by Josi Russell
Number 4,000 was his. He pulled it out and set it on the floor, where he crouched beside it and started sifting through his memories of Earth. On top were his baseball glove and ball from his childhood. He knew that Minea had manufacturing facilities, but he doubted that baseball equipment was a top priority to the new civilization. He thought of how he’d planned to play ball with his own son, and how that was no longer in his future. Next, he found some small gifts from his parents and grandparents: a silver watch, a book of scripture, a set of paints. There was a gap where his glyphtol and the razor had been stowed before he had taken them out years ago. There were some love notes from Aria, worn with the past five years of reading them over and over. Now, he pushed them aside a little guiltily and dug under them for his wedding ring. Finding it in the bottom corner of the box, he slipped it onto his finger and felt its heft. It reminded him of the first few months of his marriage, when the band was new and strange and he awoke in the mornings wondering what it was. He put the top back on the box and replaced it on the bottom shelf. Next he reached for the box above it: 3,999.
She had brought a sheaf of her own wheat from Earth. She had brought dirt from their backyard and a dried rose from their front yard. Her wedding ring was in there, a sapphire with filigree around it, and the first ultrasonic pictures of their baby. He ran his finger over its alien form on the page, traced its beanlike shape, and felt a pang of sadness that the child wouldn’t know him. He gently replaced it.
He heard Kaia’s footsteps and slipped the lid back on Aria’s box.
“Ethan,” she said excitedly, “I think I know how to find my dad.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Okay.”
Kaia held up a picture of a stern-faced man. “We can have the computer scan this and match it with the passenger list.”
Ethan nodded, trying to hide the discomfort he felt at seeing the picture. “Good idea.”
She handed it to him. “You’re better with the computer.”
Ethan made the necessary commands and they watched the screen as passenger faces flashed across it too fast for them to register.
“No match found.” The computer’s announcement confirmed Ethan’s suspicion. The same words flashed on the screen.
Kaia looked frantically at Ethan. “That can’t be!” she said desperately. “He’s on this ship. He is the ranking officer on this ship!”
Ethan nodded, disquiet filling his chest. “Okay, wait. Maybe the picture is just hard to match—-maybe the angle’s wrong or something. We’ll try this. Computer,” he said, “show any possible matches to the picture. Anyone who has even a sixty percent match.”
The faces flashed again.
“That will get anyone with almost any characteristic similar to your father’s. That’ll find him, or he’s not on this ship.” They waited a few seconds, and then several screens of faces appeared down the row. They began to search through the faces and names. As they determined that General Reagan was not on one screen, they walked through it and assessed the next. At the end of the last screen, Kaia’s lip trembled.
“Ethan, he’s not here. He’s not on this ship.” Suddenly, she stood and headed to the passenger hold. “I’ll look myself.”
Ethan followed, a growing dread filling him. He had never seen General Reagan on this ship, not under any name.
It took hours, but they looked at every passenger. Kaia’s father was not on the ship. As they reached the last stasis chamber, standing open beside Aria’s peaceful form, Kaia’s hopeful expression fell, and her tear-filled eyes found Ethan’s.
He took her hand. “Maybe there was a change of plans at the last. Maybe he was transferred to another ship.”
“But don’t you know what this means?” Kaia began to weep. “It means I’ll never see him again.”
Ethan saw his chance. “Kaia,” he said softly, stroking her hand. “It doesn’t have to mean that.”
She looked up at him, questioning, and he turned toward the empty chamber, hurrying on, “You could meet him on Minea. I’m sure he just got placed on another ship for some reason. If you went back into stasis—”
Her eyes darkened. “No!”
“Kaia, don’t be silly. You could use my chamber and—”
She wasn’t crying anymore. “And leave you alone here? All alone for the rest of your life? I won’t do it.” She grasped his hands. “I know what these years have been like for you. Don’t ever ask me to do that again. I told you, Ethan, I love you. I’m not leaving you to hurtle through space alone!”
He was desperate. “Kaia, you can’t waste the rest of your life just because I’m doomed to waste mine!”
She shook her head stubbornly.
“There won’t be anything between us,” he said frantically, holding up his left hand. The band glinted as he gestured toward the sleeping form of his wife. “Don’t stay awake hoping—”
Kaia cut him off by dropping his hands, turning sharply and walking away from him, down the long corridor of chambers and out the door of the hold.
He followed her into the cargo hold. “Kaia!”
She was standing in the center of the aisle. “I won’t do it, Ethan. Don’t ever bring it up again.”
He saw the set of her jaw, the fire in her eyes, and knew that there was no convincing her right now. He clenched his teeth and breathed hard through his nose. The two faced each other in the aisle, shiny white boxes on either side. After several tense seconds, Kaia turned again and walked up the aisle, more slowly this time. Ethan saw her limping slightly and jogged to catch up.
When he spoke again, his voice was controlled. “Kaia, I won’t give up the idea.”
She glared at him. “And I won’t change my mind.”
“But for now,” he asked, trying to keep his voice cold, “how’s your ankle?”
