But lacking your wisdom, I have to say, I don't understand it, I don't believe it, and I don't like it. If that's truly the way things work, if you created me to be a worshiper and a follower and nothing else... well... you screwed up. No offense. That's not what I'm apparently designed to do. And if you gave free will and intelligence to trillions of humans and other sentient species, only to declare that every decision we make ourselves is inherently sinful, well... I don't guess you and I would get along. I mean... I suppose I just wouldn't like you.
Sorry. Guess I can't say 'no offense' to that one, can I?
What I really don't like is this assignment, surprisingly. I want to know if it was your idea to send me here, and I want to know why. I'm not asking to be arrogant and demanding; I'm asking because, if there is good to be derived from my time (read imprisonment) here, I want to move on to the good stuff. I want to know what to be looking for.
Open my eyes.
Show me the way.
Or at least get me off the Titan!
Arbiter was tough, but it was also somehow comfortable. There was bigotry. I got called 'terp' by the crew; but I was never directly challenged. Those who were supposed to obey my orders did. The others left me alone. Maybe that was Aer'La's doing. She kept the crew in line on Arbiter. They were afraid of her. Here... well, maybe they'll be afraid of her here, too, in time. But it doesn't work that way when you're not on patrol. This is home space. We're near the Admiralty and serving on the flagship of the fleet. Decorum is expected.
So why are all of us who came with the Captain being treated so indecorously?
I thought, I really did, that when I left poor, backward, rural Terra that everything would be different. I knew I was surrounded by ignorance, illiteracy, bigotry and fear. I guess I thought as little of Terrans as the inworlders do. I was ashamed of my people and the condition they allowed themselves to live in, and I vowed to get out. I thought that's what you wanted of me.
I came to Hestia expecting to find a center of knowledge, enlightenment and opportunity. I expected to see everyone reading all the time, debating lofty principles, discovering and inventing and expanding the frontiers of science. That's what I thought people did out here. I guess I expected to find a galaxy full of people just like me, only more educated, and willing to help me be like them.
It was a big shock to me, learning that the enlightened people I thought would welcome me and make me whole considered me a joke, an embarrassment, an example of all that was wrong with humanity. They assumed that I hated them, because I was Terran. Why? Why didn't they bother to find out? Why didn't they ask me what I thought?
I would have told them, I only wanted to be like them. I would have given anything to have the gifts they possessed as a birthright.
I suppose that was the naivete of youth. I can say that now, at the ripe old age of twenty Terran years. I came out here and learned that, though rich and educated, these people are just as eaten up by hate and fear as my own people were. What a disappointment, to find I'm not welcome out here...
So where am I welcome?
And if I don't want to be a Terran, and I don't want to be an inworlder, what am I to be?
Got any answers?
Just checking.
Duty calls.
Amen.
Chapter Five
Professor Mors
From the Quintopolis Examiner...
Slavery in Varthan Free Space on decline,
says prominent activist.
Dr. Rathan Vargo, eminent psychologist and advocate of sentient rights, said in an interview today, "I believe we are witnessing the peaceful end of a grisly tradition of sentient abuse. The data are consistent with a ninety per cent reduction in the practice of training and selling young people for sexual servitude."
Vargo believes the Confederacy's tradition of freedom and equality is responsible for this monumental change in Varthan culture. "After decades of close association and trade with other cultures, the Varthans have largely learned to correct their own short-sighted behaviors." To those abolitionist groups who say that the Confederacy should address Varthan slavery by enforcing a trade embargo, Vargo says, "There's almost nothing left to protest."
"There may be a pocket here or there of outdated behavior, but the booming industry that one was is gone for good. The practice of companies raising children by the dozens in barracks, indoctrinating and drugging them, is no more. Anyone who says otherwise is lying."
Vargo, while conceding that he has never visited Varthan Freespace, says that his interviews with residents have assured him that his projections are sound and based solidly in fact.
