by Chad Spencer
And so they set to work. It was less than a day before they found another forest. Taking some of the vines and gravity mirrors, they all worked together to create a framework that connected the seven pods. The plan was to fill it in as they encountered more forests and were able to collect more vines.
A day after the rendezvous, they received a signal from a group of colonists whose fighter had gone down farther to the north.
“Their ship broke up like ours,” Sebastian informed them. “But all their pods landed on a continent.”
“We’ll head for their position,” Harriet directed. “They can add their pods to our group. And we may be able to get the supplies we need to stay alive for the long term.”
As it turned out, Kenji had experience with archery. “I was in the archery club in middle school,” he explained. With his help, the group was able to make bows and arrows. They were soon capable enough hunters that they could shoot birds and other animals from the forests they found. Most forests also had various types of edible plants growing in them.
As they moved northward, the climate got colder and life was clearly harsher. They ran across fewer inhabited islands. And those that they did encounter seemed to be poorer.
A week passed and they stopped at a large island that was more than fifteen miles long. The locals dressed in long coats made from thick animal fur.
By that time, the vine “ship” they were making was nearly finished. It had a woven floor that spanned the space between the pods, as well as a woven railing that was about three feet high around the edge. They had added some netting overhead so that they could eventually make a roof for it as well. Being the only two girls in the crew, Harriet and Ai had moved into the same pod together. Kenji bunked in with Sebastian.
When they docked their vessel at the large island, they made a deal to connect their pods into the town’s electrical grid. The locals generated electricity by using methane from their own wastes. But power was always in short supply. Harriet’s group had gathered plenty of water, so they used it as fuel for their pods’ fusion generators. By connecting electrical cables to the pods, Harriet and her crew were able to quickly make enough money to buy what they needed by selling power to the town. After a few days at the island, they were well supplied and ready to move on–much to the dismay of the locals.
As they wafted away from the island, Harriet and Sebastian stood at the railing watching the town recede into the distance.
Eyeing the city, Sebastian commented, “Everywhere we go we see people living all clustered together on these islands in the sky. You've got to wonder how they do it. I mean, do they think this lifestyle is rewarding?”
Harriet shook her head and replied, “I don't think they see it like that. Sebastian, you lived on Yokohama where things were pretty good for you. But I started out on the low end of an arcology on Earth. Things were harder for us. But even so, I feel like I had it pretty good compared to what people struggle with here.
Her gaze followed his to the teeming collection of townsfolk. She continued, “We think of a lifestyle being rewarding or not rewarding because we haven't had to fight so hard for life. I doubt they think about whether things are rewarding. They just think of it as life.”
Sebastian seemed to ponder that for a moment. “That makes sense,” he replied. “It seems to fit these people somehow. But they have so much less than we did back on Yokohama. And they seem so happy.”
“I don't think happiness is about what you have. I think it's about who you are–who you choose to be.”
“Wow, Harriet. You’re pretty impressive.”
Flushing, Harriet awkwardly responded, “Well, it’s not like I’m some wise guru or something. I just say what I think.”
“What you think is pretty frosty.”
“Oh … oh thanks,” she stammered as Sebastian flashed a dashing smile. The thought that shot through her mind was, ‘He’s gorgeous when he smiles like that.’ Then she reminded herself that Kasumi was his girlfriend. Then she wondered if she cared.
‘Tiffany wouldn’t care,’ she mused. ‘She would just take any guy she wanted.’ But then she told herself, ‘I’m not Tiffany. I don’t want to be like her.’
But a part of her responded with, ‘Would it hurt to be just a little like Tiffany and get a guy I want?’
She argued, ‘But do I want this guy? I haven’t known him very long.’
“Well, let’s see,’ the other part of herself countered. ‘Sebastian is hot. He’s fun. He’s funny. He’s really nice. And did I mention that he’s hot?’
“Harriet? Harriet?”
Harriet started, realizing that Sebastian was talking to her. “I’m sorry, what?” she hastily apologized.
“I was just saying that you're easy to talk to, Harriet,” commented Sebastian. “You kind of ‘get’ me.”
“Thanks,” Harriet responded, a little unsure where he was going with this. Hesitantly, she asked, “Does Kasumi get you? Is that why you're together?”
“Well ... kind of. Kasumi is smart about a lot of things. But guys and relationships aren't one of them. She and I are together because she's real. She doesn't try to be who she thinks I want her to be. She doesn't pretend to be something she's not. She's just herself. I feel like I can really trust her because of that.”
Harriet mused, “Why do I get the feeling that there was someone in your past that you really liked, but who wasn't really truthful to you?”
Sebastian's eyes grew big. “Bull’s-eye,” he exclaimed. “How did you know that?”
“It just seemed to fit.”
Sebastian seemed both sad and embarrassed. His eyes wandered over everything but Harriet, and his head and shoulders drooped. “It's just like you said. She was my first girlfriend. It was back in middle school. I really fell hard for her. She seemed so happy and fun when we were together. But after a while, she told me she wanted to break up. I asked her why. I told her to tell me her true feelings. You know what she said?”
Harriet shook her head.
