by Amy DuBoff
“It looks like a starscape,” Saera observed.
“That’s the point.”
“Why? What’s this all about, anyway?”
“You mean, doing somersaults with your eyes closed doesn’t thrill you?” Wil smiled.
Saera groaned, trying to settle the queasiness in her stomach. “Very funny. But really, where is all of this ‘spatial awareness training’ heading? I don’t see the point.”
Wil’s grin faded, but the playful glint didn’t leave his eyes. “It’s all about piloting, in a word. You first must gain awareness of your own body, then simple objects that extend your body, then a craft. Good piloting is all about being one with the craft, knowing exactly what size of an opening it can fit through. Freefall training is the best simulation to flying, to build awareness of surroundings in three dimensions.”
“And what if I have no interest in being a pilot?”
“Even commanders and navigators use those same skills. Regardless of what track you follow, you still need to learn how to sense your surroundings, know your place in the environment,” Wil explained.
“Okay, so what do I do?”
“First, we need to get you comfortable just floating here.”
Saera realized she was clinging to Wil and that he had been patiently letting her nails dig into his palm. “Sorry,” she muttered.
“You’re doing fine. I can teach you. Of course, there are certain things that require telekinetic abilities that you don’t yet possess, but you’ll get there in time.”
Saera nodded. “Okay, let’s try.”
Wil ran Saera through a series of exercises for the rest of the session. She still flailed around awkwardly for most of it, but by the end she was able to complete some basic maneuvers without making a complete fool of herself.
“I guess this isn’t that bad,” Saera commented after an hour of practice.
“See? You just have to get over the initial learning curve.” Wil telekinetically drew them to the wall.
“I think I still have quite a ways to go before I crest that curve.”
Wil smiled. “It will all come in time.” He opened the door to the gravity lock and they climbed in.
“I really appreciate you taking the time to work with me like this.”
“It’s good experience for me, too,” Wil said as the gravity started to return to normal.
Saera gave him a coy sidelong glance. “I doubt that.”
Wil smiled. “In any case, I’m happy to do it. It’s a nice break from everything else.”
“I’m glad I could offer you an entertaining diversion.”
“Oh, definitely. I might steal some of your signature moves. Like that one where you sort of flap your arms while spinning sideways…”
Saera faked her best death-glare. “If you say anything—”
“Hey! I’m only joking. It was pretty adorable, actually.”
Their eyes met, but Saera hastily looked away.
The main door to the hall opened.
Wil cleared his throat. “So, want to go over some advanced navigation theory next session?” he asked as they exited the gravity lock.
I guess I didn’t scare him off. “Sounds great.”
“Good. I’ll see you in three days.”
Saera felt giddy on the walk back to her quarters. It seemed like Wil had actually enjoyed their time together, which caught her completely by surprise. But, she knew she had to be careful. It was never a good idea to get too attached to someone.
She found the other Primus girls on their bunks when she entered. They looked up with surprise.
“Where have you been?” Leila asked.
“Does it matter?” Saera asked as she slipped onto her own bunk.
Caryn peered over the edge of her bunk. “That might be sex hair.”
Leila tilted her head. “Did you find a nice guy to fok?”
Saera glared at Leila. “Is that all any of you ever think about?”
Caryn settled back on her top bunk. “No way she got laid. Wound way too tight.”
Leila scoffed. “No need to get all defensive.”
“I’m not being defensive. I just don’t feel the need to report my every move to you.”
“Then stop giving us reason to think you have something to hide,” Caryn said as she grabbed her tablet from the wall.
“You’re not my commanding officer or my mom,” Saera retorted. “My whereabouts aren’t your concern.”
“Well with that kind of attitude, maybe it should be. For the good of the group,” Leila shot back.
“Ladies, hey!” Elise cut in. “Leave Saera alone. She’s right—we all deserve some privacy.”
“Suit yourself. Just don’t come crying to me when he breaks your heart.” Leila turned her attention to her tablet.
Saera lay back on her bunk and tried to ignore Caryn’s giggles above her. After a minute, she got a message on her tablet from Elise: “Ignore them. They’re just jealous. I hope he’s cute.”
Saera smiled to herself and wrote back: “He is.”
* * *
“I learned something interesting today,” Cris said to Kate as he entered their quarters.
“What’s that?” she asked, coming to greet him.
“Wil has taken to mentoring a Trainee.”
Kate tilted her head with interest. “Really? After all that fuss about the navigation class.”
“Well, the thing I find most interesting about it is who she is.”
“She?”
Cris nodded. “The very one I mentioned to you earlier.”
“Well that is quite interesting. Do we approve of her?” Kate asked.
“Well, I do. I think you’d like her, too.”
“I should probably meet her…”
Cris gave her a wary glance. “Wil would have none of that.”
“True.”
“However, Marsie is her primary instructor,” Cris said. “I’m sure you could get some inside intel on her.”
