“No, I haven’t.”
The doctor turned to the other girl. “And Kiama, have you seen anyone with skin the colour of ours?”
Kiama shook her head. “No, I thought you were sick when I first saw you. And then I saw there were others and I didn’t understand.”
“Well now you will,” McCall said. “Open the pod door.”
“Acknowledged,” the robot voice said and, with a hiss, the door they’d entered through opened onto darkness.
The doctor put her hand on Arla’s shoulder. “Careful now, go hand over hand.”
Arla floated inexpertly through the open portal and into another enclosed space, wider than the pod but still smaller than the room she’d been in. The chamber was only illuminated by the light from the pod so it faded into total darkness to the left and right. Arla grabbed the handrail on the wall opposite the door, coming to rest alongside Kiama.
“It will be dark for a moment when I close the pod door, do not be afraid,” McCall said from behind them. And yet, despite the warning, it was all Arla could do to stop herself from crying out as she heard the hiss and the chamber went black.
“Open observation hatch one 10%.”
“Acknowledged.”
A horizontal strip of light appeared at eye level and Arla could immediately see that the wall in front of them was covered in a shutter that was now opening from the centre. The brightness filled the chamber and Arla screwed her eyes up until, carefully, she opened them a crack and looked through the gap in the wall.
Her first impression was of green to left and right, blue above and below. It was all curved, as if she were looking down the inside of a huge tunnel. Immediately in front of her, dead centre of the tunnel, was a black circle surrounded by a bright white halo.
“What do you see?” McCall said. “Look at the green. Look closely.”
Arla focused her gaze on the green strip to her left. She could see that it wasn’t of one uniform colour - there were dark browns and greys running in a line up the middle of the strip and dotted here and there small patches of blue. Then she recognised it.
“It looks like the valley, but from impossibly high up. I’ve seen these colours from above, but never this distant.”
“Yes, that is exactly what you are seeing,” McCall said, obviously pleased. “To the left is the place you call the valley, Arla, and to the right is your valley, Kiama.”
Kiama, who’d remained completely still and silent as her eyes drank in the scene, shook her head. “How can this be? There is only one valley. It was created by the Goddess.”
“No, this is what you must understand. There are two - Arla’s we call the North Valley and yours is called the South. And they weren’t built by any Goddess. They were built by people, by your ancestors and mine, many hundreds of years ago. They built this world so that we could find another, one big enough to fill. No child quotas, no population control at all. Our mission is to build a new Earth,” McCall said, her words tumbling out, “but we cannot succeed. Others have got there before us.”
Arla turned away from the view to face McCall. “I don’t understand most of what you just said. What is this Earth? How can people build a world?”
“What? Oh, you’d be surprised at what people can achieve. For now, I ask you to believe me or, at least, be open-minded. You can see the two valleys and between them the seas. They are set within a tunnel carved out of the inside of a huge ball of rock.”
“But what stops all the people falling?” Kiama asked.
“The rock is spinning at just the right speed to keep them firmly on the ground without excessive weight. We are weightless because we are precisely at the axis of rotation. The black disk covers the end of a tube that runs the length of the tunnel - when you lived in the valleys, you called it the sun and the disc protects us from blindness and incineration as we stand here.”
“And Earth? What is that?” Arla said.
Doctor McCall smiled. “It is our home, where our ancestors came from. But it was dying and this little world is like a seed, flying across the universe to settle a new planet. Except, somehow, we find others here before us and they don’t seem friendly. The people of the valleys don’t know any of this, but soon their innocence will be broken, as yours has, and they may be asked to help us fight for our survival.”
EVA
OUTLINE: MISSION DAWN
OBJECTIVE: Preserve the species by seeding a new world on the nearest habitable planet in the absence of any breakthrough in faster-than-light travel.
METHOD: Carve out a habitation tunnel within a nickel-rich asteroid. Seal it and build a working eco-system to include approximately 2,000 human settlers plus 50 crew. Use ion drive to accelerate to 0.05 the speed of light.
