by Amy DuBoff
“Glad I’m not completely useless!”
“No way.” Tess flipped her wrist. “Besides, it’s not just anyone who’d volunteer to go through all those records.”
Luke laughed. “There’s grunt work with any job.”
“You’re in charge, but you took that task on yourself. Don’t think we didn’t notice.”
“I appreciate that.”
She nodded. “Sure thing.”
“Well, I should get back to this,” Luke said, glancing back at his screen.
“Have fun with that.” Tess smirked.
“Yeah, and you with your… whatever you’re doing.” Guess that’s not very good management if I have no idea what my team is working on, whoops. He made a mental note to get caught up on their side projects and specialties so he’d be able to delegate more effectively in the future.
“I will,” Tess said, offering no further insight into what her current project may be. “Oh, but first, there is one more thing.”
“Sure, what?”
The young scientist shifted in her seat. “I know we have things under control here in the Force, but what kind of testing is happening on Nezar?”
Luke nodded. “I was thinking about that, too. Even though we gave them our algorithm and the procedures, we have no way of knowing if they’re following those protocols.”
“Or who’s reviewing the inconclusive results,” Tess added.
“There’s not a lot we can do about it.”
“Isn’t it our responsibility to make sure this is done right?”
Luke shrugged. “Not particularly. Nezar isn’t even a Federation world.”
Tess tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. “Was that supposed to sound convincing?”
He chuckled. “All right, I spent way too much time on Nezar to not care about what happens there.”
“Not to mention, now that the government is in transition, they’ll likely be joining the Federation soon.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t make sense for Alucia to be in and not have Nezar and Coraxa in, as well,” Luke replied. Not too long ago, he would have thought unity among the three worlds was only an aspirational, distant future. To now have that reality so close at hand still caught him by surprise.
“Right.” Tess nodded. “And given that eventuality, we need to make sure there aren’t any threats to the Etheric Federation once we start mixing together.” She waggled her fingers, as though kneading dough.
“I don’t have any suggestions for how to improve the oversight.”
Tess smiled. “But I bet you do know who would.”
* * *
Compared to her last visit, Karen’s nerves were considerably more settled as her shuttle came to rest on the landing pad outside one of Nezar’s many biodomes. At last, she was returning to the planet as her real self, not some fictionalized modern version of her twisted past.
She gazed out the window at the nearest translucent dome glimmering under the early-afternoon sun. Interlocking triangular panels formed the enclosure for the three-kilometer-wide dome, which was one of five connected structures comprising the city. It was the metropolis closest to the Nezaran government building from which Chancellor Heizberg had governed, and the place where Karen had spent much of her time when she had lived on the world in years past.
That feels like a lifetime ago.
Her motivations and her way of thinking had been drastically different back then. She’d thought that keeping the Alaxar Trinary isolated was the best way forward. Now, she couldn’t wait to help bring Nexar and Coraxa into the Etheric Federation and solidify their partnerships with Alucia.
Karen rose from the passenger seat on the shuttle and gathered her belongings from an overhead bin.
“Business or pleasure?” a middle-aged male passenger asked her while he got down his own bag across the aisle.
“Business. I don’t think there’s a lot of tourism on Nezar,” Karen replied.
“Pleasure doesn’t have to be tourism. Lots of good bars here.”
Karen cracked a smile. “Fair point.”
“Are you government or private sector?” the man questioned.
“Government,” she told him, hoping that would be the end of the inquiries. While it wasn’t a secret that she was on Nezar, it wasn’t common knowledge, either. Given the complication of Alucia being in the Federation and Nezar still being on the outside, it was better if her activities on the foreign world remained behind the scenes.
“Ah.” He bobbed his head of shaggy, graying hair. “Politicians. Can’t live with them… and we’d probably do just fine without them.”
“Fortunately for you, I’m not a politician.”
“One of the poor cogs that keeps society rolling, then?”
Karen nodded. “Someone has to do it.”
“There is that.” He extended the handle on his rolling bag. “Hope it’s a productive meeting.”
“Thank you, I’m sure it will be.” She gave him a parting smile and they made their way off the shuttle with the other passengers.
At the bottom of the ramp, Karen peered around the port for her escort. She had been instructed that one of the government aides would meet her and take her to the government office in town. When no one was readily apparent, she headed for the main terminal, a one-story structure constructed of the dark stone common across the planet.
She was sweating by the end of the short walk. The ambient temperature was well above comfortable levels, due to the planet’s proximity to the sun. While the open air was technically habitable, only life inside the biodomes felt civilized.
Karen was about to step inside the port terminal when a woman’s voice stopped her.
“Karen Carter?”
She turned around to identify the speaker, her gaze settling on a dark-haired woman close to her age. “Yes, hello.”
“Trisha Mercer,” the woman introduced.
“Thank you for coming to meet me.”
“My pleasure. It was no trouble at all.”
