Belters

by Greg Alldredge

  “And last supper… sounds like what they give a condemned man.” Lea savored a sip of the hot black gold.

  “Nothing so morbid… the ship will celebrate the last meal before reaching dock with another feast is all, and afterward, coms are turned back on for the crew.”

  “I guess I will need to wait for my answers then… Any guess as to why you were reassigned?” Lea cupped the mug in both hands, anything to calm a growing feeling of dread that filled her heart. She needed a place to hide, but her desire for revenge kept nagging in the back of her brain.

  Tian nodded. “The orders cited my unique soft skills…”

  “Your what?”

  “My language skills and the fact I can learn new languages quickly… When I was a kid, doctors told me I can see connections where others can’t… I now think they were wrong.”

  “You never told me… How many languages can you speak?”

  Tian scoffed, “That isn’t a fair question, really… There are so many different levels of fluency. But I can speak the five major ones without an accent.”

  “Five major?”

  “Most spoken… Mandarin, English, Hindustani, Spanish, and Arabic… A few more I can get by in… I am pretty good with all the Romance languages. A couple from the African Union give me heartaches. The clicks… I find hard to make.”

  “You’re kidding…” Lea thought she did well with her three languages. The thought of holding so many words in her memory caused her head to throb.

  Tian then started speaking in what Lea understood to be Mandarin. The words flowed from her, the tones and inflections perfect. After a breath, she switched to the sing-song voice of a language Lea was unfamiliar with before finishing up with Arabic.

  Lea only understood a few of the words, but she could tell Tian had mad skills with languages. She gave the programmer a slow clap. “I must say, I’m impressed.”

  Tian’s cheeks flushed red. It was the first time Lea had seen such humility from the programmer. “For me, languages are like writing code… It just makes sense.”

  Lea asked, “You said something about doctors…”

  “Yeah… I probably should leave that out… But we are friends, right?” Tian smiled.

  Lea nodded. Her friends list was short, one more would probably fit.

  “When I was younger, I had a few problems adjusting… getting along with others my age… My parents sent me to a slew of doctors, thinking there was something wrong.”

  “I’m sure they had the best intentions.” Lea needed to say something. The failure of parents and her own experiences with family wasn’t a subject Lea wished to remember, let alone discuss with others, even a new friend.

  “Yeah… I now think they were mostly quacks, taking my parents’ money and telling them what they wanted to hear. That is why I started learning so many languages… all to talk to people better.” Tian lowered zer eyes to the cup gripped in shaking hands.

  “Are you all right?” Lea asked.

  The programmer looked up and smiled. “Yes… just dealing with some bad memories. My language skills didn’t help me make friends with the other kids. If anything, it made things worse, but… it did help me make friends with adults.”

  “I’m sorry. Children can be such monsters.”

  “They only learn it from their parents… It’s okay. Besides, adults are normally so much more interesting.”

  Lea took a sip of the coffee, not wanting to contradict her friend. In Lea’s experience, adults were simply children with better toys and more power to hurt others. They rarely showed the mental maturity they should for their age.

  “Besides… once I figured out the quacks were all wrong, it made life so much easier.”

  “How so?”

  “It is obvious we are all connected. That much makes sense, but I’m not sure I see those connections. Really, anyone can find them if they look. I think I can see the breaks in the connections. My soft skills are repairing those breaks between people… reaching out and touching others’ feelings… Some call it empathy.”

  The conversation suddenly made Lea extremely uncomfortable. Perhaps there was a reason Tian latched onto her on the lift. Maybe she sensed her broken connection with the rest of the world around her.

  The programmer laughed. “What the hell do I know? It’s all new age crap, anyway. I’m the way God needed me to be, and I shouldn’t complain about the gifts he bestowed on me.”

  Whispering with a cautious voice, Lea asked, “Are you a theist?”

  “How can we be where we are and not be?” Tian gripped something hidden under the coveralls.

  Lea assumed it some sort of religious icon. She smiled and sipped from her cup. “Don’t be too hard on yourself.” She reluctantly added, “You might be on to something… about the connections.” It was better to let the other comment pass for now. There was no need to discuss religious beliefs and the… insanity of faith.

  “Yeah… Maybe…” Tian took a drink of coffee. “Listen. You never said why you’re here… What skills does a pharmaceutical inspector have that this science mission might need?”

  She was happy for the change in subject but not to that topic. It was one of many questions Lea feared coming up in harmless conversation. “Tell me what the mission is, and I might be able to tell you… I don’t know why Doctor Abe offered me a position… I’m not really sure why I took it.”

  Tian gave Lea a knowing grin that, for some reason, made her skin crawl. “Fair enough.”

  Chapter 16:

  AD 2100 Inner Belt – Virgil

  Coffee finished, Lea made her excuses and returned to her room. She wanted to connect and search the net for any information on Master Baal, the Virgil, and Doctor Abe, but she didn’t dare risk her searches would remain private. Rather, she spent her time and bandwidth searching the news for any mention of the protest and the brutal response from the corporate elite.

