by Martin Tays
The message from the Endeavour stated that they had established orbit around a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. They have decided to name the planet “Haven” and…
One moment… I understand… yes! We have footage! We have an image… oh, this is… ladies and gentlemen, these are the first images ever transmitted from a world in another system. THERE! That’s… okay, there is Captain Winkerman… a group of… I’m not sure who these specific people are, but we’ll find out… and… and… huh. Bill, does that look like writing on the wall, there, behind her?”
Andrea LeMay, Co-Anchor, CBS Evening News
“Of course the planet had been explored before, but you can’t say it was really ours until we made orbit and started the terraforming.
The Exploration Corp had been the scouts. We were the pioneers. Our children would be the citizens.”
Jerimiah Wozniakowski, from “Building Haven”
“Immigrants are reminded that there is a minimum six Terran month quarantine period for all pets. Also, seeds must be turned over to our botanical quarantine department for random germination testing in order to determine suitability for import.
Please remove all clothing and place it into the sterilization unit to your immediate left, then step into the scanner. Immigrants are reminded that they are not required to have a full body scan. However, those who choose not to be scanned must submit themselves to a full body and cavity search and a seventy two hour quarantine before being cleared.
Welcome to Haven.”
From Haven Immigration Department vid “A Haven Of Wonder”
Chapter 7
“Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up by itself.”
Woodrow Wilson
Mister Valentine will see you now, sir.”
Rafe was darkly amused. He’d been sitting cooling his heels in the Governor’s anteroom for nearly an hour. Now he knew how Moses had felt when he’d kept him waiting so long.
Of course, there was a difference. Rafe thought about it for a moment, then laughed. The difference was that Rafe had then been the waitee, not the waiter. Having it done to him rankled.
Just as it was meant to.
Uncle Vanya (the nickname was inevitable) Valentine had been the Governor of Haven and Rafe’s boss for nearly seventy years — not, actually, a huge amount of time to hold down a job, anymore. Rafe, in fact, had been in his current one for well over thirty years more than that, and he wasn’t sure anymore if he’d be happy or terrified if the opportunity to walk away from it ever arose.
Rafe shook his head and looked up at Valentine’s personal assistant. “Certainly.” Over the years he’d always been a bit amused by his boss’ choices for assistants. They tended toward what Rafe privately called ‘the 3B people’: Buff, Brainy and Blond. Gender didn’t seem to matter, just stunning good looks and an intellect sharp enough to cut stone. But they never stayed more than a year or two before they vanished and were replaced by another. Rafe had idly wondered if there were a planet, somewhere, populated solely with burnt out and screaming ex-assistants.
While they lasted they were competent, though ― sometimes frighteningly so. Rafe had long ago learned to avoid pissing them off. He smiled at the latest, stood, and at a gesture followed him down the hallway toward the office. Which, of course, he had to be led to. It’s not as if he’d been working in this same building for the last hundred years and reporting to this office on a weekly basis the entire time, or anything.
The massive oak doors — God knows what they’d cost ― were, of course, shut when they approached. The assistant tapped twice, precisely, on the left hand door, waited two seconds, then opened it and gestured for Rafe to enter. He nodded politely and walked in. The door thudded shut behind him, as always startling him a bit.
Valentine waited in his chair across what seemed to be a half acre of dense growth microplush carpet grass and behind a desk large enough to land very small shuttle craft on. He had tweaked his metabolism until he actually carried around thirty extra kilos of weight. He had decided that it lent him an air of authority. Rafe had decided it lent him an air of looking like a fat man.
As Rafe approached Valentine he noticed that his boss had added another eccentricity. He shook the proffered hand and, looking down, spoke. “New ring?”
Valentine held his hand up, palm in, to better display his new acquisition. It looked like an antique diamond ring, but the stone was enormous. Valentine smiled. “Like it?”
“It’s quite…” Rafe started to reply, at a loss for words. “it’s very big, isn’t it?”
“Over six carats.” Valentine replied smugly, turning his hand to admire it. It caught the light from the window and sparkled in a very sparkly way.
Rafe sat in the chair opposite his boss. Valentine glared at him briefly, no doubt annoyed that he’d sat before being invited, but said nothing.
Rafe glanced at the ring, again, and spoke. “I saw a news article a couple of months ago about how a lab back on Earth manufactured the world’s largest diamond as a publicity stunt. Something like ten thousand carats. It took them nearly two days to do.” He shrugged. “The company owner’s using it as a door stop.”
“Bah. So what if they can make bigger? This one is genuine. Came out of one of the last functional mines in South Africa. Cost me a fortune.”
“And it graces your pinky so well.”
Valentine had heard of the concept of sarcasm, but had never grasped its intricacies, or for that matter felt the need to. He just smiled once more at the ring, said “Indeed.” and dropped into his chair. He steepled his hands, turned, and looked out of his window.