“It’s fine.”
They had reached her box, still open in the center of the row. Its contents were spread around it. She moved down smoothly and began to pick up her earthly treasures.
Ethan saw several pictures of her as a dark-haired child, an awkward teen, and as the woman who stood before him now. He saw some small trinkets and some jewelry. As she moved a silk handkerchief, something else caught his eye.
“Is that a weapon?” He was incredulous. Passengers were forbidden to bring weapons aboard the ships, though the military detail had weapons stowed in a separate part of the cargo hold.
Kaia blushed. “It’s just a simple energy pistol,” she said, scooping it into the box hurriedly.
“You’re quite the rebel, Kaia Reagan. Sneaking aboard, awakening early, packing heat.” He couldn’t help smiling a little.
“You don’t understand. It’s sentimental.” She put the lid back on the box and lifted the whole thing back to its indentation on the shelf.
Ethan raised his eyebrows. “Sentimental?” He was teasing her now.
She was still slightly flustered. “My dad gave it to me when I was a kid, okay? I used to do target practice with it. He’d take me out and we’d shoot bits of garbage with it.” Her tone turned sad. “It was the only thing we did together. He was gone a lot to the colonies. He . . . I liked being with him.”
Ethan saw that he’d struck a nerve and backtracked to make it up. “I know what you mean. It was baseball with my dad and me. I brought my glove from Earth, too.”
Her melancholy look disappeared, and they started to walk back to the door of the hold. “It’s worth more to me now that I know he’s not here. I’m glad I smuggled it on board.”
Chapter 12
Ethan and Kaia settled into an uneasy peace. He continued teaching her about Xardn, and she kept showing him around the ship. They didn’t talk about the future, and though she still reached for him, Ethan never touched her intentionally.
“Your turn,” Ethan said.
“All right! This way!” Kaia impulsively grabbed Ethan’s hand and towed him down the broad hall. He felt the tingling he’d begun to anticipate when she touched h
im. Her skin was soft and her hand small and cool around his. The sleek walls of the hallway slipped by, and he was both relieved and disappointed when they reached the door to the navigation room and she let go.
“Access request three five five eight,” Ethan said, and the door slid open noiselessly.
They walked into the navigation room. It was cooler in here, both because the space was bigger and because the ship compensated for the heat generated by the navigation equipment. It was a cavernous room. All but one wall were lined with banks of computers and control panels. They blinked bright yellows and greens as the ship steered its way through the stars. The other wall was made entirely of windows. Outside, the vastness of space stretched away from them, its bright stars and cloudy nebulae hanging suspended outside the great windows. For a moment, both were quiet as they took in the view of slanted stars through the huge banks of windows.
“I forget how fast we’re moving,” Ethan said quietly.
“It is a little disorienting,” Kaia admitted.
“And dazzling.” Ethan walked forward toward the windows until the room dropped from his periphery and all he could see was the vastness of space surrounding him. “It’s like flying.”
“Yeah. Wow.”
Suddenly Ethan remembered standing on the observation deck with Aria. He could almost feel her heartbeat against his shoulderblade as she stood behind him, her arms around his waist. He stared out at the stars and remembered feeling the baby kick at his side through Aria’s belly. Ethan breathed deeply, fighting the tears that had welled up in his eyes. He could almost see the Earth retreating, a dot of life in the midst of all that blackness. Now his eyes picked out a new dot.
Both he and Kaia spoke at the same time. “Hey.”
He stopped and pointed.
“I know,” she said. “I see it! Is it a planet?”
“Computer, enhance the image of that object.” As he spoke, a large part of the window transformed to a zooming screen and seemed to draw the object closer. Slightly more detail was apparent.
“It looks like Earth,” he said. “It has to be a planet.”
“It’s still really far away,” she said. “But, Ethan, we don’t pass any habitable planets on the way to Minea. Otherwise, they would have done the trip in two stages like they did on the journey to Salris Alpha. It can’t be livable.”
Ethan was quiet, squinting at the screen. “Computer, what planet is that?”
“Beta Alora,” the computer answered.
Ethan thought. He had studied the route in the ship’s computer many times. He remembered the names of several suns that they would pass, but the name of the planet didn’t seem familiar. “Computer, what system are we in?”
“Sardon Major,” the computer replied.
“I don’t remember that one,” Ethan said, “but we pass so many on this trip. Computer, what type of system is Sardon Major?”
“It is a triple star system.”
Ethan wracked his brain, trying to remember anything about this system.
“It would be neat to pass a planet like Earth,” Kaia said.
Ethan nodded. Something was bothering him, but he wasn’t certain what it was. Every time he came to the navigation room, he felt disoriented. Even after studying the maps, he couldn’t bend his mind around the vastness outside, around the distance that lay between where they were and where they were going.
He tore his eyes from the screen and paced to the center of the empty room. “Computer, produce the dimensional star map.” A huge black globe appeared, hovering in the air. Ethan walked through the solid-looking side of the sphere and stood in the middle. The inside had the same view as he had seen out the window. “Computer, plane out fifty light-years.” His view swooped back, making him stagger and close his eyes. “Computer, adjust for my equilibrium.” When he opened his eyes again, the computer had skipped ahead to his desired perspective.
