“So what now?” Alena asked. “Do we just leave?”
Caitlin shook her head. “We cannot leave them here. They are in danger.”
“Did you miss everything that just happened?” Leah snapped. “They’re fine. The only thing that sucks about this is that we’re gonna have to find solarium somewhere else.”
“They are not fine!” Caitlin replied. “Something is going on aboard that station. He would not simply make this up! If we leave now then...”
Seth stood up and walked over to her. He put his arm around her shoulder. “The Commander asked us to leave. We should probably do that. What happens to them now is their own fault. They chose to stay here. They chose not to believe us. They chose to refuse our help.”
Caitlin refused to accept it. She felt like the rest of the crew was missing something. It just didn’t make any sense that Commander Hathaway would believe that the station was falling into the sun for no reason. He had to have evidence, and the only reason he was refusing to hand it over was Seth’s condescending attitude.
“No. I want to stay here. I will convince Commander Hathaway to let me investigate further and I will figure out what is going on.” She could see that the other members of the crew were not enthused with her plan, so she continued on. “And I will make sure that we leave with plenty of solarium crystals so that this trip was not for nothing.”
“You are going to figure out what is going on?” Leah asked. “You don’t know anything about space travel or engineering or science or--”
Seth held up his hand. “Be quiet, Leah,” he snapped. “There’s no reason to speak to her like that.”
“It is fine,” Caitlin said. “She is right. I know nothing about those things. But I do not think this has anything to do with science or engineering.”
*
Caitlin suppressed a cough as she choked down another breath of the stale air aboard the Antigone. She was miserable. Why was she doing this to herself? She couldn’t even say, but there was no going back. Seth agreed to keep the Fenghuang docked at the station for another day and Commander Hathaway permitted her to perform her own investigation on the station. She didn’t want to let either of them down.
Her eyes surveyed the mess hall in front of her. It was where the crew of the Antigone took most of their meals. The food on board the station came from a series of hydroponic bays near the aft. They grew vegetables, fruits, grains, and even synthetic meat. This was just one more reason why they were able to stay on the mining platform indefinitely. They had more food than they would ever need.
While Caitlin was impressed with the ingenuity, she refused to take dinner with the crew. She wasn’t sure she was comfortable eating food that wasn’t grown in planetary soil. It seemed wrong. At least everything they had on the Fenghuang came from farms on Yuan and Berkshire.
Instead of eating, Caitlin just watched the crew. They seemed agitated, nervous, even paranoid. They shoveled their food into their mouths with their heads down, their hands shaking as they held their forks. Most of the men looked like they hadn’t shaved in days. The womens’ nails were almost uniformly broken and chewed off. Commander Hathaway had assured them that he was the only person aboard that knew the station was slowly descending into the star. But it sure looked like something was on their minds.
“Psst... Hey...”
Caitlin was thrown from her thoughts as she realized that there was someone sitting next to her. It was a rough-looking woman whose dark hair was streaked with shocks of white. The nametag on her faded orange uniform displayed the name “Varren”. Caitlin thought about ignoring her, but the woman was very persistent.
“Miss? Miss, are you from the ship docked outside?”
Caitlin turned to face the woman. “Yes. Yes I am.”
“Can I talk to you about something?” She sighed. “My name is Toni Varren. I’m a forge operator here on the platform. I need your help. I need to get off this place.”
That caught Caitlin’s attention. It was the first time she’d heard any of the Antigone crew even suggest that they wanted to leave. Most of them acted like they were perfectly happy aboard the mining platform with their friends and family. Hathaway didn’t want to evacuate and he thought the Antigone was about to be destroyed.
“We may be able to arrange that,” Caitlin said. She wasn’t sure if it was true or a lie. There was plenty of room aboard the Fenghuang, but Seth was fairly paranoid about letting anyone he didn’t trust onto the ship. Still, she thought it was the best way to get the woman to trust her. “What is going on? Why do you want to leave?”
Toni leaned in and spoke in a very hushed tone. “Because I’m afraid. I don’t want to scare anyone else, but I think the station is falling into the sun.”
Goosebumps prickled up across Caitlin’s arms and she started to feel a pit forming in her stomach. Hathaway wasn’t the only one who knew about the descent of the Antigone. As she looked up from Toni and glanced once more at the faces of the rest of the crew, Caitlin realized that they all knew. Somehow, every one of them realized what was going on.
“How do you know?” Caitlin asked. She still wasn’t able to get a good answer from Commander Hathaway, but maybe this woman would be more willing to talk, especially if she thought that Caitlin was her ticket off the station.
Toni put a trembling finger up to her lips. “Shhh... I’ll show you. Meet me near the forge in fifteen minutes.” Then she got up from her seat and quickly shuffled away.
Caitlin’s mind raced. She was scared. She was in over her head. There was a very good chance that whatever Toni was going to show her was going to be something she couldn’t possibly understand. She wanted to go back to the ship and get someone to come along with her. But they didn’t seem to have any interest in solving the problems of the people aboard the Antigone. What good would Seth or Alena do if they were just going to insult Toni?
