Viola and Peter had done all they could to give her as normal a life as possible and it was fortunately the case that almost everyone was more interested in Viola and Peter themselves. As Katie was now old enough to understand, however, she couldn’t leave her home without a protective romobot cloak.
Until recently this had been because some friendly members of the public treated Katie like a young royal or the child of any ‘regular’ celebrity mega-couple, which was difficult enough when they tried to reach out and touch her, in some cases trying to cut a lock of her hair or something equally bizarre.
But now that it was clear there were people out there who harboured altogether more devious intentions due to their idiotic swallowing of the bloodline lie, as far as Viola was concerned there was no such thing as being too safe.
ten
“Real wine,” Nisha Kohli said, proudly pointing to the two full glasses and the half-empty bottle on the table.
Chase’s eyes widened in surprise at the picture-perfect scene before him. Their dining room looked like a fancy French restaurant, or at least his mental picture of one, and Nisha had really outdone herself.
“This is amazing,” he said. “And I guess when it comes to getting wine like that, it’s all about who you know,” he quipped, referencing the fact that his botanist father was responsible for producing the sought-after wine in question, the only form of alcohol present on Terradox and one which was supposed to be destined for Earth where each bottle fetched astronomical sums.
They sat down in good spirits.
Chase gazed around at the immaculately plated meals and the pleasant mood lighting coming from overhead. “I hope you didn’t do all of this for me.”
“The buttons didn’t push themselves,” Nisha said.
He laughed heartily. “Well, if this is my last supper, you’ve made sure it’s a good one.”
Nisha’s good spirits died in an instant. “Last supper? Why would you even say that?”
“Relax… I was just messing around.”
“Well don’t! You know I’m already worried. Would you say something like that to your parents?”
Chase shrugged. “Listen, Nisha: there’s nothing to worry about. I’m not worried, and I’m the one who’s going.”
“Exactly,” she sighed, “and I’m the one who has to sit here hoping you’re alright.”
“No you won’t; we’ll be in touch all the time. One of us will be online 24/7, talking to Bradley and his team. They’re working out of the Little Venus Buffer and you can go in there whenever you want. Sure, the comms delay will creep in, but we’ll still be in constant communication. It’s not like we’ll be incommunicado and you won’t hear from me until I get home. This is pretty much the same deal as when I went to the station, except this time I’ll have someone else with me.”
Nisha sat in quiet thought. It was true that Chase had flown solo to the Venus station several months ago, but that was nothing compared to the voyage ahead of him.
Even with the upcoming trip timed to ensure that the journey from Terradox to Arkadia would be the shortest one possible within a window of the next several months, his return trip would still take four full weeks. Despite Chase’s best efforts to reassure her, Nisha couldn’t help but think she would spend every waking minute worrying about all the things that could go wrong. Already, it was starting to get her down.
“We already know that Arkadia is ready for us,” he went on, still trying. “All the readings are perfect and we’ve seen the feeds from the cameras on the other side of the cloak. We’re just going out there to deliver some equipment and double-check everything. We’ll only be there for a few days and then we’ll be back in the Karrier to come home.”
“But it’s not just a Karrier,” Nisha said. “You’re going to be racing around in a Wasp, too, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t call it racing. But yeah, we’re taking two Wasps inside the Karrier.”
“Why two Wasps? I thought you’re the only one who’s going to be flying.”
“I am,” Chase said. “We’re taking two in case one breaks.“
Nisha breathed slowly. “So what if the Karrier breaks?”
Chase shrugged, his mind clearly untroubled by such concerns. “Karriers don’t break. Wasps don’t break in the air, either, but there’s a lot more going on when a Wasp takes off, so we’re taking two in case one of them won’t start. Two is pretty much as good as three, because barring some kind of catastrophic malfunction having two means Rachel has all the parts she’d need to get one of them going, at least.”
“See, it’s that little ‘catastrophic malfunction’ part that has me worried,” Nisha sighed. “And above and beyond everything else, I still don’t understand why they’re only sending a two-man crew.
“Two-person crew,” Chase said, exaggerating the emphasis. “Geez… get with the times, Kohli.”
Nisha grinned slightly, but her expression quickly returned to one of concern. “But still… why just you and Rachel? It’s like they’re worried something might go wrong.”
“Total opposite,” Chase said, dismissing this thought with a brisk shake of his head. “They’re so confident, they know they only need two of us. Are you worried because Holly isn’t going? My dad kind of felt like that at first — he thought Dimitar wasn’t letting her go because it was too dangerous. But then think about it, if they were worried about that, why would they send me? Okay, I’m not Holly, but I’m not no one. They could have quietly sent someone else with Rachel if they wanted to, because Rachel is qualified enough. The point is that they want this to be a big deal. And you know how they are with symbolism and all that stuff. Spaceman trained Holly and Holly was the first person to step on Terradox. Holly trained me, so they want me to be first to step on Arkadia, a place which was basically Spaceman’s idea. I’m the next generation. And when my dad spoke to Dimitar about that exact concern, Dimitar said the reason Holly isn’t going to visit Arkadia is that Holly isn’t going to live on Arkadia. It’s as simple as that. The whole point of the public graduation ceremony was to make it like some ‘passing of the torch’ thing, and having Holly visit Arkadia would run totally counter to that.”