MISSION LENGTH: Approximately 1450 years
DATE: First Contact
Arla gave the sensor array a final wipe and waved to those she knew to be watching through the newly cleaned camera lens. She now had a few moments to simply enjoy being where she was, just as when she’d laid on her back and looked at the sky all those years ago. She now knew, of course, that she really had seen people on the other side of the sky - they were the inhabitants of Valley South - though she’d only been able to do so because the lighting technology was showing signs of age. She also knew that she was on a rotating ball of rock heading towards the star that was supposed to be their home, but that now, it seemed, held danger. And she knew that suns are spheres not tubes. But knowing all this did nothing to still the sense of wrongness about it all.
She turned her back on the bunker, all dark pitted metal and transparent aluminium, and gazed upon the surface of the asteroid. The whole ship was officially called Dawn, but undertaking an EVA was going rockside and so here she was, rocking it.
The tiny sun of the system they were heading for leapt over the horizon and she staggered in the sudden light as her suit fans whined into action. She pulled down her visor and looked again as the star slowly arced its way from right to left, the whole landscape seeming to shift as pitch black shadows moved beneath pure white boulders.
Her earpiece buzzed into life. “Arla, the boss says it’s time to come in.”
“Ki, you’re breaking up,” Arla responded, theatrically thumping the side of her helmet.
She could hear giggling. “Careful, that helmet’s so old it might just crack. And anyway, I know what you’re up to and you’d better be quick. You’ll be on basic rations for a week as it is, so you might as well go for it.”
Arla waved and headed carefully for the railcar. Dawn’s spin was so fast and gravity so weak that it’d be all too easy to step down too hard and go careering off, with no hope of any help. So the surface had been fitted with steel rails and cars to travel them. Arla was tethered and she tiptoed carefully back towards the safety of the transport. She chuckled as she remembered her first EVA, over a year ago now, when she’d shot off the surface and had been brought back by her supervisor - he in the railcar and her bobbing along on her tether like a metallic balloon. She doubted she’d been the first to suffer this humiliation, but that didn’t stop the ribbing she got when she returned. She’d been “Floats” ever since.
She sat in the car and punched down on the simple matrix of buttons on its console. She wasn’t going back inside just yet, there was something she wanted to see. The car jerked into motion, taking her further from the safety of the dome. As it moved onto tracks that hadn’t been used in years, it began to vibrate. Adrenaline surged into Arla’s stomach and she almost leapt off but, once the button was pressed, the car would continue on its journey and she didn’t fancy being stranded out here and having to creep back. She’d also have to explain why the car had been left at the end of the track and how she planned to retrieve it. No, she was in enough trouble as it was, she would see it through.
It took a minute or so. A minute spent listening to her own breathing and the hum of the railcar transmitted through the suit. A brief moment, entirely alone, contemplating the universe
as she cast her eyes upwards into its stark blackness.
The end of the track was set in what looked like a refuse heap, presumably of some mining or construction operation. As soon as the car stopped, she climbed off, careful in her excitement and haste to step slowly, moving her feet in the odd sort of forward-only gait she’d been taught in training.
She’d been told it was over the little dust hill. She climbed, a little piece of her wondering whether this was nothing more than an elaborate joke dressed up as a myth. If so, the balloon humiliation would be nothing compared to the ribbing she’d get for falling for it.
She reached the top and scanned the foot of the heap, her heart pounding. It wasn’t there. Yes it was! The sun that by now was beginning its descent from noon glinted off something shiny and rectangular. She almost leapt for joy, and stopped herself just in time. This would make the perfect launching point if she never wanted to see her friends again. Instead, she scrambled carefully down the slope and, when she reached the bottom, knelt beside the object.
