James Wittenbach - Worlds Apart 03

by Bodicea

  Alkema broke his conversation with Pieta long enough to excuse himself, and explain that he wanted to bring a package of food and drink back to the pilots waiting in their Aves. Pieta asked to come with him. Keeler agreed it was a good idea.

  Ciel’s consort, Tobias, had been waiting nearby, listening, but parrying David’s attempts at conversation. He was dressed in pale clothing, loose-fitting pants that bunched at the cuffs and waist and a tunic of the same color that showed his flat and hairless chest. He stood with David, “Let me help, the food is heavy, and the path is easy to lose in the dark.”

  “No, I’ll help,” Pieta insisted.

  “Pieta, my precious daughter, if you come with us, you may miss the dessert table.” She seemed a little hesitant, even cross. Alkema urged her, “Why don’t you get me a plate of the best dessert? I don’t know what kind I’d like best.” he asked.

  The little girl seemed confused for a moment then broke into a smile. “All right, I will get a dessert for you,” she giggled, and then skipped back toward the dessert table. “Don’t take too long,” she called back, as David and Tobias each prepared a basket of Bodicéan foods.

  “My daughter seems to have developed a case of tankaria for you,” Tobias said, when they had gone a little way down the path back for the ship.

  “Tankaria?”

  “When a little girl first desires a man for her consort,” Tobias explained.

  “They grow up so quickly, don’t they?” Alkema said, nervously, realizing that social norms on this world might require the father to kick the ass of any potential consort behaving inappropriately toward a pre-pubescent female.

  “Indeed,” Tobias said, it was then Alkema pickd up that Tobias was as nervous as he was.

  He was twitching, his hands were shaking, and he continually searched around, as though to see if someone were listening.

  “You don’t have to worry,” Alkema reassured him. “I would never hurt a little girl. If you want, I’ll even go back to ship.”

  “It isn’t that,” Tobias said, his voice hoarse and a little frightened. He was silent for a time, and they were almost back to the landing field when he spoke again. This time, his voice was a whisper, scarcely above the breeze that rustled through the palms. “Why are you really here, on Bodicéa?”

  “As my commanders explained, we have only come to explore your world.” Tobias hesitated, unsatisfied with the answer. “I know I am Ciel’s consort, but you have to trust me. I will not betray you.”

  “How could you betray me?” Alkema asked.

  “I would never tell Ciel if your real plans were …” He stopped, as though afraid to continue.

  “Our real plans?”

  “Why did you really come to this planet?” Tobias asked again, in an urgent whisper.

  “We came in peace. We’re explorers. We’re… trying to find other human colonies.” Tobias seemed frustrated. “Is that all? Is that all you have come for? I have heard the you possess powerful weapons.”

  “We would never use them against you.”

  “Be truthful with me,” Tobias insisted, almost desperately. “You can tell me, I swear by Vesta and the Eight Adherents, I will not betray you.

  Alkema finally began to get a clue. “Why do you think we are here?” Tobias put a smooth, warm arm around David’s shoulder and bent him until the lieutenant’s ear brushed his lips. “The men on this planet, we have no status. The women treat us as resources, resources to be managed, shared, divided out according to the edicts of the Circles. I am lucky that Ciel keeps me as her exclusive consort. It allows me to live in a house apart with my family, but I am the only man on this whole world who is allowed this privilege.”

  “For all my life, I have prayed that all men would be set free. I must know if you are the answer to our prayers. Have you come to liberate us. Have you come to overthrow the Matriarchy and restore the Rights of Men?”

  Alkema turned to face him, to look directly into his eyes. They were so close, their cheeks brushed as he turned. He saw in Tobias’s eyes fear and sincerity. “Why do you think we have come for that purpose?”

  Tobias answered him. “For many years, a rumor has circulated among the men, that liberators from the Old Commonwealth would return to our world and set us free from the ownership of women. Is that why you are here? To liberate us from the Sorarchy?” Alkema took a long time to come up with something to say. “I can not answer that question without consulting Commander Keeler, but I will do just that. Come on, let’s get this food to our pilots.”

