Of a Note in a Cosmic Song; Part One

by Nōnen Títi

  The next day Benjamar was just about to leave the hospital when he ran into Sofi.

  “How is she?” she asked.

  “Doing better. I’m taking her home on Freeday if that’s okay with you?”

  Sofi dropped her shoulders, sat down on the nearest bench and started to cry. “You must think I’m a horrible mother.”

  Benjamar looked around, not sure whether to just leave or wait with her. “Why do you say that?” he asked.

  “Because I should be taking care of her and I’m not even here often and I want so much to help, but it’s all so hopeless and—”

  “I like having her with me,” Benjamar interrupted. “I just want you to think about later, Sofi. I have only five more stations left.”

  Her eyes spilled more water. That wasn’t going to do any good.

  “Look, Sofi, I need you to help me. I want to go on that journey to Kun DJar and I will do anything I can to take Jitsi with me. I know the odds are against me, but it’s what I want and she wants it too. I need you to think about that. Would you let her go that way? If she lives long enough to see the start of the journey? I need you to tell me. Not now; later.”

  Sofi stopped crying and looked up, no less stunned than Tjarkag had been.

  “Talk to her, Sofi. Talk to her like a grown-up. You’ll be amazed what goes on in that little head.” With that he excused himself and went into the noise of the city streets.

  The electrovan bells ringing at every corner were meant to prevent them from hitting those who didn’t pay enough attention to where they were walking. The whole idea of silent transport had been lost with those warning bells. All around him, bodies moved without being aware of their own existence, each in conversation with a far-away person by visual or audio handheld spinner. Benjamar dodged them on his way to the government building.

  Now he had everyone prepared, it was time to shake some people up. “No” he had already but “yes” could be acquired. He took his time climbing the stairs, knocked on the only door and walked in before giving anybody a chance to answer.

  The room, superior to all others, took up the entire third floor. Its status was emphasized by blackwood wall panels which cast the room in the gloomy dark of serious debate over issues which never really found the light. The space was dominated by a rectangular table surrounded by twelve seats with plush cushions and sturdy backs, some of which were occupied. At the very back the other people were standing around a smaller table, which held the bottles and glasses filled with the various liquids needed to overcome dull meetings.

  “Well, Benjamar, how good to see you.”

  “How was Freberer?”

  “I take it you’re enjoying your well-deserved time off.”

  He knew every one them; knew them well. Most had sat in these meetings for many years, eight of them elected by the population out of a number of local representatives, two here because of their distinction as masters, as he had been. Depending on the subject being discussed they were joined by either the leaders of the dependent continents or, in this case, the selected leaders for the Kun DJar mission. The only thing this government would want was to get this journey on its way so it could get back to daily business.

  Benjamar returned the greetings, nodded briefly at Kalgar and Frantag, and came straight to the point. “Not so long ago I sat here with all of you. I had your respect and your listening ears. I am asking you to listen to me once more.”

  One or two of those standing moved to their seats as he went on to ask his favour. Their responses were what he’d expected. “It’s not the done thing, Ben. The rules are the rules, even for you,” Markag said.

  Markag was president and Master-Maker. Benjamar had known him for a long time. A good man, respected by all, with whom Benjamar knew he could reason. If anything was to come out of this, it would come from Markag.

  “We are required to make our numbers out of the adult population. We can’t waste space on the kabin,” Jorg said, tactful as always.

  “We cannot appear to be giving charities,” the new Master-Creator added.

  Benjamar pulled his shoulders a bit straighter and waited it out. Then he explained that a colony would never be established without children. They wouldn’t get enough volunteers, for one thing.

  Kalgar did his part by stating that someone with Benjamar’s experience was vital for the survival of the colony, even if that was strongly exaggerated. Markag immediately worked out that they were in this together.

  “We all have to give for the better of DJar, Ben. You have always supported that. Now you’re at the end you’re getting scared. That’s natural, but it doesn’t mean we can go granting favours.”

  Benjamar had expected that. He hated begging. He pushed the discussion in the direction of the two jobs he had worked all those years; all the elected members had made politics their sole occupation.

  “It’s an important and time-consuming position,” Jorg replied.

  “It would be if issues were actually resolved from time to time, but all you’ve done over the last stations is take the matter of children on the kabin under consideration. If your job is so important then make a decision.” He turned to Markag. “Can’t you allow a couple of children to travel with their parents and still send away enough workers and users to help DJar?”

  The reactions were immediate:

  “We’re only thinking about the safety of those children.”

  “It’s not the numbers, it’s the principle.”

  “We’re by no means looking to send only workers. We have volunteers from all professions.”

  Benjamar nodded without arguing. He’d made his point. Another twelve minutes later he’d heard enough. They promised to consider his thoughts.

  “That is fine. Then I’ll be back next moon and the one after and the next.”

  Kalgar could pick up from here. No doubt he would eventually win, but it wouldn’t hurt to put the pressure on a bit.