It was cuboid and stood slightly askew on spindly legs that were buried in the soil. On the top, a dish array pointed into the cosmos like an eye popping out between the solar panels that covered its body. She touched it with a gloved hand and found what she’d been looking for. On the front, barely readable in the reflected light of her suit, was the inscription: “CERES XV: SURVEY MISSION 2315”. This was a relic of the distant past, when her ancient ancestors had first been looking for a suitable vessel to house this splinter of humanity. It was the Ceres XV mission that had identified this as the place and it had been left undisturbed through the entire construction phase, even when all the terraformers with their massive machines had gone. It had been sitting there waiting for the boldest.
There was one more thing to do. Arla stood and examined the inside of the communications dish. There it was, the markings scratched into the metal by the first to rediscover it centuries ago. She read the characters twice and ran them over in her mind until she was sure she’d remember them. Then she scrambled carefully up the slope again before, with a quick look over her shoulder as she reached the top, she headed for the car.
“Engineer Grade 2 Arla Mirova, you are hereby found guilty of an unauthorised deviation from mission plan and are sentenced to minimum rations for seven days.”
Arla sighed. “Yes sir,” she said and got back into the car.
She sat with an equal mix of pride and anger as the car trundled its way back over the landscape of whites and blacks towards the bunker. She had achieved what few had dared to achieve, she’d read the words on the communications dish. And her reward (apart from the admiration of her peers) was a week eating biscuits and drinking water. But she had no regrets. As soon as she’d been told of the ancient probe and the secret writing it bore she resolved to find it and hang the consequences.
On the other hand, it seemed unfair that initiative and boldness were punished by the powers that be. But then what did she expect from officers who hid behind vid-links in their hermetically sealed quarters? The engineers were selected from the people of the valleys, but command positions were passed down from father to son, mother to daughter. A pathological fear of infection had also been bred into the officer class and so she’d never personally met any of them and neither had any of her crew-mates. Orders were passed electronically and supervised by senior NCO’s - like Kiama, who’d excelled at everything since she’d started training. Arla, on the other hand, had proven to be a competent engineer but, as she’d yet again demonstrated, also a loose canon.
The chief puzzle, for Arla and her fellow recruits, was how such a small cadre of officers retained any sort of genetic diversity. And they were diverse. The engineers were evenly split between the light brown skinned Valley Northers and the dark brown skinned Valley Southers, though, admittedly, with variations in skin tone. It was rare indeed for a Northerner to be mistaken for a Southerner and this had been explained by the nature of the initial populations of the valleys - one was derived from the northern hemisphere of Earth and the other from the southern. The officers, on the other hand, were startlingly diverse. Her current nemesis, Lieutenant Commander Patel, had a round face of a deep browny-yellow whereas Lieutenant Murphy’s skin seemed to contain no colour at all. Various theories had been floated, the most plausible of which was that they had some sort of egg or embryo store that they used to replace officers, but this would require the sort of precision timing of human fertility that was impossible to imagine. And she’d never seen a pregnant officer.
She cogitated on this as the car continued its slow journey back. And so it was that she didn’t notice the space ship coming silently in to land until she was overwhelmed by the dust-storm from its thrusters.
The Mock Emperess
Her Imperial Majesty, Victorea, Ruler of the Vanis Federation and Guardian of the Faith scowled as the tiresome man bobbed and sweated before her.
“Spit it out, Lavar!” she shrieked, her notoriously low patience threshold long ago exceeded. “Or shall I show mercy and spare you the effort, since I know what you’re going to say.”
The man fawned and his tonsured head sparkled in the light of the chandeliers as he bowed.
Victorea gave a grim smile. “No, I shan’t show mercy. Explain yourself.”
The supplicant froze and looked up like a bent old man with lumbago. His grey hair fell lank from his shoulders and gave him the look of a particularly moth-eaten monkey out of one of the vidi dramas her majesty enjoyed so much. Oh how she wished she was lounging in her private videma in front of some tale of ancient times, munching on something salty. Instead of which, she was having to tolerate this idiot whose incompetence was threatening to outweigh his undeniable loyalty.
