Wandering Star

by Steven Anderson

  We broke for lunch before moving to linguistics for the afternoon.

  “Can we do that for each of the planets on this hop?” Hannah asked between bites of salad. “I want to not just see the dirt but what’s underneath and how it got that way.”

  “We can do it for Dulcinea and Malapert, but stop number two on Cleavus is a complete unknown. If there were ever any records of its geology they were lost long ago. I’ll take another look to see if there’s anything to build on.”

  Jake asked Hannah, “So how does this help you understand the languages of the people that live there?”

  She took another bite and tipped her head, thinking.

  “I don’t know yet. Language is used to describe the world around us, so maybe how the physical geography formed and evolves affects how language evolves?” Her statement ended with a question. “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.” After a moment she said, “Maybe it’s like with names.”

  “Names?” I asked.

  “Sure. Names come and go in popularity. If someone becomes famous, their name will become popular and there will be a bunch of kids running around with that name for generations. Or someone will become infamous and the name will die with them. When was the last time you met anyone named Robert?” She shuddered, remembering the heinous crimes committed a century ago. “Knowing the history and meaning of names can help us understand who we are too, the same as the language we use.”

  “So, where does your name come from?”

  “A statue of Hannah Duston near where I grew up. She was famous eight hundred years ago, and here I am still carrying her name.” She smiled, as if that confirmed her point.

  Jake had finished eating and was scanning Hannah’s and my plate for potential leftovers to poach. I quickly finished the last of my food. “You know you could go back for more if you’re still hungry.”

  Jake glanced at his watch. “No, there’s not really enough time.” Jake examined what was left of Hannah’s salad which had included several non-Earth plants, some of which were purplish and full of little air pockets that released a salty flavor when they popped.

  Hannah moved her bowl and put a protective arm around it. “Mine.”

  “And you can keep it.”

  “You need to be more adventurous.” She took a last bite. “Just not from my bowl.”

  “I’m willing to learn.”

  “I’ll bet you are. Give me a student who is humble and enthusiastic—”

  “That’s me.”

  “—and obedient.”

  Jake and Hannah’s noses were about a centimeter apart at this point. Jake was holding her gaze but losing. He pulled back.

  “Well, two out of three maybe.” Jake smiled.

  “Sixty-six percent is still a ‘D’.”

  “I’ve had worse.”

  “Have you had better?” Hannah asked defiantly.

  Jake looked around the mess before replying to see who might be able to hear him. “Maybe we should discuss performance issues privately.”

  “OK, my cabin, 1900 hours.” Hannah stood and picked up her tray. “Are you two ready? It’s time.”

  We returned to the main lab where I quickly discovered that language is a lot harder when you have to think about it. I don’t speak with an accent, or at least that’s what I thought when I woke up. To Hannah all of us have an accent. She correctly placed Jake and me in the southern Rocky Mountains of North America based on different vowel sounds in bite and boat.

  “Listen closely and I’ll show you the differences. Bite, bite, bite. Which way do you say it?”

  I looked at her blankly. “Um, they all sounded the same to me.”

  “The third one,” Jake replied.

  I thought Jake was guessing but Hannah smiled at him like her favorite dog had just learned a new trick.

  “That’s right! Let’s try this one: metal, metal, metal.”

  “First one.” Jake smiled at me, his idiot friend.

  “All the same to me,” I sighed.

  “Try watching my mouth while I say each word. Home, home, home.”

  I watched her lips, it didn’t help. I felt like saying, Maybe Jake is getting them right because he’s spent so much time in close contact with your lips, but it sounded petty even in my head. I usually catch on to new things quickly, but this was baffling to me. Watching the two of them batting words back and forth and giggling at incomprehensible subtleties was irritating. It was soon apparent that Jake had forgotten that I was even there and I’d about had enough.

  “OK, I can see where this can be all kinds of fun, but tell me why I should care. How does this even apply to anything we’re supposed to be doing?”

  There was a quick flash of anger in Hannah’s eyes that I would question the value of her profession. It faded to cold before she answered and I was reminded why I was worried about Jake’s infatuation with her. All the same, her anger passed before she answered.

  “All right, good question.” She ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back off her face. “Language drifts. Pronunciation changes, usage changes, sometimes spelling, but not as often. New words are created. In contiguous communities the change can be rapid, in isolated regions not so much. For populations that stayed in close contact with Earth, and speak English, the rate of drift has stayed almost constant over hundreds of years. Populations that became isolated as the Union fell apart three hundred years ago still speak like our ancestors did.”

  “And this helps us… how?”

  “It’s a window into the past. By studying them we learn who we were before the breakup. Knowing who we were then helps us know who were are now, and maybe who we are becoming. How you speak, the words you choose, how you say them, is a reflection of how your brain works, don’t you think?”

  “I guess I’ve never really thought about it. I just,” I waved my hands, “you know, talk.”

  “That’s because there’s no filter between what you think and what you say,” Jake complemented me. I think

  “Language just exists to convey information, right? What else is there?” I asked.

