Stellaris: People of the Stars

by Robert E. Hampson

  Lund’s expression changed immediately to one of brotherly comradery and he clapped me on the shoulder again. “We don’t doubt you or we wouldn’t let you go, but it’s easy to lose focus on what is really important sometimes. While you are up there, or any time you are working with these Sigvaldites, remind yourself that their motivation is the same as ours. To do what is best for their own people. If you remember that, and view everything they do through that lens, then they can’t fool you.”

  * * *

  “I launch in about two hours,” I said. “I…thought maybe I’d check in and see if you need for me to bring anything up.”

  Sofie smiled into the camera and must have answered my call from home instead of the engineering office. When she shook her head, loose hair lifted into the air and then slowly settled to her shoulders like storm-driven snow when the wind suddenly dies. So strange. She lived in an environment with which I had no experience.

  “You already told me you can’t sneak fresh salmon up here this trip,” she smirked. “So how about bringing Frank?”

  This time I shook my head and laughed. “The Space Authority refuses to let him fly without a space suit and those seem to be hard to find for dogs. You’ll just have to meet him when you come down to my farm.”

  “I’d like that,” she said with a faint smile and rested her chin in her palm. “But for now, I’ll have to settle for you.”

  That smile, and her little teasing remarks always made my pulse race, but now Lund’s comments intruded and made me wonder. Was she manipulating me? My intuition said no, but would I know? Or did I like her so much I would subconsciously overlook subtle signs?

  “Do you have restaurants up there?” I said, deciding to go for it.

  “Of course. Your people are supposed to be the ‘barbarians,’ not us.”

  “Then maybe, for lack of that fresh salmon, you can introduce me to your local cuisine instead.”

  Her eyes opened wide. “Are you asking me on a date, Judel?”

  I flinched. “Well…I mean if…”

  “In my opinion, we have excellent food. Even pizza,” she said.

  “Pizza?”

  “And by the way, I’m a pretty good cook if you like vat-grown meat and algae casseroles.”

  The face I made must have been awful, because she laughed hard. “I also make good cookies. Maybe we should stick to those. Your stomach will probably be squishy from the flight and low gravity anyway.”

  A pounding on my door reminded me it was time to go and we said our goodbyes. As I let myself be led to the launch-prep area, I wondered if her comment about being a good cook was some kind of signal or hint. Was she planning to invite me to her apartment? Or wanting me to ask? And if so, should I go? Damn, Lund! He had lodged doubts in my mind like a treble fishhook.

  * * *

  I had little to do during the pre-launch period but lie on my back, look at the vast instrument panels, and “not touch anything.” Much of the originally planned gauges and switches had been replaced by Sigvaldi touch panels. All of the computers were of their design as well. I couldn’t deny that they were superior, lighter, smaller, and more efficient, but it made me uncomfortable. It was hard to argue against the systems—for spaceflight and the bridge control—needing to be seamless and integrated, but we relied on them too much. If relations with those fickle Sigvaldites went belly-up again, then we could be in trouble. Of course, if that happened then the bridge project would become a moot point anyway, so it wouldn’t matter.

  I closed my eyes and tried to relax the knots in my stomach. Radio chatter filled my helmet as the two pilots worked through their checklist with ground control. I wasn’t afraid, not really, but my loss would set the project back by at least a year, maybe more. This entire launch was simply to get me up to Sigvaldi so I could interface with their engineers. Sofie insisted I use their immersion fields and that wasn’t something they could export to us.

  The pilot next to me, Anna, laid her hand on my arm and said “This is it, Judel. You ready?”

  I nodded, then realized she couldn’t see me in my helmet and croaked out “Yes.”

  A series of bumps and bangs made me flinch, then I felt and heard a roar that grew steadily deeper. Vibration made my vision blur and teeth rattle, then a load settled on my chest. Støvhage was larger than Earth, so already had a gravity that was nearly half again the evolved human normal. Those of us living on the surface had adapted. Each generation handled the added stress better, but escaping the gravity well of this monster planet required a lot of power. As a result, rockets were only built when needed and crewed flights up to Sigvaldi had been few since the colony’s founding.

