Faster Than Light: Dobhriathar

by Malcolm Pierce

“And it was identical two years, three months, and fifteen days before that?”

  Caitlin nodded. Her temples were throbbing, as if under intense pressure. She just wanted to get this over with so she could sit down and rest.

  “Not possible,” Alena concluded again. “There are too many variables. The number of crew aboard, the amount of minerals mined from the star’s corona.... There’s no way figures like that would be consistent from revolution to revolution.”

  This just frustrated Caitlin. She didn’t think she was trying to advance some unlikely or controversial position. She was just relaying what she noticed in the data. “I am not saying anything is possible. I am just explaining what the numbers say and...”

  She lost her train of thought as her head started to swim. The room spun around her and she leaned up against the bulkhead to keep her balance.

  Alena rushed to her side. “Are you okay?”

  Caitlin wasn’t okay. Her ears were ringing with a high pitched noise. She started to slide down the bulkhead. The last thing she saw before she blacked out was Alena’s face, leaning over her, trying to hold her up.

  *

  When Caitlin was nine years old, the city of Levinberg began construction on a great paper mill, the largest on all of Airlann. Their governess, a powerful member of the Great Council, believed would both end a critical shortage of paper in the western continent as well as establish Levinberg as a cultural and commercial hub. Unfortunately, Levinberg was upriver from Balashyre, and their huge mill threatened to divert the river and dramatically disrupt fishing.

  Morgance Adair, the Governess of Balashyre, attempted to negotiate with Levinberg but they refused to modify the plans. She petitioned the Great Council to prevent the construction of the mill but they refused to get involved. When it became apparent that there was no diplomatic solution to the problem, the people of Balashyre clamored for war. Balashyre was larger than Levinberg, had more people, and a better-trained military. But Morgance knew that war was an ugly proposition and that hundreds would die even in victory. Fearing for her city, she did the only other thing she could think to do. She called for the formation of a Dobhriathar.

  The great academics, merchants, traders, farmers, and priestesses of Balashyre gathered at Morgance’s castle to present their case for being part of the Dobhriathar. They lined up by age in front of the gates and were admitted one at a time to present their ideas for how to resolve the conflict with Levinberg. From their numbers, Morgance would choose four. They would study the issue, weigh the options, come to a conclusion about what should be done, and carry out their decision with her full authority.

  When the last invitee finished her presentation to Morgance, and before the governess could retire to consider who would be chosen, one more supplicant appeared before her.

  “I want to be in the Dobhriathar,” she said.

  Morgance’s eyes went wide and looked down at the girl. It was her own daughter, Caitlin. “Oh, darling, I am sure you do. But you are too young!” Morgance stood up from her chair and went to pick her daughter up. “I am sorry I have been so busy, but once this is all resolved, I will have plenty of time to play with you.”

  Caitlin pouted and took a step away from her mother. “I do not want to play! I want to join the Dobhriathar! Will you hear me out?”

  After a second of consideration, Morgance returned to her chair. Smiling, she responded, “Of course I will, darling.”

  “I hope you are not just humoring me,” Caitlin said, her hands balled into fists at her sides. “I am serious.”

  Morgance carefully hid a chuckle behind her palm. “Go ahead,” she said. “I am listening.”

  Caitlin straightened up and jutted her chin out. “They get most of their dried food and fish from our town. We should stop selling it to them. Then they will see what will happen when we lose the river.”

  The room was quiet as Morgance considered how to respond to her. Then, finally, she replied, “It is not that simple, darling. Our farmers must sell to our merchants to make a profit, and then our merchants must sell the food or it will go bad and they will lose their money. Besides, I cannot tell the merchants who they cannot deal with.”

  Caitlin furrowed her brow. She was glad that her mother was legitimately listening to her, but she didn’t like how quickly she dismissed her ideas. “Then we should buy it,” Caitlin said.

  “We?”

