“I’m an AstroNav. I don’t know the first thing about hand-to-hand combat.”
He shrugged. “If you just want to study the maps, that’s fine. He monitors door locks, for the love of God, and maintains readiness to investigate. I need somebody to step up and take over the job before the new guy comes in. Wong and Obasanjo both are terrible influences on the crew. They need to go. Would you prefer Obasanjo’s job?”
“Am I being recommended for transcendence with this promotion?”
“No,” he said. “You’re interim. You’re just interim until the new guy gets in. I don’t have the authority to transcend you, or even promote you in full.”
“In that case, neither,” I said. “I’ll wait until your replacement comes for my review.”
The admiral looked at me hard. “Listen, my advice is don’t get caught up in transcending. Let it go. It will happen or it won’t happen. You know why it’s done that way, don’t you? You know the real reason? Colonies can support their own officer corps, most of the time, eventually. They don’t even need us coming from Earth, or anywhere else. They don’t need us spinning around the galaxy chasing promotions.”
“It keeps us connected,” I said.
“Exactly,” he said. “It keeps us biologically as well as culturally connected. This is how we stop the island effect with our roving genetic populations, and maintain everyone’s core humanity. We keep shuttling in humans that can add genetic material from the home planet to the colony, and from colony to colony. It slows down the island effect. So, don’t worry if you aren’t recruited for that purpose. Even if you are chosen, the real you remains here the whole time. It is only a copy of you that goes. Focus on here, right now. Help me make this station better.”
“I already have,” I said. “I set up the female enlisted with separate barracks with help from Wong, without your knowledge. I did it because they are besieged and have no meaningful privacy, and do not feel like the officer corps respect their desire not to be the object of desperate leers. I have maintained mission readiness while permitting my staff to blow off steam, improving morale. Suicides are down on my watch. None since the first four which was just before I implemented my new policies.”
He pressed his fingers against his temple. He closed his eyes. He took a deep breath.
“Lieutenant Ronaldo Aldo, I am going to do your performance evaluation right now, after which you will take over for Wong, who has been having an affair with someone in his chain of command. Do you understand how badly this is going to go for you that I am putting you into the position of the worst officer in the entire station, simultaneous to your duties with the quartermaster’s role? You will never sleep a full night again, if I have my way. You will work and work until the next admiral takes pity on you. I am doing this to you because you’re an arrogant little shit, and you think you’re better than everyone else. You think you deserve to transcend, and you don’t. You don’t deserve the promotion to captain I have to give you to get HR to let you do two roles at once.”
He stood up and walked around to the door. He opened the door. “I will send you details with your new priorities in the morning. Don’t bother telling Wong anything. He will be sent planetside shortly, with just a dishonorable discharge unless I can dig up some real serious recent dirt on him in the next twenty minutes. Get out of my office and let the sergeant know what’s going on. Interesting times,” he said, drifting off into muttering to himself.
He was telling the truth when he called me arrogant, and I knew it. I liked hearing him say it. I had done a good job. I had done the best job of anyone I knew, and if that made me arrogant, so be it. I felt the call in my heart to escape my way, not theirs, and figure out the rest of the plan that was slowly coming together in my secret mind. Drifting debris, and me in charge of labeling it. Old equipment, and me in charge of repairing it. I just needed to figure out the human aspect of the plan, connecting the technology to the situation. Also, I needed the guts to do it. And, when Q called me a jerk for trying to help my soldiers not kill themselves, I started to feel brave enough to really do something. This was probably the moment that I began truly wanting to blow up my world.
* * *
Come down for Easter, Amanda said. Demand the time off. It is a big festival, with music and dancing. I have vacation time accruing, after all, and nobody cares if the AstroNav hops planetside for a time, she said.
The departing admiral responded to my vacation request with a harsh negative, considering my expanded duties.