  She wasn’t surprised when there wasn’t a second of time spent on the story. She did find a few streaming videos from the strikers’ perspective before the feed was taken down. Over the years, the censor algorithms grew increasingly efficient. Early history was bursting with examples of people gaining control via the management of information. The pen wasn’t mightier than the sword, it was the control of what the pen wrote that held power.

  It took a concentrated, organized effort to overcome the companies that made the news. Few upstart rebellions rose to the challenge. Those who regulated the information controlled the solar system and the ideas of everyone who called it home. Even the dark web had fallen to the corporate censors.

  A few small independent sites struggled for freedom of information, but those were quickly squashed by denial of service attacks, trojans, worms, lawsuits, or black ice. Those in power showed no mercy on the net.

  Two hours of fruitless searching later, a female voice boomed over the announcement speakers. “This is the first officer. Coms secure in one hour. First supper celebrations begin in one hour. Finish up your online crap, people. Time to get partying is coming up fast.”

  Lea expected several women to hold high ranks in a family ship. These craft ran differently than the corporate commands she served on. Normally those promoted within a corps played the games of dirty politics the best. At the very least, the ones who could kiss the most ass while building a power base, all while surviving long enough to reach the higher levels of power within a cutthroat corporate structure came out on top. Business management was a brutal contact sport.

  From Lea’s experience, corporate culture was dog eat dog, a zero-sum game. For every winner, the bodies of several, perhaps hundreds, of losers lay by the wayside. She had helped more than a few of the sneaky bastards advance a career at the expense of more morally sound and trusting individuals. Now she might pay the price for her past sins. She found herself in league with the devil she’d helped create.

  An information junkie, Lea read too much, or at least that was what her last partne
r told her. There was a time when people thought the information age would bring an end to ignorance, those people were wrong.

  Once information became free and accessible, research only proved what a few knowledgeable people already knew. Cherry-picking was real. Information and facts did not make people smarter. It was too easy to ignore uncomfortable truths and search for facts that supported your world view, no matter how insane the idea might be.

  That was why religion made her uncomfortable. Not that Lea had any problems with God or those who believed in him, her, or them. She simply had no proof. Real proof, that is. For a true believer, the absence of facts was immaterial. They would find tidbits of facts to support their beliefs and beat anyone who disagreed with them into submission.

  Science was just as reactionary as religion. For some, science became the new cult, and pet theories needed to be defended at all costs. Lea knew it was too easy to tip the scales with an unwatched thumb. In statistics, figures never lied, but liars figured all the time. Given a talented mathematician, any theory could be proven or disproven to the laymen. The devil was in the details.

  Science and religion had their separate thoughts on death and dying, and Lea had spent too many hours awake worrying about what came after this life. The rich had ways to cheat death. She was not that fortunate. One day, death would call for them all.

  During the return to her room, she noted none of the hatches were labeled. As she made her way back to the galley, it became clear Master Baal didn’t want the passengers knowing what was hidden behind the unmarked doors. She shook her head. Too many secrets.

  Forty came much too quickly for her liking. If her career didn’t prove fatal, she had perhaps another hundred years or so till she needed to worry about meeting death. But before she knew it, she would learn what lay beyond the final frontier, that undiscovered country that waited for every mortal. She could live to two hundred, longer even, and not be ready for the end. Life was too much fun to die.

  For the righteous believers of religion, they wore the cloak of faith in the afterlife. Like science, Lea feared only nothing waited at the end of life. These were the thoughts dwelling in her heart when she passed through the hatch leading into the mess.

  The tang of powerful spices reached her, leading a clear path to the cooking now underway. Thankfully, when she reached the mess, there was an open bar set up to the right of the hatch. Anything to take the edge off the morbid thoughts that plagued her. The scent of strong spices nearly overpowered her.

  A double shot of single malt was a luxury she never expected this far from home. It was the liquid courage needed to face a meal of unknown quality and a ship full of strangers.

  Drink in hand, Lea turned and surveyed the sight. The room was half-filled with the orange of FlyRight and gray coveralls of the Virgil. Lea felt all the more conspicuous with the light blue flight suit. Even her clothing screamed she was an outsider. However, she wasn’t the only one out of place.

  Something was off. Standing alone was a half-dozen people in orange flight suits. These were no egghead science types. The haircuts alone and inverted triangle torsos screamed special ops or security forces. Even the females of the crew looked too butch for Lea to fight. It seemed Doctor Dragon Lady came to the party packing muscle.

  The tables couldn’t be moved. Each was attached to the deck, like the chairs. With the ship spending weeks or months in near-zero gravity, everything needed to be secured.

  While still accelerating, the tables were decorated with centerpieces adorned with fake flowers. Red poppies, if memory served Lea. Individual place settings were marked by little cards. She never expected the family ship to be so… anal. They took this feast seriously. She didn’t have time to count, but there were settings for at least one hundred adults and children, with a few tables unused. She was correct, this ship was huge.

  From the far side of the compartment, Lea spotted Tian waving from a table. The programmer sat next to the engineer Lea already knew. The one who carried such low regard for Doctor Abe and let his contempt be known on the docks. He might prove another useful ally.

  Drink in hand, Lea wove through the intermingling strangers, making her way to Tian.

