The Stark Divide

by J. Scott Coatsworth

  He stood and shucked off his clothing, throwing it in the cleaner.

  Then he jumped into the shower, letting it wash away the cloying smell of stress sweat.

  “DIRECTOR, I have a report.” Ronan’s bodiless voice reverberated through his cabin.

  Colin stopped pacing for a moment. “Go ahead.”

  “There was an intruder in the memory core.”

  “An intruder?” He’d run this station for more than five years and had never had a hacker breach the station-mind before. “Who was it?”

  “Unclear, sir.”

  “How did they get in?”

  “Unclear as well. There’s no indication of an unapproved physical access to the network.”

  Colin started pacing again. It must have been someone who’d come in on the Hammond. If not, why hadn’t the hacker struck earlier?

  “Has this happened before?” Trip asked, his brow furrowed.

  “This is the first time I’m aware of, and it better be the last. Ronan, I want to know who did it, how they got in, and what measures we can take to prevent it from happening again.” He would not lose control of his command a second time.

  “Affirmative, Director McAvery. I’ll run a deep scan to determine the point of entry and the identity of the intruder.”

  Colin stole a quick kiss from his lover. “I have to meet with young Hammond.” He headed for the door.

  “Anything I can do to make you feel better?” Trip said with a sly grin.

  Colin paused. “Yes, go over your passenger manifest. Find me anyone on this trip with a hacker background.” He grinned and palmed the door closed behind him.

  AARON PRESENTED himself at Director McAvery’s office at 1400 sharp, announcing himself to Ronan, the station-mind. “Ensign Aaron Hammond here to see the director.”

  “Please enter, Mr. Hammond,” it said as the door slid crisply away. Did its voice sound suspicious, or was it just his imagination?

  He stepped into the director’s office. It was much smaller than he expected, spartan, a simple, small, efficient white space with nothing for show, only a couple of photos of the director and the captain from the Hammond to break up the white expanse of the desktop. This director put on no airs. He could have easily fashioned himself a palace up here, if he’d wanted. Aaron had heard tales of the director’s office on Frontier—enough loot up there to bankroll a small country.

  His respect for the man went up a notch.

  “Have a seat, Hammond.” McAvery’s voice was terse, the earlier warmth gone. He was staring at his desktop as if he might burn a hole through it with his gaze.

  Aaron did as he was told. He knew that look. The director was interfacing with the station-mind. “Thank you, sir.” He was suddenly nervous. Did the director know? “Is there… is there something wrong, sir?”

  “What? Oh, no, sorry about that. It’s nothing to do with you. Just a security glitch.” He smiled, and some of his earlier warmth came back. “Let me welcome you to Transfer Station once again.” He extended his hand, and Aaron shook it vigorously.

  “Thank you, sir. I’m excited to be here.” Inside, he breathed a sigh of relief. His cover was safe. For now.

  “I knew your father, Aaron. He was a good man. It’s because of him that Forever—Ariadne—is here today. That’s something you should be proud of.”

  Aaron nodded. “I’ve read all the stories. I’ve waited so long to get here.” He took a deep breath. This was it. Too late to back down now. “If you don’t mind, there’s something I’ve always wanted to ask you.”

  The director rubbed his chin, looking thoughtful. “Go ahead.”

  “What really happened up here, sir? With the Dressler?” He was shaking. Physically shaking. These last ten years, all the work, all the research, all his training, just to get here.

  Just to ask this question.

  McAvery sat back in his chair, silent for a long time. He stared down at his desk again, his hands arched together in front of his mouth. When he spoke at last, it was slowly, as if the words were being wrenched out of him. “You know about the infection?”

  Aaron nodded. “Yes, sir. I read all about it.”

  “Well, after the fungus outbreak, we were forced to abandon the Dressler. It’s one of the hardest things for a captain to do, to abandon his ship.” He grimaced, the pain of that day clear upon his face. “Now, son, I know you’ve read all the stories, but they don’t mention one important thing. We kept it out of the official account.”

  Aaron leaned forward on his seat. This is it.

  “He was a braver man than I knew. I still go over that moment, that day, over and over in my head, wondering if I could have done something different, something that might have saved his life. Something that might have stopped him.”

  “Stopped him from what?”

  The director leaned forward, and his next words were just above a whisper. “Aaron, your father took his own life. To save us. To save the seed.”

  Aaron shook his head. He couldn’t have heard that right. His father was a Catholic Evangelical. Suicide was a sin. There was no way he would have taken his own life.

  Turmoil boiled up inside him, but he thrust it down ruthlessly.

  He’d hoped for a confession from the captain. Foul play, or maybe a fatal error on one of the crewmates’ parts. Something that made sense. But this…. “I don’t believe it.” His father, the man he’d idolized, his hero… Jackson Hammond wouldn’t have left his family like that.

  The director was hiding something. He was sure of it.

  He thrust himself backward, away from the director’s desk.

  McAvery stood, reaching out to him. “It’s true. He was an amazing man. You and your family should be proud of him.”

  “He wouldn’t. He couldn’t….” He shook his head vigorously. It isn’t true.