Nisha’s worry looked to have faded slightly upon having this logic laid out, but it wasn’t gone completely. “I get that, but I just don’t like the idea of there only being two of you.”
There was not even the merest hint of a suggestion of jealousy on Nisha’s part — she knew Rachel well and liked her a lot, and Chase was as loyal as they came — and she would in fact have been delighted if her concerns were so shallow.
“You could always come with us,” Chase suggested, eyes lighting up in sudden hope. “If I said I wanted that, you know I’d get it. And you are fully qualified…”
“There’s no way I could leave Vijay,” Nisha replied, decisively and without missing a beat.
Chase’s lips parted to reply, but Nisha cut him off before a single sound could escape.
“And don’t say he can come too,” she said, struggling not to laugh at the fact that Chase had very clearly been about to suggest that very thing.
“I’ll be back in four weeks,” Chase stressed after a brief pause, holding Nisha’s eyes as his voice grew suddenly firm in an attempt to change the direction of the evening. “Everything will be okay and we’ll have this exact dinner the night I get back. The only differences will be that you won’t be worried and I’ll be the one who steals the wine and presses the buttons. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said, smiling as much as she could.
When their perfectly crafted algae-based meals and their perfectly produced Terradox wine were nothing but delicious memories, Chase leaned back on the sofa and put his arm around Nisha.
“So…” he said, “you really weren’t going to tell me about this exciting little asteroid they found this morning, huh?”
Nisha sat up straight and turned to look at him. “Who told you?”
“Grav,” Cha
se answered.
“Who told him?”
Chase shrugged. “Who told you?”
“You do know where I work, right?” Nisha replied.
He grinned. “So why didn’t you tell me? I know Holly told everyone who knows to keep it quiet for now, but I thought you would have told me…”
“I would have if you weren’t going on a difficult mission tomorrow. It’s not like this is a secret. Did Grav make sure to tell you that it’s definitely not any kind of danger to anyone? Its path isn’t going to bring it too close to anyone or anything. Earth, Terradox, the station, Arkadia — they’re all safe. It’s really far away, obviously, but it’s going to pass closer to Arkadia than anywhere else and the closest pass is going to come in around thirteen months. Holly thinks that’s going to give us time to build a probe here and then launch it from Arkadia, just like the plan for the minisphere.”
This time it was Chase’s turn to sit up straight. “Grav didn’t tell me that last part.”
“Why do you suddenly look so excited?” Nisha asked, relaxing back onto the sofa and primarily glad that Chase wasn’t angry she’d kept the news from him.
“Well, if you’re telling me that we’ll be able to build something that can reach this asteroid in time for when it passes Arkadia…”
“Do I want to hear the rest of this?” Nisha asked, sighing lightheartedly.
“Probably not,” Chase laughed, collapsing back onto the sofa with a hopeful glint in his eye as he put his arm around her again. “At least, not until I get back.”
eleven
As Patrick ‘Patch’ Hawthorne blew out his six candles in a room of only his family’s closest and trusted friends, the adults around the table did their best to forget the world and give him a nice day.
Viola couldn’t help but notice how tired Robert looked, and she didn’t have to wonder why.
At her father’s suggestion, Viola always tried to focus on the fact that the vast majority of people fully and excitedly supported every aspect of the Arkadia project. This widespread and near total support existed partly because of who was involved and what had gone before, but partly because of the natural desire for exploration and discovery. In a world that didn’t have its lunatics to seek, it warmed Viola’s heart to know that the undying spirit of the majority hadn’t been broken even through two disheartening decades of Global Union rule.
A rare positive news story had come recently when newly rediscovered recordings were made available which featured the late Yury ‘Spaceman’ Gardev talking about his early concept for a Kosmosphere. These were security tapes capturing organic conversations rather than any carefully worded explanations of his idea, but they were popular nonetheless and were roundly accepted by the masses as legitimate — which they truly were — despite everyone knowing that such video footage could be convincingly spoofed with trivial ease.
Yury was still a major public figure — now more than ever, if anything — and Viola had finally come to accept that the cult of personality around the seven saviours really was no bad thing, with the main benefit being one of general social cohesion.
Robert, ever wise, had made this point most clearly in telling her that it wasn’t as though people on Arkadia would one day turn against a perceived Harrington-Ospanov dynasty as they might against an oppressive hereditary monarchy. “Everyone knows what you did,” he said. “Everyone knows what we did, and that’s why they look at us the way they do. It’s not about bloodline, it’s about legacy.”
