Bliss was in the southern hemisphere of the main continent on Planet Cygnus VII. It sat on the northern border between the Amazon rainforest and the Plains of Propiscius. It had a deep history of conflict between the humans and the Lizard Men of the Amazon as well as reconciliation and collaboration. The school was built and run to further the close cooperation between the Amazonians and their human brothers. It maintained an equal balance of instructors between the two species.
“Why did you sign up, Pickles? the DI asked, intentionally mispronouncing the recruit’s name.
“Tired of teaching history, Master DI. It’s time to make some history. My people have yet to make a difference with the SES,” he said with greater feeling.
“And you won’t either if you don’t improve your running speed. DOWN!” she bellowed. The recruits dropped and hovered just above the floor. “Listen up, all of you. From now on, if I hear the words “my people,” you had better be referring to your fellow members of the Space Exploration Service. I don’t give a crap if you have fur, feathers, skin, a Hillcat, or a tortoise shell. The SES exists as one team and we have one mission. We serve the ship. UP!” The recruits completed their pushup, some more quickly than others. Some groaned through it.
“By all that’s holy, it was only one pushup!” the DI bellowed, smiling inwardly. She was already proud of the group. Twenty-five of twenty-five and here she had herself a history tutor to make sure no one failed those tests. “On your feet! Straighten these desks and get ready for the next class.” She made a show of storming out of the room. The instructor in the hallway, a cow Aurochs, much larger than their water buffalo cousins, snickered and bobbed her massive head, having seen the show before. Katlind scratched the neck of her friend.
“It’s a good bunch, but if you hold back, try to make it easy on them, you and I will have words!”
“Of course, Master DI. I would expect no less…” The device around the Aurochs neck interpreted the words as a breathy whisper in a laughing tone. Katlind had never been able to master the mindlink, so she stayed in the spoken world, but that hadn’t held her back. She tried to understand all creatures, great and small, regardless if she could speak directly with them or not.
The cow opened the door with a firm head butt and strode forward, around the hastily rearranged desks and onto a stage that groaned unhappily beneath her weight. Someone’s ‘cat ran to her and rubbed its body against her foreleg. The recruits stifled giggles. She tried to nose him away, but he maneuvered expertly away from her as her head was twisted upside down trying to chase him off. “Go away, you pesky little beast! Oops.” She realized that she’d spoken aloud. Without further ado, she launched into a lecture on the geography of Vii, looking like she was dancing as she attempted to shoo the ‘cat away with her massive hooves.
The Routine
Physical activity from breakfast through lunch. Classes all afternoon. Then more physical activity. Cain started to think that the SES was about making everyone strong enough to carry a spaceship on their backs. Cain lost weight right away, but then started to gain it back in the form of muscle. He’d always been lean, had never been a physical slouch, but he soon realized what it meant to have a workout routine. If he’d only done this when he was back in school, he would have been something.
Something for Aletha to look at, although she looked at him anyway. He thought of her often as they trained. It helped take his mind off the pain and monotony. He’d lose track as they counted pushups or during other calisthenics as he daydreamed of the day he’d be able to return to her. When they finally received mail, he was surprised at the letter he received from her. It was snippets of everyday life in Greentree, the village to the east of Bliss where they both lived. Nothing much changed. She had signed the note, “love, Aletha.” That gave him some hope, but it wasn’t the warm and inviting letter he’d hoped for.
He overthought it, talked with Leaper, twisted it, and finally determined that he’d lost her. He was crushed. In his own mind, he’d failed with grim finality. He awoke in the middle of the night and climbed down from his bunk, stepping on Leaper’s paw and earning a pained yip from the sleeping Wolfoid.
Cain hid in a bathroom stall. I’ll do great things and she’ll want me back, he reasoned. No, she won’t. She probably thinks I won’t come home to Greentree and she won’t leave. That’s what it is. It’s not me at all. She can’t leave home and I’m an adventurer like my great-great-grandfather! I’m too much for her! Cain shook his head. That sounded like ego and not intellect. Aletha! he cried. What do you want me to do? Just tell me and I’ll do it. I don’t want you to leave me, and I’m too stupid to know what to do to win you back. He put his head in his hands and sobbed.
