"What?"
I pointed at Quentin, who'd fallen to his knees and begun examining the strip of cloth. "He tore that from my robe!"
The Nomad shook his head and turned to walk away. "He was bound to do it eventually. He took a chunk of mine, too."
"Why?" I asked, never taking my eyes from Quentin.
"Ask him."
"Is this part of the rage?"
"You'll know when that comes," the Nomad called, his voice moving away.
Frowning, I looked round at Suyef, but he'd vanished back into the living quarters. I returned my gaze to find Quentin holding the cloth up to his shoulder, letting it fall down his chest.
"It's not really your color," I said, kneeling to be on his level. He didn't answer. "Your eyes are a bright blue. That's a gray. You'd look better with some other color."
He batted at it with his hand and a heavy sense of confusion and pity overwhelmed me. What had happened to this man? To the man Micaela had met? What had gone wrong?
"Color," he whispered.
I looked up, shaken from my thoughts by the sound of his voice. "Pardon?"
"Color," he said again, holding the cloth up in front of his face. "I remember many colors. Lots of them, all together. Draped over...over..."
His voice trailed off and he frowned, bunching the cloth into a fist. He flung the offending item from him and it landed somewhere behind me. I didn't bother looking at it.
"Do you want to hear a story?" I asked.
His bright blue eyes locked on mine. "Is it a good one?"
I shrugged. "Not as good as yours, I bet. But it entertained me."
"Can you tell me while I work?"
I frowned, looking around. "Work?"
He nodded, a single finger coming up to his lips. "And you know nothing."
I smiled and shook my head. "Not a clue what you mean."
"Good." He jumped up and beckoned to me to follow. "Now, get to your story."
So, I started telling him Micaela's story. Well, not me. I started it, but after a short bit a thought occurred to me. Pulling out the device with Micaela telling her story and letting her speak instead had an instantaneous effect. Quentin held stock still, as if struck by something, his head cocked to listen. He wasn't completely still, but his level of movement changed as soon he heard her voice. Soon after, he took to sketching as she spoke. It was always the same sketch: her face. I watched him work as he listened, mesmerized. If her voice sounded sad, he sketched her sad. If she sounded happy, he sketched that. Suyef kept a ready supply of paper coming from somewhere, probably the matter reforger. Either that, or he Scripted. Watching Quentin's reactions, I took my own notes, recording his responses to her words.
When the story finally ended, we sat in his room, him on the floor, me on his bed. The sketch he'd been working on sat unfinished. It held only her eyes, the same thing he always started with. It took me a moment to realize what was so odd about the moment: he wasn't moving. I opened my mouth to ask a question, but stopped, as I wasn't sure what to say.
"You want to hear my story, don't you?" he asked, his voice as lucid as it had been to that point. "You collect stories, don't you? Like I collect her." He nodded up at the ceiling.
"Do you know who she is?" I asked.
The look that crossed his face nearly broke my heart. Anger mixed with agony and what might be regret. Yes, he knew precisely who she was. And he missed her.
"You recorded her voice," he whispered. "Can you record mine?"
I nodded. "I'd like to take notes, too."
"Where do I start?"
I shrugged and pointed at his incomplete sketch. "How about there?"
He looked down at Micaela's eyes on the paper before him. "Her eyes. They make me think of the sky."
He moved to open a window I hadn't noticed before.
"Was that always there?" I asked as he sat down on the edge of his bed, eyes locked on the sky beyond.
He held the incomplete sketch tight to his chest and didn't answer my question. We sat in silence for a few moments.
Then he began to speak.
Chapter 2 - Hubris
Look out that window and tell me what you see. Empty sky. You know out there are other shells with millions of people living on them. You could live an entire lifetime on a single shell and never see another in the sky. Traveling from shell to shell is almost unheard of, because you could end up stuck on that shell when its orbit took it beyond our ability to travel to.
That was where the Expeditionary Force came from. People from my shell wanting to explore other shells, knowing they might be gone a long time. They planned on being gone so long that they might never see home again. It took a special kind of people to join that group. So, I guess that makes my parents very special.
My parents joined the Colberran Expeditionary Force before they even met. It was one of the few ways to get off the shell if you had that desire. My parents both possessed an extreme wanderlust buried at their core. I suppose I inherited it from them. Be that as it may, the only opportunity at the time to get off the shell for the average citizen involved balloon trips around the land mass, and you had to pay through the nose to just orbit your shell. So, when the Expeditionary Force began exploring other shells, it inevitably drew a younger, bolder crowd. Still, for the first century it existed, those trips didn't involve much. A few exploratory trips to smaller satellite shells almost perpetually visible. Those expeditions grew in nature to match the technological abilities of the Colberran people.
