Terradox Quadrilogy

by Craig A. Falconer

  “We love you, too,” Holly replied, looking back at Viola in the rear-view mirror.

  She put her foot down and drove.

  Terradox Reborn

  Part I

  one

  The recirculated air within the Venus station’s primary walkway rustled Holly’s hair as she passed under a breeze generator on her way to the meeting room. The expansive station had long evoked wonder among new arrivals, almost all of whom commented first on how much it felt like they were outside on Earth rather than inside a manmade habitat orbiting Venus, and Holly could immediately remember why.

  The high ceilings, wide corridors and variable artificial lighting were certainly contributing factors to this feeling of openness, but the importance of small touches relating to the station’s decor and landscaping — particularly in the sections where new arrivals first set foot — could not be overstated.

  The first researchers to have arrived, decades earlier, had commented that they felt more like they’d just stepped off a tour ship into a small Mediterranean port than off a Ferrier-class spacecraft into an even grander manmade structure. Such reactions were music to the ears of Ekaterina Rusev, the creative and entrepreneurial force behind the station, and the quality of life on her station meant that some of the initial arrivals remained on board to this day, having found a home as well as a workplace and having felt no desire to return to their former lives on an often turbulent Earth.

  Holly had always been enamoured by the romantic picture of the station which was typically painted on Earth, and her own eventual arrival had lived up to the hype.

  But that had been six years ago.

  Now that Holly was so used to the mesmerising marvel of Terradox, the planet-sized artificial satellite where she was responsible for the success of a fledgling research colony under the Rusentra corporate umbrella, wandering the walkways of the once-dreamlike Venus station felt like being trapped inside a shoebox.

  An unnecessary security detail flanked Holly and her companion Grav as they headed towards the meeting room. Grav, the station’s former Head of Security who now fulfilled an advisory role on Terradox, was cracking wise and catching up with the far younger officers he had once recruited and trained.

  Word of Holly’s presence on the station for a quarterly Rusentra board meeting had leaked out since her overnight arrival, as it usually did, and a crowd of excited researchers and their even more excited children were now gathered along the route to the meeting room to catch a glimpse of two individuals whose names were typically spoken in hushed reverence.

  “I will never get used to this, Hollywood,” Grav whispered as he waved to the adoring crowd, his staccato Serbian accent and his insistence on using Holly’s full nickname both still as strong as they had been when the two first met so many years earlier.

  “It’s not every day we get visitors from Terradox,” a young security officer replied. “Let alone two of the original seven saviours.”

  Holly slowed her pace, uneasy with such veneration. “Don’t tell me people actually call us that here, too?”

  “You should be happy to take adulation where you can find it,” Grav interjected, laughing slightly. “Because compared to what some of the colonists call you behind your back…”

  Holly chuckled instinctively at Grav’s quip, however frustratingly true it was, and she took a moment to high-five some enthusiastic youngsters as the door to the high-security sector of the station which housed the meeting room drew near. These children enjoyed comfortable and fulfilling lives, but Holly couldn’t help but feel slightly sorry for them; because as expansive as the station was, it was a far cry from the open-air Terradox colony where the Childhood Development division she’d instituted had since created a veritable paradise for the children of the colony’s research staff.

  “We’ll be waiting here to escort you back to your quarters after the meeting,” the young security officer needlessly assured Holly as he held his wristband against the security lock to open the door.

  “You might want to find a seat for that wait,” Grav replied, sighing rather than laughing at what the junior officer initially took as a joke.

  These comprehensive quarterly meetings often became combative, as Grav knew only too well. There was rarely a shortage of politically motivated criticism of Holly’s performance, delivered by those who clearly resented the fact that Rusev had handed ultimate control of Terradox to her rather than to someone who had logged decades of loyal service on the station.

  Grav’s supportive presence in each meeting required special dispensation from Rusev and annoyed some board members even further. Holly occasionally had to rein in his defensive instincts with a gentle hand on the shoulder whenever a particularly personal barb came her way, but he was an ally she would be forever glad to have at her side.

