Worlds Apart 02 Edenworld

by James Wittenbach

  “Team Beta will be under Tactical Commander Redfire and will take the Aves Kate and Neville to the planet’s nightside to conduct scientific analysis for basis of comparison to the dayside. Team Beta will attempt to make contact with humans living on the nightside.

  “Team Gamma will be under Lt. Commander Morgan and will take the Aves Edward and George They will land on this large island in the southern hemisphere of dayside and scientifically analyze the planet’s climate, geology, and biosphere. The island is relatively unpopulated, so they should be able to work in peace.” She could not repress a smile. Morgan was her semi-husband, and she would join him this time. “Our probes have revealed unusually high concentrations of uncommon metals — molybdenum, titanium, cobalt, coborundum, gold, silver, and platinum — in the planet’s crust. Morgan’s team will be particularly tasked to study this aspect of the planet’s geology.

  “Executive Commander Lear had asked me to remind you, our primary goal is to make peaceful contact with the inhabitants of this planet, in particular, planetary leadership. We also need to fnd out if Eden maintains contact with any other colony worlds, which is unlikely given their imputed level of technology, but still possible. Our secondary goal is to acquire any information the planet has from the Colonial Period, in particular the locations of any other human colonies and/or Earth and any information that could provide an explanation as to why the Commonwealth collapsed.”

  The reminder was unnecessary, of course. Everyone in that conference room knew their mission, and every heart was beating faster in anticipation of landing on the surface of Eden, or whatever it was called.

  Lear Family Suite, Deck 35, Section 70:R20

  Several decks below and forward, in one of the inhabitation zones, was one member of the crew who would not be visiting Eden, and whose heart was as dark and bitter about that prospect as the others’ were excited.

  “Captain Keeler has refused to overturn the witch’s order,” Goneril Lear snapped, she had been very snappish of late. She was sitting before her workstation, sorting through the ship’s protocols and trying to find a way back to command. Eliza Jane’s refusal to lead a landing team had complicated this effort. Otherwise, with all command-grade officers off the ship, she might have been able to take emergency command.

  “This is a violation of the Republickers with Different Abilities Act of 5992,” she growled, also being big on growling... as well as muttering, grumbling, snarling and griping ... since her release from command duties. “I can still command. All I need is a crewman, or an and/oroid to do relay the visual information to me. I can reset a terminal for direct neural feed and bypass my senses entirely.”

  “But that won’t heal your eyes,” said Augustus Lear, her husband, patiently. Augustus Lear was a burly man, and served as the ship’s Assistant Chief Agro-Botanist. He was well acquainted with his wife’s tempers, and knew that if he spoke in a smoothing voice long enough, he could begin to subdue her rage.

  Goneril Lear was equally well acquainted with her husband’s soothing technique. “You don’t understand. The balance of power on this ship has shifted. Keeler and Redfire are probably laughing about this. I would wager that they even put Dr. Reagan up to it.”

  Augustus nodded, understandingly. “If they did, I think it means they care about you. Otherwise, they would have let your vision fail, and permanently removed you from the command heirarchy, and worse. Can you imagine if you had to go through life depending on some machine to your children’s faces?”

  “I could make time for the healing meditations. I will admit, my progress has been slow, but I have been improving.”

  Augustus rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Do you remember when we took the boys to the Family Recreation Complex on Republic? Remember when we soaked in the mineral baths and took the boys to the educational exhibits.”

  “Don’t change the subject?”

  “Goneril...”

  She sighed. She did remember the holiday. Republic had few areas of natural beauty, most of its land surface being barren rock. The Recreation Complex in Sector 4 North was built on the floor of an immense impact crater left by a meteor collision. Wind and erosion had whipped some of the rocks into extraodinary shapes, with interesting mineral striations.

  “I think Trajan was about eight years old. Marcus was five. It was the last time we took a vacation together as a family.”

  She had no answer for this. She remembered it as though it had happened last quarter. Where had the time gone?

