,” she said. “I heard some idiot locked you up, then when it all went bad at the end I was afraid you wouldn’t make it.”

  She had a cartographer’s badge for her, which Shania proudly pinned to her tunic.

  “We’re also getting a visit from Horanus today,” said Nyassa. “His ship’s in orbit already, but he’s waiting for everyone from the Grande to get down before he comes.”

  “Who is Horanus?” asked Shania.

  “He’s the ruler of the Atumcarian Empire. It was his ships that saved us. He ordered them to even though according to League of Planets law he should have left us to die. Do you know what the League of Planets is?”

  “Yes. It’s the organisation the various groups of Star People belong to, something they rely on to solve disputes without going to war.”

  “Well, we’ve got some League of Planets inspectors on New Ochira already and there will be more shortly. They’re coming to assess us. Apparently our technology is Grade 1, but Horanus thinks we should be classified as Grade 3. The details are too complicated to explain, but if we’re classed as Grade 3 we can apply for membership of the League of Planets. It’s all Prince Joaquin’s doing, of course. He’s been talking to people to make sure we get the help we need. We’ve got machines to clear the land already and we’re getting a transmitter to keep us in contact with the Star People and a fusion power station. You know what that is?”

  “Yes.”

  “More about that later. There’s something they want you to do. Now according to what I’ve just seen on this…” she tapped a data pad in her lap “… Princess Desiree’s shuttle is on its way.”

  Having been on the last shuttle to leave their old homeworld, Desiree was on the last to arrive at their new home. She wore a loose-fitting pale cream dress, not her usual appearance – a knee-length leather warrior’s coat, with or without a metal breastplate was her normal attire, but now the disfiguring scar across the front of her body was gone she felt comfortable dressed like this. It also sent a message; there will be peace on this world.

  Then another shuttle landed and from it emerged Gysr Horanus. The man who ruled an empire containing ten thousand inhabited worlds the span of which was measured, not in miles, but by the distance light travelled in a year, who commanded a vast fleet of starships, who was known throughout human space as The Great Horanus wore a plain yellow tunic with no decoration whatsoever. This was the man who ordered his ships to save the Ochirans when according to League of Planets First Contact Protocols there should have been no contact whatsoever. He came alone, as a friend among friends, and as Prince Joaquin led him towards the watching crowd they threw flowers to express their appreciation for the man whose word had saved them.

  The Star People had provided colony housing for them; modular metal boxes with furniture already installed, fixed to the floor to stop it shifting during transport. The new Ochira City was largely composed of these, though they had already started constructing permanent buildings in the centre of the city. The plan was that the city would be rebuilt in concrete, brick and stone from the middle outwards. Shania was given a small colony house to herself. It had electric light fittings but there was no power yet; that awaited completion of the power station. Oil lights had been provided in the meantime. A vase of fresh flowers stood on the kitchen table with a card leaning against it; Welcome Home was written on it. Everything she needed to get started had been provided, including Ochiran clothes that came quite close to fitting her. There was even food in the cupboards, though she suspected she had the cartographers to thank for that. She was told to take a few days to get settled in before returning to work.

  That evening she went out for a short walk to get orientated in her neighbourhood. There was nothing but colony housing in her area, some of it adapted as commercial premises. It came in a particularly garish shade of orange, though people had started painting flowers on it as decoration. She found a café where she got a decent evening meal; she fancied a proper cooked meal after months of ration bars and reconstituted food but felt too tired to do it herself. She got talking with some of the other patrons and they filled her in on what the situation was.

  They had saved nothing from their old world except bloodweed seed, which had already been scattered across the continent. It grew anywhere; in fact there were worries that it would grow too well and overwhelm the indigenous plants but the Ochirans were determined to have bloodweed. The League of Planets had already supplied them with a shipment of domestic animals and more were pro
mised; a stable hand’s opinion of League of Planets horses was, Look good, but not very clever. It will be hard work training them. Thispholotian drongoes, which were being supplied instead of shirrits, were described as Daft as a brush.

