Faster Than Light: Babel Among the Stars

by Malcolm Pierce

  *

  “This has nothing to do with my father!” Seth yelled. Ten weeks after he drunkenly proclaimed he would overthrow the Republic, he was finally sitting in one of their jails. But it wasn’t armed rebellion that put him here. It was a dumb publicity stunt. And now he was face-to-face with a commissar who dared to suggest that everything he believed in was caused by some minor childhood trauma.

  Phaer Absalom leaned in towards the energy field that separated the two men. He held a tablet in his calloused hands, tapping it against his outstretched leg. “I’m just trying to understand how you could hate the Republic so much. Don’t you realize how good you have it?”

  Seth grimaced as he realized there was no way he could get to his feet. “In two months, I’m going to be stuck on Earth. You’re going to be stuck on Earth. Everyone will be trapped just like us, on planets across the galaxy. And just because a few bureaucrats are scared. That’s why I hate the Republic.”

  Absalom shook his head. “Many people are angry about the Spatial Preservation Act. That is entirely understandable. This is a strange and frightening time for everyone. The galaxy is changing, and not for the better. But this is something that has to happen. Do not be angry with the Republic. They didn’t choose this.”

  “Of course they did!” Seth exclaimed.

  “I am not surprised you think that,” Absalom replied. “But that is why I think that your hate goes well beyond the Spatial Preservation Act.” He sighed and put the tablet down on the ground next to his chair. “I want to understand, Mr. Garland. By Aesu, I want to understand.”

  Seth laughed. His headache was starting to go away. He was getting his strength back. He almost felt good. Granted, he was trapped in a jail cell. But he always figured he’d end up in a Republic jail eventually. He was almost relieved to get it over with.

  “You’ll never understand,” Seth said. “Just like I’ll ever understand why you love the Republic. We live in two different worlds, you and I.”

  Absalom considered this for a moment. He looked around, as if he was making sure that he was alone with Seth. Then he slowly stood up and grabbed the back of his chair. He pushed it closer to the energy field, sat back down, and spoke in a low voice:

  “I do not accept that,” he said. “You are a smart man. Top of your class at RSIR, right? Then I believe I can make you understand why I love the Republic.”

  Seth didn’t want to hear it. He’d heard so many speeches by so many politicians that he was sick of the inane rhetoric. Unfortunately, there was no way he could reach his ears to cover them. “I guess I don’t have a choice, do I?”

  The commissar shook his head and quickly began his story. “As you may have guessed when you heard my name, I was born on the planet Vangelia,” he said.

  Seth had not figured as much, since there was very little immigration between Vangelia and other worlds, but now it made sense. When a child was disowned by his father on Vangelia, he was forced to take the surname ‘Absalom’. This let everyone know that he had been disgraced in the eyes of his family and the church.

  Vangelia was one of the earliest settled worlds in the galaxy, established less than a decade after the invention of the Heilmann Drive. When humanity spread to the stars, it began a grand age of science and reason on Earth. The mainstream religions of the time quickly fell into disfavor among the public, who saw their tenants as outdated in the face of an entire galaxy of habitable worlds.

  Several religious groups chose to leave Earth rather than face discrimination and ridicule. They found planets where they could be alone and practice their faith in peace. These far-off worlds became a new promised land, the true homes of religions long established on Earth.

  A number of fundementalist Christian churches selected Vangelia as their new home. Millions of people traveled to Vangelia to start a new society where they could truly devote themselves to God. Within a few years, the planet was entirely self-sufficient. It was one of the most successful early colonies and many other planetary developments would be patterned after it.

  Almost two thousand years later, the insular nature of Vangelian society and their fervent orthodox devotion had warped their society into a terrifying theocracy. Its brand of Christianity no longer resembled the peaceful religion still practiced on Earth. Vangelia was one of the few worlds where women still did not have equal protection under the law. Children were considered the property of their parents. Heresy against clerical doctrine—which changed with each incoming class of priests and ministers—was punishable by death.

  “I’m sorry about your planet,” Seth said. “But I don’t see what this has to do with the Republic.”

  Absalom just continued as if he didn’t even hear Seth. “When I was sixteen, my younger sister was married to one of the church elders. She was only eleven at the time. My parents were promised that we would all transcend to a higher level of heaven in exchange for her hand.”

  Seth cocked an eyebrow. “A higher level of heaven? There are levels of heaven?” In all his time at RSIR, he’d yet to take a class on Vangelian society. He didn’t quite understand what they believed and only had mainstream Christianity to compare it to.

  “This will go faster if you do not ask any questions about Vangelian religion. I doubt I could even give you a good answer.”

