by Luke Norris
“Tin is above us right now, in a geostationary orbit. You only need to say the word, and he will send a landing craft to you.” She pointed into the sky.
Oliver followed her gaze straight up. Billowing nimbus clouds were stacked in ominous towers, the larger of Laitam’s moons could be seen as a half circle in a patch of clear sky. Overlayed onto this natural scenery were artificial lines and numbers. These indicators now seemed a permanent part of his vision. Oliver saw the position and exaggerated outline of a ship. The numbers showing the ship’s distance told him that it was well outside any persons natural vision or even any telescope on Laitam.
“You have the heart of a protector,” Rieka added, “and I’m simply offering you more tools to do what you have already been doing. It’s your choice. I know you have a life here, and it will be hard to say goodbye.”
But would it? Who did he have to say goodbye to? Apart from Shael, everybody Oliver was close to died half a millennia ago.
“You must choose this path, Oliver,” Rieka added. “I cannot thrust it upon you. Will you take upon yourself the burden of protector?”
He looked instinctively at Shael standing at his side. She assured him with those fierce, intent, yellow eyes, and wry smile.
“Oh, I’m coming with you Mr,” Shael said flatly. She was no longer the wide-eyed doe, but the experienced lioness, with teeth and grit. “I’ll undergo whatever procedures I need to. Don’t even try to pretend like it’s happening any other way,” she added casually.
Lego’s luminescent blue eyes pulsed radiantly, and he made a strange gurgling noise Oliver could only interpret as laughing.
“You’re really staying aren’t you, Rieka?” Shael whispered, looking fervently at the silver protector. “Handing the mantle of responsibility to Oliver.”
“If he is willing to take it on, yes,” Rieka said watching the water again. “There is something to do first, Oliver—a call you need to make to someone.” Upon speaking the words it was as if an invisible burden visibly lifted from her shoulders.
*
The man that appeared in front of Oliver, on the hologram deck of the ship, was impossibly old. His face was fashioned from ancient etched leather. His pink skin had lost its pigmentation and was marred with liver spots. Threeti Caplan’s grey eyes had the glassy sheen of old age and were small and sunken back under the leathery folds of his eyelids. Whispy white hairs of what remained from his eyebrows reached down to his eyes.
The man studied Oliver and didn’t say anything, he waited. He had expected Rieka but instead was presented with a young man, a stranger, Oliver. Tin had put the call through without saying who it was he would speak to. Instantly, upon seeing the man’s face, despite the features worn with age, the familiarity struck Oliver like a painful spear of nostalgia. The reason for the call became clear. Tears welled in Oliver’s eyes as he addressed the man.
“I believe,” Oliver spoke slowly, “I am your son in law.”
Threeti’s old intelligent eyes stared back for some moments before pained realization dawned.
Oliver continued gently, “I had the privilege of sharing a wonderful life with Verity.”
Oliver spoke to him for hours. They cried together, laughed together. Mostly they talked about the years spent after the unification war. They were happy years. Oliver recalled them fondly, and in vivid detail for the old minister. Threeti did not seem surprised that his daughter had foiled Yarn’s plans, and saved Oliver. Threeti spoke of Verity’s childhood, from the perspective of a father who felt his shortcomings were to blame for her rebelliousness.
“Thank you, my son,” Threeti said warmly, almost wistfully as he adjusted some medical apparatus, not visible over the hologram. “You know, Oliver, it is unlikely that we will talk again. I was a middle-aged man when my daughter disappeared, and now… well.”
“I’ve also lost family that I will never see again, Threeti,” Oliver told him, “and to receive the unexpected gift of a father so late in life is more than I ever could have asked for under the circumstances.”
Threeti smiled. “One last thing, Oliver,” he said, becoming serious. “Not all of Rieka’s operations were, let’s say, completely sanctioned by the U.W.F. I was able to act as a buffer between her and the regulatory commission here on Terras, because of the privilege that my position afforded me. I fear I cannot offer you the same protection. It’s not that I don’t want to, I simply don’t have influence anymore,” he looked distant for a moment, then added, “so much has changed in the council.”