  It was easy for the Sigvaldites to come down to the surface—they only needed a capsule that could withstand reentry—but, perversely, once they arrived they were invalids dependent on mechanical aids to even get out of bed. Only twelve had visited during the last hundred and fifty years, but due to the gee forces imparted by our chemical rockets, none were ever able to go home. I understood the problem implicitly as I struggled to stay conscious amid the building force. I—one of the strongest generations yet produced by Støvhage—could barely breathe. Hopefully, the bridge would end our dependence on rockets.

  * * *

  Microgravity was not kind to my stomach and even though they had trained extensively for this mission, the pilots had not actually been in space before either, so my upset triggered a “bag use” chain reaction. Luckily, they didn’t hold a grudge.

  On our second orbit, one of the pilots suggested I unharness and look out the tiny window. We were passing beneath Astrid, the kidney-shaped moonlet. Just beyond I could see Sigvaldi’s cratered surface, brighter and clearer than I’d ever seen it from the ground. Amazing as those sights were, I was transfixed by the long glittering string of the bridge.

  It was really more of a sky hook than a bridge or a space elevator, but “bridge” had been used by the media and politicians, so the term stuck. The structure was only anchored on the Sigvaldi end and trailed the moon like the leash dragged behind by a runaway dog. Its loose end flew through Støvhage’s sky, skimming a mile or more above the surface and only getting close enough to access when it crossed the high plateau. That is where my work started. I’d designed the maglev system to accelerate the carriages up to a speed where they could catch and grab the end of the leash as it passed. It had been the most challenging and rewarding work of my life, yet paled in comparison to what Sofie and her team from Sigvaldi had built.

  Our ship drew closer, but as interesting details began to emerge—things like moving robots and construction workers—my crewmates insisted I return to my seat for docking. We arrived at maintenance hub four, which was little more than a blister on the spine of the bridge. It contained emergency medical supplies and feed lines for fuel and volatiles, but nothing like a crew quarters. Not that it mattered. Both pilots were forbidden to leave the capsule for the entire week I’d be on Sigvaldi.

  “Don’t forget to come back,” the flight commander said. “I’d hate to stay locked up with Anna all this time for no good reason. I mean she snores and chews with her mouth open. Very crude.”

  Her comment had been stated as a joke, but I knew she was quite serious. I wondered what Lund and his spooks had told them. That I was a defection risk? That I had been bewitched by skogsrå?

  “Keep the engine running. I’ll be back soon.”

  The maintenance hub was supposedly pressurized, but as a precaution I sealed my helmet before opening the docking hatch. I pushed my duffle bag ahead of me, then squeezed my bulk through as they closed it behind me. I clipped my bag to my lower back, below the environmental unit, then pulled myself along the bridge spine in a series of awkward lurches until I found the transfer hatch. The clumsy jerking around in microgravity made me dizzy and sent my stomach into queasy somersaults again. I had to gain control. I didn’t want my first face-to-face introduction to the Sigvaldites—and most especially Sofie—
to be amid a vomit cloud.

  Lund’s voice hissed in my helmet speaker. “You doing okay, Judel?”

  They had all the data feeds from my suit, so they knew exactly how I was doing. The bastards even spied on their spies.

  “Couldn’t be better,” I snapped. “This null-gravity stuff is a breeze.”

  He laughed. “Good. Our boards show your ride is only a couple minutes away, so hang on just a little longer.”

  I closed my eyes, swallowed hard, and pleaded in desperation with my stomach to not fill my helmet with puke.

  “We’re all counting on you, Judel. Make us proud and don’t let them push you around.”

  “Do my best,” I grunted.

