The Imperative Chronicles, Books One and Two: The Mars Imperative & The Tesserene Imperative

by Mark Terence Chapman

  It was the first evening out and we were gathered in the Commons—a combination mess hall and wardroom. We sat on swivel chairs around the rectangular table in the center of the room, with Sparks and Guido on the port side, Tom and me to starboard, and Cap at the head of the table. We wore our “stand down” ship’s gear of navy-blue light cotton jumpsuit and faux-calfskin moccasins. That was our mode of dress when we weren’t wearing EVA suits.

  Following tradition, Sparks and I, as the senior crewmen, sat nearest the captain. We tended to sit in the same places, both out of habit and to avoid unnecessary jostling at mealtimes. Sparks was closing in on nine years, half as long as Cap had been in command of Shamu and seven months longer than I’d been serving. The others had been members of the crew for at least six years.

  We’d just finished a meal of boeuf bourguignon, baby potatoes, and asparagus in a hollandaise sauce, followed by strawberry cheesecake.

  “I’ll say one thing for the Company,” I responded. “They do know how to treat their employees right.” The only thing missing was a good wine. Alas, liquor was forbidden on a working ship.

  “To SI,” Guido called out as he raised his glass. The rest of us followed suit.

  Knowing that crews spend long stretches of time away from home, Saleya Intergalactic made sure to stock the larders with plenty of our favorite foods, from Tom’s paella and Guido’s veal scaloppini to Cap’s steak and kidney pie, Sparks’ venison and baked potatoes, and my own personal favorite, baby back ribs and coleslaw.

  That was one of the perks of working in space and part of the reason there was a long waiting list for job openings. We labored for long hours in cramped conditions for months on end, far from home, and at the mercy of the god of space—Murphy himself—but we ate well. Better, in fact, than 99% of the human race.

  I wasn’t the only spacer for whom this was a source of guilt, what with the food rationing back home. There were just too many people on too small a planet. With overcrowding came food shortages, and thus strict rationing.

  One thing we’d learned from the food riots of three decades earlier was that the governments of the world had to provide enough food to feed the poor. Everyone got enough to survive on, but little more—except those, like us, in critical industries.

  “Who wants to join me in the gym?” Sparks inquired. “I think I need to burn off a few—thousand—calories after this feast.”

  The gym was where we went to unwind. After sitting much of the day at our duty stations, we really needed an opportunity to keep our muscles limber, as well as a physical release from the tensions of the day.

  “I’ll join you,” Guido replied.

  “Thanks,” said Tom, “but I’m going to watch the message from Peg.”

  “I think I’ll head back to my cabin to rest up for the big game,” Cap said. “I need all the acumen I can muster against you young sharks.”

  “‘Acumen?’ Ooh, good word.” Sparks teased. “Cap’s been studying his thesaurus again, guys.” He ducked as Cap tossed a wadded-up napkin at him.

  “Do you want to borrow the throw Serafina gave me so you don’t get cold?” Guido offered. He had a mischievous sparkle in his eye. “It has pretty flowers on it.”

  “Ha, bloody ha,” Cap retorted. The idea of needing a crocheted throw, flowered or not, aboard a climate-controlled ship was a bit absurd.

  Not one to leave well enough alone, I entered the fray. “Hey, give grandpa a break, guys. He needs his afternoon nap.”

  “Smart-arses. I’m surrounded by smart-arses!” Cap shook his head in mock resignation as he left the Commons, pursued by peals of laughter.

  I chatted with the others for a while before heading to the crew’s quarters to read. We shared one compartment with four bunks: an upper and a lower on both the port and starboard bulkheads with barely enough room to walk between them. Four under-bunk lockers in which to stow our gear completed the furnishings.

  Sure, our quarters were cramped, but with overlapping shifts and such a small crew, it was rare that more than two of us were in our bunks at once. Likewise, most of the other compartments aboard Shamu tended to be small to leave the greatest possible cargo space. That’s where we made our money.

