The Methuselan Circuit

by Anderson, Christopher L.

  “Thank you,” Sister Mary Katherine smiled. She turned back to the students, and told them, “Please turn on your individual screens and synchronize your retinal patterns to the sensors.” She said “please” but there was really no choice involved.

  Alexander leaned forward and pressed the glowing green button on the back of the seat in front of him. He could hear six hundred other kids go through the same motion. A small video screen popped out of the seat back. It brightened, showing various icons. Alexander touched the icon that looked like an eye. Immediately the screen showed his face and then centered on his right eye. The image expanded until all he saw was his eye. The screen highlighted the structure of his iris, the maze of his blood vessels—“Stay still please”—and took note of the reactions of his pupil by lightening and darkening at random. After twenty seconds it flashed—“Synchronized to Alexander Thomas Aquinas Wolfe, Security Number 989-75-2069-013, address Washington State, Vashon Island, 107th Street, South end. Is this correct?”

  He touched the word “Correct.”

  Alexander looked up. Sister Mary Katherine was studying her podium screen. After another minute she looked up with an irritated expression of consternation. “Mr. William Jonah Jameson, are you having a problem synchronizing?”

  Willy smiled nervously as six hundred pairs of eyes turned toward him. “My dad said I don’t have to do this. I’m free to choose what I want.” His words sounded more certain than his voice. Alexander got the feeling he’d been told what to say and that for all his bravado Willy would rather not have said it.

  The Principal left the podium. She walked slowly from the stage down the steps and up the ramp of the assembly, her shoes making sharp echoes in the large hall. She stopped next to Willy’s seat and looked down upon him. He didn’t look back until she gripped his chin and turned his head upward.

  “Hey you can’t do that!”

  “Young man, I will do what is necessary short of harming you—permanently that is.” There was a hushed chuckle around the assembly. “However, seeing as you believe it is necessary to waste our time, it is well within my rights to ask you why.”

  “Because I don’t have to do this,” he said.

  “No, you are absolutely right, you don’t have to do this,” she replied. “Do you understand the implications of your decision?”

  “Yes,” he said defiantly.

  “The answer is actually no,” she said sternly. “When you are eighteen and considered an adult—though by God I’ve met few enough at that age that act like adults—then and not before, you may decide the course for the rest of your life. You are twelve years old young man. You’re far too young to throw away over a century of existence.”

  “But my father said,” he began.

  “Your father doesn’t get to live your life Willy,” she said more softly, “and you don’t have to live his life. This is about you, not him. This is about your service to our country.”

  “What if I don’t want to serve this country or become a Citizen?”

  “You will have that choice when you are eighteen, but until then we are setting the course for your next six years. Think of it this way, Willy. The education you get until you’re eighteen will take advantage of what you are interested in and what you like to do. It will enhance and build on your talents. If you decide to use your skills to serve the country afterward wonderful! If not, then you will have become a more talented person for whatever you wish to do—it’s free.”

  “Oh all right,” Willy relented and he allowed the screen to synchronize.

  Over the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, Alexander and his classmates watched presentations by all the Republic agencies that fulfilled the prerequisites for Service that would qualify them for Citizenship. After the presentations they took a break and came back for “Familiarization.”

  This was what Alexander was waiting for. He thought the presentations were fine, especially the one from the Fleet and the one from the Legions. Now it was his turn to actually meet some of the men and women from the Services. He went to the Fleet room first. There were literally hundreds of kids there and dozens of officers.

  He went to the buffet table and got a glass of juice and a donut—donuts, he hadn’t seen one for years! Alexander tried to worm his way in close to one of the officers, but there was a lot of jostling and shoving going on. Eventually, he just ended up wandering around on the fringes of the groups, listening to one officer and then another, but generally accepting that he wouldn’t get to actually talk to anyone.

  “You’re listening,” said a baritone voice from behind. He turned to see a Legionary Officer standing there looking at him. He wore a scarlet tunic with black trousers and high topped boots. A red, white and blue sash crossed his chest. On his collar he wore the golden leaf of a Major. He nodded and smiled. “The first rule of command is to listen.” He looked at all the other boys and sighed. “Most of these boys are too busy jabbering away at how cool it would be to do this or that, without having the first clue of what they’re talking about.”

  He bit his tongue. Would he be doing that if he had the chance? Alexander didn’t want to say it, but maybe if he were brave enough or rude enough to put himself forward. The officer seemed to be reading his mind.

  “Talking has nothing to do with courage. Standing up for what’s right; that’s what takes courage.” His eyes narrowed. “Believing in what’s right even when your peers say otherwise—that’s what we look for.” He held out his hand. “I’m Major Gardner, I’m very happy to meet you.”