Threeti Caplan didn’t need to say it explicitly to Oliver, it was evident his health was ailing, and he was dying. In many ways, the conversation had been closure for Oliver as much as it had the for Verity’s father. Verity had been taken from him, in what felt like a moment—they went into cryogenic hibernation together, but she’d not woken.
“Oliver, do you understand what I’m telling you?” Threeti asked softly. “The powers that be on Terras will not be happy to let you fly away in a U.W.F. ship once they realize that Rieka is no longer there. They don’t just let people fly off with the most advanced ships the Federation has produced. I don’t know exactly what the repercussions will be, but either way, I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you, and you’ll have to navigate this one yourself.” He closed his eyes, and his head momentarily drooped, characteristic of aged narcolepsy, before it snapped back up and he continued. “Somehow, I think you’ll be okay, my boy.”
“Thank you.” Oliver held his hand up as if reaching to clasp the hand of the hologram. Threeti’s smiling face stared back for several seconds, and then the hologram winked out.
Oliver didn’t move for several minutes, he was emotionally wrung out. But slowly a deep sense of peace descended upon him, it was closure, freedom. He was truly free now. Free, apart from being an illegal captain with a stolen U.W.F. spaceship. Is that what Threeti had told him? It sure sounded like it. He’d have to cross that bridge when he came to it, right now he needed this vessel.
“Where are the others, Tin?”
“Both Lego and Shael are on the bridge waiting for you, Oliver.” Tin said, and the wall color dissolved to become transparent. The two were standing beside each other, looking out the enormous viewing window at Laitam. “They cannot see you, Oliver, it’s one-way viewing only.”
“It’s okay,” Oliver said. “I’m finished here.”
Upon saying the words, Shael turned to him and smiled. Her eyes reflected the bright amber glow of Laitam’s moon. It was an enormous gibbous, filling an entire third of the one-eighty viewing window. Even the pocked surface and large craters were clearly visible. On the planet itself, the white clouds swirled in mesmerizing patterns, and Azure blues of Laitam’s oceans became cyan where they met the coast of Arakan. It was the most beautiful sight Oliver had ever seen, yet he couldn’t pull his eyes from Shael.
Oliver joined the other two on the bridge. He took Shael’s hand, and they stared at the panorama together. That had been Oliver’s home for the last five hundred years. It was hard to reconcile this beautiful vision from space with the hardships he’d endured on its surface. Lego hummed next to him as if reading his thoughts.
“Oliver, I must remind you that other U.W.F. ships will be entering this system shortly,” Tin said, interrupting their reverie. Oliver had ordered Tin to make his voice audible to Shael also. “They will be taking the early-traders on Li’s ship into custody. They expect Rieka to make the official transfer of custody. But as Rieka is not here, and you have not been officially sanctioned to command this vessel, I would highly recommend not being here when they arrive.
“I need a destination from you,” Tin explained, “where we should travel to. However, there are instances where I may overrule your orders—some scenarios trigger prerogatives that supersede the directives you give me. If we are in deep-space and I detect plausible evidence of early-traders to a probability above point two five, we are duty-bound to investigate and intervene if ear
ly-traders are discovered. Also, if I receive a distress signal from a U.W.F. ship, we have a legal and moral imperative to attend. I cannot override this in my programming.”
“I thought we commandeered this ship illegally, Tin,” Oliver said, winking at Shael, “and we could use you as our own personal galaxy cruise-liner?”
“Oliver,” Tin said, in a surprisingly patronizing tone, “when you accepted the role as a protector, you agreed to the responsibilities that come with that.”
“Tin, I was joking.”
“Ahh, I see that you are not so different from Rieka, and that bad jokes are a commonality among the human condition.” Tin said, in an even more patronizing tone. “Oliver, I realize that you are not knowledgeable about Terras or the United World Federation yet, and may not have an idea where you would like to travel first. I would be happy to suggest some possible destinations for us on the outer spiral, first-stage planets that have begun singing.”