They walked away from the port to a transit station at the edge of the dome. A set of automatic doors parted and they stepped inside.
Karen breathed in the conditioned air.
Trisha noticed her relief. “Acclimated to Alucia now?”
“Didn’t think it would happen, but I have.” Karen smiled.
“It’s a wonder the worlds aren’t more different, given their placements,” the other woman commented. “I’d expect Alucia to be a solid ball of ice.”
“A lot of it is. I sometimes wonder if some ancient race prepared this system for habitation.”
“And had it perfectly suited to humans? Doubtful, but you never know.”
Karen shrugged. “It’s not so unreasonable. Our environmental tolerances mirror the state of liquid water, and that is the foundation for much of life as we know it.”
“When you look at it that way, different species aren’t all that dissimilar.”
“At least not when it comes to what we need to survive.”
The two women arrived at the maglev train terminal inside the dome. Three distinct lines snaked through the five domes, and two other tracks routed through underground tunnels, which connected to other cities over two hundred kilometers away.
Trisha directed Karen to the main transit line. “You probably remember the government offices,” she commented.
Karen nodded. “I could never forget. Many formative years were spent hunched over a workstation there.”
They boarded the train bound for the urban core at the center of the main dome. Sets of two seats facing each other in groupings of four were positioned along either side of a central aisle. Only half a dozen other people from the shuttle were boarding the train, so the two women were able to select seating with relative privacy.
“It means a lot that you came to help,” Trisha said a low voice when they sat down in their row. “We’ve been a little short staffed since the… incident.”
“I can
only imagine.”
Trisha sat in silence for twenty seconds, staring absently out the window. The train began gliding forward, and she came to attention. “A lot of people won’t talk about what happened.”
Karen glanced around to make sure no one was nearby. It looked private, but she knew sound could easily carry on the train. “We can talk openly once we’re at the office.”
The other woman nodded and resumed staring out the window.
Four-story residential buildings sped by while the train traversed the track. The domes, numerically designated Dome 1 through 5, were each arranged with residential sectors at the perimeter and a commercial district in the center. Dome 1, at the center of the five, was almost exclusively dedicated to commercial and business functions, and it also served as the unofficial seat of the Nezaran government.
Real power had always been wielded from the official capitol building, outside the city, but few were willing to make the commute on a daily basis. Karen now understood that had all been by design. So long as the government activities were handled in an out-of-the-way place, no one would pay much attention to the goings on. Heizberg, and her associates who’d been forced into servitude, had done the aliens’ bidding, while the more public-facing workers in the city carried out their delegations, blissfully unaware of what was happening behind the scenes.
Karen could only imagine what those workers were feeling now, knowing what they had been a part of. Well, she did know what that was like—she had been manipulated herself. And it was shitty.
She could see the discomfort written on Trisha’s face. Karen’s heart went out to her, understanding all too well how disorienting it could be to realize that so many assumptions had been wrong.
“You shouldn’t feel bad,” Karen said after two minutes of silence. “No one knew.”
As Karen suspected, even out of context, Trisha needed no explanation. An experience so profound was ever-present on the mind. “We should have.”
“Worrying about what might have been won’t change anything.”
Trisha took a slow breath. “I know. Like you said, we’ll talk once we’re at the office.”
The train finished the route through the outer dome, stopping every half-kilometer, and then passed through a translucent tunnel into the central enclosure. Buildings in the central dome were taller and more ornate, though Karen had never understood why resources had been devoted to the enhanced aesthetics. The glass-clad structures were a waste of resources, as far as she was concerned.
She caught herself.
Shit, I guess I should have been on the Finance Committee. It never occurred to me how much I cared. With a chuckle, she realized that her parting statement to Connors might not have been so facetious after all—her job was likely going to transition yet again.
Trisha gave her a quizzical look.
“Nothing,” Karen said with a shake of her head. “Just had a revelation about myself.”
“Sounds better than my recent realizations.”
“That’s to be determined.”
A minute later, the train glided to a smooth halt, and the two women exited.
The business district was like Karen remembered, with workers dressed in tailored clothes, a multitude of restaurants and shops at street level, and more pedestrian traffic than seemed possible for a city of that size. She took in the sights with a smile, remembering how it had felt to be among that activity as an energetic youth.
Things could have gone so differently for me. I wonder where I would have ended up if I hadn’t fallen in with the Sovereign?
She had no more time for reflection, as Trisha set out through the crowd, toward one of the medium-height glass towers two blocks from the train stop.
The government building was appropriately simplistic compared to the private sector structures, but was still at aesthetic odds with the harsh Nezaran landscape outside the dome. Rising twelve stories, it was half the height of its NTech neighbor. Seeing the proximity of the two structures, Karen found it to be no wonder that the line between government and private industry had blurred over the years.