Kaia poked her head in the sphere near a star cluster to his left. “What the heck is this?” she said.
“You don’t know about the dimensional map?”
“I’m mostly a hardware girl.” She stepped the rest of the way in, standing near him and craning her neck to look around. “Wow. How’d you figure this out?”
“Lots of trial and error.” Ethan pointed to the little silver ship in front of them. “There we are.”
“Now that I recognize.”
Ethan grew quiet again as he looked at the little ship. “Computer, generate a course estimation.” A red beam of light shot through the sphere, showing where the ship had been and where it was headed.
“No,” Ethan said with horror, “that can’t be right.”
The line ended at Beta Alora.
Chapter 13
“Computer,” Ethan barked, a panic rising in him, “what is the destination of this ship?”
“The planet Minea, Mr. Bryant.”
“Computer, make course corrections for Minea immediately.”
The even voice of the computer came again. “No corrections are necessary, Mr. Bryant.”
“Computer, why are we going to Beta Alora?”
“Beta Alora is not on our route, Mr. Bryant.”
“The course estimation shows that we are headed directly for Beta Alora. Why?” Ethan was exasperated, and his voice came out higher-pitched than usual.
The computer was silent.
“It’s processing,” Ethan told Kaia.
After thirty seconds of tense silence, the computer spoke again. “Error: Irreconcilable information. Dimensional map temporarily disabled.” The sphere disappeared from around them and the computer offered no more information.
Ethan looked at Kaia. “What would cause that?”
She shrugged. “It sounds like a glitch in the program, but we could look at the nav system and see if it has any obvious problems.” She walked through a sliding door into the secondary nav room. This smaller room was lined floor to ceiling with computer banks, monitors, panels, and cabinets. Kaia walked confidently to a cabinet near the bank of computers against the right wall. “Computer,” she said, “unlock the crack kit.”
The computer responded quickly. “The request requires an authorization code.”
Ethan thought through the list in his mind. Maybe the tools code would work. It had gotten him into toolboxes in other rooms. “Authorization code five six three two,” he said firmly.
The lock on the cabinet clicked, and Kaia opened the door to reveal a large black case. She pulled it out and opened it, revealing various shiny tools in neat rows. Ethan marveled as she selected a few of them and then moved along the wall of computers.
“What did you call that tool set?” he asked her.
He saw her smile in profile. “We call it a crack kit. It has some particular tools that help you get into sealed systems like this one. See, this nav system was never meant to be accessed. It was designed to run all navigational functions of the ship completely independent of human interference. Now—” She fitted the tool she holding into a slot. “—we’re going to interfere with it.” She twisted the tool, torquing the levers inside, and the panel loosened. She moved to repeat the motion. “You have to have a special set of tools to loosen these 'unloosenable' panels. There’s a set on every ship. Most engineers can’t stand the thought of being without a good crack kit in time of need. This one is a particularly nice one. Nicer than the one I had at home.”
The panel sprung open with a final twist and left a gaping hole crisscrossed with wires and glowing cables. She started to inspect them.
Ethan moved over to her and looked over her shoulder. “What do they do?”
“Well, these—” She ran her fingers along a bundle of multicolored iridescent wires. “—are the relays within the nav system. They connect various types of hardware with the main nav system. These—” She pointed out some basic grey cables “—go to the monitors, these to the cameras outside, these to the sensors, these to the various parts of the hull, and this o
ne. . .” She pointed out the largest of the glowing cables, back behind the rest. “. . . connects the nav system to the main computer.”
“Do you see anything weird?” Ethan had no idea how it should look.
Kaia shook her head. “Honestly, it’s all set to specs. I don’t see a single hookup out of place.” She left the open panel and began to prowl along the bank of computers. Ethan studied the jungle of cables, amazed at its complexity.
“Ethan, something’s been bothering me,” Kaia said, as she crouched down and ran her hands over the wall beneath a monitor.
“Yeah?” He was still peering at the cables.
“Do you remember that weird closet we heard in the shafts?”
“I remember you heard something.”
“It should be right here. Behind this wall.”
“Well, then, we should be able to see it on the map, right?”
Kaia nodded.
“Computer, bring up the map of this room.” The map hovered in front of him, making him think of those first few months on the ship. “So, we’re here. In the secondary nav room.”
“Computer,” Kaia said, “Show the layout of this deck.” The floorplan for the entire deck appeared. The primary and secondary nav rooms were in place. On the other side of the wall in front of them, the map showed the hallway. No third room was shown.
“Nothing’s there, Kaia.”
“Something’s there, Ethan.”
He shifted uncomfortably, glancing from the map to her determined face and back again. “You’re sure there's another room?”
Kaia shot him an annoyed look. “I’m sure, Ethan. I thought maybe there would be a door or an access, but there’s not. It’s sealed up.”