by Devin Hanson
Leila sat in the seat across from her mother and looked out the palm-sized window at New Galway. It looked huge and imposing from the outside, and overbuilt compared to the other habitats. New Galway carried as much weight as other habitats her size, but it was all concentrated primarily in the enormous fishery ponds that ran in a belt around the third level.
“Welcome aboard,” Alec called back to them. “Is it just the four of you?”
“The rest are staying behind,” Evan confirmed. “Baldwin is in charge.”
The airlock cycled shut and Leila felt her ears pop as the cabin pressure jumped upward. There was a clunk and the dirigible lurched.
“Gantry free,” Alec reported.
The radio crackled into life. “Separation looks good from here, Alec. Safe journeys.”
“Thanks, Baldwin. We’ll be back before you know it,” Alec replied.
There was a hum and a building vibration as the dirigible props picked up speed, and New Galway swept away behind them. Leila pressed her face against the glass and watched until it was out of sight. Excitement ran through her, from more than just the unusual event of leaving the habitat, she was going to Nova Aeria! She had been to the habitat once before to visit the doctor when she had turned twelve, but this time she was going to take the Challenge. In just a few hours, she would be immortal!
Outside her little window, Leila watched the clouds slide by. As they flew, the towering cumulonimbus clouds she was used to seeing were slowly worn away. In their place, the stretched-out stratus clouds partially blocked the sun overhead.
From where she sat, she had a good view of the cockpit and it didn’t take her long to pick out the meter showing solar gain from the panels. They were getting more than enough sunlight to provide the draw of the props, but their intake had been lowered by around twenty percent. If the storm progressed much further, the dirigible would start losing power.
Her profile view of Alec’s face comforted her. Her mother’s security chief watched the readouts calmly and eyed the clouds with lack of concern. Alec was two hundred and forty years old. He had seen every twist of weather Venus had to offer. If he wasn’t worried, she reasoned, there was no point in working herself up.
Alec leaned forward and toggled his microphone. “Nova Aeria traffic control, this is Fisher King requesting a landing gantry. I have a matriarch on board, over.”
“We read you, Fisher. What’s your heading, over?”
Leila sat forward, listening to the radio as Alec called in their position and heading, and received a confirmation on a landing spot. By the time he was finished, she could make out the bulk of Nova Aeria through the torn clouds.
Dirigibles were anchored all around the habitat, some two dozen in all. For a Challenge day, that was a small number. Many of the more distant matriarchs must have put off the trip because of the storm. There was still an hour before the Challenge was scheduled to begin, though. Maybe more would be coming soon.
Leila found that she was grinning. Storm or not, she was here!
Alec brought them in toward the gantry slowly. As they got closer to Nova Aeria, the flow of wind around the habitat buffeted them. Leila’s grin faded and she gritted her teeth against the turbulence. For the first time, she started wondering at the safety of flying in the storm.
“Easy now,” Chase said softly. “The Fisher King is built to fly in weather far nastier than this. Alec knows what he’s doing.”
A sudden squall of acid rain lashed against the windows and the dirigible bounced and jittered. The whine of the props outside kept changing pitch as waves of low- and high-pressure atmosphere washed over them. Alec’s exchanges with the traffic control were clipped and tense. Outside the window, Leila watched the habitat sway and plunge.
There was a clang against the hull and the chaotic turbulence smoothed out to a vibration.
“Grapple secure,” Alec reported. “Reeling us in now.”
After another series of clunks and shocks, Alec sat back with a sigh and started flipped switches, powering down the props.
“All right, ladies, we’re here!”
“Well done, Alec.” Cynthia stood and straightened her jacket.
Under the close overhead lights, Leila could see the sheen of sweat on her mother’s brow. It made her feel a little better about her own nervousness during the landing. If her mother had been scared, then it was okay that she had been scared as well.
“Masks on,” Chase said cheerfully. He strapped his own mask in place and turned on the flow of air from the tank at his belt. Through the filter, his voice came out fuzzy and muted. “The gantry has reeled us in all the way and we’re fixed to the habitat. Baring a catastrophic event, the Fisher King is secure. That doesn’t mean the gantry wasn’t compromised though. Better safe than sorry.”
They fit into the airlock all together, though it was a tight squeeze with five of them. When the airlock finally cycled through, a wave of hot air rolled over them. Even with her mask firmly in place, Leila could smell the harsh, scouring odor of Venus.
The gantry had been contracted to just a stub, making the passage from the Fisher King to the habitat only take a few moments. The airlock was already open and waiting for them, and they were processed through with brisk efficiency.
Leila was the first out of the airlock and she stripped her mask off with a sigh of relief. Nova Aeria at last!
“We made pretty good time,” Chase commented. “The wind must have picked up more than expected.”
“Derek and Ferrell are on their way,” Alec reported. “They were watching us dock from the control room.”
“They can catch up to us,” Cynthia said and wrapped an arm around Leila’s shoulders. “We have a Challenge to go to.”