  * * * *

  And then there was poker. The journeys to and from our target stars always took days. As nothing can hurt us in interspace—matter can’t come into contact with other matter, after all—once we had everything shipshape we still had a lot of time on our hands. One of the highlights of every mission was the marathon poker competition. This is what Cap meant when he referred to “the big game.” The contests were always friendly, but often intense.

  “All right, gentlemen, ante up. The game is five-card stud, nothing wild.” It was Tom’s turn to deal. He was our geologist and a brilliant analyst. If there was valuable ore out there somewhere, Tom would sniff it out of the sensor readings that Sparks supplied him. He used the same analytical reasoning to sniff out winning hands.

  We were in the Commons, of course, sitting in our usual places. As one of the main focal points of the ship, the Commons was situated off the main passageway, directly adjacent the galley. We ate in the Commons, watched holos there, strategized there, and pretty much did anything there that required the presence of more than three people at a time. It was the only compartment on the ship roomy enough to comfortably accommodate the five of us. Sure, the cargo holds were plenty big enough, but they weren’t really designed for crew.

  At some point in Shamu’s history, the original brown table had been replaced with a mauve one that clashed horribly with the institutional green of the walls. But this was a working ship, so aesthetics didn’t rate high on the list of things to fix. We were used to it by then, and rarely noticed. And the table was ideal for playing cards. The same molecular diamond finish that rendered it impervious to previous crews’ attempts to carve their initials—and other less savory things—into the tabletop also provided the ideal surface for dealing cards: just smooth enough for the cards to slide easily, but not so slick that they’d go sailing off onto the deck.

  Tomás García, or Tom, as we called him, dealt the first hole card to me, then in turn to Cap, Sparks, Guido, and himself. I peeked at my card: a four of hearts—not exactly an inspiring beginning.

  “Your bet, Swede.” Tom called out.

  “I’ll bet…one dessert,” I declared, tossing in a chit. The LED on the chit turned red to indicate that it registered my bet. It was a small, conservative beginning. These poker games were meant to be fun, so, to keep from getting too serious, instead of money we bet snacks, chores, and shift time.

  Cap flipped a chit of his own onto the pile. “I’ll call,” he said softly.

  “Same here.” Sparks was the dangerous one, always quiet and composed. His ice-blue eyes took in everything, yet revealed nothing. In contrast to his smart-aleck attitude much of the time, he was deadly serious when it came to poker. He always held his hole cards against his stomach, cupped in his hands, as if he were afraid someone would pick up a reflection from the matte finish of the tabletop.

  “Me, too,” agreed Guido. If anyone were going to give something away, it would probably be the volatile Italian.

  Tom went along with the crowd. Either no one had much to begin with, or they were keeping a low profile this early in the game. “Far be it for me to break ranks,” he said, completing the circle. “I’ll call.”

  He dealt out the first cards. “Cap’s high. What’s your bet?” He popped a pretzel in his mouth and crunched it.

  Following the primeval ritual of poker games, I made sure to liberally provision us with snacks and soft drinks—no beer, sadly. Tom belched, a long drawn out affair. That was one of the nice things about an all-male crew. There was no one to scold us for being crude.

  A hint of a smile played briefly on Cap’s lips. “An hour of piloting.”

  Sparks was next. “Old friend, and I stress the word ‘old’….” Cap shot him a look that should hav
e set his hair on fire. “I’ll call, and raise an hour of cleaning the heads.”

  Uh-oh. Did that indicate a pair, or was he bluffing? With Sparks, either possibility was equally likely.

  Guido called again—nothing happening there. His unfashionably long black hair drooped in front of his eyes, and he absently brushed it back. Unlike the rest of us, he refused to cut his hair short. He said Serafina liked it that way, and that was all there was to it.

  Tom responded with, “I’ll call your head-cleaning and raise you two chocolate bars.” Yuck. Toilets and chocolate—what a combination. The hand was getting interesting, though. Sparks had a possible pair of sevens and Tom was hinting at a pair of nines. I had nothing yet, so I merely called.

  The betting continued in like fashion, and Guido eventually won the hand.

  “So what are you guys going to do with all your money if we strike it rich?” Guido pulled the pile of chits toward him as I shuffled the cards for the next hand.