  I looked at Hannah and I could see she wanted to laugh but was holding it in. Her eyes had lost the cold look they had before and she seemed warm and playful again.

  “Sometimes, I suppose. It’s possible. But most of the time language is used to withhold information, distort the truth, convince and connive, to hide the knife hidden behind the back until the right time.”

  Jake seemed surprised. “I had no idea you were so cynical.”

  “It’s not cynicism if it’s true,” she replied.

  “Or are you just saying that to hide the truth of what you really believe?” I asked.

  That got a genuine smile from her. “You can be taught.”

  Jake stood and put his arm around Hannah’s waist and they looked down at me in my chair. “I’ve known Ted since we were in grade school. Trained, yes. Taught? No, probably not.”

  My irritation level was starting to rise again, looking at Jake there with his arm around Hannah and the smiles on their faces.

  “So, Hannah, I have to ask. How is it that you’re not worried about…?” I waved my hand at the ceiling.

  “Wandering Star? She and I have an understanding.”

  “You have an understanding with the ship? How is that even possible?”

  She stood there silently for a moment, still smiling. “Sometimes silence can be language too.”

  I tapped my fingers on the desk. “OK, I’m done here. I have work of my own I need to finish.” I stood and headed for the exit.

  “I’m not sure he likes you much,” I heard Jake say as I left.

  “I’m an acquired taste.”

  The hatch closed behind me, mercifully cutting off Jake’s reply.

  I went back towa
rd our quarters, not thinking about much of anything as I walked, just wallowing in a bad mood. I quickly changed into shorts and a t-shirt, left the cabin and took the next passageway on the left, transiting to Wandering Star’s outer ring.

  “Wandering Star, Sonoran Desert, please.” The six meter wide corridor flickered and was replaced with what appeared to be a dirt trail flanked by creosote bush and cactus. Red rock mesas dotted the horizon. The illusion wasn’t perfect and the trail under my feet still felt like deck plate, but it was better than looking at grey painted metal for the next hour.

  “Would you like a thunderstorm to cool you down after four laps, Mr. Holloman?” Star offered helpfully.

  “I’ll let you know.” I started off at a moderate pace, enjoying the desert smells and illusion of open skies.

  The ship’s designers had started with her four massive engines, added room for fuel, shielding and everything else needed to push her from planet to planet. Modules were added for command and control, life support, crew and technical team quarters, science labs, raw material storage for food and water, a pair of planetary shuttles and everything else needed to keep us alive and productive. The hardware and seed software for Wandering Star herself was built-in from the start. Millions of sensors and connections all talking to each other made her intelligent and self-aware. When the ship needed new functionality additional modules were added. From the outside Wandering Star was not pretty, looking like a collection of geometric shapes that had melted into each other on a hot day. She had been born in space and, God willing, she would never touch a planet’s atmosphere.

  A fat corridor with regularly spaced airlocks ringed each of the central decks providing access to replenish stores while docked and making a great alternative to the equipment in the gym for anyone needing a run. The ring on the technical team deck was a couple of kilometers in circumference and five laps might be enough for me to get over the Jake and Hannah show and be calm enough to sit with them at dinner.

  As I passed passageways leading back into the body of the ship they appeared as diverging dirt trails, helpfully marked with stone cairns and rough wooden signs. Starboard Aft Engine Room looked a little out of place for the Arizona desert but at least Star tried for authenticity. I ran on, picking up the pace.

  When Jake and I had first been accepted to the Academy we applied to share a dorm room. Our request was denied. We appealed and the request was denied again. My father told me to let it go and that I should be happy that there was an administrator there with more sense than either Jake or me. My dad, of course, knew how close Jake and I were having watched us grow up together. How could he think that sharing a room would be a bad thing?

  The next sign read Port Aft Engine Room. During four years at the Academy I think we spent more time in each other’s rooms than our roommates did. Sure, we had a few disagreements, but less severe than when we were kids. There were times when we were ten or twelve when I never wanted to see Jake again. We got over it.

  I passed the next sign, Science Lab. But at the Academy I didn’t have to be with him every minute of every day. I didn’t have to know his every thought and every action and every biologic function and every stupid emotion that seemed to drive him to do stupid things. I was running faster.

  The next sign, Medical. But was it really that bad? Jake had had a serious girlfriend at the Academy and at high school before that, as had I. Was Hannah any different? Dark clouds were forming on the imaginary horizon lit by occasional flashes of lightning.

  The trail to Shuttle Dock passed while I considered it and then the Port Forward and Starboard Forward engine rooms. Yes, Hannah was different. Our girlfriends in school had been like us; shared values, shared culture, shared goals, and shared passion for our futures. I smiled, remembering Kaelyn, the love of my life for two years, how serious she was in her studies and how Jake loved to tweak her for it. She had shipped out on the Evening Star two months before us. I wondered where she was now. Was she on some unknown planet doing the job she had dedicated her life to learn, or was she running laps like me? She was the one who had introduced me to the therapeutic benefits of running.