“Who’s in here?” a feminine voice whispered loudly.
Cain sniffled and tried to collect himself. He pulled the door open. Ellie stood there with her hands on her hips, looking like she was going to chew on him. He waved her off and tried to get past her, but she softened instantly and pulled him into a tight hug.
“What’s wrong? You’re not going to quit, are you?” she asked as she pushed him to arm’s length to look him over.
“No,” he replied. “It’s complicated.”
She narrowed her eyes as she looked into his. “It’s a girl, isn’t it? What’s her name?” This was the first day they’d received mail, in the old written form, not electronic like most people used.
“Aletha,” he stammered, surprised at how easily he was found out. “Am I that transparent?” He wiped his nose on his arm.
“You’re a man and you’re crushed, so it all adds up. You are walking through the training like it’s no big deal so I knew it couldn’t be that. So, don’t quit. Get over her, if that’s it, and move on. She’s the one missing out, not you,” Ellie finished and excused herself, taking the stall that Cain had just vacated. He splashed water on his face, but his eyes were still red and puffy.
He gave up and went back to his bunk, where he lay until the morning wake up call, a racket guaranteed to wake the dead. Brisbois cringed and covered his ears, but always half a heartbeat too late. Rabbits were sensitive to sound. Cain was surprised that he hadn’t taken to sleeping with earplugs. Briz, as they called him, probably had heard Cain crying in the bathroom stall. Cain wouldn’t make eye contact with the Rabbit, but realized quickly that he was pretty rough in the morning. He’d learn later that Briz was an odd one among his kind in that he preferred sleeping during the day and working at night.
After Ellie’s short chat, Cain’s attitude improved immensely. She didn’t ask him to talk about his feelings or any of that, just said how it was from her perspective. He appreciated that. And she also never took her hand away when they needed it to help each other through the obstacle course. That was probably due more so to the DI’s influence, but Cain wanted to think it was because the five individuals were becoming a good team.
They discovered that Pickles was a good teacher and wouldn’t let any of them fail. Briz also ensured that they understood their basic math and physics, while he worked the instructors for material related to astrophysics. By the fourth and last week of the basic recruit-level courses, Briz had already surpassed the instructors in the area of astrophysics and spatial relation math.
The latest clone of the eminent Dr. Johns took the subway from New Sanctuary to the space center where he looked forward to meeting the young prodigy.
Briz was beyond excited and couldn’t stop hopping up and down.
“Relax, Briz! This is what you’ve wanted all along, isn’t it? Someone to notice you and put you into Research and Development? R&D for you, buddy, but whatever you do, don’t think of us lowly creatures back here, duking it out with nature, trying to understand coefficients of friction and all that.” Cain playfully poked the Rabbit in the ribs. Briz wrinkled his nose and flapped his ears before he started hopping again.
“It is my pleasure to have known you when you were one of the little people,” Leaper said,
still working on his vocalization device to teach it to reflect the tone of voice he intended. It fell flat yet again, sounding monotone and weak.
“I appreciate your sentiments, but there’s nothing to say I’m going anywhere or that I’ll even accept if they do offer me something,” Briz said as he bounced. The Rabbit’s device appropriately reflected his excitement.
“Stop it! You better accept if they offer you something. That’s why you came here in the first place, isn’t it?” Cain asked, shaking his head. “You don’t deserve to be an insulbrick like us.” The insulbrick was a critical component on a ship as it was insulation plastered into an unintended penetration in the steel plates of a spaceship. Sometimes seams came apart for no reason, other times a small meteor blasted through. In either or both cases, insulbrick sealed the breach, just like the recruits. Their bodies were forfeit for the greater good of the ship.
Save the ship, because the ship was life.