  “Are you going to ask us that on every mission?” Sparks wasn’t interested in chatter when he was playing. “I thought we were here to play cards.”

  “No, not every mission, only until we hit the mother lode.” Guido smirked.

  “I hear there are still some unspoiled islands in Micronesia. That might be nice,” Cap offered, responding to the original question as I dealt the cards. “Nothing but sun and sea and a warm tropical breeze.”

  Tom said, “A summer villa in the Swiss Alps might be nice.”

  “I’d like to start a restaurant.” Guido was always going on about his restaurant-to-be. “A nice family affair overlooking the Mediterranean.”

  Cap checked to Sparks, who opened the betting. Sparks began drumming his fingers on the table as he studied his cards.

  Tom stared at Sparks’ fingers, growing redder in the face by the minute. By the time the bet got to Tom, he exploded. “Must you do that? I’ve told you time and again how annoying it is!”

  Sparks’ fingers froze. He looked up at Tom. “Oh. Sorry. Bad habit. I’ll try to be more careful in the future.” Something in his eyes told me he knew exactly what he was doing and the effect it would have on Tom.

  “Speaking of the Mediterranean, how about a yacht?” I was hoping to change the subject and head off the usual argument. My hand didn’t look promising anyway. “With at least three gorgeous ladies waiting on us hand and foot.” That suggestion was worth a round of hoots.

  Two cards later the pile of chits had grown considerably. “I bet an hour of cleaning the hydro filters.” Guido Verducci, our ESO, or environmental systems officer, and the youngest of the crew at thirty-two, was in charge of keeping us alive and well via the life support equipment that purified and recirculated the air and water. He also tended a small hydroponics garden. Believe me, a fresh salad is extremely welcome after weeks in space eating mainly prepackaged stuff. Cleaning the filters went with the territory.

  “¡Huy! I mean ‘ouch,’” was Tom’s reaction to the bet, as he was next up. His deep-set black eyes went wide in surprise at the bet. Tom spoke Universal as well as the rest of us; yet sometimes, when excited or distracted, he reverted to his native Spanish.

  We all took turns doing the onerous chores, but no one looked forward to extra rations of cleaning toilets or gunky filters. Those sorts of chores were generally reserved for big bets. Tom ran a hand through his prematurely graying red hair. He only did that when he was worried or uncertain about something. As usual, the fiery thatch, so incongruous atop his swarthy Hispanic face, was sticking out in every direction. If I hadn’t known him as well as I did, I might have thought he did that to his hair on purpose just for effect.

  “Call,” he responded.

  I had a possible inside straight, so I called as well.

  Cap blew air through his bushy mustache, a habit that, combined with his dark skin and deeply lined features, always made him resemble a white-haired walrus—not that anyone would dare say that to his face. We all loved the old coot—not that we would ever say that to his face, either. Then the bet was to Sparks, who also called.

  CLANG-A-LANG-A-LANG-A-LANG.

  “What the hell?” Sparks yelled over the din.

  “Containment alarm!” I shouted back. The others’ eyes went wide. If the starflight containment field collapsed, we were all dead.

  I dropped my cards and took off at a dead run for Engineering. The others followed close on my heels. I ducked through the hatch, taking care not to brain myself yet again. Sometimes my height was a disadvantage. I rushed to my work console and called up the status readings for the containment field. They were low and falling fast.

  “Can you fix it?” Cap asked from the doorway, frowning.

  He did the smart thing and kept everyone else outside. The last thing I needed was four Nervous Nellies in these close quarters breathing down my neck while I worked.

  “Hell, Cap, I don’t even know what the problem is yet.”

  I ran diagnostics on the affected subsystem, hoping the problem was something I could fix in time. The starflight drive itself was ultra-reliable. We made sure to keep it in tiptop shape, sticking religiously to the recommended maintenance schedule—if a drive died in the middle of nowhere, typically so did the crew. But the associated subsystems were something else entirely. With a ship like Shamu—one in service for more than eighty years—something was always breaking down. Most of the time it was something minor, but it only took one major failure to make up for all the minor ones.