  Alexander shook his hand as firmly as his own father taught him to. “I’m Alexander Wolfe. I’m honored to meet you sir.”

  “Very good,” he smiled. He thought for a moment, and finally asked, “Why is it you want to be in the military Alexander?”

  “I want to serve my country. My father served,” he said.

  “He did, and with distinction,” Major Gardner said. “This is about you. I see you’ve done projects on Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. History interests you then?”

  “Certain types of history, but not all,” he admitted. “We just finished the Mayan and Chinese cultures. I didn’t like them very much. The Mayans were bloodthirsty and the Chinese rulers were cruel.”

  “Did you learn anything from them?”

  “Yes, you can even learn from your enemies,” he said, no longer intimidated by the officer. This was stuff he knew. “I read about Napoleon. The English and everyone else thought he was a tyrant, but he established schools for everyone and government systems that we still use—that doesn’t sound like much of a tyrant.”

  The Major laughed. “You’ve a good head on your shoulders, Alexander. You know, however, that the military isn’t easy. We’d push you hard. It’s not an easy life but it is a proud one.”

  “I would be proud to serve,” Alexander said, meaning every word of it.

  “Would you be willing to take another test or two,” the Major asked. “I know you’ve been up to your ears in tests, but that’s the way it is.”

  “Sure, I don’t have to be home for a while and I don’t want to go to the other places.”

  “You don’t want to check the Clergy out; you’re an Altar Server aren’t you? Have you considered the Priesthood?”

  Alexander was surprised. How did they know all that? Still, he shook his head. “I don’t think so, not now at least. Even though I believe really strongly I think I’m more suited to the Legions or the Fleet.”

  “Well then why don’t you follow me,” the Major said, leading the way through a door. “We’re going to test a bunch of you kids who are really, really interested in this. Go in there, someone will administer the test. Good luck Alexander, it was nice to meet you!”

  “It was nice to meet you sir,” he said, politely shaking the Officer’s hand. Alexander went obediently through the door. There was a short hallway and another door at the end. He opened it and stepped inside. To his shock, he realized he
wasn’t in the school anymore.

  CHAPTER 2: Rocket Ride

  He wasn’t in another room and he wasn’t outside. Alexander was in what looked to be a very nice bus. It wasn’t nice in that it was comfortable or well appointed; actually it was quite the opposite. The interior was austere. The metal ribs showed through the smooth insulating panels of the walls. In between each pair of ribs was a small window and next to each window was a row of seats. A central aisle gave access to ten rows of two seats each, one on either side. Each seat was pseudo-leather, liked the stripped down economy version of an airliner.

  “It’s got to be a military shuttle,” he mused aloud. “Why, where am I going?”

  There was no answer. Alexander thought about it. He had two choices: either sit down or turn back and leave. He didn’t want to turn back. He went up the aisle. Each row of seats had a panel. At first he assumed it was a training shuttle, something that a lot of kids could ride and practice the same things, except that each seat had a different setup. He wandered up and down the aisle inspecting each one. None of them were the same so he gave up and chose the most complicated panel he could find with the most display screens. He sat down.

  An opaque energy screen closed around Alexander’s station. He could see out the window, but he couldn’t see any of the other seats. He waited for direction. Nothing happened. He looked around, not wanting to touch anything he wasn’t supposed to. There weren’t any reference checklist, labels, signs—nothing. Finally, curiosity got the better of him and he touched a screen. Alexander jumped as all the displays and control boards came to life.

  There were seven display screens in all, three smaller screens on either side of a single large screen. The large screen had a menu, just like his hologames. Without wasting any more time he got right to it. There were start up routines, system routines, questions, problems to be solved—he went through them all, except for one. On the first page of the first start up routine was a caution that read,

  Pushing the Red Button will begin the Main Sequence, use only when called for by set criteria.

  That made no sense to him. He wondered what the Red Button did, but he resisted doing anything about it until he found out when and under what conditions he could use it. He had other things to do regardless.

  After about half an hour, Alexander heard a whirring sound. He scanned his displays. On the upper left bank he saw the colored ribbons and digital readouts for four engines. They wound up, settled down and stabilized. A minute later the shuttle moved. He looked out the window and saw that they were rising straight up into the air. He started. He’d forgotten his seat belt! He dug around his seat but there weren’t just two straps. There were five straps and a central buckle. It took some experimentation to figure out, which was made all that much tougher because the shuttle started to bounce around either because of turbulent air or by design. Eventually he got strapped in, but the shuttle kept bucking around like a wild horse. The air grew hot and Alexander began to feel a bit queasy.

  He tried looking out the window, but the sight of the ground moving away faster and faster only made him feel worse. He turned back to his displays, picking up the last routine where he left off. Maybe, just maybe if he kept himself busy he’d forget about throwing up. If only it were cooler.