The incoming admiral changed all of Q’s orders before she even arrived. Wong was quietly reinstated. Other personnel changes were put on hold. The new admiral even wanted me to cycle down to the planet, and run diagnostics on the communications interface between the monastery and the station. I would combine it with a supply run, and Obasanjo promised me I would be there for at least three weeks. Amanda was excited because that meant I’d be down for Easter.
Obasanjo pointed out, quietly and in person, that the resupply and the rotation of the station above the planet meant there was going to be a launch window problem even after resupply. If I stretched out the diagnostics, I could make my time on the surface last a month. I was assigned an enlisted aid, Private Chet Detkarn, but Wong told me, in private, that she would probably not be much help to me with her other duties on the surface. I didn’t know what he meant by that, and he told me not to worry about it; the new admiral had something else in mind for her.
Not much of an aid, at the monastery, she disappeared as soon as we landed, off into the dunes with two men from the village.
I met Brother Pleo again. He had a smug smile on his face. “How have you been, Ensign?”
I offered my hand and he shook it. “If Detkarn deserts I will hurt you,” I said. “I will hunt you down and plant a full transport on your spine.”
“I’m sorry you feel so afraid. We are a peaceful planet. Please don’t abuse our trust with shallow threats. Allow me to show you to your quarters.”
I had no intention of staying there. “I’m a captain now, thanks. I have arranged my own housing. I will be back in the morning to correct your technical problems.”
He laughed. “Suspicious much?”
“You really screwed me, Brother. I got a lot of heat for losing my corporal. We shut down the downcycle to a crawl over what you did to aid her.”
“We also saved your sergeant’s life, Captain. We are actually trying to help the station with your suicide problem. Thirty percent of all personnel stationed to the Citadel via ansible commit suicide before retirement. We feel you need a full-time chaplain. Our methods are not your methods. Our goals are the same. We both want the best for the colony and the station.”
“Detkarn isn’t suicidal, Pleo. She comes back with me or I blame you forever.”
“You are overreacting, Ensign.”
“Captain.”
“Sorry, Captain. We are not enemies. Come and join us for dinner. Break bread with us. Join us at evening prayer, if you like. We are not enemies.”
The heat struck like a wall of sand. The hot wind blew up over the walls and jumped down to the ground. I looked up at the sky, where the Citadel star was brazen and relentless.
“I will have to decline the invitation.”
I passed through the thick stone walls. I walked through a newly planted jujube orchard and manipulated the windbreak gates to get through into the sand dunes that flowed through the alleyways and roads between the buildings. Robots—they looked new to me—moved like sidewinders over the ground, rolling and sweeping the yellow sand off the streets, and back away into the wider world. I knocked on what I thought was the Garcia family door. There was no answer. I picked up my phone and called.
“Amanda? This is Aldo.”
“Aldo! Are you down!”
“I am. Where are you?”
“We’re out on a job. Listen, the door shouldn’t be locked. Go in and get some water. We’ll be there soon.”
<
br /> The door was locked. I knocked again, and no answer. I thought of calling her back, but I didn’t feel comfortable calling her with this. Should I call her over this? I didn’t want to call her. I walked down the street, listening close for any sign of life among the doorways and closed windows.
I knocked on a door, feeling the heat push through my uniform like some kind of damp furnace. No one answered. I tried the door, and it opened. I slipped inside. I was no thief, only trying to get out of the deadly sun. I sat on the cold stone just inside the door, panting and looking around for any sign of water. My eyes adjusted to the dark room. I saw a man looking up at me from a cot. Next to him, a woman I did not recognize. The man, though, was someone I knew.
“Were you looking for me, Ensign?”
“Captain,” I said. “I’m a captain now. No, sorry. I was trying to find the Garcia house, and I got lost and now I’m here. I’m sorry to disturb you. I didn’t change into appropriate clothes in the monastery. I thought I would be in a friendly home in under a minute.”
The woman rolled over and blinked at me. “Whatever you want, just please shut up. I’m exhausted.”
She was visibly pregnant. I cocked my head at that. I apologized.