  The short remainder of Holly’s walk to the meeting room with Grav brought back some unwelcome memories of the only time she had ever arrived there without him, answering his desperate call to visit when both the station and Earth were at grave risk from a bitter fiend loyal to the deposed madman responsible for Terradox’s initial creation.

  The maniacal genius behind Terradox had ambitiously conceived of the gargantuan artificial satellite as a refuge for the hyper-rich while Earth was to be ruthlessly and decisively cleansed of its perceived overpopulation problem. But while the purpose of Terradox’s creation was a terrible one, no one could deny that the method of its creation was as impressive as it was groundbreaking.

  The distant world, closer to Venus than to Earth, had been created using a once-secretive and theoretically boundless bottom-up construction method known as embryonic romotechnology, in which self-replicating romobots followed DNA-like blueprints to fabricate all manner of previously undreamed of creations.

  The Terradox romosphere, which Holly and the rest of her crew who’d come to be known as the seven saviours had first discovered by unfortunate chance six years earlier and which had once been visually hidden behind a romobot cloak, was now decisively stable. Humanity, meanwhile, was now five years clear of the death of Terradox’s visionary but maniacal creator, former Global Union supremo Roger Morrison.

  Shortly prior to his death, Morrison’s ill-gotten assets were seized and Terradox itself fell into public ownership. The first attempt at taming the romosphere saw the creation of a luxury tourist resort, but the actions of a demented Morrison loyalist soon saw a second and previously dormant romosphere begin to expand uncontrollably at a rate which threatened the civilian tourists on Terradox and would have ultimately threatened Earth if certain extremely unpalatable risks hadn’t been taken.

  A small group took those risks by first travelling to the inhospitable and unmapped world of Netherdox to manually cease its expansion, and then by quite literally accepting an invitation to their own executions when the cretinous lunatic responsible for the Netherdox distraction ruthlessly seized control of Terradox and demanded their presence in exchange for the safe release of his several hundred tourist hostages.

  That group included six of the seven individuals who unwittingly discovered Terradox in the first place — Rusev, Holly, and Grav, as well as Robert Harrington and his children Bo and Viola — with only the late and sorely missed Yury ‘Spaceman’ Gardev absent. Rusev’s son Dimitar had stepped up to the plate by joining them in the trenches, but their success in freeing the vast majority of the innocent hostages was not enough to prevent loud calls from powerful voices on Earth who insisted that the hijacking of the previously unknown Netherdox was an indication that the very existence of any such romospheres posed unacceptable risks. These voices insisted that the only sensible answer to the Terradox question was a controlled romospheric implosion similar to the kind Holly’s group had bravely enacted on the surface of Netherdox.

  But for Holly, Rusev and many others, destroying the remarkable romosphere would have been akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. As they saw it, Terradox — when considered i
ndependently from the circumstances of its creation — provided the single greatest research opportunity in all of human history. Its artificial atmosphere was not merely habitable but conducive to perfect health, while its isolation from Earth could make otherwise intolerably risky research far more palatable.

  But more than anything else about Terradox’s design, it was the combination of easily manipulable atmospheric conditions and the zonally divided nature of the romosphere which made it everything a research scientist could ever dream of.

  Conditions within the grid-like zones which separated Terradox into dozens of distinct sections could be controlled entirely independently of each other, enabling one zone to see snowfall while the sky was clear just a few metres away. Variables like precipitation and temperature were merely the tip of the iceberg, however, with control over zonal conditions on Terradox extending to considerable changes in levels of atmospheric pressure and even gravity.

  Holly’s immediate interest on that front related to testing and training for future space exploration projects, be it building rovers to survive the incredibly hostile conditions of Venus for longer than a few days or training the next generation of human explorers for all manner of possible missions. And to Holly’s great relief, Rusev had shared these interests and stepped in to purchase Terradox from the public consortium who had managed the ill-fated tourist resort until the violent coup and hostage crisis made their position untenable.

  The consortium was only too keen to wash their hands of Terradox amid tremendous anger that their lax security protocols had led to the deaths of many innocent members of the resort’s staff and had also looked likely to result in a veritable bloodbath of civilian losses until Holly’s group successfully intervened to disarm the hostage-takers at the last minute.