Rafe knew then that he was in for it. Valentine had only three responses to a crisis. If there was no blame needed, he donned his ‘concerned public servant’ persona. If he could blame someone else, it was ‘saddened anger’. If he had to take the blame himself, it became ‘frenzied weasel’.
Rafe groaned, from long experience recognizing the physical cues for ‘saddened anger’. Great… whatever is going on… He thought, I’m going to get hammered for it. Rafe thought instantly of Moses, and sighed.
Valentine spoke. “I have… certain concerns, Mister Deppner. Grave ones.”
Rafe dismissed the first three responses that came to mind as being accurate but far too smartass. He went, instead, for conciliatory. “Would this concern, possibly, our recent free publicity?”
The large man spun quickly in his chair to face him. “Precisely. I feel that…” He paused, eyebrows raised. “Wait. Publicity?”
Rafe spoke quickly. “Follow me on this. No one had thought about any of this in years, right? About the Exploratory crews, about the ships, about the crew. Our friend…” Valentine grimaced, but said nothing. “Made them look human, again.”
“So?”
“So, indeed. So? Well…” Rafe thought frantically. “Well, the average person on the street now has a heartwarming image of the old explorer coming to terms with the changing times.”
Valentine looked doubtful, but nodded.
Rafe continued. “See, before if you’d brought up the idea of the old explorers to the average person, they’d have maybe been concerned that they were not being utilized. Possibly even wondered if they should start, oh, I don’t know, exploring again? Now, though…” He leaned forward to drive his point home, “Now they’ll just think of them as being nice but sad people who just can’t get on with their lives.”
“I… see.” Turning back toward the window, his boss resteepled his fingers. “That’s an interesting point of view, Mister Deppner.”
“Thank you, sir.” Rafe couldn’t, quite, hide his sigh of relief.
Valentine turned quickly. “But.”
“But, sir?”
“But. I do not like the idea o
f… that man…” Valentine waved vaguely out toward space, then turned again and pointed at his subordinate. “Did you know I used to work for him?”
Actually, Rafe did, but he was curious as to where this was going. “No, sir. No, I didn’t. I’m not surprised, of course.”
“Oh? Why not?”
Rafe backpedaled, his mental bicycle's horn honking noisily. “Oh, it’s just the entire longevity thing. Eventually, everyone is going to have worked for everyone else.”
“Ah.” Valentine nodded. “Of course. But my point is that I don’t like him. Never did, really, but… he had the opportunity to assist me out of a difficult situation, and he chose not too. An inventory irregularity.”
Rafe knew exactly what Valentine was speaking about. Once, a couple of hundred years ago, Valentine had been caught. He’d not just had his finger in the till, either. He’d been elbow deep with both arms, and making only the most amateurish attempts to cover his tracks. Moses had never noticed, and when it was brought to his attention, his response had been to stare at the crudely forged documents and laugh his ass off. It had taken Valentine nearly a hundred years to pay off his debt and get back in the good graces of the government. And he’d still been banished off Earth.
Of course, he mentioned none of this to his boss — he wasn’t an idiot. Instead, he simply said “Moses has never been the type of person to… extend himself, sir. He probably never knew you had a problem he could assist you with at all.” Or cared, for that matter, he thought wryly.
“Well, I don’t care if it was a matter of malice or foolishness.” Valentine said angrily. “I do not like him, I do not like the fact that he’s working for us, and I want you to get rid of him.” He slapped his palm down on his desk for emphasis.
Rafe spoke while considering his options. “Of course, sir, if that’s what you believe to be the best option, I will naturally get rid of him at once. However, don’t you think it will make us look uncertain, what with the elections coming up and everything?”
Valentine looked back sharply. He wasn’t necessarily an incredibly intelligent man, but he understood the chicaneries of politics better than anyone else Rafe had ever known. Rubbing his chins, Valentine nodded. “Indeed. Do you actually believe that the voters will care about… about him?”
“As I said, sir, they now think of him fondly. I would even venture to guess that they would also think fondly of the people who gave him the opportunity to say goodbye to his ship, also.”
“Indeed? I must think about this.” Valentine abruptly spun in his chair to stare out of his window, continuing. “I will let you know what I have decided, but for the moment please do nothing untoward.”
Rafe, recognizing his dismissal, stood gratefully. He knew that Valentine would not force him to fire Moses, now. However, he would look for revenge in more indirect ways. He made a note to himself to keep a sharp eye on directives out of the Governor’s office.
“You may leave, now.”
“Thank you, sir.” He nodded, and turned to trudge back to the door. Two steps away from it, it was opened silently by the assistant. Rafe refused to be surprised, mainly out of spite, and instead nodded to him ― as if it were the most natural thing in the world to have a door open mysteriously ― and walked by.
Well, he thought to himself, once safely ensconced in the lift. That was a bullet dodged. Rafe had been very concerned, there, that the plan would no longer be able to utilize Moses, and he wasn’t sure what he would have done if he’d lost him.