  “They city or...um...you. I know we have a lot of money. We do not even have to give them more money than they would make selling to Levinberg. We just have to pay them not to sell to Levinberg.”

  Morgance steepled her fingers in front of her face. Caitlin could tell that she’d made a good point. If her mother’s reaction was genuine, it meant that she’d come up with an idea that had eluded all of the wise men and leaders of the city.

  “Fascinating,” Morgance replied. “It may deplete our treasury in the short run, but if this kind of embargo against Levinberg makes them reconsider building their mill...”

  “They will not have any food without us!” Caitlin exclaimed. “They will have to!”

  Morgance nodded. “I hope you are correct.”

  Caitlin’s eyes lit up. “So, can I join the Dobhriathar? Can I be one of the chosen?”

  “You are not even ten years passed, darling. You cannot be part of the Dobhriathar.”

  “But the Goddess spoke to me! She gave me this idea! She chose me!” Caitlin wasn’t sure if this was a lie or not. She’d come up with the idea on her own, but she was sure that this meant that the Goddess Airlanni placed it in her head so that she could join the Dobhriathar.

  Once again, an awkward silence fell between them. Morgance leaned back in her chair and sighed. “That is not the point of the Dobhriathar.”

  Caitlin stared at her mother, her mouth hanging slightly open. “But... But...”

  Morgance stood up and walked towards her daughter. She put her arm around the girl and knelt down at her side. “It is but a formality. It is a way to legitimize any further requests I make of the Great Council. If I have a Dobhriathar formed, they will take my proposals more seriously. And, now, there will be a certain weight behind my decision to buy out the merchants of my city. These decisions will seem to come from the Goddess, not from me.”

  “But it came from me!” Caitlin exclaimed.

  “I know and I am very grateful for your advice, darling.”

  And just like that, Caitlin burst into tears. It didn’t have anything to do with the idea, or even the fact that she couldn’t join the Dobhriathar her mother was gathering. That was all secondary to what she just realized. The Goddess Airlanni didn’t choose anyone anymore. The tradition of the Dobhriathar was not maintained because it was true, it was maintained because it was expedient. It was something that the governesses and the Great Council could invoke to maintain or establish their political power.

  Caitlin turned her back on her mother as she sobbed. She’d been so proud of herself, so happy with her proposal to help with the Levinberg situation, and now she was just humiliating herself. She was just proving that she was a child who should be humored instead of trusted.

  “I am so sorry, I did not mean to...” Morgance’s voice trailed off. “I know how much you liked those stories.”

  “It was not a story!” Caitlin yelled. “It happened!” She spun around to face her mother. “The Goddess chose those people. And she will choose me some day!”

  With that, Caitlin stormed away from her mother, through the halls, and all the way to her room. It was the last time she would ever mention the Dobhriathar to her mother, and the last time her mother would ever even reference the tale again.

  *

  Caitlin’s eyes flew open and she took a deep breath. She looked around. She was lying on a bed in the small medical bay on board the Fenghuang. Seth was sitting next to her, monitoring her vitals. Once h
e saw she was conscious, he turned his attention towards her.

  “You’re finally awake,” he said. “I was starting to get worried.”

  “What happened?” Caitlin asked. “Am I okay?”

  Seth shrugged. “I guess so. Nothing seems wrong. Then again...” He looked away from her, towards the console that displayed her heart rate and blood pressure. “Next time we recruit someone to join the crew, it should be a doctor.”

  Caitlin stared at him, wide-eyed.

  “Don’t worry,” Seth said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “You just passed out. You weren’t getting enough oxygen. That was your first time on a space station, right?” Caitlin nodded. “Yeah, you were just taking shallow breaths for a few hours. Probably didn’t even notice it.”

  “The air there did feel awful,” Caitlin replied. She pulled herself up on the bed. Her head was still throbbing and she wondered if she’d hit it after falling unconscious. “How long was I out?”

