by Scott Rhine
“If you want to take a trip, ask Omar.”
“Come on Zane. It’s not like he’s going to let me go up to one of the ships.”
“You never know till you ask. The worst he’ll say is no, right?” Sasha found that logic hard to dispute and when she returned to the cockpit to get Omar’s reply to the Domer’s last message she broached the subject cautiously.
“Omar, sir, is it possible I could go up with one of the ships? Zane showed me pictures of the ones in orbit around our world and I’d like to see one before you leave. I may never get another chance. Your fleet is probably the only one that will enter our space for a hundred years.” Omar stopped what he was doing and turned to consider her.
“Why?” His hair flicked around him, disturbed by his sudden turning. Sasha was long past being scared of the metallic tendrils, alien as they were.
“Why, sir?” She thought about it, trying to come up with something that would convince him. “I guess I can’t give you a good reason why you should let me.”
“No, why would you want to go? You have said that our ships destroy worlds. You have called us monsters for the deals we have made with your Domer. Why would you want to see the things that brought us here?”
“I guess because it’s there, because those ships are from a time when mankind roamed the stars like gods. My family is bonded to the Wae as thinkers. We learn and use our knowledge to help advance the Wae family. I can’t help but think about how futile all that learning is when there is so much more that we have lost. I want to see what we have given up and what we could have been if the star drives had not been so dangerous.”
“Noble sentiments from one so young.” Omar’s eyes told her that he remained suspicious but she couldn’t figure out why. “I have some small need to return to the Thoth myself before the last supplies are loaded. I was planning to leave today. If you like you may accompany us.”
“Today? I will need to give the Domer your reply and I should ask permission before taking such a trip.”
“We leave within the hour. If you are here you may accompany us. If not, we will leave without you. I doubt that any of the other ship’s captains will allow you to travel with them. It is not our way to let others board our ships. There have been… incidents.” She wondered what he meant by that but his ultimatum unnerved her. It would take most of half an hour just to get back to the Domer. Even if she ran she would not have much time to ask her parents’ permission.
“I should leave Omar, if I am to return in time.” He nodded and returned to his work.
Sasha ran as fast as she could back to the home of the Domer and relayed the message quickly. If the Domer noticed she was out of breath and impatient he did not show it. He had shown little interest in her other than the messages she carried. She had already heard him speak of her idea as though it were his own. She ran to the library to speak to her father and stopped outside the door, frozen in indecision.
He would say no. She had no doubt in her mind. While adept as a researcher, Sasha’s father had no imagination, no curiosity. He would never understand why she needed to see the ships. Her mother would agree with him out of habit. She came from an unbonded family and in her mind being Fion-Wae was the best life possible. Sasha believed she could perhaps argue with them and possibly even win but not before the ship left without her. She heard her father’s footsteps approaching the closed door and her feet made her decision for her. She fled back outside to the street without a word and began to run back to the black rocks.
Chapter 3
Sasha was sure that she was going to be late, that the ship would be gone before she arrived. She was going to miss her one chance to see the great ships and look down on her world from high above. She could see the cloud of steam rising from the field that she had come to expect during ship launches. Her heart dropped but she kept running anyway. As the field came into view she saw a ship taking off. It was not the one that Omar used. She laughed and coughed the rest of the way to the field and saw Zane standing outside on the ramp. He was grinning widely. Sasha felt her irritation rise at the sight of that patronizing grin but she smiled back as he motioned for her to hurry up. She ran all the way up the ramp and almost knocked him over in her haste.
“Easy, Sasha.” He said. “We weren’t going to leave without you. Omar just wanted to see how badly you wanted to go.” He turned and yelled back into the ship. “Time!”
“I win!” Bella’s voice yelled back.
“Won what?” Sasha asked as she walked down the hallway and passed Bella’s quarters.
“The betting pool.” She replied. “You got here in 43 minutes. I bet on less than 45. Zane took 45-60 and Pulan said you’d be late. Thanks for rushing. I knew you had it in you.”
Pulan came out of another doorway. He looked to be fully human sized. “Sasha Fion-Wae, it is good to see you again. I should explain that I did not voluntarily choose for you to be late. The others chose the time frames and I only participated to complete the pool.”
“Pulan is the worst gambler in the Fleet. He doesn’t really care about money so he’ll take almost any bet, no matter how bad the odds.” Zane said.
“So Omar said I wouldn’t come at all?”
“Nah, no one was dumb enough to take that bet. Omar just doesn’t like to gamble. He believes in certainties. Doesn’t help that he can’t play cards without cheating. His eyes are so well augmented that he can see tiny variations in the backs of the cards. We’re lucky he has an overdeveloped sense of fairness or we’d all be broke.”
Sasha was happy they had such faith in her, considering she hadn’t known if she would come herself. Zane showed her to one of the two unoccupied rooms in the small ship. He helped her set the straps on the bunk so that she wouldn’t get hurt when they launched.
“It’s perfectly safe, but for your first time it’s probably better to get strapped in. You might get disoriented and hit your head or something. I’ll be back when we reach orbit to help you get out.”