“Your majesty,” he managed, “I have ill news to report.”
“I know,” the empress snapped.
More bowing, more fawning. “It is the AI, your majesty, it has been stolen. A most heinous crime that only the most cunning and determined traitor could possibly attempt. Certainly the work of the Eldebaran Collective...”
“A criminal mastermind? Really?” she said, winding herself up like a cobra preparing to strike, “So the AI wasn’t in your laboratory? It had been returned, as we agreed, to its securely guarded vault?”
That had hit the target. Good. She had been disobeyed and the most precious object in the Vanis Federation had been stolen. Precious, that is, if its secrets could ever have been unlocked.
“Most merciful majesty, I sought only to find a way to make the orb serve your magnificence. If, in my devotion to this cause I left it hooked up to my equipment while I took a brief moment to research elsewhere...”
“I knew it!” she cried triumphantly. “You really are the most odious little man I’ve ever met.”
He was practically on the floor now as he rocked from side to side in paroxysms of panic. “Your majesty, I sought only to serve!”
“I don’t know why I ever thought you had the wit to help me. How much progress had you made with the orb before it was stolen?”
“I was nearly at a breakthrough, merciful empress to the stars,” he sobbed. “A few more days and I’d have penetrated its final defences.”
Victorea stood over his prostrate body as he writhed on the floor. “Guards, detain him at my pleasure while I consider the most fitting death for this wretch.”
Lavar screamed as two guards, armed with side-guns, lifted him from the floor and dragged him away. Silence fell as the door slid shut.
The Empress Victorea, first of her line, sat back in the chair that served as a throne and sighed. “He really is the most appalling of incompetents. Vaping is too good for him.”
A shape emerged from the shadows and stood, head bowed, before her. He was a man of indeterminate middle years with a pleasant, trustable, face, pale skin and a short cut curly mop. “He has failed you, highness, but has proven faithful in the past. Perhaps mercy would ensure even greater loyalty from him in futur
e.”
“Seriously? You know your trouble, Lucius? You are too soft. But I have the power here and don’t you forget it.”
The man nodded solemnly. “I do not forget, your majesty. The decision is yours but, as your adviser, my role is to give my honest assessment. The man can be useful again, but only if he is alive. And all is not lost. My preparations have proven fruitful.”
“The Relentless?”
Again the man nodded. “Indeed, highness. Captain Indi reports that he is closing on the stolen vessel with its cargo. He tells me that there is no hope of escape for the thief. All possible trajectories have been plotted...”
“But can we be sure of that?” the Empress interrupted.
The man smiled. She was a sharp one indeed, an excellent choice as ruler of the Federation. “I took the liberty of equipping Relentless with an extra bank of navigational computers - much to Indi’s annoyance I might add - so that all possible paths could be calculated and double-checked. The captain reports that the pilot of the stolen ship is exhibiting exceptional skill, or equally exceptional luck, but that the distance between them is decreasing aided, no doubt, by the extra processing power at his disposal.”
“You know, Lucius,” Victorea said, “you purr like a cat that got the cream. Your plan is working perfectly so far, I only hope there is no slip between now and the capture of that traitor.”
“I also, your highness.”
Victorea’s face spread into a carnivorous smile. “And I don’t expect any opposition from you when it comes to my plans for the thief. They will be lengthy, painful and public.”
“As befits a state traitor,” Lucius responded, bobbing his head respectfully.
“Good. You may go now, I wish to be entertained.”
The councillor retreated, bowing, and Victorea was alone. She leaned back on her throne, enjoying the cold of the leather on her back. Entertainment, yes, that was what she needed. Being empress of what was, in truth, the fag-ash remains of a once sprawling imperial province was exhausting at times. There were all too many idiots like Lavar to be dealt with and too few like Lucius. In fact, she realised, there was no-one like Lucius. He was the one man she trusted completely. Which made him dangerous.
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