by S. H. Jucha
It was the release of tension the assembled Independents were waiting for, and the group of them rushed forward to touch, pat, and hug every Haraken.
Alex was pleased to see the Independents unhesitatingly touch and embrace the SADEs. He’d deliberately chosen some of those with the most audacious avatar colorings. He watched the SADEs taking part in the affectionate greetings and enjoyed seeing the smiles spread across their faces.
“Ser, it’s early morning by our time,” Ophelia said. “I imagine you wish to speak to the entire population. If you’ll give us a quarter hour, we can assemble everyone here in the bay. Not everyone will be near a comms station, and our implants don’t carry far through the moon’s rock.” She looked hopefully at Alex.
“That would be fine, Ser Sooth,” Alex replied.
Ophelia clapped her hands in delight, and Perrin and she raced for the control room to call the population to an emergency meeting. Their message was terse and simple. “Assemble in the bay immediately. Tell everyone you see. If you’re late to this one, you might be left behind.”
Within a short time, people came streaming through the general airlock, ten or twelve at a time, to hurry to join the crowd. Most of them stopped in their tracks when they got a look at the New Terrans and SADEs. Word had reached Daelon of the SADEs emancipation by virtue of the Independents, who had arrived during the past couple of years, but none of them had witnessed their choice of avatars.
“Look, darling, painted men,” a mother said to her daughter, urging the child to open her eyes. During their few years of confinement, Vivian had begun closing her eyes, more and more often, to keep the crushing mental pressure of Daelon’s tunnels at bay.
Vivian snuck a peek through one eye and spied the colorful pattern of a SADE. Both eyes opened wide and her little heart thumped. Vivian pulled her hand free of her mother’s and hurried to the SADE whose face was patterned in plaid. The child held up her hands to the SADE, who responded to the little human’s desire, lifting her up and holding her aloft.
“Pretty,” the child said, touching the SADE’s face.
Julien sent an image to the SADE to indicate how to hold the child, and the SADE transferred the girl onto his lower arm. Immediately, the child threw an arm around the SADE’s neck and called out, “See, Mommy, it’s a plaid man.”
The SADEs accompanying Alex were exploiting the entire bandwidth of the traveler’s controller to send their experiences back to those SADEs aboard the Freedom. Only others of their kind could translate the flow of code that passed for visual, aural, olfactory, and tactile pressure sensory information. Embedded in the data stream were their kernels’ cascading algorithms, which shifted hierarchy, as each SADE reacted to his or her welcome. For those SADEs aboard the Freedom, it was as if they were standing in the bay, experiencing the greetings themselves.
Julien sent to Alex.
Humans aboard the Freedom were not to be excluded from enjoying the moment. Cordelia separated the SADEs’ data streams, sending vids to every monitor aboard the Freedom and the Rêveur.
Captain Lumley sat in his command chair surrounded by his ship’s bare-bones crew, sipping hot thé and enjoying the images playing across the Rêveur’s bridge monitors.
“Everyone is present, Ser,” Perrin said, addressing Alex. The entire population of Daelon was assembled well before the quarter hour ended.
Alex received an image from the Confederation SADEs. It suggested they could hold him aloft, either on their shoulders or standing on a small platform, so that he would be seen by the entire assembly.
Alex climbed several steps of the traveler’s hatch. He was conflicted by what he saw — grateful that the number of incarcerated was small and disappointed in the relatively few crew members he might gain for his expedition. But then Alex had a habit of underestimating what the opportunity for freedom, adventure, and, sometimes, just a change in lifestyles meant to people.
“Can you hear me?” Alex asked, his heavy-worlder voice booming across the bay, which was cut from the moon’s rock and sealed with Méridien technology. The crowd smiled and chuckled. Someone from the back of the group yelled out, “We’re not deaf, you know,” which broke out hearty laughter.
Alex smiled and raised a hand to acknowledge the tease. “I have good news and not-so-good news for you.” His opening words silenced the crowd, and the tension in the bay elevated. “I’m no longer a Haraken citizen and have renounced all claims on Haraken possessions.”
“But, Ser Racine, when I was in the control room, I heard from Maynard Scullers that you arrived aboard a Libran city-ship,” Ophelia called out loudly.
“Yes, that’s true,” Alex said, creating a buzz among the people. He could imagine their single thought. The largest Méridien passenger liner might pack in 400-plus passengers, but a city-ship could carry away every person incarcerated on Daelon. “This is slightly embarrassing to say, but the ship is mine … I own it.”