  Vibrations, strong enough to feel through my pressure-suit gloves, announced the carriage’s approach. I wondered if the shaking was caused by an anticipated interplay between carriage and bridge, or if it was an unexpected oscillation that could be a real problem. Maybe the recent docking of our capsule set up a local resonance in the bridge structure? It bothered me not knowing all the design elements of the bridge itself. We on the surface were only responsible for the terminal interface.

  A green light winked on, then the hatch slid open revealing a small airlock. When I stepped in, my space-suited bulk nearly filled the entire area. Since both sides were already pressurized, the other hatch opened almost immediately revealing Sofie, who floated beyond. She offered me a bright smile and held out her hand. I took it, intending a handshake, but even though her long fingers disappeared in my massive glove, I could still feel her strong grip as she tugged me into the carriage.

  She helped me remove my helmet, then kissed me on the cheek. “Welcome to the bridge!”

  I reached for her, intending to kiss her back, but she ducked and my forward momentum sent me somersaulting across ten meters of empty air. Once the bridge was operational, the carriages would all be configured for cargo or passengers, but aside from some maintenance equipment strapped to one wall and four acceleration couches bolted to the “floor,” this carriage was empty and offered nothing for me to grab. I continued to spin, seeing Sofie’s grin once every rotation as she tried to stabilize me. She finally caught my arm and my tumble slowed, though imparted some of that motion to her. We were both laughing, hard, by the time we slammed into the padded far wall.

  Using cargo cleats on the wall, we worked together and pulled ourselves down toward the floor, then grabbed handholds on one of the couches and were strapped in within a couple minutes.

  Only then, after she had turned partially away busy with her own preparations, did I let myself really look at this woman. Scale was hard to get from a video link, but in person I could see that she was at least several inches taller than I. She didn’t wear a pressure suit—a probable violation of protocol—only a form-fitting utility layer that implied her weirdly long arms and legs were mostly hard muscle.

  She gave a series of verbal commands. The carriage movement was at first barely perceptible, but acceleration increased until reaching about one and a half planetary gees, where it remained.

  Surprised, I turned my head just enough to see Sofie. Her usual unfathomable half-smile had been replaced by a grimace and short, forced breaths. Before I could take any satisfaction in seeing one of the mighty Sigvaldites laid low, she gasped out, “Normal passenger…acceleration will…be a half gee. But I thought…you could…handle this.”

  Her smile returned, just for an instant.

  * * *

  The carriage eventually stopped at a terminal carved deep in the heart of Sigvaldi. The cavernous, echoing rooms were cut from bare stone and empty except for the occasional robot or human worker mounting signs or polishing surfaces. At least from this perspective, it little resembled the glittering faerie cities of rumor and legend.

  My disappointment at this fact was compounded by the irritation at having ridden all this way inside the bridge, yet aside from the brief glimpse through the capsule port, I didn’t really “see” it. Was this life on Sigvaldi? Seeing everything only from the inside?

  Sofie took me to a room lined with large lockers. I was suddenly aware of my smell as Sofie helped me out of the pressure suit, but she didn’t comment, as she hung it and my helmet in a locker. I was hesitant when I saw no lock of any kind on the locker, but she only smiled, took my hand and placed it against the outside of the closed door.

  “It has a built-in palm reader and now will only open for you.”

  She demonstrated how it worked. I’d read about such technology, but had never seen it. I longed to examine the interior mechanisms but she instead gently propelled me out the door.

  I was relieved to get out of the uncomfortable suit, but even happier to be out from under Lund’s watchful eye. His surveillance of me was locked away with my suit. At least for now. I followed her down a long corridor to a train station also cut from the unadorned stone.

  “Considering the size of those rooms and corridors, you must be expecting a lot of traffic from the bridge,” I said.

  For the first time since our initial meeting in the carriage, she looked me directly in the eyes and smiled.

  I melted a little.

  “It’s easier to build everything large from the beginning than to go back and change it if needed later,” she said.

  I nodded, not entirely trusting myself to speak. Lund’s words kept echoing in my head. I am not going to let this happen, I thought. She is just a woman, and an engineer, not some mythical fairy who can bewitch a man’s mind. At least not mine.

