Awakening on Orbis

by P. J. Haarsma

  “So I’ve heard,” I said.

  “Please join us. My name is Horgan.”

  Horgan extended his arm and motioned toward a large green and gold curtain suspended from the ceiling. I could see more light through the sheer material and more people. The room was larger than I had realized.

  Horgan walked next to me as the group moved toward the curtain.

  “We could benefit from the abilities of a softwire. I’m sure you appreciate this. Your powers could single-handedly disrupt the lives of the Citizens.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve heard that one before as well.”

  “You are far more powerful than you realize, and so many of your friends are already with us.”

  On the other side of the curtain, I saw Max sitting at a huge round table in the center of the room. Her shadow, created by open fires placed around the table like gigantic candles, flickered on the wall. Everything was afire in an orange glow.

  “I can see that,” I replied, “but I’m afraid I can’t stay long.”

  “Maybe after you sit with us, you will decide to stay longer.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  When Max saw me, she looked at Theodore and then back at me. Max turned away and struck up a conversation with Grace, who had slipped in next to her.

  My ears were burning. I almost used the sweat from my palms to cool them off. Max was going to freak when I told her I was leaving to train as a Space Jumper. I knew it. I hesitated to sit next to her, but I knew there was no more time to waste. In fact, my escort could show up at any second to take me away. I was moving toward the empty seat next her when a small Honine, her forehead spotted with small spikes, sat down before I could.

  “Excuse me. Do you mind if I sit here? I would like to talk to my friend,” I said. I made sure Max could hear the last part so at least she would be aware of my intention.

  The Honine smiled and moved away without incident. I sat next to Max, but she continued to talk with Grace. I hadn’t been this close to Max in a while. Just her scent made my eyes close, and I secretly breathed her in. When I opened my eyes, she was looking at me.

  “What are you doing?” she hissed.

  “I was just — I mean, I . . .” It was hard to talk over the lump that was now formed in my throat. Why was this so difficult?

  “I mean, what are you doing here?” Max said.

  “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “We’ve had plenty of time to talk since your return. I don’t think this is the appropriate place for you to be apologizing to me.”

  “Who said I was —? I mean, I am sorry.”

  Max kind of grunted. “Do you even know what you’re sorry for?”

  “I know what I’m going to be sorry for,” I mumbled.

  “What?” she asked, but then Horgan stood up and raised his arms to quiet everyone down.

  “Welcome, all. There are some new faces around the table. It makes me happy to see our ranks swelling.”

  Max’s arm was about ten centimeters away from mine — so close. I wanted to touch it. I wanted to tell her what I was about to do while I was holding her, not like this. Theodore was right. It was the wrong place and the wrong time. I was such a malf.

  “Max, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  “Shhh,” she shushed me as Horgan continued.

  “As we discussed last time, signs of war are increasing. It was just this cycle that the Trading Council suspended all new petitions for work rule from inquiring races.”

  “What?” I said out loud.

  Horgan paused and nodded. “Oh, yes,” he said. “The Council has even suspended education for knudniks and Citizens nationalized in the last five rotations. And there is talk to suspend all work-rule expirations until the Council feels it appropriate to continue normal contracts. They want to make sure they have control of everyone and everything if they choose to go to war against the Keepers.”

  “But why would they want war?” I asked.

  “The Keepers have broken the treaty set in place almost two thousand rotations ago. The Council is using the Keepers as scapegoats and rallying the Citizens into a unified frenzy over the need to eliminate all Space Jumpers, and the Keepers with them. The Keepers’ arrogance has given the Trading Council the perfect enemy to go to war against.”

  The crowd seated at the table fidgeted in their seats each time Horgan spoke. Some nodded anxiously while others called out in agreement.

  “But why would they want war? They will only hurt themselves,” I yelled over the others. They went quiet when I spoke.

  “War will give them more power. War will give them more control over the crystal moons with less interference from the Keepers and the Trust. The Citizens could rule the rings the way they want to, without restriction, and that would be devastating for the likes of you and me on the Rings of Orbis.”

  Horgan began speaking to the entire crowd now. “Can you imagine what it would be like on the Rings of Orbis if the Trading Council controlled the laws? Can you imagine how many races would suffer under the hand of slavery? Enticed by wealth and greed, many more people would flock to the rings unaware of the consequences that await them.

  “The Trading Council also wants to set their own prices for the crystals harvested from Ki and Ta. Many civilizations that rely on these energy sources would be shackled under the exorbitant prices set by the Council. With no intervention from the Keepers, economies would grind to a halt, societies would crumble, and, all the while, the Council would grow fatter from their obscene profits.”

  “And how do you plan to stop them?” I asked.

  “Do we have to explain ourselves every time someone new comes along?” Ganook complained. “This is a waste of time.”

  I stared at the kid I had grown up with on the Renaissance. “What’s your problem?” I asked him. “What do you have against me?”

  “He has nothing against you,” Grace interrupted, putting her hand on the kid’s shoulder.

  “Let him answer,” I said.