  “I hope you don’t mind. I changed your card to sit near me. I thought you might like sitting with someone you knew,” Tian said. With a motion of zer hand, she introduced the tattooed engineer. “This is Mate DiSanto. He’s from Mars.”

  The man reached out his tattoo-covered right hand. “Pleased to meet you, Lea. Tian has told me all about you.”

  She reluctantly took the hand and found it surprisingly smooth, like the man’s voice. Not at all like her first encounter. “It’s nice to finally have a formal introduction.” She didn’t know how much Tian told the man about her. In truth, the programmer didn’t know shit.

  “I beg your pardon?” he asked.

  “I was on the dock… with the doctor.” Lea smiled.

  “Ah, yes… sorry about that.” He gave her hand a slight friendly squeeze.

  “I must say it was quite the performance…” With a light tug, Lea freed herself from his grip.

  “I find it good to set expectations early. That way, I’m never asked to… well, you know.” He winked at her.

  “Seems out of place on this ship. How does the Virgil family take to your… attitude?”

  “Oh, I’m not a member of the family. I’m a hire-aboard.” The man grinned.

  Lea sat where her card told her to. “I’m sorry, a what?” she asked.

  “A few calls back… their mate met with an accident on the docks, found himself in the clink. I was hired to fill in.” Tian and DiSanto followed her example.

  “Dare I ask what kind of accident?” The glass of scotch gave her a prop to hide behind.

  “The kind that ended in a knife fight… blood… screams… the normal kind of barfight accident.”

  The description of a brawl wasn’t how Lea wanted to spend the better part of the evening. Time to shift the subject to something more useful. “Is that table…?” Lea pointed to an empty table at the forward end of the compartment perpendicular to the others.

  “The masters’ table… For the high and mighty, yes. They will wait for dinner until we are starving, but I’ll tell you it is worth the wait. This ship has the best food.”

  “How so?”

  “Beef, pork, turkey, all manner of vegetables. Good as anything you can get on Earth.” DiSanto beamed.

  Lea didn’t want to burst the Martian’s bubble, but she had eaten the crap they served in space, and she would guarantee it was nothing like she’d become accustomed to on Earth. Though by the smells wafting from the food, the cooks liked their spice, maybe a little too heavy for Lea. She needed to prepare for the coming heartburn the smells promised. “So much spice?” Lea asked.

  DiSanto nodded. “Thing about space, spend enough time in it, and everything tastes the same. It is my understanding sailors from Earth slathered everything in hot sauce, just to make the food… edible.”

  “We aren’t on Earth…” Lea smiled, already regretting the conversation. She was never one to be homesick, but she always missed the food while away from home.

  “We deserve a good meal. Going to be one hell of a trip.” The engineer grunted.

  Tian asked, “How so?”

  “Three days at one-G acceleration equals approximately nine million kilometers per hour, and over 300 million kilometers traveled in three days. Barely the distance of Earth to Mars. Once we reach speed… still only two-thirds of the way there.”

  The fact the man knew any of this shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Lea was shocked he let the information spill so easily. “So slow… Wait a moment, to where?”

  “If we need to stop, remember, once we are going at speed, we will need to decelerate long or hard. There is no way around it. The human body can only take so much stress. If we push to decelerate more than two Gs, we might lose some passengers. Killing the paying public is
never good for business. Besides, even with drugs and couches, I doubt many of the family members could survive more than a few hours of more than two-G acceleration. ETs aren’t made for the strain. It will be hard for them to work at one G for three days. Most of the family will be sedated for the journey.”

  Lea reached out for his hand. “You missed my point… Where the hell are we going?”

  He gave a quick twist of his head, pointing to nowhere. “Out there, of course… into the dark, those places between planets.” There was something about his boyish grin that made her skin crawl.

  “Can you be a little more specific?” Lea grew tired of this man’s prattle. She needed facts.

  DiSanto pulled petals off the fake poppies, holding up the first. “This is Mars.” He held up another petal before placing it on the table. “And this is Ceres… From here, we are cutting across Mars’s orbit, well behind Ceres, to a place where there is little but asteroids and damned few of them. With the current position of the planets, we are going to be very alone.”

  “Why?”

  His grin widened. “‘Cause no one travels that far out if they don’t have a dammed good reason. We might be in a part of space none have ever traveled in… uncharted territory.”

  Lea shook her head. This was not good news. She knew most human activities revolved around the planets and asteroids where bases were constructed. To go out where there were few humans only increased the solitude of space.

  “No, why are we going out there?” Tian finally asked.

  “That I don’t know, but this will be a long lonely trip. If we run into trouble, we will be alone.” DiSanto lowered his voice as a group of orange suits strolled by, drinks sloshing.

  “At the speed we are going… even longer.” Lea hissed.

  “The ship can’t take it…” Tian’s voice cracked. “The speed, the distance?”

  DiSanto shook his head. “We can’t… Humans aren’t made for that kind of pressure. Listen, this ship can accelerate faster for longer than anyone onboard could ever survive. If we push the engines to full for even a few minutes, most of the people on board would be dead.”