“Well, Monica Pierce is still there.”
Rusev laughed heartily. “If Monica Pierce is our biggest problem, we’re doing okay.”
“Easy to say when you do not have to deal with her bullshit,” Grav chimed in, equally committed to the notion of speaking quietly to avoid being heard by anyone else. “But Monica is a problem we can deal with. Viola, on the other hand…”
Holly glanced angrily at Grav for bringing up Viola, and was greatly relieved that Rusev hadn’t heard his final comment as she made her way to the chair at the other end of the room.
“Okay, everyone,” Rusev said, straight to the point. “Let’s get to our first order of business…”
Holly took her own seat and looked around at the fifteen or so faces of her fellow Rusentra board members and a handful of external invitees, most appearing indifferent to her presence and some looking unabashedly hostile. She turned to Grav, who winked in support.
Holly’s Air Force days, despite now being half a lifetime ago and sometimes little more than a haze in a 43-year-old mind filled with fresher memories of countless misadventures along the way, stood her in good stead for tackling all kinds of challenges. Her time as a poster-child for the long-defunct public space program had landed her in some difficult spots with argumentative journalists and added some media savvy to her arsenal, but the boardroom environment was one in which she struggled to stay afloat. More accustomed to getting her hands dirty and leading groups who wanted to succeed together, in this sniping corporate world she was very much out of her natural element.
Holly felt less like a fish who had been yanked out of the water and more like a captain who had been pulled overboard from the good ship Terradox and left to fight for her life in choppy corporate waters. Business suits and board meetings were the only parts of her job she would never truly feel comfortable with, and it took a concerted effort to keep her nerves in check ahead of the presentation she would soon have to give to an audience which included more than a few individuals who wanted to see her stumble.
Dimitar, seated next to his mother, sent Holly a friendly but more mischievous wink of his own. A hard-sell on the benefits of expediting the Terradox colony’s foray into advanced romotech-related projects was undoubtedly coming as soon as he got Holly alone, but right now he was a welcome lifeboat in a room full of sharks.
She took a deep breath and thought of the bigger picture.
A three-hour board meeting, a few relatively relaxed days on the station, and a gentle flight home to Terradox… that was all that stood between Holly and the fresh air, the manicured landscapes, the happy faces, and the atmosphere of cooperative progress that defined the research-driven community she had worked so hard to develop.
Monica Pierce or no Monica Pierce, the Terradox colony was the closest place to Heaven Holly had ever been, and the promise of an imminent return was enough to get her through just about anything.
two
Only one child remained in the Terradox colony’s primary daycare facility as the clock ticked past 7pm, with his father’s usual pick-up time delayed by unforeseen work commitments which the facility’s staff had been alerted to only minutes before the regular end of their day a full two hours earlier.
Viola Ospanov, Head of the Childhood Development division at the tender age of 23 thanks both to her four years of experience in caring for the Venus station’s children and also the high esteem in which she was held by everyone with a say in the colony’s creation, insisted upon staying behind to allow the rest of her staff to go home.
As well as being one of the original ‘seven saviours’ who first discovered the once-cloaked romosphere and being one of the Harrington trio which many spoke of as ‘the first family of Terradox’, Viola had recently married her longtime partner Peter Ospanov, the colony’s no-nonsense Head of Security.
In terms of social status, particularly in the eyes of the hundreds of young colonists who spent their days in the educational facility they all knew as ‘the CDD’ rather than ‘school’, no one else came close.
Offering to work late rather than asking someone else to do so was the kind of thing Viola did without much thought and this grounded selflessness contributed greatly to her popularity among her division’s extensive workforce, many of whom could otherwise have resented answering to someone so much younger than themselves. A similar factor was her passionate preference for daily hands-on engagement with the children over barking detached orders from an ivory tower, as she could have done if she so desired.
This workforce, like every other on Terradox, was composed of extremely qualified individuals with extensive records of exceptional work in their respective fields on Earth. Viola’s success in maintaining productive harmony despite her own relative inexperience had not gone unnoticed by the likes of Rusev and Holly, both of whom felt vindicated for the faith they had put in her.
Unlike her quiet but effective father and her increasingly work-obsessed brother, Viola was very much a people person; but just like theirs, her results spoke for themselves.
The last two hours had passed quickly and easily while she really got to know a six-year-old boy who she had agreed to place on an individually-designed focused development program several weeks earlier at the suggestion of his year group’s teachers and supervisors. She was told that the boy, Vijay Kohli, tended to shy away from any discussions or cooperative play with his classmates despite close monitoring having confirmed that they were never anything but kind to him.
Vijay had also recently picked up a nervous stutter and had begun telling his parents that he wanted to go home to Earth. This latter point was of particular concern, with any signs of resentment towards the colony being something that all staff and parents were firmly encouraged to report immediately. The recent news on that front was good, with Vijay having become more comfortable both in classes and at play once he was told that it was okay to keep to himself and that his friends would be ready anytime he felt like joining them.