"That pompous son of a bitch tried to stop me from seeing you!"
Atal halted in his path down the corridor and turned to regard his daughter with amusement. "We're in the Inner Worlds, oh sunshine of my existence. You'll have to be more specific about your sons of bitches."
"Darby!"
"Ah," said Atal. "Midshipman, may I ask you to remember that Mister Darby is my deputy captain, and your superior officer... in addition to being a pompous son of a bitch? If you don't keep such opinions to yourself, my influence may not be able to prevent the consequences."
"I can't keep anything from you, Daddy. I tell you everything, you know that."
"My name is 'Captain,' dammit! It's on my genetic design certificate. Or it soon will be. And you tell me entirely too much. Salmon Mousse included."
Kaya giggled.
"What's Darby's problem?" asked Atal.
"He's ordered us to have no contact with you."
"What?"
"Says we're going over his head if we talk to you directly."
"That pompous son of a bitch!"
"Daddy! For shame!"
"That's Captain For Shame to you. How'd you get past him?"
"I told him you'd ordered me to alert you when Professor Mors's shuttle was on final approach."
"I already knew that," said Atal, "but you're welcome to walk with me. I'm going to meet the esteemed Professor now."
Kaya fell in and kept a brisk pace beside him. Atal decided to take this moment alone with his daughter to gather intelligence about a possible point of extreme friction in the machinery of Titan's crew.
"I take it, from your comments, that you've all met with Darby?"
"Sadly, yes."
"How do you think he and Metcalfe are going to get along?"
She wrinkled her nose. "Yank's incapable of getting along. If he'd lived in the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge would have launched a full frontal assault with all available apples. He rubs people the wrong way."
"Point one, daughter, you read an awful lot of his planet's mythology for someone who claims so to disapprove of him." He was forced to raise his voice as she tried to object. She let him finish. She was getting better. "Point two, it was never established to be an apple tree; and point three, must you continue to use that distasteful term to refer to him, now that we're back home?"
"Yank? It's his nickname. He says he's proud of it."
"I could as easily see a Phaetonian being proud of 'gelding,' or an Hispanic of 'spic.'"
"What's an Hispanic?"
"You are – twenty-eight-point two per cent. I can't believe he lets anyone call him that."
"Well he does. He says he'd rather carry an offensive name and be Terran than be one of us."
"That I do believe. I – and I did not tell you this! – received a memo from Darby, saying that there was some 'unpleasantness' with Sestus Blaurich."
"You mean 'Five.'"
"'Five?' Another nickname?"
"Yank gave it to him. It's appropriate. It indicates his mental age, his IQ, his –"
"Don't you dare talk about his penis size."
"Penis size? Who said anything about penis size?"
"You were about to."
"Daddy, you spend too much time thinking about penises. It's unhealthy."
"Just tell me... Metcalfe hasn't been fighting again,
has he?"
"I wouldn't tell the Captain, Captain."
"And the Captain is a bore for asking," Atal agreed. "I just don't want Metcalfe to get in trouble."
"Then you should have let them drum him out when he was court martialled. The only place he'll stay out of trouble is down on the mountains of Terra. As long as he stays in space, he'll be in trouble, and so will the rest of the Confederacy."
"As long as you stay out of trouble."
"I can handle Terry Metcalfe."
"If so, you're quite unique."
"Never wanted to be anything else."
"He's in love with you, you know."
"That's a damned lie!"
"Young woman, you are addressing your commanding officer," Atal said archly.
"That's a damned lie, sir!"
"That's better. But he is."
She took a breath before she said casually, "People our age are too young to fall in love."
"Tell that to the Bard of Avon."
"Who?"
"William Shakespeare – a celebrated playwright of Terra's past. One of the few included in the library at New Genesis. If you don't know Shakespeare, you've been rather scatter-shot in you attempt to verse yourself in his planet's history."
"Whose planet's history?"
"This boy who's not in love with you. In whom you have no interest."