  Ganook stood up, shaking off Grace. He kicked his chair back and walked away from the table. Then he turned toward me. “Don’t you see it? You are their instrument,” he growled. “Just your presence gives the Trading Council another excuse to act.”

  “But if you want the Keepers to stay in power, aren’t you going to need the Space Jumpers on your side? When I become a Space Jumper, I —”

  I stopped mid-sentence and looked at Max. She spun around, her mouth agape.

  “I’m sorry. I can explain,” I whispered.

  Max’s eyes filled with tears. She shoved her chair back and ran from the room. Grace got up to go after her, but I stopped her. “Let me, please,” I said.

  I chased Max through the curtains and found her against the wall, her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook in unison with her sobs. I placed my hand on her back.

  “Don’t!” she cried, and pulled away.

  “Max, please, it’s not what you think. I don’t have a choice.”

  “We always have a choice!”

  Without warning, an explosion ripped through the building. Chunks of concrete tore through the curtain, and I threw myself over Max as the debris rained down upon us. I heard screams and felt my skin turn warm as the open fires leaped from the their containers and crawled over anything that would burn.

  “Theodore!” Max cried from underneath me. She pushed me off, and we both jumped up. Max sprinted through the dust and smoke that now choked the room.

  “Theodore!” I yelled, but I heard only moans and crying as the last pieces of rubble trickled to the ground. “Be careful, Max!”

  I bumped into Grace, clawing her way through the smoke and debris. She was bleeding from her forehead, and her hands were covered in blood.

  “Ganook!” she screamed, looking around. “Ganook!”

  I grabbed her by the shoulders. Tears and blood raked through the dust on her face. “Grace! Grace, we’ll find him,” I yelled,
shaking her back to reality.

  “He turned blue!”

  “Blue? Who turned blue? What do you mean?”

  “Ganook. He turned blue just before the explosion! His whole body.”

  “Blue? Grace, you’re hurt. Sit down.”

  “No! He was a target. They wanted him. They knew!”

  It was Queykay. I was certain of it. If Ketheria’s little stunt had not completely erased his memory, then a trace on Ganook could have exposed his whereabouts. Could they simply kill us from an O-dat whenever they wanted? I certainly hoped not.

  “JT, find Theodore,” Max cried.

  “I’m here. I’m all right,” he shouted from somewhere in the smoke. “You have to find Grace. Make her stay where she is. Don’t bring her over here.”

  “Why!” Grace screamed. “GANOOK!” She ran into the dust before I could grab her.

  I was wading through the debris, looking for Max, when I saw streams of light materialize in the dust. They rippled before merging into a single point. A moment later, I was staring at two Space Jumpers standing in front of me.

  “Not now!” I cried, but the Space Jumpers looked at the destruction around me and worked quickly. One armed his plasma rifle, while the other moved toward me and gripped my forearm.

  “What happened here?” he said.

  “I don’t know. Let me find out. Give me a minute. Please! Max!”

  Max stepped through the dust and saw me standing between the two Space Jumpers. “Please, Max, not like this,” I pleaded. “Try to understand. I never wanted to hurt you.”

  Max didn’t say anything. She just stood there amid the debris. Tears streaked the soot that had settled on her face. She lifted her right hand as if to wave good-bye. I didn’t know for sure because I was ripped away before I could respond.

  My arrival at the Trust was as uneventful as a solar flare on the surface of the sun. The two Space Jumpers dumped me into my room and left without even a welcome. The stone floor and metal fixtures were an exact copy of the room they had put me in before, the first time I was taken to their comet. I looked up and realized, however, that something was different. This time I had a roommate.

  “Of all the rocks in the universe, they have to put me with you?” Switzer grumbled.

  I sat on the floor, Max’s image still emblazoned on my mind. “Give me a minute and I’ll call someone to see if they have anything else available, something more suiting a wormhole pirate.”

  “At least your sarcasm has gotten better,” Switzer said, and leaned back on his sleeper. He hoisted his huge boots over the edge and let them clunk on the metal as he clamped his thick hands behind his even thicker neck. It was difficult for me to get used to the older Switzer. I had to look carefully, past the scars and muscles, to see the kid I had grown up with. If it wasn’t for his cocky attitude, I don’t know if I would have recognized him at all. “But really,” he went on in his deeper, Switzer-the-man voice. “Thanks. I thought I was going to rot in that awful cell. I owe you one.”

  His grateful remark caught me off guard. So much had happened between the two us, and none of it was pleasant. Yet I couldn’t help but glance at him and blame myself for his very existence. “It was the least I could do,” I said without sarcasm.

  “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. Why did you do it, anyway? From what I’ve seen, you had a pretty good thing going on down there. What possessed you to drag me out of prison?”

  “I told you already. It’s not fair what they did to us. They made you the way you are. They are responsible for you. They can’t just lock you away. Your actions are just as much their fault as yours.”

  “Not sure I see it your way, split-screen. I’ve done a lot of bad things that had nothing to do with them, but thanks all the same.”

  “Please stop calling me that.”

  “What?”

  “Split-screen, Dumbwire, or whatever witty little tag you can come up with. Call me JT or don’t call me anything.”