  Benjamar had another way of doing that. He called on Wolt at the broadcast company. He had known the young man since Wolt was a toddler, the same age as Skawag. They had lived next door. Now he was taller than Benjamar and had to keep his knees on either side of the low cafeteria table. Bony, with thin hair that was almost white and gave away his Veleder ancestry, Wolt carried an eternal smile around his eyes.

  Benjamar explained why he had come. He needed Wolt to organize a public interview focusing on the age restrictions and the basic rights of parents and children.

  “And get myself fired?”

  “Not if you choose your words right. You always complain that you’re a puppet, forced to emphasize the popular opinion. So loosen the strings a little, but there’s no need to cut them yet. Just make sure there’s no doubt left in the audience that the subject of taking children is in the hands of central government. The people will work out why that is.”

  Wolt said that he would make the message loud and clear. He’d volunteered for the journey, so if they fired him it was no big deal.

  “I see. You convinced Frantag of the usefulness of a journalist on the kabin. That would give you about six kor in years to get your story right before having to send it?”

  Wolt laughed and said that a mas of people would need a way to make announcements. “I think Frantag is having enough trouble making his numbers already,” he said.

  Wolt might be right. Frantag was doing his recruiting among the makers, the people least likely to want to leave DJar.

  “Well, I hope to be able to join you,” Benjamar said and left Wolt to prepare an interview. He had done all he could. If nothing came of it he’d have enjoyed the effort. For now he would take Jitsi home. For her, he would push it to the limit.

  Menever

  2/5/2/6184

  To be tall must be an asset in demanding respect, because Aryan had never had it. Nor did he have the command of the spoken word that might have helped him make an impression on the farmers during the last days of Station Two.

/>   Still, on Veleder it would have made little difference. Aryan found it hard to understand them even when they tried to speak Geveler, which most of them bluntly refused. Veleders were cattle farmers and fishermen, officially ruled by Geveler for close to six sets of years now, but they still considered themselves independent. What Aryan had understood was that he’d been politely told to get lost.

  On the birdwing from Veleder to Menever he prepared a speech to get these people excited about the new life they were being offered. A local councilman accompanied him from the wingport to the meeting. The hall of the civic building was packed. At first they all looked the same, these northern people. All muscular, all dressed in work wear, all brown-skinned and blond — all crop farmers.

  Aryan made his speech; made it brief. He painted the challenge of a whole new planet with plenty of land for everyone, food directly from the soil, freedom from the rules and the best kabin ever built to get them there. He stressed its luxuries. This was the chance for a better life, a longer life. He didn’t expect cheers, but when it was time for questions he started to see how angry his audience really was.

  “What kind of a man are you? This is all a lie to get rid of the farmers. We’re not users; you can’t send us to the Land Beyond like this.”

  “We were told this was a voluntary mission, so why are we being threatened?”

  “Why punish the best growers?”

  Aryan didn't think he’d made threats and looked at the local leader next to him.

  “We’ll never get enough people from just volunteers,” the man whispered.

  So much for getting these people excited. Irritated by the betrayal, Aryan explained that they needed the best because they had to start all over. Here it was easy — the land was fertile — but on Kun DJar farming might be their only means of survival. It would make them the most important people for the colony.

  They didn’t buy it. “We provide the produce for the mealmax factories that supply every continent on this planet,” one man said. “If we don’t work, nobody eats, which would make us the most important people on DJar, but all we get is one lousy vote once a kor after which the elected leader turns his back on us.”

  Aryan didn’t have the words to convince them that it would be different on the colony. The adventure didn’t spark interest in the Menever farmers any more than it had the Veleder people. “The order for the recruitment of farmers came from central government, but the decision of who will go is made by your local leaders. You’ll have to take it up with them,” he said and stepped down to leave the hall.

  After about half an hour the farmers came spilling out. Here and there an angry voice was raised at Aryan, which he ignored. The young councilman stood out in his suit among these people in workwear. Nervous like a mouse in field full of batis, afraid to get stepped on, he stopped beside Aryan. “That was a lousy trick, leaving me in there alone,” he said.

  “I wasn’t the one who lied to these people,” Aryan replied and turned away to find himself facing a young farmer, a head taller than he was, who started talking the moment their eyes met.

  “Isn’t it a big risk introducing DJar crops into this new environment? I mean, I know nothing about space, but I know about growing things. If you bring berries into an existing ecology, the berries take over and destroy everything else. It could be the same with bringing our crops to that planet.”

  The young man was red-faced; shy, not angry. And the only positive voice so far.

  “Sorry, I didn’t get your name,” Aryan told him.

  “Wilam.”

  “Well Wilam, you may be right. I’ll mention it when I get back. If that’s the case you may have to leave your crops behind.”

  “In which case you may as well send the few volunteers and let them teach the users you’re taking,” Wilam’s companion said. “I’ll volunteer as a teacher. I’ve lived in a farming community my whole life.”

  It was clear why she said that. She had all the physical signs of being close to Life.