  I held my breath and waited, as the readings continued to deteriorate. Another few minutes and we’d all be dead. Come on, baby. Be something minor.

  “Well?” Cap demanded.

  “Keep your pants on! I’ll let you know as soon as I know something.”

  I glanced at the console reading again. The containment field was approaching unstable levels. I swallowed hard. This was it. Minor or major—live or die.

  The diagnostic routine finished. After a quick prayer I looked at the results.

  I closed my eyes and slowly let out my breath. Then I shook my head and smiled in relief.

  “There’s nothing wrong with the containment field, Cap. It’s just a faulty sensor. False alarm.”

  “Hallelujah, brother!” Cap shouted. “How long will it take to replace the sensor?”

  “Not long, maybe five minutes. Most of that’ll be to get the replacement out of stores.”

  “Great. As for the rest of us, we’ll just pull our hearts down out of our throats and wait for you back in the Commons.”

  “Okay, Cap.”

  As predicted, I finished quickly and returned to the poker game. After all, it was only a false alarm. Sure, it shook us up, but when you’ve been in space for as long as we all had, you learn to take such things in stride.

  After twenty minutes of nervous jokes and chitchat, while we let our adrenaline levels return to normal, we were ready to resume playing.

  I dealt Cap’s fourth card, which didn’t seem to help him. Sparks got the seven of hearts, which gave him a pair showing. His only reaction was a brief glint in his eyes. I dealt the next card to Guido and then to Tom. Judging by their reactions, the cards didn’t help them.

  Tom took a long drink and again burped—this time from both ends. “Ahhh….” he said with a contented grin.

  “Must you?” Cap chided, more from frustration with his cards. He shook his head in disgust.

  What was it I said about no one to scold us?

  I dealt myself the seven of diamonds. “Dealer has a possible straight.” All I needed was a five. “It looks like you’re high, Sparks.”

  “I could have told you that!” Guido quipped.

  It wasn’t original, but we all chuckled anyway. This was the fun part of the mission and we were all in good spirits. We were relaxed from shore leave, and the hard work hadn’t begun yet. The only thing better than the camaraderie of sitting around playing poker on the way out was celebrating a successful mission on the way bac
k.

  “Well, gentlemen,” Sparks began, “it’s time to separate the wheat from the chaff, the men from the boys, the stallions from the mares, the—”

  “Get on with it already!” Cap barked. He was losing, and not happy about it. “We don’t have all day. Well, maybe we do, but I don’t want to waste it listening to you jawing! Let’s play cards.”

  “Fine,” Sparks said. “If you want to get serious….”

  I had the sneaking suspicion that his prior nonsense was done with the express purpose of trying to rattle the rest of us. In Cap’s case, at least, it appeared he was successful.

  Sparks continued. “I bet two hours of sensor analysis, two desserts and two chocolate bars.” His eyes gleamed wickedly, but his face showed nothing.

  “Whew!” Tom declared. “I think he’s trying to buy the pot.”

  “The bet’s to Guido,” I said.

  “This is too rich for my blood,” the Italian declared and folded.

  “Tom?”

  “Oh, I think I’ll hang around for the last card,” he said with a small smile. He tossed in his chits. Either he had a pair of jacks, or he wanted Sparks to think he did.

  The six-seven-eight I had showing looked threatening, if nothing else. My four in the hole was useless without a five. “Same here. I call. Cap’s got a possible pair of kings, possible pair of ladies. What’s it gonna be?”

  “I probably ought to stick around and hope for another king or queen, but I think I’ll fold and live to fight another day.” He scooped up his cards and flipped them on the table face down.

  “All right, gentlemen, that just leaves three of us,” I announced, and then dealt the last of the cards, the first one to Sparks.

  “Bugger!” Cap lamented as he saw the card he would have gotten had he stayed in. His grimace accentuated his crow’s feet. “I knew it.” He shook his head in disappointment.

  “Sparks still has a pair of sevens showing.” I dealt the next card to Tom, the nine of clubs. “Tom has a pair of nines.”