  Seth tapped a few buttons on the console in front of him. “Two hours, four minutes, and nineteen seconds. That’s why I was worried about you. It felt like a long time, considering there was nothing wrong with you, as far as the instruments could tell.”

  “Did you take care of me the whole time?”

  “I figured that Alena and Leah could handle everything on the Antigone. I don’t have much of a crew. I have to watch out for who I’ve got.”

  Caitlin was surprised and touched by Seth’s concern. She’d never even thought before that he cared about her personal well-being, or the well-being of anyone else on the crew. It was enough to make her think that he might be receptive to what she’d discovered on the Antigone, even though Alena brushed her off before she collapsed.

  “I found something on the mining platform,” she said. “Something I think you should know about.”

  Seth smiled and crossed his arms. “I knew it was a good idea to let you come along.”

  Caitlin proceeded to explain what she’d discovered from the artificial gravity computer. The distribution of mass and volume aboard the Antigone cycled along with each revolution around Epsilon Andrii. No matter what was going on aboard the station, this was consistent, day-to-day and hour-to-hour. Every time the mining platform circled the star, it would experience the exact same pattern of weight fluctuation.

  Seth looked at Caitlin as he considered this. “So let me get this straight,” he said. “The station orbits in a circle around Epsilon Andrii. Every time it is in a certain position in this orbit, it has the same weight and mass. And this is true for every position. And this has been true for at least the last eight years or so.”

  “Alena said it that it was not possible,” Caitlin said when she was finished. “And I can see why she is right. Even if the station was set up to operate on such a cycle, it would be affected by outside forces. If a single cargo ship was late in picking up solarium crystals, the weight would change from revolution to revolution. There is no way that such variables could be controlled.”

  “It’s perfect,” Seth replied. “Just like everything else about the star. Somehow, every force in the galaxy conspires to create this flawless cycle. From the smallest atom in the star to the mind of every starship captain that visits the station. Including, perhaps, me.” He smiled. “Fascinating.”

  Caitlin’s eyes went wide. “You... You believe me?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” He leaned forward and took Caitlin’s hand. “The numbers don’t lie. Besides, a universe where this is possible is much more interesting than a universe where it is impossible.”

  “We still have not figured out why the station is falling into the star,” Caitlin said. “And unfortunately I do not think that my findings will help at all in that matter.”

  Seth let go of her hand and leaned back in his chair. He rubbed his face with his palm, bristling the hairs of his wispy goatee. “I wouldn’t say that,” he replied. “Something strange is going on aboard the Antigone. Their orbit is deteriorating and it won’t be long before they’re stardust and we don’t know why. On top of that, they’ve been operating in an inconceivably consistent cycle that is entirely beyond their control for the better part of a decade.” He held up two fingers. “A pair of inexplicable circumstances. We’d all be foolish to think they aren’t connected.”

  Chapter 4

  Once the Epsilon Andrii research station was built, Geovany Andrews spent the rest of his life orbiting the star. Most of the other scientists left and returned to the station in shifts, going home to their homes and families across the galaxy. He made a new home aboard the station.

  As the years stretched on, Andrews became more and more reclusive with the research staff. At first, he ate with them and talked with them as peers, even though he was not participating in their work. Then, as his own experiments grew more elaborate and esoteric, he stopped discussing anything relating to the star. Later, he quit talking all together. The scientists would see him walking through the halls, head down, staring at the floor. And finally they rarely even saw that.

  Despite the fact that he hardly seemed to leave his room, even to eat, Andrews lived to be well over a hundred years old. By the time he died, the station was already in the process of being converted into a mining platform. Very few of the station’s inhabitants knew who he was, or that he had been the one to discover the star in the first place. But a few of the older scientists who’d served with him when he’d been more social returned to the station, both to pay their respects, and out of curiosity.

  They wanted to see what he’d been working on for well over fifty years.