Like the majority of citizens, Earth-based national and international space agencies were also fully on board with the project, knowing full well that the observation data that Arkadia would provide was sure to assist their own operations. The potential benefits were almost boundless, of course, but this was a good starting point.
As soon as the visual cloak was removed following Chase Jackson’s exploration of the surface, Arkadia would begin providing excellent imagery from the vast array of incredibly powerful telescopes which surrounded its atmosphere-retaining ‘ring’ of romobots, giving unparalleled views in all directions. Crucially, researchers on Arkadia would also be able to send probes to all kinds of previously hard-to-reach bodies.
The key point which scientists of all disciplines understood was that just like those made by researchers on Terradox, whatever breakthroughs were made on Arkadia would be swiftly and openly shared with Earth. Robert publicly addressed the reasonable ‘brain drain’ concern in these terms, arguing that just like skilled emigrants had long sent money back to their old home countries, Arkadian researchers would send back their findings to their old home planet.
The main difference between Viola and Robert, however, was that his perennial involvement in high-level discussions precluded him from having the luxury of trying to focus on the positives.
Two years had now passed since Robert’s unannounced and unexpected return to Earth, just one day before Arkadia’s initial launch, and there was no denying that he had aged far more visibly in this two-year period than any previous. He did all he could to clear his mind at the end of each day, and particularly ahead of happy events like the birthday they were all gathered to celebrate, but debates about the societal makeup of a wandering outpost central to humanity’s future were not debates which could be easily boxed off in a corner of his mind.
It wasn’t so much that Robert took his work home with him as it was that his work never left him, alternately following him around and consuming him like something between a rain cloud and a vice grip.
His decision to spend three years on Earth prior to his departure for Arkadia, one taken primarily so he could see Katie grow up, had made him something of a de facto ambassador, or at least a go-between in multi-party discussions involving interests based on Earth, Terradox and the Venus station.
The stresses of these endless high-level discussions, decisions and debates had been almost constant, and Robert Harrington had unquestionably borne the brunt.
In Viola’s regular contact with Nisha Kohli she’d heard similar sentiments about Chase — that recent years had taken a real toll.
Viola had repeatedly told Robert that his life would be easier if he stopped trying to please everyone at once with impossible and unworkable compromises. She told him that picking his battles and putting his foot down when necessary would stand him in good stead, but he had never had an easy time doing so.
“If an argument is worth having, it’s worth winning,” she had recently told him, “so if you fight on a hill, you have to be willing to die on it. If the outcome of a discussion is important, it’s not enough to go in to that discussion acting like you’re willing to give everything up if you don’t get your way — to get your way, you have to actually be willing to give everything up.”
In Viola’s eyes there wasn’t just nothing wrong with sticking to your guns when you were right; it was irresponsible not to do so. She was a very different person to Robert, though, and internally acknowledged that his less combative approach to emotive discussions was likely why his presence was requested at high-level meetings so much more frequently than her own.
What frustrated her and Robert equally was that major restrictions on romotech applications on Earth meant that some problems which could have been easily solved remained, due to somewhat understandable concerns about unintended side effects. The air was clean and the oceans were free of plastic, thanks to environmental applications which had been in place long before Morrison’s death and which had initially aided him greatly in winning the support of the masses; but after a few years of skepticism back in the days of the Terradox Colony, there was now a broad consensus that Earth’s main problem was a lack of approved romotech applications rather than a danger of too much.
Viola had used her loud voice to support calls for a rollback on restrictions which prevented the almost cost-free construction of homes in impoverished areas which could make a major and immediate difference to many people’s lives, as just one exa
mple.
Rusev’s decision to make her fortified algae formulation open-source had already had enormous effects, eliminating systemic and widespread hunger now that charity donations could be used remarkably efficiently by building communal dining machines, self-sustaining and algae-based, rather than providing individual meals or unreliable seeds. There was still a degree of skepticism and even snobbery around the algae on Earth, with many people seeing it as something for those who could afford nothing else. But those in real need saw their lives transformed as further innovations like drone deliveries enabled access to the dining machines’ meals even for those who lived too remotely to collect them from communal machines or for underground piping to be workable.
On that theme, towards the end of Patch’s party Peter had taken a small taste of some real lab-grown steak which Pavel had sourced and brought along for the occasion. Viola and Robert knew better than to touch it, and by nightfall Peter could only wish that he had shared their wisdom.
Because his body had grown so accustomed to the algae after more than a decade of nothing else, it had also grown decidedly unaccustomed to having to work extremely hard to take what it wanted from a piece of food and reject the rest.
No one really saw this as a negative of the algae, as Peter had felt fit and healthy every day since Rusev first showed him how to work an algae-based dining machine. Between retches over the toilet, he vowed to Viola that he would “stick to the green stuff” from then on.
Pale and weak, Peter was an unusually sorry sight as he climbed into bed that night. “This Arkadia place better be worth it,” he quietly sighed a few minutes later, only half seriously.
Terradox Quadrilogy Page 93