  Tobias nodded, recovered himself, and they prepared to take the meals the rest of the way to the ships.

  After the meal, the others repaired to their bungalows. Keeler had been assigned a two-room dwelling about half the size of his quarters on Pegasus. He had a small double bed, a writing desk, a table and two couches in the larger of the rooms, and a pool of water and a shower in the smaller room. The furniture was quite old, not too comfortable, but adequate.

  The bed was soft, the sheets smelled of flowers and the pillows were abundant, and Keeler looked forward to the sound of the sea lulling him to sleep that night.

  The communication node on the sleeve of his jacket activated just as he finished putting on his pajama pants. “Voice only. Keeler here, I’m alone, go ahead.” The voice of Eliza Jane Change came through the unit. “Commander, Recce One is now twenty-eight hours overdue for checkin. Their last transmission was just before they entered scanning range of the astral anamoly. An hour ago, we lost the transponder link to all three ships.”

  “We have lost all contact with Recce One?” Keeler rubbed his chin. “No distress call, nothing?”

  “Their last checkin was perfectly normal. According to our calculations, they would still be about twenty-two light days outside the system at this point. We have four Search and Rescue Aves on the rails, ready to launch at your command.”

  “Command is given.”

  Change sounded very relieved. “Acknowledged, Commander.”

  “Update me whenever there is any news. I’ll return to the ship…” He paused. He had a breakfast meeting with the Inner Circle tomorrow. Let Lear do it, he thought. Even though there was nothing he could do, the crew would expect him to be on-board. “As soon as I and Lt. Alkema can get there.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  She held on the line to see if there was anything further. There was. “Lt. Navigator Change, Go to Defense Situation Three until we find Recce One.” CHAPTER NINE

  Flight Commander Rocky Collins walked behind Commander Keeler as he supervised the loading of the Old Commonwealth spacecraft onto the landing pad. Collins was a well-built woman, strongly proportioned, rumored to be a champion at bar-room games. On Duty, She wore her long, honey-brown hair in a thick braid that swung down between her shoulders.

  “When we asked for volunteers for the Search and Rescue Mission, most of Flight Core already knew that three ships had gone to explore an unknown phenomenon, and we had lost contact with them just as they approached their target. Naturally, this made the task of finding volunteers somewhat difficult.”

  “I wouldn’t think our pilots would be afraid to volunteer,” said Keeler.

  “The problem wasn’t lack of volunteers, the problem was every Aves crew on the ship wanted to volunteer. Eventually, we had to settle it the old fashioned way.”

  “One-leguminous tuber, Two-leguminous tuber?”

  “Thumb-wrestling,” she explained. “I have four ships out. They won’t reach where we think the ships are for a few more days, but I think four more ships should go. Space is huge, really, really huge, and they could be anywhere in the system.” In the previous four days, engineering had re-established atmospheric integrity and limited power to the ancient lunar base. The air still stank of rotten eggs and burnt matches from the residual sulfur compounds. Eye-masks and nose-guards were still de rigeur, and it gave Keeler’s conversation with his Flight Commander an irritating, high pitched, nasal qualit
y.

  “Will four more make that much of a difference?” Keeler asked. He was concerned for the crew of the three ships, to be sure, but did not know what productive good worrying about them would do.

  “Probably not, but some deep space rotation would be good for my crews. Right now, we’re only allowed four flights per day to the planet, and shuttling to this moon isn’t exactly hard duty.”

  “We’ll supplement them with every probe we can spare,” Keeler told her. He had had to consider, in the past several hours, that something catastrophic had happened to his men. A dozen of his best people were on those two ships. The loss would be keenly felt.