Leila leaned her head against her mother’s chest and smiled up at her. Inside the habitat, the gathering storm was inaudible. The turbulence outside was not able to shift the bulk of the floating city even a tremor. It felt like an omen. She just had to weather the emotional turbulence of the Challenge and then she would be free and clear on the other side with nothing to worry about for centuries.
Leila sat within the glass dome and tried to keep her face serene. The mirrored finish on the inside of the glass was imperfect, allowing her to glimpse the vague outlines of the gathered witnesses. Fifty-two matriarchs had gathered, despite the storm, to observe the passage of three new girls from human into the elevated ranks of the matriarchs.
The dome Leila sat within was small, some sixteen feet across and eight feet high. There were no doors or seams; rather, the dome rotated out of the floor and perfectly sealed her within. State-of-the-art sound dampening completely muted all sound from the auditorium outside. Her clothing had been replaced with a simple linen shift and she had been scanned for any electromagnetic resonances.
The dome’s glass was interlaced with super-fine wires, subtly gleaming in the bright interior lights. The wires acted as a faraday cage, eliminating any possibility of radio signals coming through the glass. Leila was completely isolated within the dome. All of the witnesses could see inside perfectly fine and kept sharp eyes on every nuance of her movement and behavior.
There could be no cheating during the Challenge.
Unconsciously, Leila touched the steel armband about her left arm. Fine hypodermic needles penetrated the inside of her arm and punctured directly into the vein there. Within the armband, a chemical castration agent waited. Any attempt to dislodge the armband would inject her with the agent. She had no choice now but to carry through with the Challenge. Should she fail, the armband would immediately inject her. Should she succeed, the armband would withdraw the needles and fall off.
A section of the deck opened up and a terminal rose from it. Nervously, Leila stepped forward to the terminal. This was it. The questions would begin.
The laws of the Matriarch Manifesto forbid explicit discussion of the questions in the Challenge. It did not restrict the teaching of morality and ethics, of course, and
those topics had been the focus of Leila’s education during the last couple years. She had studied Confucius, Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato. She had studied history, debated the right and wrong of various systems of government, and puzzled over seemingly impossible moral quandaries.
She felt she was ready for whatever the Challenge could throw at her.
One thing that she knew was that the Challenge was a multiple-choice test. And not a 5-way choice, like an IQ test, but simple questions of true, false, or ambivalence.
The screen on the terminal lit up and a brief introduction to the test was displayed. Leila read it rapidly, her pulse ratcheting upward until it hammered in her throat.
This is the Challenge of the Matriarchs.
Answer each question truthfully, to the best of your ability.
Each question asks you for a simple yes or no, with no trick questions.
Morality is not black and white, so a third option, unsure, is provided.
When you are ready, you may touch the screen to begin.
Leila swallowed, and touched the screen. The screen cleared, and the first question came up, with buttons for “yes”, “unsure”, and “no”, beneath.
While shopping, would you attempt to purchase an item obviously erroneously marked too low?
She hesitated. This was not the kind of question she had prepared for. It wasn’t even really a traditional morality question.
Leila had never wanted for anything, though her mother had ensured she was only given money that she had worked to earn. Still, she liked a bargain as much as the next person. But the question wasn’t asking about a bargain, it was talking about a mistaken price. If a shop had made a mistake of marking the price of an item, that was the responsibility of the owner, wasn’t it? If she then brought it to the attention of the owner or a clerk, the bargain would be gone. There wasn’t anything wrong with that. She would get the item at the reduced price, and in the future, the item would be marked correctly.
She pressed the “yes” button, and the screen blinked and another question appeared.
If you saw something damaged in a public place, would you make an effort to repair it?
The tragedy of the commons was something every child was taught on Venus. With the lives of everyone reliant on the functioning of the habitats, it was inconceivable that anyone would allow something that was damaged to go unremarked upon. Again, she pressed “yes”.
Would you sacrifice a child so that thousands may live?
Leila swallowed. So much for easy questions. This one hit home in a way that the others had not. The December Protocol had been enacted because female children were being sacrificed for the benefit of others. How could any matriarch believe such a sacrifice would be morally right? The Manifesto made clear in no uncertain terms that the Womack Process and those who took advantage of it were evil. She pressed the “no” button with conviction.
If there were no negative consequences, would you put off a task you knew must be done eventually?
Leila’s head was beginning to ache. She thought she had known all the answers to morality questions. Nothing about Plato’s Cave suggested a right answer here. Aristotle and Confucius had nothing to say about this. She answered the question truthfully: yes. There were no negative consequences, right?
Answering the questions one after another grew harder and harder. How many questions were there? Fear that she was answering the questions incorrectly grew within her and her breathing became labored. She had forgotten about the hundreds of people watching her. All she could think about was the next question demanding she search her soul and come up with an answer that would determine whether she would live for tens of thousands of years, or if she would die in only a few score.
Finally, the last question blinked away and the terminal displayed a terse,
End of Challenge
Leila took a step back and drew a deep breath. She had finished! What would happen now? She knew the two other girls taking the Challenge with her had to finish as well before the domes would open and the results of her Challenge revealed. How far through the questions were they?