“They’re probably digging out the northern trees. We got swamped by sand. It broke some of the windbreaks.”
She pushed at him from her cot. “Jesus Christ, Jon. I am so tired. Please shut up.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Amanda said her door was unlocked. I may have gone to the wrong house. Do you know where hers is?”
Sergeant Anderson looked up at me with this dead tired expression. “Man, you have got to be pulling my leg, Captain. I’m not in the service anymore. Get some water and go upstairs if you want to access the ’net. We’re sleeping. Keep it quiet. Or leave. Whatever.”
“Thanks, Jon,” I said. “You know, your wife is my right hand. I’m the quartermaster. She’s indispensable.”
The other woman looked up at me, startled. “I don’t even know you.” She rolled over.
He looked at me. “Upstairs,” he said. “Now.”
“Oh, God, he doesn’t know . . . ,” said the woman. She rubbed her stomach and reached for a glass of water. She sat up to drink it. A weedy, sallow girl far too young for him. Her stomach was huge. She had to be close. She moved awkwardly around her own belly, like a counterweight in a physics problem she could not cleanly solve.
Sergeant Anderson led me up, and I realized quickly why he was sleeping downstairs. The room was much hotter closer to the roof, where the sun undoubtedly challenged the limits of the air-conditioning units that chilled the interior along with the natural cold of the basement. He reached to a wall tap and poured a glass of water. He handed it to me. It tasted gritty and warm and disgusting. I could barely swallow it.
“We’re divorced,” he said. “She doesn’t want anyone to know. It would dishonor her.”
“What?”
“I don’t exactly stand in any position to stop her from telling anyone about it,” he said. “I’m out, remember? I don’t ever have to go back to that miserable dreidel.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It would dishonor her among her peers, Captain. Please, exercise discretion. It isn’t something she wants anyone to know.”
“She’s within three years of honorable discharge. What will she do down here?”
He poured himself a glass of water. He drank it slowly. “You know, I don’t know. It’s not really up to me, either. It is what it is. We’re divorced. We’ve been divorced a long time. Two years. Maybe three. How long has it been since I was dumped here to die?”
“To live, Sergeant. I wanted you to live. You would have died flying if I hadn’t had the tech check you. You have something to live for now, don’t you?”
“I do,” he said. “Thanks for nothing. Stay here. Drink some water. I don’t have enough food for you, so you’re going to have to wait until the Garcia family gets you. Don’t be a dick. Pay them for it. Food is scarce. We don’t have a huge storage locker of old amaranth bars. Hell, you should try and trade those down here. We’d eat the shit out of those horrible sticky bricks from a hundred years ago.”
“Thanks. I’ll let Obasanjo know, if he’s still around when I get back.”
“I’m going back to bed. Don’t make a lot of noise. We’re exhausted from the storm around here. Everyone is asleep who can afford it.”
I sat in the hot room, feeling the pressure of the heat from above, and the cooling system up from below. I sipped water from a tap in the wall with clean stone mugs beside it. What else could I do until Amanda got home? Also, I confess that I snooped a little. I pulled up their tablet and pretended to be searching for maps of the city, but I was also just vaguely scanning the file names and categories. Sergeant Anderson, up in the station, was still writing letters to her husband in the night, I thought. She was still in love with him, I thought. I closed one folder before I could become privy to anything too embarrassing. I saw enough. The date on the file was recent enough. Is it a sin to snoop? It is probably a sin to lie about snooping.
I sipped water, and spread out on the floor to rest. I was off cycle, definitely, and the day lengths were different here than on the station. I rested, and waited for word from the Garcia family.
When my commlink rang, it wasn’t Amanda. Obasanjo called.
“You’re on the ground, right?”
“I am. What do you need?”
“I need you to tell me something on a secure line.”
“Tell you what?”
“Who is in charge of the monastery. Go out and tell me who is running the place now. Pleo is stonewalling me.”
“I’m not at the monastery,” I said.