  It was almost midnight when she got home. There was no street lighting yet but there were two bright moons in the sky; their old world only had the one. She slept late, spent the following day resting and the day after that went to work.

  The new Institute of Cartography was still a building site, but colony housing had been piled up three high as a temporary home for the cartographers. External metal stairways gave access to the upper stories. The cartographers had been on the first ship to reach New Ochira and the institute had been up and running for nearly two months, so Shania had to find someone to give her a job. Deputy Director Kent usually decided who did what unless Nyassa decided to intervene, so she made enquiries and found him in a little office that occupied one end of a colony building.

  “What are you doing here, Enterada?” he said. “You were told to take some time off.”

  “I’ve had time off. I spent three months lying on my back trying not to use any more air than I had to. I’m ready to go back to work.”

  He looked at her with his head on one side.

  “You look so fragile, Enterada. Sometimes we forget that inside you’re as tough as they come. OK, you can join the plotters in building eight. Data’s coming in faster than they can handle it so I’m sure they could use your help.”

  The buildings had big while numbers painted on them. Building eight was the largest type of colony housing, fortunately at ground level. Shania opened the door and went in. Four men and two women were working in there, plotting tables of numbers onto large sheets of paper to form the basis of maps. As soon as they saw her there were immediate protests that she should be home and resting.

  “I’ve had enough rest,” she said. “It’s time to work.”

  So she joined in, working with Danner Thorn to plot contours down in the south-west, in an area that was marked Azuria Landholding. That must be where they were putting Clan Azuria.

  “Where are they putting Clan Gbasai?” she asked.

  “Over in the far east, as far from Azuria land as they can get,” said Danner.

  That made sense. The Azurias and the Gbasais hated each other. She looked at the master map on the wall. At least two se’ennights apart by horse; that should keep them from each other’s throats.

  She worked through the morning. As they broke for lunch Nyassa came in.

  “I heard you were here,” she said. “I don’t suppose you know what time off is. Come with me. I’ve got something to ask you.”

  Nyassa had an office up on the third level, a colony house about the same size as Shania’s. She struggled on the stairs but eventually made it by pulling herself up with her arms. Inside the original furniture was still in place bolted to the floor, but Nyassa had adapted it to her needs.

  “Sit down there,” she said, pointing to what was the kitchen table in Shania’s house. “Now, where did I put it?”

  She pulled a mass of documents off the top of a cabinet, shuffled through them until she found what looked like the plan of a large building. She put it down in front of Shania, unrolled it and put some cups on the corners to hold it down.

  “What do you think of that?” she asked.

  “What is it?”

  “That is our fusion power station, which has arrived in modular form and is being assembled north of the city. There’s another plan somewhere that shows the actual power generation mechanism. Here it is. Now, do you see how it works?”

  “Not really.”

  “Good. You’re honest. It’s been explained to me half a dozen times and I still don’t understand it completely. Suffice it to say that it generates power in the same way the sun does. This large sphere here is the reaction vessel. All this stuff surrounding it is field coils. What they do is bend space inside the reaction vessel so that when they force streams of gas into it the atomic nuclei are pushed together so hard that they stick to each other. Do you understand what I just said?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Good. You’ll need to understand it a lot better than I do. At first the Star People will run it for us, but eventually we need to do it ourselves. In particular, we need someone who understands how the reaction vessel works so they can be in charge, monitor what goes on inside it and make the necessary adjustments. How would you like to be an engineer?”

  “I can’t be an engineer! I’m not strong enough.”

  “This isn’t engineering as we normally think of it. You will have technicians to do the hard physical work. All you have to do is sit in a chair, look at the instruments, push buttons on the control panel and give orders, but you have to understand what’s going on inside the reaction vessel and that means using the sort of advanced mathematics you’ve already familiar with. Your name was suggested by Captain Oona Lay, Prince Joaquin agreed and all you need to do is say yes. They’ll teach you everything you need to know.”

  “Will I still be a cartographer?”

  “Yes. I shall absolutely insist on it. At some time we may need you back; you’re one of our best mapmakers.”