The boy’s father was a senior figure within the colony’s esoteric Primosphere division and Viola knew that his mother also played an important role, doing some kind of high-level analysis relating to the efficient operation of the colony’s long-distance transport system.
A recruiting preference for couples and families composed of highly competent individuals with strong academic backgrounds and relevant professional experience meant that this kind of setup wasn’t unusual on Terradox, with all kinds of highly skilled research-based and administrative roles filled by several members of the same households. As well as the inherent efficiency of having one home provide two or more productive colonists, the social planners who worked with the recruitment team in the early days believed that the presence of stable families and couples would benefit the colony as a whole in additional intangible ways.
One member of the Kohli family was far better known than the others, however, thanks entirely to her ongoing participation in a high-profile isolation test deep within Terradox’s inhospitable Little Venus zone. Nisha Kohli, the outstanding young physicist on Earth prior to her move to Terradox, had been the recruiters’ real focus; her parents, as skilled and as welcome as they were, had merely been the icing on the cake.
When Viola took Vijay to the age-appropriate section of the facility’s enormous play-park, she gently and unobtrusively asked some occasional questions while he was relaxed enough to answer without holding anything back. He told Viola exactly what he’d told her close friend Jillian Jackson, the colony’s chief child psychologist, a few days earlier: he missed his sister more and more each day and couldn’t wait for the isolation test to be over.
Viola considered this feeling to be the most understandable thing in the world, particularly given that almost everyone on Terradox spoke about Nisha and her colleagues every day by virtue of the keen attention they paid to the test via Terradox Live, a TV show which was produced on-site for Earth’s entertainment market but which found countless d
edicated viewers closer to home.
Jillian Jackson, beyond her professional psychologist’s ability to empathise, was in a unique position of being able to understand Vijay’s feelings on this matter even more precisely given that her own 22-year-old son Chase was involved in the very same high-profile isolation test. Viola took the same approach to soothing Vijay’s mind as Jillian had during his regular talking sessions, reminding him that only eight days remained until the test was over and the astronauts-in-training would emerge from Little Venus having passed with flying colours.
Vijay played happily until his father, Romesh, eventually arrived at almost 8pm. Romesh was full of apologies and thanked Viola profusely for staying late, promising he would do everything he could to ensure that he never again had to stay so late at his workplace.
“Don’t worry about it,” Viola said, knowing it must have been important. “You’re pretty high up in the team who are playing around with new life-forms in the Primosphere, right?”
“I wouldn’t call it playing around,” Romesh said with a slight grin.
“You know what I mean,” Viola laughed. “So was the delay anything to do with that big project you’re all working on? What’s the codename, again… ‘Nancy’ or something like that?”
Romesh’s expression suddenly turned to one of genuine shock, clearly reacting instinctively to hearing Viola mention a codename she wasn’t supposed to know. “Mrs Ospanov, I’m truly sorry to have to keep anything from you of all people, but I could get into a lot of trouble if I say any more than I’m supposed to.”
Viola shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. It’s good to respect the chain of command.” She then turned towards the park, where Vijay was somewhere around a quarter of the way up a high climbing frame. “Vijay, your dad is here!”
Romesh gently took hold of Viola’s wrist and encouraged her to turn back around to face him. “Forgive me for being so firm,” he said, maintaining nervous eye contact, “but whether you learned some information on our project directly from Holly or from someone else, it’s critically important that you don’t disseminate that information any further. I’m sure you’ll understand that while we’re not doing anything questionable, there are good reasons why certain things are confidential. This is one of those things.”
It took no little effort for Viola to pretend that she wasn’t tremendously intrigued by Romesh’s level of unease regarding her limited knowledge of the ‘Nancy’ project, but she succeeded in convincing him that she would forget she’d ever heard the name. “Vijay has had a really good day, anyway,” she said as the boy began to climb back down towards the ground. “We don’t want to push him too quickly but all throughout this week he’s not been isolating himself in the way he once did, and today he was actively initiating cooperative play in a way we haven’t seen. I think he’s turned a major corner since we made sure he knows that he has the freedom to be on his own when he needs to be.”
“He was certainly keen to get here this morning,” Romesh replied. “That didn’t used to be the case, so whatever you’ve been doing has made a huge difference. I have to admit, we were getting worried. At his age, Nisha had none of these problems. By this age, she was—”
“If he hears you talking about ‘problems’, that doesn’t help,” Viola said. “Children have different personalities and they all develop differently. And even though we do all we can to get the most out of every child here, we can’t expect any of them to be as academically gifted as Nisha, just like I’m not as academically gifted as Bo. But no one would ever accuse Bo of being the most socially adept guy around, just like Nisha almost didn’t make it into the final test crew because some of her cooperative and social awareness scores were borderline. I’m not trying to tell you how to raise your son, Mr Kohli, but I am telling you that your daughter is not a fair measuring stick for anyone.”