Deliberately, Leila stood at ease, feet shoulder-width apart and hands clasped behind her back. The questions echoed through her thoughts. Had she answered them correctly? She knew a perfect score wasn’t necessary, but she didn’t know how many she had to get right. Besides, hadn’t the Challenge started with the statement that morality isn’t black and white? Maybe there were no right answers, and the questions would be compared against each other.
Her hands felt sweaty behind her back, and she felt lightheaded. The band about her arm seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. The waiting was worse than taking the test! There was nothing she could do now but hope.
Minutes dragged by that felt like hours. It seemed like every breath she took, she vacillated between knowing she had failed and confidence that she had succeeded. The other girls were taking much longer than she had. Had she made a mistake by rushing the questions? What if there was a question she would have answered differently with more time spent on deliberation? Soon, Leila told herself, the domes would open and their results would be shown. She dreaded the inevitable and yearned to discover her fate.
There was a clunk of machinery within the floor and she startled. It was happening! The terminal sunk away and the floor plate sealed over it. Then, with a hiss, the dome rotated around and vanished into the floor.
Leila found herself standing on a stage amid bright lights that made it impossible to see details in the watching crowd of faces. With her were the two other girls who had taken the test. She exchanged glances with them and was relieved to see they looked as worn out as she felt.
A mechanical voice spoke, loud in Leila’s ears. “Julie Rey, daughter of Matriarch Emily Rey, has passed the Challenge.” The redheaded girl to Leila’s left gasped out loud and sagged in relief.
“Leila Everard, daughter of Matriarch Cynthia Everard, has failed the Challenge.”
A sensation of hot liquid rushed up Leila’s arm and exploded through her chest. Nausea rose instantly in her stomach and sour saliva flooded her mouth. There was an echoing roar in her ears. She moaned and lost her balance as the room swung about her.
The hard floor impacted Leila’s knees and she sprawled forward onto her hands. Bile rushed through her throat and she vomited. The mechanical voice said something, but she didn’t hear the words. Blackness pulsed in her vision.
Distantly, she was aware of strong hands grabbing her elbows and hauling her upright. Sparks flashed through Leila’s mind and she cried out, denial and horror making her voice shred. Then, with a final burst of light, her vision collapsed and unconsciousness swept over her.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
The Matriarch Manifesto
Tenet Eight
Freedom is not a right. Freedom is something that must be fought for, tooth and claw, blade and bullet. Any society that takes its freedom for granted and stops fighting for it will soon become enslaved. Among immortals, this is especially important to emphasize, as the passage of time will make even the most vigilant become weary.
To survive, we as a society must remain in constant flux. New matriarchs must always be created and added to our ranks. And among these newcomers must always be those who know the value of militant thought and aggressive action. To stagnate into complacency is a sure way to condemn us all to death or worse.
Do not make the mistake of equating willingness to do harm with immorality. We must include among our ranks those who are willing to match the aggression and depravity of those who would reduce us. We must always be capable of fighting back, with overwhelming force, to destroy those who would seek to ruin us. Such people will always exist, and we must always be ready to defend our freedom.
Jackson stepped out of the airlock onto the broadly arcing roof of Nova Aeria. The exposure suit he wore was an improvement on what he had worn on Nueva Angela in almost every way. It was a fully-sealed su
it, pressurized against the corrosive atmosphere of Venus and rated to remain in a full sulfuric acid downpour for extended periods of time without damage. The suit had an integrated safety harness that had went on first, with multiple fastening points for rappelling.
The tools he had been issued were cast from ceramics and resin, and any exposed metal was stainless steel. The repair crews on Nova Aeria did not lack for funding or resources.
“All right,” Millicent’s voice came over the radio clear and calm. “You’ve both seen the weather forecast, and it doesn’t look good. We’ll be working in a downpour within the hour. Our suits should hold up, but if you catch even the faintest whiff of sulfur I’m sending you back inside.”
Jackson looked over at Laud and nodded. “You got it, Chief.” He had no intention of dying today.
“Good. Laud, you have the map. There is a prop repair needed that has top priority, then we will join Wharton and his crew in bringing the solar arrays back online. Jackson, you’re second wrench to Laud.”
“Aye, Chief,” Laud acknowledged. He turned about, holding his tablet at arm’s length in front of him before pointing. “We go this way.”
Even the safety lines were better on Nova Aeria. The cables were non-conductive carbon fiber and the carabiners were massively overbuilt, and easier to operate with gloves on. Jackson hooked onto the cable behind Laud and double-checked the clip at his belt.
“All secure,” he reported.
Millicent secured herself behind Jackson and clapped him on the shoulder. “All set. Lead us out, Laud.”
The trip down the curve of the habitat’s roof gave Jackson more time than he liked to watch the storm build. Clouds gathered and were torn apart, only to coalesce once more. Wind buffeted them, but inside the exposure suits it felt distant and insignificant. He couldn’t smell even the tiniest hint of sulfur.
Skeins of cloud whipped by them and misted them with acid droplets. All around the habitat, clouds boiled, forming and disintegrating. Striated cirrus clouds rolled by high overhead. The usually flat blanket of cloud below was scooped and scalloped into mountains and valleys by the wind.