Taking a deep breath of the awful air around her, Caitlin decided that it would be best if she went alone. She could just talk to the others afterward if she didn’t understand.
*
The forge was a dark and strange place. It was a large room near the back of the mining platform filled with dust and dirty containers. The smell of chemicals overwhelmed the stale oxygen and burned Caitlin’s nose. There were several large airlock doors at the end of the room. Heavy rails lead up to the doors. They were rusting and decrepit, just like everything else aboard the station.
From what Caitlin had gathered, the forge was designed to utilize the searing heat of the star just below them. The rails lead from the station out into the corona. The containers and the rails were made of a material that could withstand the temperature. But anything inside them could be cooked with the remarkably consistent heat of Epsilon Andrii. Then the containers would return to the Antigone, where they could be cooled and their contents extracted.
Caitlin stared at the airlock doors, waiting for Toni to arrive. It was so strange to think that there was a star on the other side. It was so close that she could almost feel it.
Footsteps echoed in the forge behind Caitlin. She turned to see Toni standing near a stack of containers. “Do you know what would happen if that airlock opened even one centimeter?” Toni asked as she approached. “We would both be boiled alive in seconds. The water in our bodies would turn to steam and the rest of us would turn to liquid.”
Caitlin didn’t even know how to respond to that. Her heart was racing. She was terrified.
“One of the most important things we learn on this platform is to respect the star,” Toni continued. “Because at any moment, for any reason, it could just kill us all.”
“You... You said that you had something to show me,” Caitlin said. She tried to keep her cool, even though all she could think about was fleeing the forge as fast as possible.
Toni nodded. She walked across the ro
om, towards one of the control panels. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that there aren’t any view-screens on board the Antigone. That’s because we respect the star. For hundreds of years, it was forbidden. I don’t know why. No one really knows why. That’s just how it was done. We would not put cameras out to watch the star.”
“It has been rather depressing,” Caitlin said. “Everything here is so dark and so artificial.”
Toni’s eyes went wide. “I know! That’s why we had to do something. When we all decided that we were going to stay on the station, and maybe not see the sky again for years, well... Me and some of the forge crew decided to rig up a little something. Just so we could get a little natural light once in a while...or at least something like it. We rigged a camera to one of the forge rails and sent it a few yards from the platform.”
The forge operator tapped a few buttons on the console in front of her. Suddenly, the screen near the front of the forge flared to life, filled with a brilliant white light. Caitlin held her fingers up in front of her eyes as she watched the screen adjust, then reveal the magnificent corona of the star below them.
Almost immediately, Toni seemed entranced by the image of the star. She stared into the view-screen, her mouth slightly open, and was quiet.
Caitlin approached the view-screen and looked at it. It didn’t seem bright anymore, but just focusing her eyes on the image gave her a headache. “What do you see?” Caitlin asked. “What makes you think that the station is getting closer to the star?”
“I can see it,” Toni replied, never even looking away.
That just didn’t sound right. Caitlin crossed her arms. “Now I do not know much about stars, but even on my world I was able to learn basic geometry. I am fairly certain that from this far away, you would never be able to see such incremental movement.”
“You don’t understand. I can see it.”
Caitlin’s head was now throbbing and she had to turn away from the screen. She couldn’t imagine how Toni could continue to look straight at it without even flinching. “Why did you say that you were not allowed to look at the star?”
Toni didn’t respond for a long time. She was frozen at the console, seemingly unable to tear herself away. After what felt like minutes, Caitlin decided that she wasn’t going to get a response out of the woman. Caitlin turned around and headed for the door. She was just going to have to talk to Seth and Alena about this. Even they might not know anything. This seemed beyond their expertise. Maybe it was just best to leave the station to its own fate.
Just as Caitlin was about to reach the exit, Toni finally responded. “Stupid reasons,” she muttered. “Stupid, stupid reasons.”
Caitlin froze. There was something about Toni’s voice that sounded wrong, like it came echoing through a deep hallway. She couldn’t just leave her behind.
“I think you should come with me,” Caitlin said. “We can get off this station. I would also like my captain to have a look at you.”
Toni stood up from her seat at the console. She turned to look at Caitlin. Her eyes seemed to swim in her head, glassy and directionless. Before Caitlin could even react, Toni rushed forward and grabbed her by the neck. Pain arched through Caitlin’s entire body as the woman’s grip paralyzed her.
“You do not believe me,” she said. Caitlin flailed her arms and tried to free herself. But Toni was too strong and far too quick.
“What are you doing?” Caitlin demanded. Toni didn’t respond with words. Instead, she kicked Caitlin in the side and dragged her back towards the view-screen. She let go of Caitlin’s neck just long enough to grab her by the hair. Then she forced Caitlin to gaze at the star.
The searing light nearly blinded Caitlin as she struggled to look away. “Stop it!” she yelled. “Stop it!”
Toni would not let up. She tightened her grip on Caitlin’s scalp. “No. You will see it. I will make you see it.”