  August added. “Trajan turns thirteen next month. I’ve been preparing him for his Passage.”

  Goneril Lear had noticed her husband and Trajan reviewing the Writings of Vesta and The Chronicles of Iest. She had been aware, in the back of her mind, that her son’s Passage was upcoming, but was surprised to learn how soon it would come to pass.

  “I should be preparing Trajan for his Passage,” she said quietly.

  “Trajan’s had a tough time adjusting to life on the ship,” John remarked. “He misses home. His Passage should be an opportunity for him to find a place for himself on the ship.”

  Goneril Lear looked toward her son’s room, a blur at the edge of her failing vision.

  “He’s in there, now,” said Augustus Lear.

  Goneril rose and touched her husband’s cheek before crossing the room. She stood outside the entrance to his room. “Trajan, may I come in.”

  No answer came from inside, but the doorway slid open. Goneril Lear looked into her son’s room and found it unsatisfactorily disordered; a few pieces of clothing on the floor, datacards and datapads strewn about the space in a disorganized way. Over his sleeper was a poster of Darien Postcarrier, the Olympian, as he had appeared at the games of 6160. The boy himself was lying in bed, a RecSimSystem in his hands, his eyes knitted in concentration and tiny holographic warplanes battling in the space above his bed. Trajan was a dambed beautiful kid , she thought, in language no one would ever hear her utter aloud. The curls of his hair were darkening to honey-blond. His features had begun the process of resolving themselves out of childly roundness and developing smooth lines of definition along his chin, cheekbones, and eyebrows.

  “Finished with schoolwork?” she asked.

  “I’m on down time,” he answered irritably.

  She crossed over to the shelf on which he kept his various books and scribes. The Writings of Vesta lay untouched at the bottom of a pile of schoolbooks. She carefully extracted it and turned it on.

  “May I sit down?” she asked, pulling a chair from his desk. He said nothing. “Pause the game for a moment, I want to talk.”

  Sullenly, Trajan did as he was told.

  “Your father and I have been discussing your Passage. I would expect a young man to be excited by the prospect. It’s only a few days away.”

  “I didn’t think you had remembered.”

  She refused to be baited. “Do you feel prepared?”

  He shrugged. “I guess so.”

  “I took my passage in the Triumph of Unity Mountains. I set out with a rebreather pack, three bottles of water, and The Books, I began at the place where the mountains arose from the Sea of Serenity in a line of peaks beginning far out at sea. On the second day, a winter storm blew in, and I nearly froze to death.”

  She could tell from the look on his face that she war boring him. Lately, he seemed to wear that expression whenever they spoke. She brought the conversation back to him. “There is a small island in the subtropical zone of Eden’s northern hemisphere. Our probes show it is uninhabited and there are no dangerous animals. It would be an ideal location for your Passage.”

  “Mother, please tell me you did not retask a probe just to plan my Passage.”

  Lear smiled faintly. “It was only a small probe.”

  Trajan sat up. “Why did you do that? I hate it when you do that.”

  “When I do what?”

  “When you use your position like that, to help me, to give me privileges no other ki
d on this ship has.”

  “I am still your mother, and until you complete your Passage, it is my prerogative to do everything in my power to protect and nurture you. When you complete the Passage, you can begin to be responsible for your own life and your own decisions.”

  “I don’t even want to have my Passage on Eden,”he said. “I shouldn’t even be here. I should have had my Passage back on Republic, with my friends there to support me.”

  She looked at him and reached into his mind, gently, secretly as only a mother could. She saw what he was not telling her. There was fear inside him, but also a certain feeling that undergoing his Passage on a place he had never seen and never would revisit was inappropriate. She sensed also that he was unable to precisely articulate these feelings, and went no further. “The choice is ultimately yours, son. It is your Passage. As your mother, I will do what I can to accommodate your intentions.”

  “I felt you in my mind just now,” he said. “You’ve obviously figured out what I want. Don’t play games with me, mother.”