In her eyes, Atal was fairly certain he saw every offensive monosyllable invented by humanity since the first caveman hit himself on the toe with his new invention, the hammer. To her credit, she uttered none of them aloud. Instead, she brightened, smiled sweetly and said, "Captain Daddy, you're a tease."
"Guilty as charged. Well, whatever your feelings about him, be aware of his feelings for you. Males are fragile creatures, you know. And Metcalfe shows a great deal of promise, despite the chip on his shoulder."
She shook her head. "Of course he does, but... will he ever fit in?"
"Never," He replied. "And that's part of his advantage. Kaya, the human race is not pulled forward towards destiny by the well-adjusted. It wasn't a well-adjusted amphibian that took to living on dry land, or a well-adjusted primate that abandoned his family and moved out of the trees. Historically, humans have been at their best when the odds were against them. The odds are against Terry."
"Seems to me the odds have been pretty well in his favor," she said. "How many Terrans make it into the Academy each year. Two? Three? He had to be better than any of us to win one of those coveted slots."
"But most of our people don't look at it that way. They see only a mongrel, someone not carefully designed, like themselves. To most inners, Terry is just a savage, uncultured package of bigotries, rages and primal fears. For all of our grand talk about universal brotherhood and our laws preventing a man from even thinking that someone from another world might be in any way objectionable, we still harbor a great deal of contempt for the humans from which we sprang."
"Because they drove us off earth."
"They didn't drive anyone, and we weren't driven anywhere, daughter. You and I grew up in comfort and affluence on a planet that's the seat of human power. While you were refusing your vegetables, Terry was standing in a line with a hundred or so orphan children, wondering if there'd be a drop of soup left when it was his turn. Half his people die before age fifteen. Terrans don't have time to sit around hating us. Their time and energy are devoted to survival."
"But they don't like us."
"And we don't like them. The universe is and always has been made up of those we call the haves and the considerably larger contingent of have-nots. We, darling child, are the haves. It's unreasonable of us to expect those who don't enjoy our wealth and comfort to like us."
"Don't kid me, Daddy. You know as well as I do that the vast majority of have-nots, as you call them, stay that way because they have no initiative."
"How did I breed such a cynical child? Was it your diet? I know no such thing. It can't be proven as fact, so I can't claim to 'know' it."
"But –"
"Hush! Father is expostulating. I happen to believe that most people who are poor are so because they refuse to correct the condition. They sit around waiting for someone to make the universe 'fair' so that they can get ahead. They miss the point. The universe is not fair and never will be. Not everyone can be above average, or average would have no meaning. I just as strongly believe that most of the wealthy are as lacking in initiative as the majority of the poor, and are just coasting along on their influence and their advantages – and usually the wealth their families earned before they were designed. Most people are subject to inertia and have no qualms about it.
"What they don't like are people who are not subject to that same inertia. The rich can't abide a self-made individual, who rises from poverty by his brains and the skin of his teeth. There are many old terms to describe such people – 'upstarts,' 'nouveau riche,' 'gold-diggers.' What it comes down to is that those with power and status know they could lose it at any moment in a fair contest, so they make the contest as unfair as possible. A lot of our new shipmates call Terry Metcalfe 'yank' and 'mongrel' and worse, but I think a little piece of them recognizes that they're afraid of him. Well, they should be afraid. He can outperform any ten of them on his worst day. They'll do anything they can to keep him at the bottom of the pile, or get him out of the Navy, if possible."
"Well he's doing everything he can to help them," Kaya said ruefully. "I think he would have beaten the tar out of Five up in the Arch, if Darby hadn't –"
"Who wouldn't tell the Captain?"
"I didn't tell the Captain, I told my doting father." She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "If you see the Captain, don't tell him a thing."
"What happened in the arch?"
"Five and one of his cronies tried to jump Yank. Darby broke it up."
"Rather barbaric behavior for Blaurich."