  Then it struck him: he had engine displays! Wasn’t the air conditioner a system just like the engines? He looked around, paging through one display after another until he found something labeled “Pneumatic Air Bleed System.” Well, it said “Air” at least. At first all he could make out were a bunch of thick green lines going from some objects to other objects. He thought hard. Is that air moving from one place to another? He couldn’t tell, but one of the objects at the top of the page said “Pressurized NO2” and the object at the end of the lines said “Air Conditioning Pack.” Next to the “Pack” was a number: “35 degrees C.”

  “No wonder it’s so hot!” He touched the bar next to the temperature readout and moved his finger down the screen until it read “17 degrees C.”

  At once cool air began to blow on Alexander and he felt much better. A surge of accomplishment brought a smile to his face. He’d actually done something! His sour stomach disappeared, and Alexander dared a look out the window to see where they might be. The window was black with a sprinkling of bright stars. It can’t be night already! He leaned close to the window, so close he could feel the chill from the Plexiglas. Looking down he saw the bright blue and white limb of the Earth.

  Alexander was in space.

  The view was mesmerizing. It was one thing to see it on his visiplate at home, but here, even through the small window it was a completely different experience. He was actually in space and not watching it. Alexander pressed his hand against the window. It was cold. Wow!

  A buzzer began to sound, on and off. He looked to his board. The borders around one of the secondary screens flashed red; and a message on the main screens read, “Primary Power Coupling Failure.”

  He was twelve. He had no idea what a primary power coupling was. What was he supposed to do? He looked around, but there was nothing to see beyond the opaque energy screen. He took a deep breath. “I guess I have to do something about it.”

  The first place to look was obvious. He studied the secondary screen with the flashing red border. It appeared to show energy routing through the engines and out the thrusters. Yes, there was the matter—anti-matter convection chamber. Fuel flowed into the chamber where it was converted to anti-matter and then routed through magnetic manifolds to the engines. Everybody knew that much, even kids his age. He’d learned about it by reading National Geographic. They always had articles on space flight, the frontier planets in the adjoining solar systems and all sorts of other stuff. He’d even read about the Space Academy.

  “Ok back to the problem, this is really cool and all, but I’ve got a job to do,” he reminded himself. What to do, that was the problem. His Dad always told him to focus. He studied the screen and followed the energy flow. There was a blockage in the flow. One piece of equipment flashed red, and the label read, “Primary Power Coupling.” Next to it was a similar piece of equipment. It was gray on the screen and had no energy flowing either into it or out of it. The label read, “Secondary Power Coupling.”

  The ship rocked and began to shake wildly. Alexander looked out the window. The stars and the earth spun around, disappearing from sight only to reappear seconds later. The ship was out of control! He began to feel sick. Steam hissed out of one of his vents, clouding his view of the screens. Then the screens began to go dark. “I have to switch to the Secondary Power Coupling and fast!”

  How?

  He touched the image of the Secondary Power Coupling. It brightened. The word “Armed” showed beneath it, but no energy flowed into or out of it. The shaking grew worse. He looked back at the main screen. The message describing the failure was now flashing with a bright red box around it. Instinctively he reached out and touched it.

  Beneath the message a checklist came onto the screen. He looked it over and saw where it told him to activate the Secondary Power Coupling by selecting it on the Engine Display. “I did that,” he objected, but even as he said that he noticed that was step two and not step one. That read,

  “Step 1: Deactivate the malfunctioning Primary Power Coupling by selecting the icon on the Secondary Engine Display.”

  He groaned. Rule number one—don’t hurry. Rule number two—follow directions. Alexander reached over and deselected the Primary Power Coupling by touching it. The icon changed color to a dark gray. The energy stopped flowing into it and rerouted to the Secondary Power Coupling which was now armed and ready. Energy went through the coupling and into the engines. The ship stopped shaking.

  Alexander relaxed and looked out the window. The view of the earth and stars steadied. The emergency was over. He relaxed. Leaning back in his seat, he glanced at the main screen again. The checklist was still there. It had five steps, and it occurred to him that
he’d only done two. Everything seemed to be working, but he couldn’t help but think they wouldn’t have made it five steps long if two steps would have done just as well. He finished it.

  When he completed the final step the secondary screens went dark. The main screen changed to show a distinguished looked man in a black and silver uniform. The man had silver hair that matched his uniform and a full mustache. He looked at Alexander from beneath bushy brows, and said, “I’m Admiral Sten Augesburcke IV, the Commandant of the US Space Academy. Congratulations Alexander, you’ve completed the first phase of testing for a probationary year at the Space Academy. Now I don’t want to get your hopes up too high, because there are other steps that need to be taken before you are accepted as a Brevet Cadet, many of these steps depend on you and some depend on your parents.