  “Fair enough.”

  A pained look flashed across Absalom’s face as he went on. “My sister was terrified. She didn’t know what any of this meant. We... They didn’t explain these things very well on Vangelia. It was the husband’s job to...” He trailed off. “That’s not important. I knew what would happen. I knew why she was so scared. And I decided that I couldn’t let them go through with it.

  “I helped my sister escape before the wedding. And in exchanged, I was disowned and made an Absalom: a prodigal son. My father personally punished me. He crushed my left leg between two grindstones.” The commissar let out a heavy sigh. “I would say it is a miracle that I can still walk, but I do not believe in miracles.”

  Seth gave him a skeptical look. “What does this have to do with the Republic?”

  “My parents were just going to let me die. My leg was so badly mangled I probably should have bled to death.” Absalom looked up, his eyes burning deep in his brow. “But I didn’t. I crawled out of their house at night. I begged and bribed my way to a spaceport and when the next ship came, I dragged my dying body to the commander and I asked for asylum. The Republic took me in. They fixed me up. They kept me alive and they gave me a chance to serve them. That is why I love the Republic.”

  No matter how hard he tried to resist it, Seth was moved by the commissar’s story. He’d been wrong. He could understand why Absalom was so loyal to the PIR. There was only one thing that bugged Seth, that stood out like a sore thumb:

  “When this is all over, everyone who is born on Vangelia will be stuck on Vangelia,” Seth said. “Forever. No one will be able to escape like you did.”

  Absalom gritted his teeth together. “Don’t you think I know that?” he growled. “Those people, those poor souls... They have every right in the world to be mad at me. We are forcing them to make a sacrifice for all of mankind. But you, Seth Garland? You will spend the rest of your life in paradise. You will always have enough food, a comfortable home, clean air and water. You will never be tortured. You will be able to live where you want, love who you want, and have whatever job you want.”

  “That’s a lie,” Seth replied. “I want to travel the galaxy.”

  The commissar’s leg twitched. He clenched his hands into fists and looked down at the ground. Seth could tell he was holding back a great deal of anger. He took a deep breath and started to stand up.

  “Your so-called problems make a mockery of true tragedy,” he said. He pushed his chair into the wall with a flick of his wrist. It clattered against the metal bulkhead and fell over. “Rep
ublic regulations state that I have two days to decide whether to charge you with disrupting the public assembly. I hope that you appreciate that I am going to wait until I’ve cooled down.” The commissar hobbled towards the door leading to the hall. Then he looked back at Seth. “Take this time to consider the depths of your selfishness. Maybe by the end of the day you will realize that living a perfectly comfortable existence, free of strife, is a sacrifice you can make for the human race.”

  3.

  The Relocation began almost as soon as the Spatial Preservation Act was signed by Chairman Harlan Stephens. It was a period of six months, scheduled pursuant to the Act, in which the Republic would slowly decommission its entire fleet of faster-than-light starships. During this period, the remaining starships would run alternate routes between all the habitable planets. They would no longer carry trade goods or supplies, only people. The Spatial Preservation Act gave every person in the galaxy the right to demand a single ticket to any colonized planet. This way, in theory, everyone could choose where they would live out the rest of their lives.

  Of course, this wasn’t how the Republic spun the situation. They told everyone that the end of faster-than-light travel was temporary. They assured the people that their scientists would work tirelessly on a solution to the reality-warping problem of the Heilmann Drive. Either they would fix the Heilmann Drive or come up with an entirely new engine. The Republic said that the Relocation was designed to allow people to choose where they would spend their “extended planetary residence” until the trade routes could be safely re-opened.

  Anyone who paid attention knew this was a lie. The Republic was not putting its starships into drydock. They were not sealing them away. They were destroying them. Every time a starship was decommissioned, it was disassembled and melted down into scrap metal. The few engineers and scientists who knew how to build a Heilmann Drive were sequestered on Earth. They were forbidden to speak to anyone, even to confirm whether or not they were working on a solution to restore faster-than-light travel.

  As the Relocation wound down, people began to realize that it was the end of inter-galactic travel. Tickets aboard the remaining ships were sold on the black market at exorbitant prices. Riots consumed the major starports, even forcing some of them to shut down. This cut off several planets before the end of the Relocation. One by one, planets were isolated from the rest of the galaxy. And it seemed like that isolation would last forever.

  The end approached, and a name for this new era emerged. They called it the Fall. After almost two thousand years of skipping across the stars, mankind had been struck down and descended back to the confines of the planets.

  Not everyone accepted this fate.