The crowd tittered at Alex’s comment, but nerves were on edge, waiting for him to drop the bad news.
“If you won’t reside on Haraken, Ser Racine, where will you live?” Perrin called out.
“Aboard the Freedom, the city-ship,” Alex replied.
“And where are you going?” a voice in the crowd yelled.
“First stop is Celus-5, a planet we’ve recently visited. It has two intelligent alien species and possibly a third. I’ve got several commitments to fulfill on that planet before I move on.”
“Move on to where and for what purpose?” Ophelia asked.
“Three dark travelers were found buried in the sands along the shore,” Alex replied. “One of the Celus-5 resident species is Swei Swee.”
A hush fell over the crowd. Dark travelers and Swei Swee meant the dreaded Nua’ll once visited the planet.
“You’re here for a reason, Ser Racine,” Perrin announced firmly. “What are you offering us?”
“I’m willing to free everyone from this prison, but the problem is that the future, yours and mine, is unsettled. I can’t transport you to Haraken, and our people have yet to be invited to settle Celus-5, which is quite habitable for humans. It could be that you spend years aboard the Freedom before I find you a planet of your own.”
Alex stood quietly, waiting for the response.
The Méridien process of communicating via implant to reach a community vote could take place in a relatively brief space of time. Once it concluded, an individual called out, “Ser Racine, when do you give us the bad news?” The man’s question elicited applause and laughter.
Ophelia smiled at Alex. “Ser, I believe you know us well enough to know that consensus has been reached. Everyone on this forsaken rock is aching to leave with you, whenever you’re ready to depart and wherever you’re going.”
Ophelia watched Renée de Guirnon turn toward her partner and wink. It caused Ser Ra
cine to beam back at her. A private signal between lovers, she thought.
“What are your orders, Ser Racine?” Perrin asked.
“Two orders of business, Sers,” Alex announced. “First, let me introduce Mickey Brandon, my senior engineer, and Tatia Tachenko, my admiral. They need to go through this place with your senior people. Mickey.”
Mickey announced in a loud voice, “Admiral Tachenko and I need your help. We’re going to load aboard the Freedom, our city-ship above, any travelers, equipment, supplies, and raw materials that could be of value.”
“Your pardon, Sers,” a woman said, “but much of our equipment is more than twenty years old, and it was never the best that Méridien could produce.”
“You’d be surprised what we’re looking for, Sers,” Tatia replied. “Much of it can be repurposed.”
“Please, senior engineers and department heads over here,” Mickey called out, and Tatia and he headed for a corner of the bay. Mickey was thinking that it was a good thing he swapped one of the Rêveur’s passenger travelers for a transport model with its rear-loading ramp.
“Sers Keller and Sooth,” Alex said.
“Please, Ser Racine, we’re OP,” Ophelia said, pronouncing the two letters, each after the other. “Ophelia and Perrin,” she added pointing to each of them.
“Okay, OP,” Alex continued, “we’ll be landing three more travelers. Start organizing your people, I want a traveler to land and lift full of Independents in the amount of time it takes to board.”
“We have people who can assist with your reclamation efforts, Ser,” Perrin offered.
“I’m landing nearly a hundred and fifty SADEs with these three flights. They can do the jobs quicker and more efficiently. Most important, what they’ll be doing, ripping out equipment and cabling, might be dangerous, which the SADEs are more suitable to managing. Times a wasting, and we have 18,289 people to transport. However, one more note before you get started.”
Alex addressed the Independents, saying “You might be thinking these are liberated Confederation SADEs. In that you’d be wrong. These individuals are fellow expeditionary members, who report to the Freedom’s captain. They’re here to assist your evacuation from this dark pit and nothing more. Am I clear?”
The audience nodded their understanding, wondering why Ser Racine thought it important to clarify that.
Julien returned the vid. He stood up in the car, excited by the adoring crowd and waving enthusiastically. Suddenly, his eyes rolled wildly, as he lost his balance, and he pitched out of the car.
Alex laughed and slapped Julien on the shoulder.
“Okay, OP, get your people moving,” Alex said, and the co-Leaders issued orders, urging the crowd into an orderly exit through the bay’s airlock. Bay operations overrode the safety protocols and opened both interior hatches to enable everyone to clear the bay quickly, as they had done to allow the people to assemble to hear Alex speak.