Stepping out of the lift, he walked down toward his office. He was never aware that he’d started whistling Mary Jane's Last Dance.
☼
Valentine stared at the closed door, absently rubbing his chins. After a moment, he spoke. “What do you think, Mister Grace?”
The answer came at once. “He’s hiding something.”
“Indeed. Visual.” A vid window popped up over Valentine’s desk, showing Celestine Grace, a stocky, dark haired man of indeterminate ancestry. He was sitting at his (much smaller and much, much more cluttered) desk down the hall, where he’d be available.
Valentine looked at his subordinate’s image. “You did hear everything?”
Grace nodded. “Of course, sir. Deppner is a man of quite modest principles. He’d never stick his neck out to protect someone ― especially to protect that idiot Dunn ― unless he had something cooking.”
Valentine leaned back. “What, do you think?”
“I’m not sure, sir. Graft?”
Valentine shook his head. Grace was momentarily hypnotized by the rhythmically shaking jowls. He blinked, and resolutely looked his boss in the eyes, instead.
“No, it just doesn’t sound… right. Why don’t you join me, Mister Grace? I believe I have some work for you to do.”
☼
Moses was unaware of Rafe’s fight to save his job. He was in the middle of a fight of his own.
Ami and her friends had gone off to tour the touristy areas of Haven and Moses had taken the opportunity to try and figure out just what the hell his work was supposed to be.
So he’d come back to the office on Romulus and began digging through the collected detritus of a hundred years of inattention.
There was an organization here. There had to be. Nothing could be this confusing by accident. But after two full days of sifting through the files, Moses had yet to determine what it was.
He sighed and looked over at the open data window that showed the personnel files. He beckoned it closer and read through the data once again. Finally, he pulled out his pcomp, stuck it into the window, and muttered “Address”. The pcomp cheerfully bleeped acknowledgement and downloaded the information.
Pocketing the pcomp, Moses headed for the door.
☼
It was a particularly gray area of town. Moses pulled his pcomp back out and double checked the address, hesitated, then touched the comm panel by the door. There was a long delay, then a voice spoke. “What the hell do you want?”
Moses looked down at the comm. “Is that any way to speak to your employer?”
“Probably not. What does that have to do with you?”
He had to smile. “Touché. Can we talk?”
“No.”
“Well, can I talk?”
After another long pause, the voice replied. “If I say no, you’re just going to keep pestering me, aren’t you?”
“Probably.”
“Crap.” After yet another pause, the door slid open. “End of the hallway. Don’t touch anything. I don’t particularly feel like digging you out.”
Moses grimaced at the — so to speak — dig and entered the door. At the end of the hall, another door stood open. Music was playing… Moses recognized Maribelle Aurinsky’s Night on Europa. He walked down the hall and entered the open door, where the music was playing.
Arnie Cranston was reclined in a form fitting chair. Several open data windows, heavily laden with images and text, hung in the air around him.
Moses paused in the doorway.
Arnie looked up and spoke. “Well, you’re here, already. Come on in and sit. Let’s get this over with.”
He entered and moved toward the indicated chair, looking around. Cranston’s taste in decorating leaned toward the spartan. There were a couple of landscapes portrayed on the walls which changed even as he looked at them. The furniture was utilitarian. Moses sat and, after an awkward moment, spoke. “Well.”
“Well?”
“Well. How about this weather?”
Arnie rolled his eyes. “We’re on a moon. We have no weather.”
“Right. Right.” He looked around, again. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
“What. The hell. Do you want?”
Moses looked back at Arnie. “I
want you to come back to work for me.”
“Obviously.”
“And?”
“I would assume that that would be obvious, too.”
“Thought you’d say that.” Moses looked away, uncomfortable, and only then noticed the general content of the windows. He looked back at his host. “Kennedy, huh?”
“Yeah.” Arnie replied offhandedly, then looked sharply at Moses. “How did you know that?”
“That’s the Zapruder film, right?”
Cranston looked at him sharply, then back at his data. “Yeah. Yeah, it is. And that’s…”
Moses looked at the indicated image. “That looks to be a still from the Muchmore film.” He pointed. “That’s The Babushka Lady, right?”
Arnie leaned forward. The chair obligingly altered. “You know about this stuff?”
“I did a paper about it in college, once, a long time ago.” Moses didn’t add back when I was a lot more gullible, but he did think it. Loudly.
“You know Oswald didn’t kill him, right?”
“I… I think that there’s some evidence to the contrary, yes.” Moses said diplomatically. “Whatever happened, it was a helluva thing to see on TV. Take my word for it.”
Arnie looked startled. “You… you saw it?”
“I was in a hospital in Houston with a bad case of bronchitis. They didn’t have TV’s available for the guests, so my Mom rented one. Between that and her coffee pot, my room was the most popular on the floor. Especially after the shooting.”
Cranston looked stunned.
“I didn’t see the actual assassination ― they weren’t live. But they ran everything that happened for the next couple of days as it was happening.”