“She said that I was good looking and all, but there was nothing there other than my looks. She told me that she was tired of trying to be the kind of girl I liked. But I never asked her to do that. I never even knew what kind of girl she really was or what she was trying to be. I just thought that she was who she seemed to be. But that wasn’t the real her.”
Grimacing, Sebastian told Harriet, “I snapped back and told her that she wasn't really interested in me from the start. She just liked me because my parents had money. I … well … even though we never … never had sex or anything like that because it was against the Reproductive Allowance laws … I called her a name–a name that you use for girls who sell themselves for money.”
Sebastian rubbed his hand over his face. It seemed to Harriet that he was trying to hide a look of grief. But not just grief. What else? Shame?
Then he continued, “She didn't say anything to that. In fact, she never said anything to me again. She hated me. But at the end of the school year, my family moved to Yokohama so I never saw her again. I'm not sure what hurt me more, what she said to me or what I said to her. I was really crazy for her but I said that to her.”
Scratching his head, Sebastian hesitated. “So I never had a girlfriend again–even though a lot of girls chased me. I dated a lot. But I just couldn't bring myself to trust another girl. Not until Kasumi. I knew from the start that Kasumi would always be real with me. Sometimes Kasumi is hard to talk to because she doesn't get me as well as you do. It drives me crazy. But I know I can trust her. And I really, really like her.”
‘That’s too bad,’ Harriet wanted to say. But she didn’t. “Trust is a good thing,” she said instead.
“What about you, Harriet?”
“What about me?”
“Do you have a guy you really trust?”
“Well ...” Harriet flustered, “I guess ... I guess I do. I trust Hugh. I trust him completely.”
“Then why aren't the two
of you a couple?”
It was a good question. 'Hugh and I have been through so much together, probably more than most married couples even.'
And she had to admit that Hugh had gotten a lot more handsome as he got taller. He was a lot more buff now than he was when they were back on Earth in the arcology.
“I ... I don't know. We've just always been friends. I don't know if he'd even be interested in a relationship with me.”
Snickering, Sebastian said slyly, “Trust me, Harriet. He'd probably be interested in you if you showed some interest in him. Almost any guy would.”
He chuckled and walked away, leaving Harriet red-faced and disconcerted.
A week passed before they reached the continent. Being quite far above the planet’s equator, the continent was downright frigid. There was actual snow on the ground, which most of the group had never seen before.
It took another day to find the crew of the other downed fighter. Using vines they had already collected, they lashed the new life pods to their existing vessel and started building additional walkways between them.
As with the previous island, the locals of the snow-covered continent were glad to pay them for electricity. So they were able to accumulate some money fairly quickly. They decided to treat themselves to dinner at a nice family-run restaurant.
During the meal, the owner’s daughter took a particular interest in Harriet and Ai. She seemed to be about twelve or thirteen, and she just couldn’t take her eyes off of the two girls.
“I’ve never seen people like you before,” she told them. “And that one.” She pointed at Sebastian.
Harriet queried, “What do you mean?”
“You three don’t look like kids,” she replied. “You’re too old for that. But you look younger than adults.”
“Well, we’re teenagers. We’re all seventeen.”
The girl was confused. “But if you’re seventeen, you should look like adults.”
Ai seemed a bit irritated. “We look like normal seventeen-year-olds.”
“No. When you’re seventeen, you should look like adults,” the girl insisted. “You three look younger than adults and older than kids.”
She continued with an air of pride, “I’m going to be an adult tomorrow. Tomorrow is my thirteenth birthday.”
Clearly amused, Ai asked, “Being thirteen makes you and adult?”
With consternation the girl shot back, “Of course not. When you turn thirteen you go to the hospital and get an operation. That makes you an adult.”
Harriet froze, horrified. Turning to the others in her group she hissed, “We’ve got to get out of here. Now.”
35
Jeff extracted a case from his backpack, handed it to a man and told him, “This is a machine that thinks. We call it a computer. This particular computer is so advanced that we call it an overmind.”
Pointing to a small grill in the case, he continued, “This is a speaker and a microphone. So the overmind in this case can hear what you say and it can talk to you. It also needs feeding sometimes. Just ask it and it’ll tell you everything you need to know about that.”
The man, whose name Jeff had forgotten, took the case containing the overmind. He asked, “A machine that can think, listen to me, and talk to me? Is it really possible?”
Jeff nodded stoically. This man, and the two women with him, were members of the local Tuluvet Council. Like all Tuluvet, they lived double lives and kept their Tuluvet beliefs a secret. Discovery by the Guild of Scientists meant an Inquisition and certain death.
The cave in which they were standing was deep in the interior of the continent of Nonene. To get to it, they had traveled to Nonene and then continued far across the green countryside into a cluster of small mountains. After disembarking from the skyship that brought them there, they had followed Joonen, Tolool, and some local Tuluvet into a cave and descended far underground. Jeff had just implanted the ship seed into a crevice in the cave in which they were standing.
“The ship will take a couple of months to form itself,” explained Jeff. “When it does, ask the overmind how to get inside. It will give you step-by-step instructions. I’ve instructed the overmind to copy its programming into the ship.”