  “Then I’ll do it.”

  After lunch (ration bars! It seemed the evil things were all they had to eat when they first arrived on the planet and the Institute of Cartography still had a stock to use up) she resumed work; general contour plotting of the Azuria Landholding. There was nothing remarkable about the region, a gently undulating plain with one notable river. It would probably make good arable land once the pine forest was cleared.

  By mid-afternoon she had enough data to prepare the first public map. Her hands moved quickly and skilfully as she drew in the contours, put in the spot heights and marked the physical features that were sufficiently notable to deserve marking. Mostly she worked freehand, using the instruments only to check the position of the contours and features. This was a skill that not everyone possessed; it needed training, practice and a natural ability that she seemed to have been gifted with

  She paused. That spot height was wrong. Her eye, trained to follow the lie of the land from lines and numbers on a map, told her that hill was just under 200 feet high but the height was given as 169. Whoever did the survey had accidentally transposed the last two digits. It happened sometimes. Carefully she wrote 196 next to the mark. She stepped back. Did that look right? Yes it did. She carried on.

  She finished at ten past six, wrote the title at the top – Azuria Landholding – signed her name at the bottom and rolled it up ready to go for copying. Time to stop work for the day. The light outside was already fading; heavy cloud had come in during the afternoon and it was going to rain soon.

  That night she discovered the one great disadvantage of colony housing. When it rained hard it drummed on the metal roof. The following morning the road was wet and muddy, but she found some decent boots in a closet. There was also a waterproof cape which she took with her; though the rain had stopped it looked as if it could start again at any moment.

  Two weeks passed and she was back doing the work she loved, preparing maps from strings of numbers. They gave her the hardest assignment, including the range of mountains that divided the continent into unequal parts. The Star People had provided orbital scans of this inaccessible area, so she had to work from these instead of tables of numbers. She felt a tingle of excitement when she spotted what was undoubtedly a volcanic caldera, inactive at the moment but it looked geologically recent. She looked harder and found volcanic peaks all down the range. Her report of recent volcanic activity was enough to get an expedition equipped and sent into the mountains to assess the volcanic hazard.

  Then one morning Nyassa called her into her office and told her it was time to start training to become an engineer.

  She was one of four who were being trained; the other three were from the Engineering Institute – two big, strong young men and
one small but tough-looking girl. It was what you expected. The engineers built things, and though they might have people in the backrooms doing calculations the only engineers Shania had ever met were used to hands-on physical work. There was a rivalry between the Engineering Institute and the Institute of Cartography, sometimes friendly, sometimes less so. On their old home there was an annual game of pro catball, an adult version of the children’s game played with fixed rules and an apparent disregard for personal safety. Shania had witnessed it a couple of times and some of the collisions made her wince. There was talk of reviving the tradition; the Institute of Cartography already had a team in training.

  They met in the relatively neutral ground of Prince Joaquin’s office in the partly completed palace. The men were Halston Kalis and Benior Frame, tall, broad with short hair. The girl was Kerry Gbasai, shorter but with a powerful body and long brown hair. Shania remembered her; in the last pro catball game on their old home she had taken out one of their defenders with an illegal move that started a fight. Shania watched them warily. She felt like a little moth surrounded by big, hungry spiders.

  “You’ll be spending a lot of time together, so I suggest you become friends,” said Prince Joaquin. “You will be undertaking one year of intensive study which, if you pass the final exam, will mean that in the Star People’s society you will be entitled to place letters after your names to show that you have been educated to a standard that most of them never achieve. It is actually a three-year course that has been compressed into one, so when I say that it will be hard work I am not exaggerating. After that you will receive half a year’s training at the power station in the specific way its systems work, and after that you will be qualified to be in control of a machine that generates power in the same way as the sun. Any questions?”

  “Will we be travelling offworld?” asked Kerry.

  “No. A professor of physics is travelling to New Ochira at the government’s expense to tutor you. We’re investing a lot of money in you, so we would prefer it if you don’t screw up.”