“Does Marsie know about them?” Kate asked.
“I just looked at her reports, and it seems like she does. She at least says that Saera is now engaged with a mentor outside of normal training hours.”
Kate squinted. “Think Wil told her?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m surprised she wouldn’t have said anything.”
Cris shrugged. “The first training session was yesterday. Maybe she was waiting to see if it worked out.”
“Perhaps.”
“In any case, I’m glad Wil is finally getting some social time. He’s been cooped up in his room working on the jump drive for way too long.”
Kate nodded emphatically. “Definitely.”
“I guess we’ll see what happens.”
CHAPTER 10
“That’s much better,” Wil complimented Saera as she completed her somersault.
I think I’m finally getting it. Saera grinned back from across the spatial awareness chamber. “Pretty soon I’ll be flying across the room!”
Wil smiled. “Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
They had been meeting twice a week for a month, with one session dedicated to freefall training and the other to advanced navigation. Saera had stopped trying to make up excuses to tell her roommates about how she spent the training evenings. The benefits of the training time were clear and there was no sense hiding it.
They had come to the end of the lesson and Wil was putting away some electronic spheres he had deployed throughout the room.
Saera watched Wil make the simple inputs on the control panel to the storage locker. All the touch-panels and biometric scanners were starting to seem commonplace, but it was still so unsophisticated compared to what it could be. The same incongruity she noticed when she first arrived at Headquarters still tickled the back of her mind.
“I’ve been wondering about something...” she began.
“What?” Wil asked her.
“It’s going to sound silly
.”
He smiled. “I’m used to those questions by now.” He opened the door to the gravity lock.
Saera shot him a playful glare and sighed, climbing into the lock after him. “So, Taran civilization is tens of thousands of years old, right?”
“More like millions.”
“All right, even better. So why isn’t this millions of years old civilization more advanced?”
“It’s pretty advanced,” Wil countered as the gravity lock activated, pulling them toward the floor.
“No, I know. I mean...” Saera searched for the words. “Like, there’s the gravity manipulation and subspace travel, and all sorts of other things I’d expect. But, you’re still entering things by hand on touch-panels and using what’s essentially a smartphone. I guess I just expected it to be a more distinct contrast compared to the state of things on Earth.”
“Like a bunch of cyborgs that have evolved beyond the need for the spoken word?”
Saera blushed. “When you put it that way, it sounds ridiculous.”
“No, it’s a valid question. I see where you’re coming from.” Wil thought for a moment. “I think what it comes down to is that you’re thinking of it from a scientific perspective, but really it’s a question of sociology.”
“Go on.”
“What you have to understand is the Taran society of today isn’t the result of following a linear path. That kind of technological integration was vogue at some point in the past—probably multiple times—but it’s swung back to where things are now.”
“Why go backwards?” Saera asked.
The gravity had equalized, but Wil leaned against the wall, lost in thought. “I wouldn’t consider it backwards. Now this is just my opinion, but I think there’s an ideal balance between person and technology. Those that elect to become one with machine—such ‘tech heads’ are certainly around—take it beyond what I would consider that balance point. When it comes down to it, preference eventually takes over above scientific capability.”
“So you’re staying it’s a societal choice to not have more advanced technological integration?”
Wil shrugged. “In a sense. But nothing is constant—it’s still our nature to want things to change and evolve. Take our handhelds for example. There have been devices of all shapes and sizes over the years, but it keeps coming back to this form factor; it’s large enough that it doesn’t get misplaced, but compact enough that it’s easy to carry around. The features cover everything that you need without added clutter. Yet, there are little aesthetic changes every year. People want new—not because it’s actually better, but because it makes them feel like they’re at the forefront of the trend-setting curve.”
Saera pursed her lips. “Hmm.”
“What we have now in the core Taran society is a recognition of the individual within the connected community,” Wil continued. “The technology enhances the individual experience while facilitating communication and integration with the larger social framework. I’d consider it close to the ideal balance, but I know it won’t stay that way. Nor should it. Stagnation is bad for everyone. But, swinging too far to the extremes can be disastrous.”
“What happens when it swings too far?”
Wil sighed. “Complete collapse. It’s happened innumerable times, though no one wants to talk about it. Some of the colonized worlds were established two million years ago. Yet, due to subsequent collapses, launching an expansive colonization campaign would have been unthinkable just five thousand years ago, due to the state of Taran culture at the time. Just because technology exists, that doesn’t mean society is in a position to use it. We’ve had advanced technology in one form or another ever since Tarans first set out from Tararia—assuming that’s even where our species originated. But, with each collapse, certain things are lost, and certain lessons are learned that set the new standard for future generations. The species changes and evolves, searching for that new ideal balance of individual and society with technology and our larger universe. It’s all cyclical—expanding and collapsing. Greed and ambition bringing down the powerful.”