As it turned out, Dr. Johns suggested Briz wrap up that “training business” and report to the New Command Center where he’d begin immediately working with the group designing the next generation of interdimensional space engine.
“I just don’t know, Dr. Johns. I have to say that I’m honored that you’d come all this way and a month ago, this is exactly what I wanted. But I really like what I’m doing now and who I’m doing it with. Will you wait for me while I finish my first term with the SES?” Briz pleaded, his device adding the appropriate level of sincerity and hope in the voice that was uniquely the Rabbit’s.
Dr. Johns reached out an aging hand to caress the Rabbit’s soft, fuzzy head, tickling his ears. The Rabbits and Wolfoids used touch as a way to communicate and convey emotions. To them it was natural that there always seemed to be contact with the humans. It wasn’t demeaning in any way. “We can wait, Briz. I’ve been waiting for you for three generations. If I have to wait a little bit longer, I’ll be okay. I think you have the spark of genius that we need to make the new engine work. We are so close, but none of us can see what’s holding us back. Fresh blood! A fresh mind! An outsider’s view. If we move some of the key research here, could you look at it for us? Help us, please.”
Briz was taken aback. He knew that he had a gift and he’d always been encouraged by his parents, but felt more of an outcast from Rabbits than one who would have someone as distinguished as the eminent Dr. Johns beg to work with them. Briz felt afraid.
“What if I don’t live up to your expectations?” Briz asked before thinking.
The elder scientist laughed easily in a dry, croaking way. “No matter what you give us or what you see, it is more than we have now. I’m afraid to admit it, but we haven’t had a breakthrough in many years. We are so close, but so far away. We are adrift in interstellar space, looking for anything to guide us to that next star,” the old man said, more matter-of-factly than pleading. He looked sincere and with a final scratch behind Briz’s ears, excused himself so he could coordinate the pack-up and movement of key research to the Space School.
The staff was pinging. They didn’t have any empty classroom for scientists to occupy, but when the Dr. Johns (or his twelfth cloned iteration) made a request, people complied as if it was a mandate from the president herself.
Briz was hopping too, as he had the best of both worlds. He was a recruit some of the time and an exalted professor for the rest. His co-workers on the engine research only thought of him as their boy wonder, even though he maintained that he had yet to contribute anything because their calculations were far beyond him. He didn’t understand metallurgy and he knew that would be a significant factor in the fuel containment, flow, intermix, and recovery. So he started staying up at night, reading everything the R&D team gave him.
The group was in its fifth week of training, having survived the physical breakdown and rebuilding of their bodies. They were on to greater things, like an introduction to the spaceships where they’d spend an entire month studying damage control and practicing damage control methods. One month of nothing but learning how to react, because the ship was life. And then if they were assigned to a ship, they’d spend the majority of their remaining shipboard lives practicing for emergencies.
The last morning of the fifth week was the second morning after a sleepless night for Briz. The group jogged to the dining hall where they’d inhale their breakfast, then head to the spaceship mockup where they’d run around in circles carrying great hoses and misshapen chunks of insulbrick. Briz was staggering while in formation, so his teammates gave him a hand. With Team Leader Stinky on one side and Cain on the other, they managed to haul the Rabbit to a place where he could get an industrial-sized serving of coffee and fresh greens.
Once DI Katlind saw the extent to which the team was trying to hide the Rabbit’s exhaustion, she decided a change to the routine was in order.
After plowing through their chow and coffee with a minute or two to spare, they casually walked out of the dining hall and formed up in the roadway outside. The team leaders were now responsible for bringing their teams to the school, so once they had everyone, they lined up behind the lead, two by two, and ran quickly to their next event.
They took one step when a voice boomed, echoing between the buildings of the space center. “STOP!” The recruits looked around and saw the DI glaring at them. They ran into each other as Black Leaper stopped more quickly than the others. Tandry’s ‘cat bolted to the side and hid behind a tree.
After Stinky’s team collected itself and faced the DI, she walked up to them, slowly and deliberately.