On Cordelia’s orders, the SADEs clambered aboard the three remaining travelers, packing themselves in, and the pilots launched for the moon base.
-3-
Evacuation
The travelers bearing the Confederation SADEs descended on the moon base, and they exited their ships with determination. These SADEs, who’d occupied Haraken’s minimalist compound of Sadesville, had participated in the Freedom’s refit and joined the expedition with this sort of opportunity in mind — worlds changed wherever Alex Racine went. They’d decided that if they were to be part of the future, not shunted aside by humankind, then the best way to achieve that was to stay close to Ser.
For much the same reasons, the Independents were thinking that thought too. The Confederation had deemed them unfit to remain in its society for their aberrant lifestyle choices. In contrast, there was one human, Alex Racine, who appreciated their independent style.
Mickey and Tatia separated, striding through every level of the moon base in the company of senior personnel and engineers. They visually identified every item to extract, loading the images and locations into the Freedom’s databases. Then they stood back and let the SADEs go to work.
Miriam, a SADE who developed engineering programs, became the process lead. She coordinated with Ophelia and Perrin, identifying to the SADEs which areas were cleared of Independents and could be reclaimed. For their part, OP ordered the evacuation schedule to accommodate Miriam’s request to clear the lowest levels first. This allowed the SADEs to work from the bottom of the moon base toward the upper levels and not to disturb the residents, who were busy packing their personnel items and rushing back to the landing bay. As the levels were evacuated, the SADEs began ripping out communications, lighting, and power systems.
The SADEs stripped out kilometers of power and control cabling, conduit, power crystals, generators, systems control devices, tools, and anything and everything that Mickey and Tatia had identified. Then they added a few items of their own to the admiral and engineer’s list. Most of it was raw materials that was thought too difficult to recover. However, when no humans, who could be harmed by their actions, were present, the SADEs ripped metal-alloy sheeting and attachments out of the moon’s bedrock and carried them to a central transfer location.
When working on the more arduous tasks, the SADEs were required to work secretly, as Alex and Julien cautioned them. They were told not to display their avatars’ full power when humans were in sight of their activities. To accommodate Alex and Julien’s request, they carried extremely heavy loads of materials up to the level just below where humans were present. Then they deposited their loads on grav pallets and delivered them to the humans above, who maneuvered them to the waiting transports, where other SADEs stood by to load the transport shuttle.
When the traveler pilot sealed the hatch with the first passengers aboard, the crew exiting the bay for safety’s sake, and the transport’s ramp closed on the first equipment load, Mickey smiled to himself. He’d never enjoyed himself so much as when he worked closely with Alex. The man required him to apply his entire engineering acuity to anticipating and solving problems. Long life, Alex, Mickey thought, I need you to keep my world challenging.
Knowing SADEs would be required to be aboard the Freedom, to unload the heavy materials carried by the transport shuttle, a bunch of them climbed aboard, lying on top of the fully packed ship. The Independents, who observed them from the control room, were a little surprised by their cavalier a
ction, but the SADEs couldn’t have been happier. They were busy postulating new futures based on the actions taking place at Daelon.
The 18,289 Independents were transported primarily to the Freedom aboard the Haraken’s three passenger travelers and the orbital platform’s two travelers. Renée directed OP to send the families with children under five to the Rêveur. The city-ship was still under refit conditions and would operate as a manufacturing site until the operations could be shifted elsewhere, and Renée was concerned for the young ones’ safety.
Captain Lumley and the small crew were delighted to have the company, especially that of the children. Eventually, the young ones would adopt the captain as a second father, spending hours in his company on the bridge each day, while he taught them a wide range of subjects, including navigating starships, caring for the liner, histories of Sol, Haraken, and New Terra, freeing the SADEs, and, of course, stories of Alex Racine, which the children loved.
Alex was tickled when Tatia contacted him after the first day’s efforts on Daelon, sending,
* * *
Cordelia calculated that the passenger travelers could transport the Independents to the ships above in about ten days. That was until she received the images of the baggage the people hauled to the bay. Some of the large items required they be added to the transport’s load.
Fourteen days after the first passenger traveler lifted, the last load of Independents left Daelon’s bay for the Freedom.
Mickey dearly wanted to strip the control room and bay of its equipment, cabling, and power crystals. It was the moon’s premier site of advanced technological equipment, but it would require working in vacuum with the bay doors open. For that, Mickey needed specially trained personnel. He sent a query to Cordelia.