  Rusev was perhaps the only person who would have been considered an acceptable private steward, with her background of managing the only operational space station in existence undeniably making her the most qualified candidate for such a role. Her history of investment in space research and of opposition to Roger Morrison’s gradual accumulation of greater and greater power — even when standing against him brought tremendous difficulties her way — also endeared Rusev to the public and assured them that she was motivated by more than money.

  Holly, adored in the public’s eyes long before her acts of Terradox-related heroism thanks to her previous life as the face of the public space program, readily agreed to publicly support Rusev’s bid on the condition that she would be granted control of the research colony and that science would come before profit at all times. Rusev agreed, and the deal was struck.

  And so it was that six years after their accidental discovery of Terradox and two years after Rusev’s purchase agreement, Holly now stood in the Venus station’s meeting room looking at a large information board where several digital maps of the colony had been placed to aid in the coming discussions.

  Competing proposals for the next major zonal development would be one of the main topics of the day and Holly was not looking forward to trying to justify certain decisions to the bean-counters and suits who wouldn’t know the value of long-term scientific research if it climbed out of their ears and slapped them in the face. Challenging financial times during lean decades of the past meant that many of the Venus station’s early backers saw research with tangible promises of positive returns on their financial investments as the only worthwhile kind, and old habits died hard.

  Undoubtedly, some difficult arguments lay ahead.

  One argument Holly wouldn’t be having with any of her fellow board members was the familiar argument about what level of romotechnology could and should be used for research purposes. Certain researchers on Terradox, chief among them rover expert Bo Harrington, consistently pushed for more freedom in fully utilising every ounce of technology available to them.

  To date, Holly had held firm in her stance that the risks inherent in pursuing major romotech-related research projects were too great at this moment in time and that more research and predictive modelling was needed before any practical experimentation should begin. And to date, she’d been able to count on Ekaterina Rusev’s support on that front.

  Rusev’s highly ambitious son Dimitar, in his mid-40s like Holly and known always by his given name since the family name was so entrenched as the default form of address for his mother, was considerably less patient on this front. Although he was a good friend and close ally to Holly, Dimitar’s frustrations over the colony’s current ‘safety first’ approach were rarely far from his mind and often led to passionate but cordial debates.

  Even as Dimitar entered the meeting room moments later, his face lighting up as soon as he saw that his old friends Holly and Grav were already waiting inside, he had the usual determined glint in his eye. He would never raise the topic of romotech in a forum such as this, but Holly could tell that a private pitch was coming her way soon enough.

  Dimitar, who had unofficially assumed day-to-day responsibilities for the station’s core functions over the last few months as his elderly mother’s deteriorating physical condition gradually reduced the number of hours she was able to work, was firmly in line to control the entire Rusentra corporation when the day that no one wanted to think about ultimately came. He greeted Holly and Grav warmly but professionally, reluctant to show too much favouritism given that the rest of the board members were close behind him and now beginning to enter the room and take their seats.

  Some of the meeting’s other attendees were decidedly less friendly in their greetings to Holly and Grav and a few went so far as to quite conspicuously refuse to acknowledge their presence. Judging by the expression on Dimitar’s face as these contemptuous individuals chatted amongst themselves at the far side of the room, Holly took solace in the fact that they would likely be the first nails to go when the hammer was in his hands.

  A hush then descended very suddenly, leaving no surprise as to who Holly would see when she turned towards the door. Sure enough, Rusev had arrived.

  She looked far frailer than Holly remembered but was still smartly dressed and walking unaided. A smile crossed Rusev’s face when she caught sight of Holly for the first time in three months.

  “How are things on Terradox?” she asked, as though they were the only people in the room. Her voice, at least, lacked none of its usual strength.

  “Great,” Holly replied, walking over both to close the door behind Rusev and so that she could answer more quietly. “Almost perfect.”

  “Almost?” Rusev said, lowering her own volume.

  “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 accust
omed 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.