Romesh nodded slowly, taking Viola’s words in the intended spirit while Vijay ran towards them as quickly as his legs would allow. “He talks about you a lot, you know. He says you know everyone’s name and all of their favourite things to do. Thanks for helping him out with this focused development program.”
“No problem, but Jillian deserves credit for putting the program together,” Viola said. “I know things have been difficult for Vijay with so much attention on Nisha and Chase and everything else going on inside Little Venus, and I know it must be difficult for you and your wife, too.”
“Only eight more days,” Romesh smiled as Vijay arrived.
“Seven-and-a-half days,” the boy corrected, panting to catch his breath and taking his father’s hand. “Bye, Viola, see you tomorrow!”
three
As always, Holly’s presentation of her department’s progress during the previous quarter received far more attention than any other. The reason for this was simple: the vast majority of Rusentra board members lived on the station and discussed business every day, and even the few who made the trip from Earth were in far more frequent contact with their counterparts than Holly.
Updates from behind the scenes on Terradox were always the main event of these board meetings, both for those on Holly’s side and for those who wanted to see her fail, and today was no different.
She made it through the initial presentation with no difficulties, standing beside the room’s information board and referring to several digital slides to support or emphasise certain points. Rusev was particularly interested in the progress Holly referred to within the colony’s Robotics division, where new research breakthroughs in the field of Artificial Intelligence were being made with increasing frequency.
At the end of Holly’s presentation, the large zonal map of Terradox prompted one unfriendly board member to ask her whether the enormous tract of land devoted to the so-called Primosphere had yet led to anything worthwhile. The questioner, a financial executive by the name of Bill Norman, did little to disguise his pre-judgement.
“If you mean anything interesting to you, then almost certainly not,” Holly replied bluntly.
“Well, that’s the thing,” Bill said. “I’m looking at a zone which is almost one-third as large as Little Venus — including the Buffers! — and one which gets almost as much funding as your entire Childhood Development division. And when I ask what it’s producing, you tell—”
“Don’t do that,” she said. “Don’t act like giving the Childhood Development team whatever they need isn’t our number one priority.”
Bill made a show of shrugging his shoulders in an exaggerated manner. “So what are you telling me, Ivy? That the numbers are lying?”
Although Ivy Wood was her birth name and had never been officially changed by any legal process, no one who wasn’t deliberately trying to get under Holly’s skin had called her that for decades, let alone years. Bill’s transparent attempt to rile her drew eye-rolls and sighs even from others who resented her position.
The ‘Hollywood’ nickname, quickly shortened to Holly, was originally applied just as resentfully by her training companions in the latter days of the now-defunct public space program. Not dissimilarly to her current situation, many around Holly at that time had felt that her presence in their ranks was unmerited; in the first case, that it owed less to her abilities than to the photogenic presentability which had landed her the role as the program’s spokesperson and de facto poster-child, as part of a media campaign designed to drum up interest in space research and exploration as a means of reversing an ultimately fatal decline in investment.
But Holly’s peerless work ethic, allied to her consistently high performances in physical training and particularly in flight-related tasks, soon showed her sceptical colleagues that her place was at least as merited as anyone else’s. And so it went that the initially disparaging nickname stuck like glue as an ironic term of endearment she came to wear as a badge of honour.
She ignored Bill’s attempt at childish provocation, loath to give him the satisfaction of an acknowledgement, and instead replied to
the content of his point: “Bill, water reclamation is a higher priority for this station than medical research. But which do you think we spend more money on? Do you really need me to explain that priorities don’t necessarily correlate to spending levels?”
Once again, Bill gave a highly performative shrug.
“So you are unironically comparing the budgets of those divisions: Childhood Development and the Primosphere? Bill, as hard as this might be for you to believe, procuring and maintaining textbooks and playground equipment tends to cost less than creating and maintaining a self-contained ecosystem which replicates as accurately as scientifically possible the atmospheric conditions in which life first emerged.”
A few other board members tittered at Holly’s word-perfect put-down; even among those who weren’t her biggest fans, Bill Norman wasn’t exactly Mr Popularity.
“So your answer is that the Primosphere is producing nothing,” Bill said. It wasn’t a question.
“My answer is that it’s producing voluminous primary research among humanity’s foremost experts in several fields.”
This time Bill didn’t shrug, choosing instead to shake his head several times. “To be frank, Ivy… I just don’t see the potential for a tangible return. Particularly when compared to other possible uses of the space and funding, it looks to me like an enormous waste of resources.”
“To be equally frank,” Holly shot back, losing only a small degree of composure, “and with the greatest of respect here, Bill… that’s why people like you don’t make decisions like this. The Terradox colony is not a business park and it’s not an investment opportunity. On Terradox, we do things despite the cost; not in anticipation of the return.”
Rusev, quietly angered by Bill’s insolence, thanked Holly for the thorough presentation and asked if she had any updates on the promising botanical research which had been discussed in the last meeting.
Terradox Reborn Page 2