"At heart, he's just a little ruffian, Daddy. He didn't even say 'Thank you' when I let him –"
"I see I should have paddled that bottom while the Salmon Mousse was still fresh," Atal interrupted. Then, annoyed, he asked, "Why didn't he come to me if he was attacked?"
"He wants to fight his own battles. He's pigheaded that way."
"Reminds me of one of my children."
"You only have one."
"So I do."
"I'm nothing like him."
"If you say so."
"I'm not that hot-headed." She paused a moment, then stopped, turning to face her father. "What's your fascination with him anyway?"
"I think that's obvious. He's my student. He shows great promise. He's in love with my daughter."
"Who's not in love with him."
"Mmmm."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. That's why I only grunted. If I'd meant to say anything, I would have used words."
"I think you don't believe me."
"Don't try to read my mind, daughter. You're not Phaetonian. If I haven't said it plainly, it can't be attributed to me. I haven't said I don't believe you, and until I do –"
"Which you don't –"
"Very well, I believe you are in love with him." Atal wasn't sure he believed anything of the kind, but Kaya had that effect on him. She wheedled him into making decisions he wasn't ready for.
"I'm not." She said.
"Mmmmm," He replied.
* * *
Mors was a senior member of the faculty at Hestia. He was not the kind of dried out academician who achieved seniority simply by outliving his colleagues. Such relics were universally viewed with scorn, while Mors was respected by just about everyone who met him. His intellect was huge. For Phaetonians, the intellect nearly always was. Contrary to the stereotype of the arrogant intellectual, however, he had the gentlest of personalities. It ensured that even his criticism of others was not offensive, but taken as a genuine display of concern for their welfare. His classes were both popular and educational, and his students h
ad included Atal himself, many years gone, as well as all of Atal's midshipmen and officers.
Mors was also something of a celebrity. He was, after all, the only living person who had actually been a close friend of Lindstrom Douglas, the controversial father of real interstellar travel. It was Douglas who developed the process by which L-Space could be mapped. L-Space – so named because Lindy Douglas had blazed trails through it – was an extra-dimensional space outside the known universe. Douglas's mapping process plotted a network of interdimensional shortcuts through L-Space, the entry ports to which are conjugate points. The locations of the conjugate points – and the way they interconnect – was in constant flux due to the constant expansion of the universe. In order to travel L-Space reliably – and therefore be able to travel between stars in a timely manner – one needed a reliable map. Guessing could be fatal.
And much guessing had been done, prior to Douglas. Many of the colony worlds had, in fact, been settled and well established when L-space had been first mapped. On some, humans had traveled on generation ships to reach their destination, taking decades to reach a nearby star. On others, as was the case with the original settlers of Quintil, a ship had entered a known conjugate point, gambling that the pathway they'd chosen still ended where it used to. In Quintil's case, they'd guessed wrong. The colony bound elsewhere had wound up at Rigel, nearly a thousand light years from Terra. It was, perhaps, one of the happiest accidents in human history, for the Rigel system's fifth planet had proved uniquely hospitable. Very few Quintils, however, would have welcomed the prospect of traveling through unpredictable L-space again. They'd fallen down a well and hit deep water once. The odds were against it happening again.
Then Lindy Douglas had taken the guesswork out of long distance travel.
Douglas had made the Inner Worlds' current prosperous way of life possible, and so was a hero to many, a demon to many others. To all, he was somebody important, and Mors had known him, spoken with him, traveled with him, eaten meals with him. Mors was what was left of Lindstrom Douglas, his living memory.
So, without holding any public office, Mors had considerable influence. A quiet word from him helped put Atal back on the Titan, consequently easing Georg Fournier's latest headaches of public disapproval. That was why Mors was coming to Titan now. Fournier wanted his personal assurance that Atal wouldn't "pull any fast ones." Mors was here as a watchdog. Atal resented the implication from Fournier, but never the presence of the Professor aboard his ship.
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