Sasha settled into the bed, trying to get her heart to stop racing. She could feel the ship rumbling as the drive engaged. The bunk began to shift on its axis and angle to intercept the thrust. Sasha felt her body grow heavy and begin to sink into the cushioned mattress. The pressure on her chest increased for what felt like forever but was likely only five minutes or so. Then she felt the drive calm down and her body became lighter. She watched her arm start to lift on its own accord and pulled it back down nervously.
Zane appeared in the doorway at an odd angle. He reached out with his arm and grabbed hold of a loop that hung off the wall. As if by magic he floated into the room, spinning slowly so that he came to rest by the side of her bunk.
“Ready to do your first spacewalk?” he asked.
“How are you doing that?” Sasha heard the nervousness in her voice and cursed herself for showing weakness.
“Oh yeah, forgot to tell you. We have mostly escaped the gravity well of your planet. Technically we’re at something like point zero two gees in an arc correction but its pretty close to nothing.” Sasha’s mind clicked back on and she recalled her readings in the physical sciences. She knew that Lanis experienced a gravity of about ten point two meters per second squared. What had not occurred to her before this moment was that she wouldn’t feel that gravity this far away. She suddenly felt very small and very far away from home. She whimpered slightly, unable to contain the noise and Zane’s smile dropped to worry.
“Feeling spacesick? Nauseous?” She shook her head. “Oh god, I forget your world is so backward. You don’t even have planes. Probably should have explained what you should expect. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. Just take a deep breath and I’ll help you get situated.” She did as he suggested and he released the straps. She started to float toward the ceiling and twisted to catch herself. The world reeled wildly around her and she got disoriented. Panic might have set in but the sound of Zane’s calm voice kept her from freaking out.
“Re
lax, Sasha. Look at your feet and think about them being down and orient yourself to them. Don’t make any sudden movements. Everything you do should be slow and thought out.” She did as he suggested and in a minute she was “standing” on the floor, her fingers in a death grip on the bunk’s frame.
“Hey, Sasha!” Bella floated past the doorway, her movements impossibly graceful for her bulk. “Come on up to the cockpit.”
“In a minute, Bella. She’s got to get situated first.” Zane took her hand and showed her how to maneuver a bit in the small room. He was very patient with her, all traces of his smarmy smile gone as he helped her learn to move carefully. After bumping her head twice and almost spraining her wrist, Sasha thought she was starting to get the hang of it. With a little help from Zane, she pulled herself down the hallway to the cockpit. Omar turned from his displays and smiled at her.
“Hi Sasha. Good to see you made it in one piece. Would you like me to retract the viewport?” She didn’t know what he was talking about but her fear had evaporated, calmed by the soft tone of his voice. She nodded.
“Yes, please.” Omar didn’t turn around but the displays shrank to one corner of the wall and the whole wall split in the middle and retracted into the walls. At first she couldn’t see anything. The lights in the cockpit dimmed and as her eyes adjusted she could see stars, so many stars it made her dizzy. She felt a momentary thrust to one side and the view began to shift.
Creeping out of the side of the viewport was her home, the planet she had first seen in Zane’s cabin. It had amazed her then but now it filled her with wonder. The planet did not seem so different from that earlier view, but to know that it was real, that she was really flying so high above her planet that she could see the whole of it changed her perspective. The immensity of where she was in relation to her home snapped into focus and suddenly Sasha felt very small. She blinked and shook her head slightly. She could see the others watching her silently, letting her have this moment. She wondered if they had ever experienced something like this, a shattering of their worldview. Their faces, having become so familiar, were suddenly strangers to her once again. Then Bella winked at her and the moment was lost, the connection she felt with these people reasserted itself once again.
Omar turned slightly and with a slight thrust the view shifted again till the field of stars filled the view. Three were much brighter than the others and did not blink or flicker as stars usually did. Omar indicated them with a finger.
“That’s where we’re going.”
“They look so small.”
“We are still a ways out from the fleet. Right now those ships are farther away than the most remote outposts of humanity on your world. Come back up once we’re a bit closer and they’ll look a lot bigger.”
“How long are we going to be up here?”
“At least a day. I need to coordinate with the Fleet captains on our next jump. That isn’t going to be a problem, is it?”
“No, I guess not.” It was, in fact, going to be a huge problem. Sasha had anticipated the trip only taking a few hours. She had figured on being late to dinner but could make an excuse for that. Being gone overnight would worry her parents to no end. She cringed inside at how angry they would be when she returned but couldn’t imagine making any other decision.
Sasha floated down the corridor, her movements still hesitant. She managed to enter the cabin where her bunk was located and tried to sit down on it. It didn’t really work but it felt better than just floating in the air. She tucked her legs under the bunk and tried to think of an excuse for her absence. She barely noticed when Bella floated into the room, a concerned look on her face.
“Didn’t tell them, did you?” Bella asked. Sasha started to protest but the look on Bella’s face told her that it would do no good. Young as she appeared, Bella had the same eyes her mother had when she got caught doing something wrong.