I can’t even imagine that kind of restructuring on a galactic scale. “That all sounds pretty chaotic.”
“Look at your own history on Earth. Is it really any different?”
Saera shook her head. “No, of course not. Many empires have come and gone over the last 12,000 years.”
“It’s no different in the rest of the worlds. We’re still the same species at our core. It’s in our genetic programming to always seek what’s new and better. But each time we go too far, we’ll revert to the tried and true.”
“How many scientific advances are sitting in a vault somewhere because they aren’t supported by the modern society?” Saera pondered.
Wil looked indifferent. “It’s hard to know. A lot was lost in the last collapse.”
“When was that?”
“A thousand years ago, in the last Taran Revolution,” Wil replied.
“Oh, I heard that mentioned before!”
Wil nodded. “That’s when the Priesthood came into power, and the High Dynasties reorganized. Politics aligned with the corporate objectives, merging infrastructure needs with the quest for profit. It’s a stable system, but it’s not necessarily best for the people.”
“What were things like before that?” Saera asked.
Wil smiled. “You’d think I could answer that. It was just a thousand years ago, right? Well, the collapse around the last Taran Revolution resulted in a massive loss of historical records. Almost everything on Tararia was purged, so most of what we know is disjointed accounts assembled from remote colony words.”
Saera’s brow furrowed. “How could so much be lost? There must be data backups.”
“Of course. But someone wanted it lost.”
A cover-up? “What do you think it was about?”
“Something swung too far and everyone paid the price,” Wil conjectured.
“How do you even go about rebuilding millions of years of history?”
Wil shrugged. “However you want to. With a collapse like that, you can build whatever future you want.”
“So that’s what the Priesthood and High Dynasties are doing?”
Wil looked down. “Some questions it’s best not to ask.”
Saera examined him. “No theories?”
“Topics for another time, perhaps.” Wil opened the door to the hall and stepped out.
I guess that’s all I’m getting for today. “Well, this has been very enlightening.”
“Just a word of caution, I wouldn’t go around repeating what I said. I have a somewhat skewed perspective on the whole thing.”
“Because of the TSS?”
“Because of a lot of things.”
Saera nodded. “Okay. Well, thanks for giving me some insights outside of the official history texts in class.”
“Yeah, all of that is glossed over shite,” Wil stated, suddenly somber.
He definitely keeping something from me. Saera smiled, trying to lighten the mood again. “I’m always game for some good conspiracy theorizing if you want to corrupt me.”
Wil softened a bit, but was still rigid. “We’ll see.” He checked his handheld. “It’s late, I need to get back.”
“Right. Thanks again.”
“Sure. I’ll see you in a couple days.” He headed off down the hall toward the elevator.
Saera leaned against the corridor wall and let out a long breath. What’s the deal with the Priesthood? Wil clearly doesn’t like them. The whole society was still baffling to her. Having access to technology and choosing not to use it as part of everyday life—it was a completely different way of thinking. But, she had come to trust Wil, and especially his judgment on matters. If he was wary of what was unfolding in the outside Taran society, there was a good reason to be cautious.
* * *
Wil collapsed in his desk chair. Saera’s too inquisitive for her own good.
He was
always reticent to share his own opinion about political matters, given his delicate position between the TSS and High Dynasties, but Saera was a friend—really, the only one he had. He wanted to be honest with her and share the feelings that constantly burned him, but it wasn’t fair to bring her into that dark, inner world.
It was the same reason he’d tried to stay away from her initially. Yet, they had been brought together all the same. Is it worth fighting it? We could be happy together. For a while, anyway… before the war becomes my whole life.
Thoughts of the war and the secondary Headquarters—H2—within the rift crept into his mind. His stomach knotted. He couldn’t bring Saera into that, even as things were. The best thing he could do for her was keep his distance. As soon as she was confident with freefall and the advanced navigation math, that would have to be it. To drag things out any longer would be unfair to both of them.
He sighed and turned his attention to his desk, opening up the files for the independent jump drive interface yet again. All of the late-night work had paid off. All he had to do was put the final touches on the system architecture to put the new graphical interface into practice.
The final step would have been next to impossible without access to the classified SiNavTech information afforded by his status as an heir. In some ways, working on the independent jump drive undermined the family business. However, he wasn’t concerned about the Sietinen Dynasty or civilian applications for the jump drive. All that mattered was giving the TSS an edge in the war. If he couldn’t master simultaneous observation, at least he could deliver the improved jump drive navigation system they needed.
Code for the jump drive interface illuminated above the desktop. The three-dimensional rendering showed the interlocking web of variables to make the system function. He selected one of the two remaining modules that still needed finalization, and zoomed in on the blank code segments.
Wil settled in for another long night of work. Only a couple more weeks and it would be complete. Then there would be the licensing negotiations, training others how to use it, overseeing deployment to the TSS fleet… He groaned. One step at a time.