  The train arrived and we rode in an awkward silence for about fifteen minutes. When the doors opened again, it was on an entirely new world. Tall, brightly dressed people loped back and forth along the train platform. The walls were covered with tile mosaics, frescos and woven tapestries. I paused to stare, becoming the stone jutting out of a fast-moving stream as the people gave me curious glances, but flowed around me. I tried to absorb all the details for my report, but it was like trying to catalogue the movement in a kaleidoscope. I did note that there was no sign of military or defensive works.

  After a couple of seconds, Sophie took my hand and led me to another corridor.

  “We have small field offices on the surface at the main construction site and even in two places along the bridge, but the immersion equipment is in our main office and that’s a bit of a hike from here.”

  She guided me along with gentle tugs and nudges. I tried not to think about her hand in mine. There was nothing flirtatious about her guiding me along in strange corridors and weak gravity, but during the years of talking to her, working and laughing together, I had built up hopes and expectations about this moment. Part of me worried that she would try to seduce me, but mostly I feared that she wouldn’t.

  We eventually entered doors that were marked simply “Engineering.” A hallway led to a wide, colorful room, open and brightly lit. Though quite different from my own facility, it had all the markers of engineering offices everywhere. Various partially disassembled machines sat on tables and desks and wide screens displaying test data, while diagrams and conceptual drawings covered every wall. A beautiful, quarter-sized model of my bridge carriage sat in the center of the open area.

  Conversations around the room tapered off and stopped as all eyes turned our way. An almost impossibly tall man, easily a head above the other giants, stood up behind a table and crossed the room in two long strides.

  “Judel, this is Luther, our engineering director and my boss,” Sofie said.

  He gave a slight bow, looking down at me from lofty heights and offered his hand to shake. Like Sofie’s, his hand was narrow with long fingers. “Sofie shouldn’t have brought you here first. You must be exhausted from that brutal flight.”

  “Totally my doing,” I said, cutting off Sofie’s reply. “I insisted on coming to your office first. I’m quite interested in seeing this amazing Sigvaldite immersion tank that…”

  I froze mid-sentence, my face feeling suddenly hot a
s I realized much too late that I’d used Sigvaldite, what they considered a derogatory term, in an actual conversation. The term was common usage down on the surface and I had been extremely careful during all these years, only to let it slip here and now.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. I just—”

  Luther held up his hand and slowly shook his head. “I’m sure all of this, including our immersion tank, must look like magic to an engineer who has been forced to use the equivalent of stone knives and bear skins to build your end of the system.”

  I wasn’t sure what the hell that meant, since there were no bears on Støvhage, but I knew it had been an insult and my embarrassment flared immediately into anger.

  “And for future reference please refrain from using that kind of language in front of my people. The original colonists called this moon Kanin before we even arrived and that name is good enough for us. We call ourselves the Kaninish.”

  I shifted my feet for better balance and Sofie put a hand on my arm. I knew I was about to say things that might tank the whole project. I also knew that wouldn’t stop me. Those early days on Støvhage had been utter hell with more than half of the original colonists dying in the first two years. The world truly was dead, its soil being closer to regolith on Earth’s moon than the rich dirt on our mother world. We’d known before arriving that we’d need massive amounts of nitrogen for the crops, but those who stayed on the moon to mine stopped sending it just as they refused to send down the second wave of colonists. As our pleas and protests grew more insistent they eventually cut off radio contact. They had written us off as a failure and decided to save their resources for some future attempt. But we didn’t fail.

  “I don’t give a damn if you find that name offensive,” I said. “You cut us off, leaving us to die down there with no help or resources. Your level of betrayal made Jarl Sigvaldi’s seem like a childish prank, but that is the best name we had for you.”

  Luther’s face darkened. “Those sins belonged to our ancestors, not us, and we’re trying to make amends for them now, with the bridge and our technology.”