  “Maybe that woman was right,” Aryan suggested when he reported back to the journey leaders. “Maybe we should take a few farmers to do the teaching and let the users make something of themselves over there.”

  “We can’t do that. There are too many farmers on DJar.” Kalgar answered, which was what Aryan had expected.

  “So this journey is turning into another disposal mission. You’re looking for a name, right? How about Binur Two?” he asked, referring to the spacekabin, packed full of users, that had been launched into the direction of the planet Binur (which was not even habitable) by one of the previous presidents in an effort to make a name for himself.

  “Everybody has to give for the good of DJar, the farmers as much as all others,” Frantag said.

  Aryan was sick of hearing those words. Everything was ‘for the good of all’. If a problem came up those words were thrown in to somehow solve it. But they were only words and Frantag had easy talking in his nice suit and far-away office. He was a born maker; he even looked like one with his sallow complexion and pointy nose, his grey hair combed sideways to make it look thicker, even his tight lips. He’d probably never met a farmer.

  A sudden burst of anger made Aryan get up and leave the room. Let them sort out this mess. It was their job. He slammed the door — if nothing else it made him feel better — and left to return to the base.

  On arrival he found the chief engineer in a foul mood. “What good is it to have an engineer when all they want is a magician?”

  “What happened now?” Aryan asked sitting down on the desk in the design office. Between the plans and plastic models sat the flask in which Krakat kept his liquor.

  “We’re not going to make it in time, that’s what.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  Krakat went into a tirade about the amount of changes that were thrown at him from every direction while the engines were virtually ready on Agjar and he couldn’t start all over. At this rate they’d miss their launch window.

  Aryan was used to Krakat’s habit of complaining out loud, to himself if necessary, when things weren’t going as planned. “Don’t worry about us missing Kun DJar. It won’t be too bad travelling the stars in this beauty forever and I’ll get to decide where we go next.”

  “You’re not funny,” Krakat answered.

  “So what’s wrong with the engines?”

  Krakat explained it wasn’t the engines, but the engine space. Somebody had designed a device that would allow two-way communication even outside of the heliopause of Bijar. They wanted it installed. Feedback would help DJar make a decision on preparing a fleet of spacekabins, since the objective was to reduce the population once and for all. “But to install it means reworking the engine space since the emissions can’t interfere,” Krakat said.

  “I don’t understand. What does the engine space have to do with a communications device?”

  “Because of the wave pattern the damn thing uses. Never mind, I have no time to explain. I have no time for anything! This is turning into another Binur.”

  Krakat was right. Everything was being left to the last minute. Communication was good, but it wouldn’t do the travellers any good if it meant they’d never reach their destination.

  “Look, those government people have no idea what they’re talking about. All they want is their name remembered in history. Just tell them you installed the device and later, once we’re gone, you tell them it must have malfunctioned,” Aryan told his companion.

  Krakat took a long gulp from his flask and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. He didn’t argue long but the whole thing left Aryan uneasy. All the government worried about was the satisfaction of the people staying behind. They couldn’t care less about those leaving.

  “Is there a way we can boost our speed by using photon impulses at regular intervals?” he asked Krakat.

  “Why would you want to do that? I told you already not to go messing with two different systems.”

&n
bsp; “I know what you told me, but I’m not comfortable with the idea of one delay and seeing Kun DJar disappear around the corner, so to speak. I was just wondering, if we’re working with photon beams anyway.”

  “That’s totally different. Those work inside the kabin. At any rate, an impulse one way would require an equivalent slow down later. Do me a favour and don’t you come up with more impossible ideas. I’m beginning to wonder why anybody even wants to go on this thing.”

  Aryan gave up. Over this last year it had turned out that his decisions hadn’t been as final as Krakat had made him believe at first. The main engineer had been agreeable about some minor changes but there had been no convincing him on certain issues.

  The design of the kabin had no windows. Aryan would pilot it using a piko-processor and rely on cameras. Aryan had insisted he wanted a window in the pilot bay at least. “If a space rock is about to send me to the Land Beyond I want to see it coming.”

  “A space rock isn’t your problem. At that speed even the tiniest pebble will mean goodbye. It’s the radiation you need to worry about. Radiation can never penetrate the kabin walls, but no matter how well-designed it can leak through a window,” Krakat had replied.

  Aryan had put up a great deal of argument. “I always get what I want.”

  “Well you’re not getting a window.” And that was that.

  Aryan had tried a few more such arguments: Why have a two-way emissions shaft? Why go through the trouble of having the option of directing the photon beam outward? It wasn’t like they’d be meeting other traffic. And why not use helio-panels to provide their energy like in all previous kabins?

  “And which star would you use for that energy? Bue, which you’ll be heading away from? Bijar, too small to reach beyond her own system, or Kun, still way out there? No. You use what you have all around you: cosmic radiation. Plenty of it within the confines of the astropause of Bue. I’m building this kabin to get you there all the way.”

  Aryan had let Krakat deal with the physics from then on and focused on the technical details. So now he left Krakat to his grumbling about the device. There was no use arguing.