“No.” Sasha replied. “In fact, no one down there knows I’m gone.”
“What age is considered adult on your world?” She asked.
“There is no set age. When the change starts there is a ceremony and you’re an adult then. I should have told them. They’re going to kill me when I get back.”
“Nah, they’ll be mad but it will pass. Parents forgive. Did I ever tell you I have a daughter?”
“No. Is she aboard one of the big ships?” Bella laughed at this.
“No chance that would have ever happened. Gail was not the adventurous sort. She thought I was crazy when I took up with this den of thieves. Told me I was turning my back on our family, our world. Said she’d never forgive me. Sometimes I wonder how she’s doing, if she ever came to understand why I left.”
“You left her behind? How old was she? You don’t look old enough to have a fully grown daughter.” Sasha would have guessed Bella to be in her thirties.
“Appearances can be deceiving. A lot of life extension tech has been lost over the years, but you can usually find what you need on one world or another. I’m… let me see. Based on your calendar I’m about eighty or so. My daughter is probably in her nineties now.”
“How can that be?” Sasha said, incredulous of what Bella was saying. Almost no one on Lanis lived to be so old, much less still looking to be in the prime of her life.
“Well some anti-aging tech still existed on my homeworld so my genes keep my body around this physical age, around thirty five. I get my telomeres extended along with a full toxin and aberrant cell flush about once a year on the Sikorsky. As far as my daughter being older than me, while the stellar drive operates by warping the fabric of space, the ships still use system style drives to move us through that space. I won’t pretend to understand the details, I just know the various ship’s clocks require syncing periodically to keep Fleet operations working properly. The result is me having lived a couple of decades less than my daughter. It doesn’t matter really. It’s not like I’m ever going to see her again.”
“Why won’t you ever see her again? The fleet has to end up back there eventually, right?”
“We move pretty fast in the Fleet but space is big and a fleet only travels as fast as the slowest ship. My homeworld is hundreds of light-years from here. The Fleet probably will get back to that region of space one day but by then she’ll be long dead. If I’m still kicking, I might take the time to look up any descendants I might have but that’s about it. Only good thing about it is that I still have some money in the local bank. I forgot about it when I left. I might return as a wealthy woman.”
“It must have been hard to leave behind everything. I can’t imagine leaving my family behind.” The woman twitched slightly at the words and turned to look Sasha in the eyes.
“I’d had a full life on Fulton. That’s where I’m from, Fulton IV. I’d gone through two husbands there, one by divorce, one by death. My daughter was full grown and pursuing her own life with a husband of her own. My world was pretty advanced compared to yours and life was highly structured. There was no room for adventure there. When the Fleet came to Fulton I saw an opportunity to have a second life. I bought some gene therapy to build up my muscles and some other doohickeys to make myself a good candidate. I figured the Fleet wouldn’t have any need for paper pushers. I was wrong to some extent but I was right about the adventure.”
“I guess it doesn’t have any need for impulsive girls from backward worlds either.” Sasha spoke the words wistfully, not even aware that she spoke aloud. She hadn’t thought about joining the Fleet. In her mind she was simply comparing herself to Bella and feeling pretty small by comparison. She was impressed by the courage it must have taken for the woman to leave behind her life and start fresh. Bella took her words in a different light though.
“I had some financial advantages that helped secure me a place in the Fleet and found a good friend in Omar but he wouldn’t have let me leave my home if he thought it was the wrong decision. I’ve been all around the Fleet in the years since and I don’t think there is another capta
in who thinks the way he does. He needs to know that it’s the right decision and see something that convinces him that the person really wants or needs to leave everything behind and travel the stars.” She paused and smiled at Sasha. “Something like a girl running as though her life depends on it for a chance to see the villainous ships hovering above her world.”
“I never said I wanted to sign up.”
“You may not have thought about it in those terms but Omar knows the signs. If you want to come with us, he’ll probably say yes, though you’ll have to ask.”
“I’m not even an adult yet. What use would he have for a child on a starship?”
“That’s for him to decide. Zane was even younger when he signed up.” Bella laughed though Sasha couldn’t tell what was funny. “In any event, your family could try to raise hell with us for taking you but there really isn’t anything they could do to stop us.”
“This is crazy. I can’t abandon my family to join you. I have responsibilities.” Even as she said it she knew it was a lie. She knew that if Omar would take her that she’d go in a heartbeat. Trying to compare a life of research and tedium with traveling to other worlds, there really was no comparison. In that moment she knew she had lost her argument with Zane. Freedom was relative after all.
“Well, whatever you choose, it’s been nice getting to know you, Sasha Fion-Wae. You remind me of me a little, before I hid behind the life that was expected of me. I spent nearly sixty years living that lie. My daughter was about the only good thing to come out of those years. I’ve spent the last few years trying to discover who I really am, to unlearn all the years of mindless bureaucracy. It’s not all fun and games in the Fleet though. We fight for our survival in situations like you wouldn’t believe. There is tedium too, long journeys between the stars with little to do except gamble, fight and read. The ship quarters are small and smell pretty rank and the pay stinks worse.”