“No no, Tin,” Oliver interrupted him, hardly able to believe the order he was about to give the ship’s computer—words he’d waited more than five hundred years to say. “There is somewhere I want to go, as soon as possible.”
Legos eyes glowed brightly, and Shael squeezed Oliver’s hand and tightly.
“Tin, set a course for Earth.
EPILOGUE
“Captain Oliver.”
The voice called to him in his dream. It took him long moments to realize the voice was real, and he was waking. Where the hell was he? His mind slowly organized his last memories.
“Captain Oliver,” Tin repeated. “You are waking up out of hibernation. You will experience some grogginess, and it may take some moments for your mental faculties to return. You are healthy, and both Lego and Shael are also healthy, although the other two have not yet been woken.”
Memories flooded back suddenly, of them leaving Laitam, Rieka putting him in charge of the ship. Suddenly Oliver felt overwhelmed with nervous excitement.
If I’m awake, that must mean we have reached our destination, he thought to himself. What did Earth look like after all this time? What would New Zealand look like? Would there still be anything left of his home? Probably not. He still had to see it. Was there rebuilding to be done?
Oliver sat up in the crio-bed. When Lego had woken him out of hibernation when he was a driver, it had taken a very long time for Oliver’s body to adjust. This time it was much different. Yes, he was stiff, but obviously Tin had primed his body before waking.
“Captain Oliver,” Tin asked, “how are your faculties? Do you know where you are?”
“Tin, stop calling me captain, just Oliver is fine,” he said, standing shakily and stretching out his back. “Open the viewing window! Show me that beautiful sight, Tin.”
What continent would they be above? Africa? The Americas? Oliver could hardly contain the butterflies in his stomach.
The wall became blotchy, as the color dissolved to become transparent. It took only a few moments for the wall to be transformed into a panoramic window, but it felt like an eternity to Oliver, as he waited to see his home, Earth, after half a millennia.
A massive globe slowly took shape. As the nondescript color of the walls dissipated it revealed a white polar ice cap, which transitioned to steel blue, then azure at the equator. The entire planet surface was blue as if covered in water. There was no hint of any continental land masses.
“Tin?” Oliver asked, suddenly terrified. He’d seen the movie Water World, is that what he was looking at? It was after all many years since he’d been there. Had the polar ice caps finally melted? “Is that all water I’m seeing?”
“Yes, Oliver.” Tin replied. “The surface is entirely water. I have several drones on the surface and can add that the water has a pH of seven and low salinity. It is a planet of drinkable water. This is a phenomenon so rare. It can only classify it as an anomaly.”
Oliver was so distraught by what he was seeing that he wasn’t even aggravated by Tin’s affable tone. He slowly became aware of what looked like rings around the planet, or… an asteroid belt. No, it was debris strewn in orbit around the planet, but on a massive scale.
“What is that, Tin?”
“Until recently,” Tin said, “that was this planet’s moon. It was shattered and fragmented three weeks ago, thus the instabile orbit of the debris. You will notice as we speak that very large fragments of the moon are currently falling into the planet, others are being ejected away from the planet and into space.”
Indeed, as Oliver watched aghast, bright flashes indicated meteors disintegrating and burning up upon entry. Some debris were of such magnitude that they would be meteorites like the doomsday objects responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Tin continued in his jovial artificial voice, “this was the destructive event that allowed me to make the discovery, drawing us away from our pre-planned route.”
“Away from our planned course?” Oliver asked urgently. “You mean this is not Earth?”
“This is not Earth,” Tin confirmed. “In fact, this planet has not even been chartered by the federation.”
The rush of relief Oliver felt was mixed with a sheepish feeling. Of course, it was not Earth. It looked nothing like his home planet. “Is that the discovery, Tin? An uncharted planet?”