Caitlin tried to close her eyes but she could not. She was transfixed. Even though it hurt, she couldn’t stop staring into the brilliant image of the star. She could almost see the flames, rising up, licking up towards the camera. But it was more than that. She could feel it in her head. The pressure against her skull, the pounding in her temples... It was almost too much to bear. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Do you see it yet? Do you understand?”
“No!”
Toni forced Caitlin’s face closer to the screen. Now the pain was too much. Dark spots flew across her vision. A high pitched noise filled the air. She was sure her head was going to explode. Then, just as it became more than she could bear, everything turned to black.
*
“This is unacceptable! You cannot abandon your city!” Edgar Worthington, the First Witanman of Balashyre, turned red as he paced around Caitlin’s office. He had been her closest adviser since she ascended to Governess. He was a large man in the twilight of middle age. His bushy dark eyebrows drew a sharp contrast with his shock of white hair.
Caitlin sat at her desk, arms crossed. “It is not my city, Edgar. You know that better than anyone.” When Governess Morgance died, Caitlin was too young to take on all of the responsibilities of being a Governess. Edgar had effectively ruled in Caitlin’s name until she reached maturity, and continued to make most of her decisions for her. Whether out of laziness or ambition, he’d never allowed her to take up the role herself.
Edgar stared at his governess. He’d never been shy about reprimanding her and Caitlin sometimes wondered if he’d ever stop seeing her as the little girl she used to be. “This is an affront to the Goddess,” he said. “Not only are you abandoning the position that has passed to you through Her divine right, but you are abandoning Her soil...and violating the Treaty of Fréamhaigh to go to the stars.”
“There is nothing in the treaty about leaving Airlann,” Caitlin replied. “Unless I am mistaken, even you have spent a year traveling the stars.”
The Witanman shook his head and looked down at Caitlin across her desk. “So you think this is some sort of Sraithing? You are not a child. You are too old for such frivolities. This is where you belong. On Airlann. In Balashyre. That is what the Goddess intended for you. And it is clear that the Goddess did not intend for any of us to go jumping about the stars. Everyone has discovered that now. That man, that Captain Garland... He is not just in violation of the Treaty of Fréamhaigh but also of interstellar law.”
“How do you know what the Goddess intends for me?” Caitlin stood up and met the gaze of the large man. “The galaxy is in crisis. Unless someone does something, everything is going to fall apart. The only person who is trying to do anything is Captain Garland. And of all the planets in the galaxy, the Goddess lead him to Airlann. And of all the cities on Airlann, the Goddess lead him to mine.”
This caused Edgar to lean back and laugh. He exaggerated this, holding his sides to mock her further. “So that is what this is still about. Listen, girreis, the Goddess has chosen you for something. She chose you to lead this city. She did not choose you to solve the problems of this world, let alone the universe. The Dobhriathar is a fairy tale. There are no anointed ones and there are no validated ones.”
Caitlin was quiet. He was wrong. He sounded like the Great Council when they spoke to the original Dobhriathar . They doubted the chosen ones. They told them that it was forbidden to leave the planet. But they were right in the end, and without them there would be no Airlann.
Even if the tale of the first Dobhriathar was nothing but a legend, it still taught an important lesson. What would happen if no one stood up to end the Fall? Captain Garland said that the People’s Republic lied. They were not working on a solution. They were doing nothing to re-establish interstellar travel. Someone had to stand up and try to find a solution. If Captain Garland truly had the last starship in the galaxy, he was the only one who could do it. And he was alo
ne.
“He needs my help,” Caitlin said. “I am supposed to go with him. I can feel it.”
“The city needs you.”
Caitlin snapped. She slammed her hand down on the table. “No it does not!” she exclaimed. “You have run this city since the day I ascended to take my mother’s place. The city has never been more prosperous...” She pointed to the sky, or at least to the ceiling. “The people up there need my help. No one else will fight for them. So I have to.”
“What if you are wrong? What if this Captain Garland does not have a plan? What if this is just the errand of a fool?”
Caitlin narrowed her eyes. “There is something I am meant to do up there. I am sure of it. The fact that you do not believe me, or even that no one believes me, will not deter me. You cannot keep me here. My decision is made.”
Edgar nodded. “Fine. If I cannot convince you that you are wrong... Then it is not my position to try any further. I will oversee the city in your absence and look forward to your safe return.”
He turned around and started to walk towards the door. “Thank you,” Caitlin said.
“I hope you are right,” Edgar said. “An interstellar Dobhriathar would be... Quite interesting.”
Chapter 5
The initial few days aboard the I.S.S. Fenghuang were a blur to Caitlin. The ship leapt across the galaxy from star to star as Seth introduced himself to a dozen or so presidents, kings, diplomats, and emperors. He wanted their help. He told them that they could be a part of rebuilding the galaxy, one starship at a time.
At first, Caitlin could only marvel at what she saw. The Fenghuang never landed on any of the planets they visited. Most of them didn’t want anything to do with Captain Garland and his proposal. But it was just so amazing to be on a starship, away from her home planet, surrounded by all sorts of technology that she’d never seen before. More than that, it was overwhelming. The Fenghuang was built to be crewed by more than two people, and Caitlin had to learn how to use almost every device in the command center to even keep the ship running.
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