  “Aaron, I’m so sorry you had to learn about it this way.”

  “Leave me alone.” He pushed the director’s hand away. “Just let me be!” He fled the room, feeling like he was seven years old again. He ran back down the hall to his own cabin, his own private place in this cold and soulless station.

  In his room, he lay down on the bunk and sobbed like he had when his father died a decade before.

  COLIN WATCHED the boy go. He seemed like a good kid. He must have been holding on to this thing since his father had gone, waiting for his chance to come here to ask just that question.

  Colin had seen Aaron’s name come up on the Transfer request list. He’d chosen him in part because he felt a certain responsibility to the memory of his father, but also because the kid was whip-smart, young as he was. He’d made some inspired contributions to the emerging science of biografts—Earth plants being genetically modified to live off an existing genecraft like the Hammond or Forever herself—in essence creating entire linked biosystems that fed off the ship or worldlet support systems.

  They had started the implanting last year, and already new varieties were coming in from Earth’s AmSplor labs—used for testing here before the big corporations that were investing in them mass-produced them to outfit future ships and projects.

  Colin should have anticipated the depth of the boy’s reaction to even this limited version of the truth. He must never be allowed to learn what had truly transpired on the Dressler. The boy was likely to take out his anger on Ana.

  He’d give Hammond some time to process what he’d been told. In the meantime, he had the meeting with the doc herself to prepare for. In a very real way, she was the reason he was here today, running this station, and not still making glorified cargo runs through the inner solar system.

  They had a lot of unfinished business between them.

  She arrived right on time, slipping into his office quietly, so different from the assertive, self-assured woman he’d known on the Dressler. She was gaunt now, maybe twenty pounds lighter than when they’d parted ten years prior.

  He still couldn’t get over her hair—the lustrous b
lack locks shorn, and in their place a buzz cut that would have done a soldier proud.

  She settled into the chair across the desk from him, rearranging her shawl around her shoulders.

  “It’s been a long time, Doc.” He gave her a wan smile. “A lot of water under that bridge.”

  She nodded, her brown eyes searching his. “You’ve done well here.” She looked around his office. “I knew you would. You were the right choice. How is the seedling?”

  “She’s a bit more than that now,” he said with a laugh. “She’s gone through some growing pains, but we’re past most of that now, I think. I’ll show you tomorrow.”

  She smiled, a half smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I’d like that. Thank you for bringing me in.”

  “Anastasia, let’s not pretend that the things that happened a decade ago never transpired.” He opened a drawer. “Some wine?”

  She nodded.

  “I have it brought up from Earth—one of my few vices.” He pulled out a couple of glasses and filled them halfway with the golden liquid. “It’s a chardonnay from a little vineyard up in Kootenay.”

  He handed a glass to her, and she took a sip, nursing it in both hands. “It’s good.”

  “It better be, for what it costs me.” He set the glass down. “We both know what happened on the Dressler. You’ve paid your debt for that, and I’m grateful to have your expertise here for the next phase of the project. But—”

  “That doesn’t change events.” She stared up at him, fire in her eyes. There was the woman he’d known.

  “No, it doesn’t.” He picked his glass up and drained the contents. “Young Hammond was in here earlier. He asked me what really happened to his father.”

  She downed her own glass and stared at it for a moment. “So what did you tell him?”

  “I gave him half the truth. I told him his father gave himself up to save us and the seedling. It was true enough, though I could see it was not what he was expecting.”

  She looked him in the eye again and nodded. “Thank you again. You didn’t need to do that. I seem to be endlessly in your debt.”

  He laughed ruefully. “We’ll let you work it off up here over the next couple of months.” He poured them each a little more wine and then lifted his glass and held it out for a toast.

  They clinked their glasses together. “Welcome to Forever.”

  Chapter Four: Forever

  EARLY THE next morning, one of Transfer’s shuttlecraft carried the three of them, along with a cargo load of supplies and a group of personnel who would relieve some of the folks on Ariadne, across the gap between Transfer Station and the worldlet. The craft was bigger than the one that had brought passengers over from the Hammond but shared a similar design.

  They passed through one of Transfer’s large air locks, leaving the hub and floating away from the station a few clicks before the pilot engaged the thrusters to carry them over to the new world.

  Aaron Hammond sat sullenly in the back, pointedly not talking to anyone.

  Ana sat up front next to Colin, feeling a little of the old life come coursing through her veins as the ship approached its rendezvous. How many nights had she spent dreaming how things were going out here? Wondering if her work had proven itself in the form of a growing new world?

  She wondered what Jackson would have made of this place. He seemed to have experienced some sort of religious conversion regarding the seed in his last few hours. What had happened to him had never been entirely clear to her, but it had shaped his path and in the end had led almost directly to his death.

  She knew better than to excuse her own part in the whole sorry affair, but she had paid her dues, and now she was back here where she belonged.

  The ship approached Ariadne, or Forever, as many had taken to calling her. Ana chuckled to herself—what had started as an off-hand joke had become the nickname for the new world. It seemed appropriate, given the time it would take to reach its ultimate destination.