“Obstacle course,” she said so softly that they almost didn’t hear it. They stood, a group of five recruits, eyes fixed on their Discipline Instructor widening as the delay in their response sent her into one of her well-practiced conniptions. “I SAID, OBSTACLE COURSE!” It was complete with spittle. Cain could have sworn he saw her eyes glowing red.
Tandry screamed and the group ran like a herd of stampeding Aurochs, away from the manicured grounds and toward the mud and wood construction known as the obstacle course. DI Katlind jogged at a measured pace after them. She knew they’d wait, and she knew they’d have their bodies locked at the position of attention, too. It was a good group.
She heard a meow and a purr. Looking down, Recruit Tandry’s ‘cat was running alongside.
‘So, you think this is a good group?’ Mixial asked using her thought voice. The DI was surprised, having rarely conversed over a mindlink. It gave her a terrible headache as she wasn’t gifted with the ability to speak using a thought voice.
“What are you doing in my head, you mangy little cretin?” she replied, counting on her DI persona to hide her discomfort in such conversations.
‘The same thing I do in everyone’s head, talk to them like an adult,’ Mixial answered, giving the DI a taste of her own sarcasm. ‘What do you have in mind, and how can I help?’
“Okay, ‘cat. I don’t do this a whole lot, but from what I understand, you already know what I have in mind and have an idea of what you want to do. Let’s skip the charades and get to it. So tell me…” the DI enunciated clearly. She was running, but breathing normally. She could run like that for hours if need be.
‘I think you must have been a Hillcat in a previous life, but did something wrong and that’s why you are doing penance within your human shell. Here’s what I’m thinking, which, if you weren’t being punished for a past transgression, you’d already know…’
The DI arrived at the obstacle course slightly after Stinky and his team. She had a big smile on her face as the ‘cat assumed a position next to her. Tandry glared at Mixial, but the ‘cat only yawned, showing its fangs, smacking its ‘cat lips, and looking away, seemingly disinterested.
“Traitor,” Tandry said out loud to receive a loving caress to her mind from her bonded ‘cat. She chuckled, until she saw an unhappy glare magically appear on DI Katlind’s face.
“Would you look at this place?” the DI belted out, not expecting the
recruits to look anywhere other than front and center. “I don’t know what slobs were here last, but we need to clean this place up. You have one hour to rake, wipe, and straighten. TURN TO!” she ended with yelled order to begin. The recruits looked at each other and back at the DI, who pointed to a small shed just inside the tree line. They bolted for it, finding everything they needed to do the work.
Stinky ran up the back ramp of the wall to look over the obstacle course and determine priorities for work. The others joined him with rakes and shovels when they saw what he was doing. There were six obstacles, starting with the wall. Next was the mud pit, then the meandering balance beam, the over-under fencing, the inverted V climb, and finally the rope climb. The approach and departures from the rope swing over the mud pit were a mess, so Cain and Ellie took that as one project, while the other three raced to the next four obstacles. As they finished, they’d move to the fifth and sixth obstacles. The rope climb looked to be in good shape, so if they didn’t make it there in the time allotted, they reasoned that it would probably be okay.
Then again, they needed to make it there in time. The worst part was when they realized that their group was the last one on the obstacle course. “It was us,” Stinky said, his vocalization device carrying the appropriate amount of humility and shame. They looked at each other briefly before running off to their assigned jobs.
The DI found a seat in the shade and watched. She knew the recruits were well aware of the time so she didn’t bother tracking it herself. She got bored quickly so she started walking around, looking at nothing in particular, which greatly energized the recruits who had already been working feverishly.
It always did. She tried not to laugh.
She saw her partner in crime, the Hillcat Mixial, sneaking toward the old observation tower. It had already been replaced by a new, high-tech version, but sentimentality kept the school from tearing down the old one. The ‘cat disappeared up the tower steps.
Cygnus Rising: Humanity Returns to Space (Cygnus Space Opera Book 1) Page 3