  “I did not reach that far,” she said calmly, and they both knew he could have blocked her had he wanted to, as only a son could.

  “I have already decided where I want to take my Passage. Let me show you,” he said, and reached under his bed and pulled out a remote control device. He activated the screen above his desk, bringing up an active schematic of Pegasus. He pointed to the lower part of the ship.

  “Down here,” he said. “I will make my Passage down here.”

  “The UnderDecks?”

  “Aye.”

  “That doesn’t seem very... traditional.” She modulated her tones non-judgmentally.

  “The tradition of taking a journey did not even begin with Vesta, it arose on a colony world called Steadfast four hundred years after the Ascension. The tradition is only that the journey be undertaken alone, in unknown territory, and that it last three days. The UnderDecks comprise 61% of the ship’s volume, and besides from a few auto-mechs, they are completely uninhabited. Think about all the kids who are gong to turn thirteen on this ship when we aren’t in orbit over a planet. We spend more time in transit than we do in orbit. Where are they going to undergo their passage? ”

  “I understand, but wouldn’t you rather take a passage on a warm, pleasant isle?”

  “This ship is where I am going to live out my life and probably die. This is where I should take my Passage.”

  Lear looked at the diagram. What her son was proposing was actually quite original and egalitarian. She admired him for that. “Very well, son. Let’s begin the arrangements.” Her urge was to lean over the bed, brush aside his bangs and kiss his smooth forehead, but she decided against it.

  New Amenities Nexus, Deck 20, Section 66:00

  Ever since Meridian, Eddie Roebuck, Eliza Jane Change, and Matthew Driver had become something of an odd trio, spending a great deal of their off-duty time in each other’s company. They made an odd trio because Matthew was still every centimeter the clean-cut pilot, Eliza Jane also an officer, but with an unpredictably temperamental streak, and the laid-back Eddie perpetually looked as though he had just fallen out of his sleeper. They were surveying the new recreation complex, located in the next subsector beyond and below the place where the previous recreation complex had ended. It was intended to invoke Nickel Plate Road in the Sapphirean City of New Halifax. New Halifax had made its fortune on processing ore from space; Sapphire having been stripped of most of mineral deposits millennia before the arrival of human colonists. New Halifax had a broad deep harbor, ideal for accommodating the very large ships that carried ore and semi-processed minerals from space to the ground. It also was convenient to sources of geothermal energy and an untapped vein of platinum and molybdenum ore.

  As a result, New Halifax was the nexus point for contact between mining guildsman and the ocean sailors of the Sapphirean Merchant Marine. As a general rule, these were people of whom the ancients might have said, “They knew how to party.” Long centuries before, the good citizens of New Halifax had taken measures to confine the excesses of these hardy mariners to the establishments around Nickel Plate Road.

  Over the centuries, however, the tavern-keepers and innkeepers along Nickel Plate Road had come to realize that tourists were more profitable than sailors and miners, and generally less destructive in their patronage. When Eddie had left, the nightlife of the actual Nickel Plate Road was a pale shadow to what had gone on in centuries past. (For that kind of action, the tourists would have to visit the Mining Guild Outposts in the outer system.) Eddie Roebuck regarded the fixtures meant to recall the most notorious district of his hometown with unhidden disgust. “This bites,” he said, slapping an open palm against the fake wall meant to recall the infamous Crocodile Cantina. “The actual sequence on Nickel Plate Road is ‘Slit’s Throat Emporium,’ then ‘Pete’s House of Grays,’ then ‘Crocodile Cantina,’ ... and the real cantina has actual crocodile teeth teeth.”

  “Sit down and drink something,” Eliza told him.

  “You say that like it’s easy.”

  “So, what are you going to do now that you’ve quit your function,” Matthew asked as they took a booth in the central plaza.

  “Nothing,” Eddie answered with a dismissive snort.

  “Nothing?”