  The next sign was topped by the skull of a Texas Longhorn. Bridge. Restricted. “Nice touch, Star. It gets better every time.” A cool breeze rose from the desert floor to blow across my face. Hannah. What was her agenda? What were her goals and values and what future did she want? Jake didn’t seem to care. She had captured him and he seemed willing to let her destroy him.

  The next sign, Mess Hall. This trail was lined with rusted tin cans. I thought about asking Wandering Star about Hannah. Her profile information was private but I might be able to learn something about her. I just couldn’t think of a way to ask that didn’t put Jake at risk too. I’d really like to know what kind of understanding she and Star had.

  Starboard Aft Engine Room came by again. One lap down already and I was not feeling any better. I cleared my mind and looked at the distant clouds. A large thunderstorm was moving out across the valley floor, its top flattening out into an anvil and a narrow band of rain trailing out from its base. No more thinking about Hannah for now. No more thinking about Jake. I ran, watching for the wooden signs that marked my progress and waiting for the thunderstorm to finish its transit of the valley and cross my imaginary trail.

  By lap four, I had decided that there was no resolution. My choices were to throw Jake to the wolves, which I knew I could never do, ask for a new roommate and risk the questions that would raise, resulting in the same thing as option one, or let it burn itself out and pretend to enjoy the ride. I knew Jake. Infatuation led to obsession which led to disillusionment which led to heartbreak which led back to Jake being Jake again. I could wait him out. In another month or two he would understand why there were rules against forming this kind of relationship and the difficulty in continuing to work with an ex-lover for the rest of the mission.

  The trail snaked through the engine core in a series of tight s-curves. I rounded the last one and was blinded by a flash of light and a boom loud enough make me miss a step. Cold rain and wind followed the lightning and thunder.

  “Damn it, Star, I told you I’d let you know if I wanted a thunderstorm.”

  “Did you? I’ve been refining the effect. It’s much more realistic now, don’t you agree?”

  I stopped and wiped rain and sweat from my eyes. I didn’t want to admit it, but the rain did feel good. I looked at my watch, time to stop anyway to get cleaned up before dinner.

  “Yes, very realistic. Thank you. Please close Sonoran Desert.” The rain stopped, the sky cleared and faded away. “That was a lot of water, Star.”

  “It will all be recycled. Perhaps you’ll be pouring it as milk on your cereal tomorrow morning.”

  I walked to the next connecting passageway, marked by a plain grey sign on the grey wall. A hot shower and dry clothes were my only thoughts now. And some shoes that didn’t squish when I walked.

  Jake was already back in our cabin by the time I arrived, scrolling through something on his display.

  “Assignments for Dulcinea are posted.” I watched as he scanned down through several pages of text. “Way too much to get accomplished in the two months we’ll be there.”

  “Well, like everything else, it’s a test. Let me clean up a bit and we can go over it with Hannah during dinner.”

  I could feel him watching me as I entered our tiny bathroom. “You need to run more,” he called after me. I paused to look back at him, waiting. “You were pissed at Hannah and me when you left the lab. Now you seem like you’re back to normal.”

  I felt my mouth open to reply. No, let it go. Let it run its course. I closed my mouth before it could say anything. I smiled, closed the door and got into the shower.

  Hannah was sitting with Angela when Jake and I entered the mess hall.

  “You boys have a plan yet?” Angela asked.

&n
bsp; “Plan?” Jake and I said in unison.

  “Well you better get something to eat. We have a lot of work ahead of us tonight. The task list always gets dropped on us at the last minute and RuComm wants our response by the end of the day tomorrow.”

  I whispered to Jake. “Your meeting at 1900 might be delayed.”

  “Try not to sound so happy about it.”

  “Did I sound happy? I didn’t mean to.” Yeah, I was happy about it.

  Other members of the technical team drifted over to our table as they finished eating. Peter Jenkins, our astrophysicist sat down opposite Angela. “So boss, you have the schedule laid in yet?”

  “I will once you and the others get me your ‘shalls’ and resource loadings. Hard to do much without that.”

  “What about the no-hopers?” He gestured at Jake and me. “They have their S&Rs done yet?”

  Angela looked at us, eyebrows raised. I looked at Jake. Jake looked at me. Hannah smirked.

  Jenkins sighed, “I’ll take that as a ‘no’. Giz, are you up to teaching another class that the Academy can’t be bothered to teach?” He turned to the oldest member of our team, Omar Gizbar, chemist, and one of, if not the most senior active member of RuComm. It was rumored that he had been offered Angela’s job as technical team lead a dozen times and always turned it down.

  Giz rubbed his eyes, which always seemed to be red and seeking for a focus point he could no longer find. “Angela should be the one to help them, or really any of the rest of you are just as capable…” He turned from Angela to Jenkins to Charlotte Anaba, our anthropologist and Mr. Mahajan, political science. “Horace, this is really a systems engineering task, perhaps you could do it?” Horace Wicklow shook his head.

  Charlotte placed her hand on Giz’s shoulder. “But we like the way you tell it, Giz. You include all the background and philosophy and you’re so gentle with them.”