Over time, the Force's mission settled on two ideas: exploratory settlement of other shells and reaching the water shield above. Both presented unique and, some said, insurmountable challenges. And, while it remained the harder of the two to achieve, reaching the water shield soon proved to have the greater support. After all, we didn't lack for land or resources on Colberra. Making the case to a population happy with where it lives and ample space and supplies to continue exploring other shells was a hard sell. Especially for a fledgling exploratory force dependent on the public's good grace. So, the Force latched on to the one thing our world was completely devoid of: a stable, internal water supply.
Now, you know from your geography that the Colberran land mass is one of the highest orbiting shells in the world and is the highest with such a large population on it. That places the mass tantalizingly close to all the water in the world locked away from us in that shield. It has taunted the people of Colberra for centuries, just there in sight but so far out of reach. You can imagine the hunt for a way to get to the water and thus free the people of the shell from dependence on the Ancients’ water system played a huge development role in the culture and society of Colberra. The people became of two minds regarding the problem: either it was a concern or it wasn't. Most of Colberran society could not care less that they were entirely dependent on a single structure and system for their water. It is, after all, a very reliable system. The Ancients who built it did an amazing job, one we've never been able to reproduce. Still, not everyone in Colberran society trusted the system to work forever. They were a smaller segment, still so even today, but they were always well connected. It's an age-old truth: the most powerful ally to a fledgling scientific group supporting a controversial theory is the government, its deep pockets, and its ability to hide where it spends its money in the bureaucratic quagmire known as book-keeping.
Despite lacking strong public support for their cause, a small, publicly impotent group of scientists was able to funnel financing from other programs to fund their own projects. They wanted to find another way to get water and provide it in a stable fashion. When the Expeditionary Force came into being about a century and a half ago, these scientists realized the potential for using the organization to achieve some of their goals. Ironic, wouldn't you say, that of the two missions the Force ended up focusing on, the one with the most support was the same one the public had all but ignored for centuries?
The Force's primary mission came to b
e the search for a stable water supply, primarily how to get it from the water shield above. Using private sector ideas, the Force helped design several different prototype ships that could fly through the air up to the water. The first attempts proved as disastrous as they were imaginative. Flight is, after all, a difficult concept to grasp. Getting a ship of sufficient size to carry water off the ground is a daunting task. What made matters more difficult was the scientists' insistence on inventing the technology themselves. Instead of relying on the Ancient technology that gave us the speeders, for example, they tried to reinvent the wheel. The results were telling. It's no secret Colberran society has been distrustful of Ancient technology for centuries, owing in part to the views of the Seeker organization. That, however, is another story. Suffice it to say the Seeker-encouraged distrust for Ancient technology persisted even among the scientific elite pushing these projects, and the effect on their works was, as I said, telling. For the first half a century, nothing they designed ever even left the shell. As the death toll from these experimental craft rose, along with public ire over the expenditures, pressure from the government compelled the scientists to rely on the Ancient designs they so despised. Many refused and quit the projects. Had enough done so, it's possible many of the events that came after never would have happened, including my birth.
“What ifs” are fun but don't help tell this story. As it is, some did persist and, with a blending of the Ancient technology, the Colberran Expeditionary Force soon had several prototype ships ready to fly. The first launched about 15 cycles before my birth, to much fanfare. The ship, named Voyager in some homage to our ancient past, was a complete success. It took off, flew as planned, and left this shell heading for the water. It was heralded as the beginning of a new era of independence, an era free of reliance on Ancient technology that could not be trusted to work forever.
Yes, Voyager was a complete success. Until it reached the water. You see, what no one could account for in all our observations of the water shield above was the nature of the shield itself. What possessed them to approach the water without sending some kind of probe or unmanned test device first, we may never know. Hubris, most likely. Whatever the reason, the scientists marched boldly ahead, thinking themselves brilliant for achieving their goal despite more than a century of public ignorance of their cause. If you watch the footage of those men, they are practically gleeful as they watched the ship near its goal. As Voyager approached the surface, its crew broadcasting the event for all of Colberran society to see, the ship encountered an unexpected confluence of physics. Gravity reversed direction. The ship, designed to climb close to the surface and skim along the water's edge gathering the precious substance into its holds, wasn't prepared for the change. As the shell's people watched in horror, the ship was torn apart, every crew member on board lost.
#
One would think such a disaster would temper the taste of the public and the scientists for any further endeavor of that kind. One would be wrong. Instead, it was taken as a challenge. The program suddenly became a matter of continental pride. Public interest skyrocketed and, as a result, so did scrutiny of each aspect. Rather than risk more lives on hubris-laden attempts to prove a still-not-widely-accepted theory, the Force was able to compel the scientists designing the ships to do more tests. Private sector think tanks offered up their own prototypes, much to the chagrin of the scientists, because some of these designs relied on Ancient technology and quickly proved more reliable. And, in a final insult to the scientists, the public demanded a renaming of the project. Voyager was tossed out in favor of Apollo, yet another homage to our distant past, but not one many nowadays will even recall.
Apollo eventually launched five unmanned prototypes, each progressively designed to get the ships closer to the water. None of those five were expected to return, but simply to send data back about the shift in gravity near the water's edge. This they did with complete success.