  “I hated that job,” Eddie said. “It was making my life miserable. Then, one day I just woke up and asked myself, ‘Eddie, if you just decided not to show up for the next duty-shift, what would happen?’ and I came back with the answer, nothing. I mean, the thinkers who run the ship aren’t gonna let me starve. All I have to do is stay out of the way, and they’ll go on, and I’ll go on.”

  Matthew was insistent, duty-bound. “You can’t just quit. What about the ship?”

  “You know what my job was?” Eddie asked. “Supervising robots. The auto-mechs did all the actual work while I stood around and watch them. Truth of the matter, I’m not necessary. Truth of the matter is, none of us is necessary.”

  Matthew retorted angrily. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course we’re necessary.”

  “Za, you like to believe that because you’ve been training to pilot spaceships your whole life, but the truth is, and I’m not saying this to put you down, that the ships are so smart they don’t need pilots. Most of the time, your ship is piloting itself and you’re just along for the ride.”

  The tips of Matthew’s ears were turning just a little red. “How can you say that? The Flight Core saved the ship at Meridian.”

  Eddie rolled his eyes. “Za, maybe, but why was the ship even at Meridian? You know, I heard a rumor that while we were on Meridian, they found out the ship’s BrainCore had become so intelligent it was actually its own life form. They locked it down in the UnderDecks to keep it from taking over.”

  “That’s not a rumor,” said Eliza. “That’s what was in the Official Report.”

  “Who reads the official reports? Anyway, my point was, is, and will be instead of sending out nine huge ships with 6,000 people each, why didn’t they send out ... I don’t know, 6,000

  ships with nine people and one super-intelligent computer on-board. It would have explored the galaxy a lot faster.”

  “Didn’t they try something like that three hundred years ago and none of the ships were ever heard from again?” Eliza Jane asked. They were approached by an and/oroid, decked out as a drinks-servant.

  “That’s not what matters,” Matthew said firmly. “What matters is, we’re out here. We’re representing our colonies, and humanity. We all have to do our duty.”

  Eddie sighed. “Weren’t you listening when I was explaining why we don’t need to do our duty?”

  “Our duty is a lot more than whatever function we service on the ship.” Matthew looked very perturbed, and this was surprising as he usually did not convey much emotion. “What gives you the privilege to lie around doing nothing, eating this ship’s rations, without contributing to our mission?”

  “Contributing to
our mission? Look, there was nothing I did that couldn’t be done by a good automech, or an and/oroid with a defective logic center.”

  “So, why do any of us even bother to do our jobs, Eddie? Why do any of us even bother to live, if all of our machines can do the job without us?”

  “Because there’s a bunch of big thinkers on Sapphire and on Repulsive who dreamed up this stupid idea. ‘Let’s explore the galaxy. Let’s find Earth.’ How do we even know there is an Earth. Don’t be getting me started on that.”

  Matthew shook his head, as though shaking off anger. “If I were in command. I’d put you off at the next habitable world and replace you with someone who wanted to be here.”

  “Good thing you’re not in command, then, isn’t it? Hoy, man, we do not need to debate. We can agree to disagree. So long as we agree to agree that if I choose not to perform my function, I can still go on living on this ship.”

  “When you do that, you devalue the efforts of everyone else.”

  The and/oroid spoke, its voice musical, but not human-sounding. “Would the gentlemen and the lady care for a libation?”

  Eliza Jane said, “Why don’t you order something Matthew, I’m buying.”

  Matthew studied the drinks menu. “Quay Lime sorbet fizz,” he ordered, and looked up to see Eliza Change and Eddie Roebuck giggling at him. “What?”

  “Matthew, friend, you are entitled to ... stronger beverages.” Eliza said.

  “You mean something ... with alcohol?”

  “Or tripolity!” Eddie enthused. “Tripolity has a wonderful kick.”

  Matthew hesitated. “I...”

  “What are you, some kind of Saintist or something?”

  “Actually, I am.”

  They paused and blinked at him momentarily.

  “You mean, yoiu can’t drink alcohol, or tripolity, or caffeine...”