  Collins nodded slightly in agreement. Collins had been born on Republic, in a suburb-pod of the City of Industry. At the age of twelve, she had relocated with her father to the distant Space Guard Outpost on Archon’s largest moon, where her father was Base Commandant.

  She had received her formal flight instruction at the Ministry of Planetary Defense Flight Training Academy. Prior to the Odyssey Project, she had served in a Republic Home Guard Squadron.

  “The extraction missions to the seventh planet…”

  “Are nearly completed,” Collins finished for him. “We have to consider the possibility that the three Aves of Recce One were intercepted and either captured or destroyed by forces unknown. I would volunteer to lead a second reconnaissance mission against the trailing mass to determine if a threat exists to Pegasus. ”

  Keeler had known she would ask for this. “We have already dispatched long-range probes toward the trailing mass. We will not have any more manned reconnaissance flights until we have a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”

  “…but, Commander.”

  He raised his hand. “Oz has spoken,” he stated firmly. An ancestor of his, Smart Keeler, had used it when he was governor of Oz province in response to any suggestion that Oz join a continental or planetary government.

  Collins understood.

  Goneril Lear paced in her quarters.

  She had returned to the ship two days earlier. The Inner and Outer Circles were now debating their fate in the Capital City of Concordia. She kept an image of that city, and of the Chamber of Advocacy, projected on the major wall of her quarters.

  The cities of Bodicéa were almost all laid out in circles and ellipses. Concordia, seen from space, was three sharply defined circles within circles. It lay near the Eastern Coast of the Northern Continent, and encompassed two large lakes. The Chamber of Advocacy occupied an isthmus between the lakes, and was also shaped like a circle within a circle. She fingered the perfect golden circle that hung around her neck that had been the connection with these people.

  Bodicéa was the most favorable planet Pegasus had yet discovered. Lear was determined to make an alliance with her people. What would they decide? Her best estimation was that she had the votes of Livia and four others in the inner circle. Solay and four of the others were in solid opposition, which left Ciel and Delatesse as the swing votes. She felt very strongly that they wanted to vote for diplomatic relations, but she would have to give them a very significant incentive to counter the political fallout from such a decision.

  There was no time limit on a vote, and Lear sensed that this was not a culture that quickly embraced change. The repeating theme from all of her meetings had been “social disruption,” which was, apparently, as much to be feared on Bodicéa as a repeated flare-up of the White Plague. Ciel had seemed very willing to table the motion for diplomatic relations pending the issuance of a “Committee Report on the Potential for Adverse Social Impact Arising from Contact with Humans from Other Planets.” The report might take a Bodicéa n year to produce.

  Could Pegasus wait that long? Bodicéa was enticing enough, a beautiful planet with a united, socially cohesive culture. On the other hand, the planet had no technology to offer, and no interest in the technology Sapphire and Republic had to offer. There might be other worlds, better opportunities, that Pegasus might miss if too long delayed on Bodicéa.

  She doubted Commander Keeler would have that much patience. The greater likelihood was that Pegasus would depart the system within a few months, and let a Phase II ship return in thirty or forty years to see what the Council had decided. Lear hated that option. It would feel almost like a failure.

  Someone cleared his throat behind her. She turned to see Trajan, standing in the entrance to her study. She smiled and reached out to ruffle his hair. “Trajan, how are you?” He extended a data pad toward her. “My application to the Flight Core Apprentice Pilot program.”

  She sighed a little bit, just to remind him that she did not approve of this idea even though she tried to maintain an understanding tone. “So, you still think you want to join Flight Core.”

  “Just approve it, and I can begin training with the next sequence.”

  “The age of admission is fourteen, you still have almost two quarters to decide. This decision could affect the whole rest of your life. Maybe you need a little more time to really, really thought this through?”

  “I don’t need more time,” Trajan insisted. “I’ve completed my Passage and earned the right of self-determination according to our laws and customs.”