Trisha called an elevator at the back of the dark-tiled lobby, and they rode it to the eighth floor. After exiting, they took a short hall to a compact conference room, with seating for six and a view of a rooftop park on the building across the street.
“Now you can be honest,” Karen said as soon as the door was closed.
Trisha wilted. “I can’t trust myself.”
Being misled did have the tendency to make one question one’s sense of identity and judgment. Karen had recently been through that exercise herself, though it was difficult to know what to say to help the other woman without sounding trite.
“A subversion of this scale goes beyond any one person’s responsibility. It’s important to remember you aren’t alone now,” Karen said in an attempt to console her.
Trisha shook her head, her face paling. “I still can’t believe what I did.”
Karen’s chest constricted. “You were one of the people who…?”
The other woman swallowed. “It’s strange. I can remember everything, but it’s like it was all a dream. Not a constant awareness, but looking back, I know when I was under its control and when I wasn’t. But it all seemed like the same state at the time. I didn’t question my actions then, but doing those same things now would make me sick.”
“I’ve been through a good deal of that myself. These aren’t situations we can expect to get over with a moment’s notice, but we can rebuild by working together.”
Trisha took a shaky breath, and then nodded. “Yes, you’re right. And that’s why we asked you here.”
Karen smiled in an attempt to set her at ease. “In all fairness, I sort of invited myself along.”
The other woman chuckled. “You know, come to think of it, I guess we never did really invite you.”
“The long and short of it is, we’re neighbors, and we should try to get along better than we have in the past. I wanted to come here to begin a new friendship that can carry our nations into the future.”
Trisha perked up. “We haven’t taken a formal vote or anything, but based on what I’ve seen, I think that sentiment is shared by most of those here on Nezar.”
“Good. Let’s dive in.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Missions on the Raven had started to run together for Ava. The same quarters, the same people, often a similar objective. She didn’t mind the repetition, but it made it difficult to remember the timing of specific experiences.
At least, that was how it had always been. As Ava wandered toward the Raven’s kitchen for an early lunch while the rest of her team napped, she was struck with a barrage of memories.
A salient recollection of her second mission with her team came to the forefront—a rather mundane experience in the context of her FDG career, but a pivotal time in the friendship between the four members of the team. Edwin had spliced together different words spoken during the op to form phrases he found hilarious. Ava had no idea at the time that it was a preview of things to come.
Wow, I haven’t thought about that in years. She shook her head.
>>Sorry, that may happen now and then while I get things sorted out,<< Ruby chimed in.
Apparently, I also need to work on keeping private thoughts separate.
>>Sorry about that, too. I’m still getting situated in here.<<
Ah. Ava continued down the ship’s central hallway toward the kitchen.
>>I’m not trying to dig, but the way your organic memories are stored is so fascinating. Sometimes I can’t help tugging on a thread that seems intriguing.<<
Glad my life history offers an interesting entertainment catalogue for you, Ava replied with what she hoped was a sarcastic mental tone.
>>No need to get defensive. Whatever I observe will stay between us.<<
Ava paused three meters from the kitchen’s entry. Except what you need to share with the medical team.
> Ruby hesitated—only a split second, but that was an eternity for an AI. >>I’m not here as your overseer. We’re partners.<<
If we’re partners, then we can be honest about what this is.
>>You don’t want me here?<<
It was Ava’s turn to hesitate. It’s not that. And it’s certainly nothing against you personally. I’ve seen the dark side of what it’s like to be in another’s mind, and I’m… cautious.
Ruby smiled in her mind. >>I understand, Ava. I’m not here to intrude.<<
I also don’t want you to feel like you’re taking a back seat. This is my problem to get over, not yours.
>>It’s only been an hour. If you had already acclimated to the pairing, I’d be concerned.<<
Fair point.
>>You’ll find I have a lot of those.<<
Ava smirked. Smug for an AI, aren’t you?
>>I am beholden to calculations. I know my worth.<<
Uh huh. Ava covered the remaining distance to the kitchen.
Sven, the ship’s support systems engineer, was the only occupant. Seated in the center of the table, his empty plate and half-filled glass indicated that he was at the tail end of his own meal.
“Hello, ma’am,” Sven greeted with a bob of his head, when he noticed her approaching.
“Please, ‘Ava’ is just fine while we’re out here in the black,” she replied. Despite knowing each other for years, they went through the same dance at the start of each mission.
He smiled. “How have you been, Ava?”
“That, my friend, is a very loaded question.” She collapsed into a chair across the table from him.
“I suspected things might not be going your way when you weren’t on the most recent mission to Coraxa.”
“It’s been an intense few days.”
“Anything you care to share?” Sven asked.
What’s the official word on my condition? Ava asked Ruby.
>>The FDG has not released a report on the Hochste yet. Only those involved in operations on Coraxa are aware of the new nanocytes, and only select members of FDG leadership, your team, and a handful of medical and scientific research staff are aware of your exposure.<<