“No Oliver, there are two hundred and thirty-three billion star systems in this galaxy, many of which have planets, more than three-quarters of which have not been chartered by the federation. Uncharted planets are in abundance. Indeed, we are continuously finding new planets which even have first-stage human populations. The fact this uninhabited planet has not been officially explored by the federation is not remarkable, and not why I woke you.”
“Okay, okay.” Oliver needed coffee, or something like it, before engaging with Tin. “Why did you wake be then, and park us in the middle of an exploded moon, which in my way of thinking is not the smartest parking spot?”
As he spoke an enormous piece of moon rotated slowly past the viewing window. “Jeepers Tin!” he jumped in fright. “Are we in danger here? That piece of rock was as big as Stewart Island.”
“Probability of collision is less than point zero one percent,” Tin said calmly. “In fact, I know the exact path of all the debris, I have retraced their path back to the time and place of destruction.”
Oliver was silent and began stretching out his legs, then took the glass of fluids from Tin’s drone. Tin would tell him eventually. Oliver didn’t have the mental energy to play with the ship’s computer right now.
“Violent cosmic events are taking place continuously in space. A moon being destroyed is unusual, but we have recorded instances of this happening. However, I cannot categorize the cause of this destructive event as natural.”
“Ah ha,” Oliver said distractedly. He watched out the window with concern, as another piece of debris came straight for the viewing window, and rotated at the last moment. It elongated shape meant it rolled around Tin, but far too closely. “Now you’re showing off, Tin. Hang on a sec. Did you just say ‘not natural’?”
What the heck could have caused a moon to explode?
“That is not entirely accurate,” Tin corrected. “It was… natural yet aligns with no similar record of such a phenomenon. It is the reason I woke you,” Tin said. “Also, I identified another anomaly in the moon’s core.” As he spoke Oliver saw, coming into view, a glistening crystalline orb, nearly the size of… well… a small moon. “The debris and rock scattered in orbit were once surrounding this Oliver, simply as regolith, bedrock, to conceal what was inside.
The moon had been cracked open like an egg, and there was a treasure inside, an embryo. “What is it?” Oliver whispered. He could see Tin’s drones flying back toward them from the object. “You’ve already investigated, I see.”
“It is technology,” Tin confirmed. “It matches core-sample data that Rieka collected from another moon. This is not second-stage technology. I have established through patt
ern recognition that it was not naturally formed. Yet, it is too complex to give a more comprehensive analysis.”
“Are you telling me,” Oliver asked incredulously, “that thing was a giant computer, buried in the middle of a moon?”
“I cannot say exactly, Oliver.”
“What was the cause of this, Tin?”
“Through a process of reverse projection, I can conclude that the moon was struck by a large comet. I have analyzed the debris, and confirmed the presence of comet fragments among the other regolith.”
“And, you're saying this is not natural?”
“The probability of a comet striking a planet or moon are extremely low, but can still occur, and would be considered natural.”
“Then what are you talking about, Tin?” Oliver asked in frustration. It was like pulling teeth with Tin sometimes. It was almost as if Tin were doing it on purpose. He would have to learn how to talk to Tin to get answers.
“After examining the particles of the comet, I can confirm that its unique composition is known to the U.W.F. and with we have it’s trajectory mapped in our databases. It has an elliptical orbit around a star two quadrants from our current location and takes two hundred and twenty years to complete a full ellipse. The star hosts two farming planets in the U.W.F., and all celestial bodies in the system are tracked and monitored.”
“Tin, why is this so odd?” Oliver said in exasperation. “I know you’re doing this on purpose.”
“I realize you may not be familiar with the Terrasian distance measurements,” Tin continued happily. “Perhaps by explaining this, it will illuminate the abnormality in my calculations.”
Oliver waited.
“A quadrant is a unit of distance. The host star to this particular comet is more than two quadrants away. That is the equivalent of one hundred and five light years away. It was tracked along its normal trajectory until nineteen days ago when it disappeared.”
“And this moon was destroyed when?”
“Nineteen days ago, by a comet that should be one hundred and five light years from this location.”