  “Only partially. Until you turn sixteen, I am still responsible for you as your parent.” This was the part of the conversation where Trajan usually said something to the effect of,

  “Then, why did I bother going through with your stupid ritual. I almost died, you know.” Maybe they had had this argument so many times that he recognized the futility of going down that path. He tapped the datapad. “This is what I want.”

  “Come here to me,” Lear said, taking a seat on her couch and gesturing to the cushion next to her. Trajan met her half way, coming toward the couch but not sitting down. “Do you remember the pilot who …came to your aid after your accident?”

  “Of course, I remember him.”

  “Well, his ship is lost. He went out on a simple reconnaissance mission, and we lost contact with his ship and two others. He may not come back.”

  Trajan looked away from her, but not fast enough to hide the look of hurt and near-despair on his face. “I know all about it,” he said. “I’ve been praying to Vesta for his protection.”

  As have I, Lear might have added. The last night in Corcordia, she had spent in the Meditative Gardens, and had lit a candle for the lost pilots and the others on board. “That’s very good. But you see how dangerous his profession is. Perhaps it seems heroic to you, and I understand that.” She tried to put her arm around him. He pulled away. “There are other ways to serve this ship.”

  And if it were you out there, she thought, my very heart would be broken.

  “Not for me,” he insisted. “I want to fly.”

  She put her hand on his shoulder. He had never expressed any interest in Flight Core until the incident at EdenWorld, when he had fallen onto the command module of an Aves whose pilot aborted his launch and stabilized his vital signs, probably saving his life. Only since then had he wanted to join Flight Core. She admired his determination, but could not bring herself to believe that in a normal state of mind, he would have made the same choice.

  She was about to ask him to defer the issue for one more quarter, when the communication panel on her desk came to life. “Incoming message from the planet Bodicéa.”

  “I will take it,” she called to the machine, rising and straightening her uniform. A screen was projected over her desk showing Ciel sitting at a large, bleached-wood desk that Lear recognized as being in the chief executive office suite in Concordia. Her expression, as always, was inscrutable. “Greetings, First Advocate.”

  “Greetings, Executive Commander Lear,” Ciel said levelly. “I have news to report. The Inner Circle has passed several resolutions regarding relations with your people.”

  “What has the Inner Circle decided?”

  “We should discuss these at length. The one resolution we have passed that is of most conce
rn to you is that we have accepted an invitation to visit your ship. We will deliver the contents of the other resolutions there. When will you be able to accommodate us?”

  “We are at your disposal, First Advocate.” Lear tried to clamp down hard on her excitement. This was indeed a great breakthrough.

  “Then we will give you a full day to prepare. We will arrange to depart from Concordia exactly twenty-seven hours from now.”

  “A ship will be waiting for you at the landing area in Concordia,” Lear told her. “We are most eager to receive you.”

  “And we are most eager to see your ship,” Ciel assured her. “May the Goddess nurture you.”

  “And you as well.” Ciel’s image vanished. Goneril Lear turned to her son and smiled. “You see son, diplomatic work may not be as exciting as Flight Core, but it can be very rewarding to.

  It’s like making friends with an entire planet at once.

  Trajan Lear rolled his eyes and extended the pad again, but he knew his mother would only ask him to wait.

  Eddie Roebuck was angry and bitter. “And then, Ex Commander Lear wouldn’t even consider putting the Slam ‘n’ Jam on the tour for the visiting V.I.P. Kittens from the Honey Planet,” he ranted, slapping down a plate of small bit of meat wrapped in baked dough before Eliza Jane Change.

  Change pushed the plate aside, not feeling the least bit hungry. Eddie continued, “I mean, is it too much to ask that I get my chance with the women of this planet? I wonder if Lear would let me defect? I mean, from what I understand, all the men do on that planet is eat, sleep, drink, and stud. Here I was thinking we would never find a planet as good as Sapphire.

  She should at least let me go to the beach, but neg… but I got no priority on account of being non-essential personnel. Non-essential personnel? I’m the slagging strong force that holds this ship together.”