The Councilman had a confused expression, so Jeff quickly continued, “That means that everything we know will be copied into the computers on the ship. You’ll have access to all the information we can give you. The overmind will teach you how to use the ship’s artificial reality pods. Don’t worry about what that means right now. But the artificial reality pods will provide you with a way to go to school. In that school, you’ll learn how all this technology works. It’ll take a while, but you’ll eventually know everything we know. You’ll be able to make more of these ships, leave this universe, and survive in the main universe.”
The council members didn’t appear to really understand, and possibly they didn’t believe what they did understand. So Jeff just said, “If you have any more questions, ask the overmind. We have to go now.”
Jeff and Amanda followed Joonen and Tolool back to the surface. As soon as they emerged above ground, Jeff got a call from Hugh.
“We just got back from the lower atmosphere,” Hugh announced. “Our tanks are full and the nanobots are building the elements we need. We’ll need to make another couple of dives before we have enough to get the ship fully repaired. Can you guys wait for that, or do you need us to come and get you right away?”
“I think we can wait,” Jeff answered. “Is that ok with you Amanda?” She nodded, so Jeff asked Hugh, “When do you think you’ll be here to pick us up?”
“Is next week ok?”
“Sure.”
Hugh signed off. Amanda asked, “What are we going to do here for a week?”
Chuckling, Jeff responded, “Maybe we could just be tourists. What is there to see around here, Joonen?”
Both Joonen and Tolool were taken aback. “This isn’t the sort of place you come to to see the sights, Jeff,” Joonen explained. “The Guild of Scientists has formed a very repressive government that stamps out all ideas that are unofficial. You and Amanda are very unofficial.”
Again Jeff chuckled, “I suppose that’s true. But if we keep a low profile, we should be ok for a week shouldn’t we?”
Joonen turned a questioning gaze to Tolool, who nodded warily.
“We can go down to the port city of Ulvionus,” Tolool told them. “No one should notice us if all we’re doing is visiting restaurants and music halls. We can have Councilman Darphate’s ship drop us off.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” Jeff agreed. “Let’s do that.”
36
Akio was frustrated. “Where could he be?” he demanded of Rick. “We’ve search most of this side of this planet. Could his approach vector have been that different from the rest of us?”
Rick shrugged and replied, “I wouldn’t have thought so. But the part of the wormhole we were in was really unstable. Anything’s possible.”
‘That doesn’t really help,’ Akio thought. But he kept it to himself because he knew that Rick and the rest of the crew were really doing their best to help him find Akifumi.
Emily interjected, “I suggested to Nuraiyana that she send a repeating message upward, in case he and Eric or Kasumi and Ikko somehow managed to make it into a stable orbit.”
Doing his best to be appreciative, Akio thanked her and went to the bridge. He had to admit Emily was doing a great job of fitting into the crew. Her initial job had been a gunner. But she tried to help Rick as much as possible. The rest of her time was spent in the AR pods where she was getting an Academy education. Her goal was to be an engineer like Rick.
In the two months they’d been trapped in the gas giant’s atmosphere, Akio and his crew had done their best to get the Hiryu back into space. Most of the ship’s critical systems had been repaired. But some were still not functioning. Most notably, the main engine and the ship’s artificial gravity system were fried.
And they didn’t have the materials to repair them.
With pangs of sadness and worry, Akio sat at the tactical station, which Akifumi normally manned. Even though he knew the computer would notify him if its scans found any more life pods, he checked the results anyway. Nothing.
“Anything?” queried Franklyn McLean, a colonist who was taking a turn piloting the ship.
Quietly, Akio replied, “No. Nothing. No life pods, signs of tech on our level, and no chatter in the local broadcasts about people with strange powers. There’s no sign of them anywhere.”
“I’m shifting our search pattern toward the other side of the gas giant as you directed, Captain. But it’ll be another couple of days before we get to the far side. Sensors say that there are some large landmasses on the horizon. We’ll reach the first of them tomorrow.”
He got up to leave, but Nuraiyana burst in and announced, “Akio, the computer told me we’re getting a transmission sent directly at us.” She sat down at the Computer Chief’s station, which was also the central communications station for the ship.
Going over her readouts, Nuraiyana informed him, “It’s from a small vessel about 120 miles off our port side. They seem to be locals, but I’ve never seen anything like their aircraft. This technology is unlike anything else we’ve seen on this planet, Captain.”
“Franklyn, slow down for a minute. Let’s hear what they have to say,” Akio directed, hoping that whoever was transmitting might have information on Akifumi and Kasumi.
“Yes, Sirsen,” responded Franklyn crisply. Akio was finally getting used to being called ‘Captain’ and ‘Sirsen’ even though he was younger than most of the colonists in his crew.
The ship slowed to a halt. Nuraiyana put the transmission on the bridge’s main speakers.
“Onii-sama (Honorable Elder Brother),” called a female voice in Japanese. “Honorable Elder Brother and Captain of the Hiryu. We are the Kanto. We have news for you from our First Ancestor. Please respond.”