Finally, with the seventh and eighth modules, the Force figured out the complex shift in physics, landed both on the surface of the water, and brought them back. The ninth and tenth succeeded in taking men near the edge of the water. On the eleventh mission, they finally landed on the water but did not return with anything more than a sample to test its pot-ability. A huge celebration was thrown, despite this. Colberra had proven itself greater than the warped physics of our world. What did the lack of water coming back with the ship matter?
The success did not mean the controversy was over. Even with the eleventh's success, the Force had not decided on a final version of their water hauling craft. The twelfth mission tested the other version of the crafts, proving it could work. It even brought a larger sample for further testing on what would need to be done to make the water, which the eleventh showed was heavy in salt, potable for mass consumption. So, to help the decision process, the Force prepared the two versions of the craft, each dubbed the thirteenth, for a final mission each to the water. A simple goal was set: to be the first craft back with its holds filled to capacity with water.
Now, at this point, you're probably wondering what any of this has to do with my story. The answer is: everything. You see, had the people who chose to change the name of their program to reach the water shield done their research a little better, they'd have known the history of their program's namesake. Just like that ill-fated thirteenth mission so long ago, these two missions were about to experience their own tragedies.
And my father was on one of those prototypes.
#
The two ships launched simultaneously from two different locations on Colberra, each with their own fanfare and support. The two companies that had designed them waited with baited breath, hoping for complete and hasty success for their own mission, while desiring less for the other. As the two ships lifted off, heading for the water high above, sensors at the Colberran continental citadel, the hub of the Ancient network on each life-sustaining shell, detected two more ships launched from a lower shell. The race, it would seem, had two new competitors.
You see, the people of the Nomad shell, Suyef's home, were also curious about the water shield, their land mass being the next-highest mass with such a large population. The water shield, while still observable, is far less detailed when viewed from Suyef's home than from Colberra, where an observer can make out waves moving across the surface. With their orbit placing the shell in relatively close proximity to Colberra for the past several decades, they'd observed our endeavors, enhancing their knowledge by using the very same network Colberrans rely on for all their data needs and learned from our mistakes. Their two ships, identical in make, were their first two launched. Designed completely using Ancient technology, the ships approached the water shield at almost the same time as the two Colberran ships.
All four made successful landings within miles of the others. Two, one Colberran and one Nomad, landed in sight of each other. The ships exchanged cursory pleasantries, the records show, then communication, for the most part, ceased. The Nomads, it seems, weren't interested in the water. That's understandable, considering the Nomad super-shell, largest of all the land masses orbiting our broken world, possesses the only known sea still in existence. Theirs was purely a scientific interest. Some, mostly Colberrans, argued they were there to keep an eye on the other ships. That's never been proven. Some even accuse the Nomad ships of being responsible for what happened next. This, also, has never been proven.
Whatever their reason, the two ships, one Colberran, the other Nomad, went about their business like the other wasn't there. The ships didn't even communicate with each other after the initial courtesies. That is, until they discovered the object.
No one is really sure what it was they found. Some say another ship. Others say an Ancient relic from centuries in the past. Some circles argue it was an even more ancient artifact from before the cataclysm that sundered our world, something that was in the waters when they were placed there. We don't know for sure. We know they found someth
ing, as the other Colberran ship recorded the radio broadcasts of the two ships talking to each other about pulling the object up together. Why not separately? Well, the designs of the ships required them to work together. The Nomad ship had the ability to pull up the object, but not store it. The Colberran ship had a huge bay for holding water, thus ample storage. This we pieced together from the records kept on the other Colberran ship. Beyond that, we don't know what happened.
Why don't we, you ask? Because what's left of the Colberran and Nomad ships that pulled up the object together now lies entombed in the water shield, far above us, locked away from our reach. All hands went down with the ship, according to the Colberran records. All hands but one. A single crew member from the other Colberran ship, responding to the brief distress signal sent out before it cut off mysteriously, rescued. After pulling him from the water, the ship, its hold full of water, needed no further encouragement to leave and return to Colberra.
The official report insisted there was only one survivor, the man the second ship brought back. They were wrong. Another person survived the fateful event.
My father.
#
One of the first problems I encountered in trying to get Quentin to share his story is that he refused to tell it in order. It's not that he told me things that would have tipped me off to what was coming. He kept the story pretty much in a progression. Still, it wasn't like the story he told me held any semblance to one I could write down. He would start on one thought, then shoot off on some random tangent he believed related, and then jump back to clarify something he said before. Other times, he'd just stop telling me his story entirely and would argue the finer points of calligraphy or needlework or some such nonsense with me or the wall or whatever happened to be in front of him.
"Getting him to talk in something that resembles a narrative is impossible," I vented at Suyef soon after I'd convinced Quentin to start telling me his story.
The Nomad chuckled and tapped his mind. "He's not right up here. What do you expect?"
Rise: Paths (Future Worlds Book 2) Page 2