  At first, the returning scientists thoroughly documented their visit to the station. They intended to catalog all of Andrews work and publish it, regardless of merit, as a novelty. But as they unsealed his personal room and went through his voluminous research, something changed in them. They spent a month on the station and when they returned, every single one of them refused to discuss what they found. Some of them wouldn’t even acknowledge that the trip even happened.

  A few weeks after they returned, news of a fire on the Epsilon Andrii station spread through the galaxy. Several workers were killed containing the blaze, and it set back construction efforts for over a year. The People’s Republic, who provided the funding for the station and the upcoming solar mine, conducted a thorough investigation and determined that the fire was the result of arson. The arsonists weren’t particularly careful and were quickly identified as the team of scientists who had gone to pay their respects to Geovany Andrews.

  After the trial, a reporter asked the scientists why they did it. All but one of them still refused to discuss what happened on the station. But one provided a very brief explanation for their actions, though refused to elaborate at all.

  “We thought that if we destroyed it, we wouldn’t have to think about it anymore.”

  *

  Commander Hathaway shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was aboard the Fenghuang now, in the conference room, against his own objections. Seth had gathered the entire crew of the starship to meet with him and didn’t want to leave the ship unoccupied. He was still somewhat concerned that someone on the station might try and steal it.

  “I want to go back to the Antigone,” he said. “Can we get this over with?”

  Seth chuckled. “I don’t know why you’re so getting so rims-damned antsy. We have good news for you.”

  The commander’s eyes lit up. “Did you find out how we can save the station?”

  “We found out that we don’t need to. The station isn’t actually falling into the star.”

  Hathaway furrowed his brow and looked around at the crew of the Fenghuang as if he’d been ambushed by all of them. “What? That is your good news?”

  “It’s funny,” Alena said, approaching the commander. “We went through everything. I checked the engines and there was no change in output or
efficiency.”

  Leah stepped forward. “I examined all of the computers, and they were all functioning. In fact, they were in better shape than what we’re working with on our ship.” She shot a look at Seth, who just nodded in agreement. “And there was nothing wrong with their weight distribution models or orbit projections.”

  Now it was Caitlin’s turn to add her voice to the crowd. There were still doubts stuck in the back of her mind. She didn’t understand why Commander Hathaway would believe that the Antigone was falling into the star when it wasn’t. And she still wanted an explanation for the strange readings she saw. Still, she had to tell the truth. “There is nothing wrong with the artificial gravity. It has been working perfectly.”

  “So I was starting to get confused,” Seth said, then summarized the findings of his crew. “There was nothing wrong with the station or the star. So I decided to check the path of the station. And I found that the orbit of the Antigone isn’t descending at all. The star isn’t expanding. There’s no danger at all. Everything is fine. Maybe I should have checked this earlier, but I assumed that you had some basis for your concern.” Seth paused, thinking. “What was your basis for believing the Antigone was in danger?”

  “What do you know about what is happening to my station?” Hathaway asked. “How dare you call me a liar.”

  Seth took a deep breath. “I’m not calling you a liar. But we can’t find any evidence for what you’re suggesting. I’m not entirely sure why you think the Antigone is falling into the star. If you have other data, we’d be glad to look at it and--”

  Commander Hathaway interrupted Seth by standing up and slamming his hands on the table in front of him. Then he started for the door. “I guess asking you to help was a waste of time. I’ll handle this myself.” He turned back to look at Seth. “Kindly leave the station, Captain. You’ll be safer anyway. I don’t know how much longer we have.” And with that, he stormed out.

  An awkward silence fell over the Fenghuang crew in the conference room. “We’re not going to get any solarium crystals, are we?” Lance finally said.

  “I wish the station had been abandoned,” Leah replied.

  Seth was still stunned. He paced around the room, then sat down in the chair Commander Hathaway just vacated. He held his head in his hands. “I thought he’d be happy that the station isn’t going to be destroyed by the star.” He looked up. “That’s good news, right?”