  The worldlet was shaped like an elongated spinning barrel, and they were approaching one end. As the shuttlecraft approached, it was dwarfed by the wall of the world. It grew out and out before them until it seemed to take up her entire frame of reference.

  A small seam appeared in that wall, filled with the golden light that seemed to burn inside Forever. It spread, and soon the outer skin split open to allow them inside.

  The pilot eased the shuttle into the narrow opening, passing just meters from its edge, and once they were inside it snapped shut behind them.

  The chamber they were in was about twice as big as the shuttle. She could hear the hissing as it filled with air. A slight golden glow from the walls illuminated the chamber. At last the skin on the far side split apart, and the shuttle was ushered inside.

  The pilot used the attitude jets to put her into synch with Forever’s own spin.

  It was dark outside the shuttle. A few lights were scattered above and below them like golden stars, but there wasn’t much else to see.

  She looked out the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of something in the velvety darkness.

  Even Aaron left his seat to take a look outside.

  She smiled at him, but he turned away, his visage set in a frown.

  AARON PRESSED his face against the plasform porthole, still cold from the touch of the void. There was little to see at first—mostly darkness outside, with little pinpricks all around like flickers of candlelight.

  The change started slowly, the barest glow at the edge of his perception. Then a flare lit up the sky like the strike of a match, and the air around them was burning. An arc of ruddy fire flowed down the central axis of the sky in the distance, like powder set aflame to burn with a steady golden glow. As the vast chamber came alight, the ground below was revealed, little streamers of firelight flowing along the ground following the light racing through the sky.

  It was a magical sight, one he would remember for the rest of his days.

  As the shuttle dropped slowly toward the ground below them, the earth itself seemed to come alight, and he could make out hundreds upon hundreds of trees and an internal lake whose waves lapped at a black sand beach. Like a paradise.

  “What was that?” he asked no one in particular.

  Ana smiled. “Morning in Forever.”

  “We call it First Light.” The director was grinning at him.

  The treetops rushed up toward the small craft as they bled altitude, and he could see the dark roofs of a small village appear and resolve themselves below, dim patches amidst a forest of light.

  The shuttle set down with a hiss in a small clearing close to the lake, on a broad cement landing pad not far from the village.

  He bounded past the others as the shuttle door opened, eager for his first look at the interior of Forever, his anger and disappointment at McAvery’s news about his father momentarily forgotten. He took a deep breath. The air was fresh, alive, clean in a way it had never been back home.

  The place was magical, as if he had stepped into a child’s storybook. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, maybe, or The Wizards of Illiad. Tall, willowy trees loomed over him, their leaves shimmering in variants of orange and gold and a glimmering yellow-white, an unexpected forest so far from his home.

  He could see a few of the buildings of the colony here at the edge of the landing pad. They were all built of wood, with brightly painted shutters and wood-shingle roofs.

  “It’s cheaper this way.” Director McAvery followed his gaze. “Everything we can harvest here for construction means that much less to haul up from Earthside.”

  He nodded. That made sense. Then he looked into the air.

  The arc of the world swept around him, up and over him, although the sky glow, most intense in the middle of the sky, cut off the view of the far side. Still, the sight was enough to make him queasy.

  “Easy there.” McAvery steadied his shoulder. “Don’t look up. Just look straight ahead for a bit. It takes some getting used t
o, and pretty much everyone has that first reaction.”

  Aaron managed a laugh. “It’s… so strange.” He took the director’s advice and stared at the ground for a moment, then at the buildings of the colony.

  “It’s how you know you’re not in Kansas anymore.”

  “Kansas?”

  “An old joke.” McAvery patted his shoulder.

  The doctor joined them, a strangely rueful expression on her face.

  The director opened his arms wide. “Welcome, my friends, to McAvery Port.”

  A SMALL greeting committee awaited them at the edge of the landing pad. Colin introduced them to the newcomers. “Tad Evers, Colony Master. This is Aaron Hammond and Dr. Anastasia Anatov. Dr. Anatov will be assisting us with stage two. Young Hammond is here to work with the Planting Corps. He’s a whiz at graft-tech.”

  They shook hands, and Ana couldn’t help but notice the glimmer in Evers’s eyes at the mention of her name.

  “Hammond, this is Dania Thorpe. She’s in charge of the PC and will get you settled.”

  Hammond nodded and followed her off to one of the other buildings in McAvery Port, his duffel bag in tow. He didn’t look back.

  Ana sighed. He carried a heavy burden, almost as heavy as hers.

  “Master Evers, are our accommodations ready? I’m sure the doc here would like to get going to see the world-mind.”

  Evers nodded. “Come on and we’ll get you settled.”

  They followed him down a well-beaten path through the maze of buildings that constituted the colony.

  The trees here were taller than those around the landing pad. Some of them reached more than twice her height, dark bark surmounted by a glowing canopy of leaves that cast an umbra of light instead of shadow. She found the effect fascinating.

  McAvery noticed her interest. “They’re quite something, aren’t they?”

  She’d stopped to take one of the branches in her hand, pulling it down to eye level. “May I?”