“Where the hell are you? You just landed, right? They’re charging us room and board for you and Detkarn!”
“Neither one of us is at the monastery.”
“The goobers. They’re probably just so busy with Easter.”
“What are they doing to you?”
“I’m trying to reach the person in charge, but it doesn’t look like anyone is in charge right now. No one is returning my calls. It’s a new tactic, and it’s pissing me off. I’m going to have a nice, long chat with the monastery about housing costs as soon as I get them on the line. Excuse me, Captain.”
When darkness fell, Jon Anderson’s wife woke up, and came upstairs. She was frightening, with wild hair and dark eyes. “You’re still here?” she said.
“I’m sorry to intrude on you,” I said. “I don’t believe we were formally introduced.”
“Maia,” she said. “I’m Maia Anderson.”
“Captain Renaldo Aldo.”
“I don’t want you here, Captain. You and the Garcia trans-girl can go jump off a cliff. They’re only interested in you for land, you know. They want to own as much as they can get.”
“I find it hard to believe there are no other ambitions in anyone’s heart on a planet as challenging as this one. Isn’t Easter upon us?”
“Happy Easter. Did you sacrifice anything for Lent or Ramadan or whatever?”
“I have sacrificed enough just coming down to the dunes, haven’t I?”
She laughed at that. “I was born here. In this very room, in fact.” She pointed to a corner where an emergency medical station was not plugged in.
“I’m sorry you have never seen a coral reef,” I said. “I am sorry you have never stood in the shade of a tree in spring, and heard the mockingbirds and pigeons in the branches, singing. I apologize for interrupting your sleep.”
“I have a lot to do, Captain. Jon’s already gone off to work on the moisture vaporators. I can’t afford to feed you, and you’ve already taken a lot of water out of our system.”
Politely, I gestured to my tablet. “How much do you need for the night?”
She gave me a price for the water that was high, but I paid it, gladly. I needed friends, not enemies, on the ground. I had enough enemies in
this world without alienating Jon Anderson’s new wife.
Outside, the colony lamps were lit, and I followed them back to the monastery.
Inside, a brother I did not know was busy sweeping and clearing out the entry hall. He looked up at me with confusion. “It’s too early for the festival, sir.”
“I’m military.”
“I know that,” he said. “That’s why I called you ‘sir.’” He placed the broom aside and held out his hand. “I’m Brother Benedict. Nice to meet you.”
“Captain Aldo. I was just talking with my colleague, Lieutenant Commander Obasanjo. He is having difficulty reaching the person in charge of the monastery. Where is your abbot?”
“Oh, he retired. We haven’t picked a new one yet. Sorry. Have you had breakfast? Come on, and join us for a meal.”
I took his hand and shook, but I was confused and did not go with him. I held my ground where I stood. “What happened to the old abbot?”
“He retired, I told you,” said Brother Benedict “Come on if you’re coming. You’re lucky I was here to show you in. I was just trying to get ahead of the festival preparations. Ash Wednesday is tomorrow, you know.”
“What is the festival, exactly?”
“How familiar are you with the traditions of Old Christianity?” he said.
I shrugged.
He talked while he led me to the cafeteria. “Well, look it up after breakfast. It isn’t obscure. Some of the brothers from the Mohammedan traditions and the Baha’i heresy seek to undermine it with other symbols, but it is important to have festivals, and it is the holiest time of the year: rebirth. Soon the jujubes will sprout new leaves. Soon, the amaranth stalks will set flower. All life begins in spring. All rebirth. Will you seek baptism?”
“Probably not. What is it?”
He laughed. “Like a bath for your soul.”
We reached the cafeteria, then, and I sat down with Brother Pleo, who was smirking at me. “You’re back,” he said.
“Duty calls,” I replied. “Apparently, you’re charging us a hefty fee for use of this facility, and I want to make sure you only charge us for what is actually used. Private Detkarn, has she appeared since arriving?”
The Fortress at the End of Time Page 18