  Switzer paused before muttering, “Sure. Whatever you want. Hey, how did your girlfriend take it?”

  I stood up and moved in front of his sleeper. “Do not talk about Max,” I told him. “Ever! Understand that I do not want to be here. I did it to get you out. My goal is to get through this stupid training and then get back to the Rings of Orbis. I need to protect Ketheria. You’re not the only one I feel responsible for. When you’re done with your training, I want you to accept some post in another galaxy, all right? But after you become a Space Jumper, I never want to see you again. Understood?”

  “Wow, one minute you’re feeling sorry for me and the next minute you never want to see me again. What’s with that?”

  “Nothing that I’m going to tell you,” I said as I turned away.

  “Suit yourself,” he replied, and leaned back only to sit right back up again. “Hey, do you have any more of that stuff you gave me back on the rings? I could really use some right now. Just a little. I don’t want to get used to it.”

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the bag of tablets I had made for Switzer. I took a couple from the bag and popped them into my mouth. My head had been killing me ever since I’d arrived. “Here,” I said, and tossed the bag to him. “They’ll do the trick.”

  Switzer caught the bag and held it up, admiring it. Then he looked at me and said, “You’ll make a good wife some cycle, split-screen.”

  Switzer’s teasing was the least of my concerns. I went to sleep worrying about how they’d gotten to Ganook and woke up wondering what Max was doing. How long was I going to be here? It couldn’t be that long, I told myself. Then I remembered slow-time. The Keepers had used it in the Center for Science and Research, and the Trust even mentioned it the first time I was here. Surely they must be using it now. If they wanted me to protect Ketheria, how could I do it from here? All I had to do was finish their little course and I would be done. Keep an open mind. That’s what Ketheria had said. How hard could that be?

  Switzer’s sleeper was closed, but I could still hear him snoring. I pushed back the lid of my own sleeper and stared at the metal door. A soft blue light lined the perimeter. I figured some sort of computer chip controlled all the doors on this ship, or rock, or whatever it was that they called this thing. I glanced over at Switzer. He was out cold. Since no one said we had started training yet, I figured now was a good a time as any to do a little exploring.

  I slid off my sleeper, stuffed my feet into my boots, and went to the door. I pushed into the blue light and was surprised to find a rudimentary locking device, which I merely nudged open. The last time I was on this thing, the Trust had kept me locked up using a far more elaborate security system. It’s not like I could leave here, anyway, I thought as the door disappeared. Outside, I dragged my fingers along the stony wall and slipped down the corridor.

  I had no idea where I was going, so I followed the polished support girders that reflected the frigid glow from caged lights mounted above my head every meter or so. It was cold, and I could smell a slight medicinal scent lingering in the air.

  I turned right down another corridor. The place is bigger than I thought. I found a short set of stairs at the end and climbed them into a small atrium. I stepped toward a large door at the far end, and it disappeared. Once inside, I found myself looking out at the stars through an enormous glass dome. It was some sort of observation deck, like the one we had on the Renaissanc e. I loved that place. I spent so many cycles staring out at the stars, wondering what my new home would be like.

  I went up to the glass to look out over the ship, but what I saw really wasn’t a ship at all. It was just a big rock — a huge comet falling through space. Behind me, a brilliant white tail of dust and ice lit up the empty blackness, and it was empty. There were no planets on the horizon, no nearby stars to light up the ship. But worse than that, the most glaring absence of all was that of the Rings of Orbis. I searched everywhere, running from side to side of the observation deck, but I could find no sig
n of it. Where was I? Everything I knew was gone. The home I had struggled to accept was nowhere to be found. What had I done? The enormity of my decision settled on my shoulders and forced me to the ground. I had felt alone in my life before, but never like this. Sitting there, on top of the comet, with nothing in sight, I felt more than alone. I felt dead.

  “Do I really snore that bad?” Switzer asked.

  I opened my eyes. I was still in the observation deck. I must have fallen asleep on the floor. “What time is it?” I mumbled, looking up at Switzer. There was a strange device hovering near his head, a golden light suspended over a metal spike like a torch.

  “Um . . . you got something here,” Switzer whispered, pointing at the corner of his mouth. I reached up and wiped away the drool that must have escaped while I was sleeping.

  “Thanks. Who’s that?”

  “Him?” Switzer said, thumbing at the thing floating in the air. “That cheery little fellow is our escort. I think we’re going to meet the rest of our playgroup.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I didn’t want to start my first cycle of school without my new buddy.”

  “Enough with the sarcasm. Do you have any of those tablets? My head is killing me.”

  Switzer tossed me a couple tablets and said, “Try to suck it up a little and use those only when it hurts. I don’t know how long we’re going to be on this icicle.”

  “So you know where we are?”

  “I do now,” he replied, walking over to the edge of the observation deck.

  “Orientation is now assembling. Your presence is required. Please follow me,” the floating thingy announced as its light flashed red.

  “Ah, the universal color of danger. How long do we plan on letting them wait?” Switzer said, turning to me.

  “I don’t,” I told him, and sprang to my feet. “Time to be a Space Jumper.”

  We followed our escort down several corridors before the light led us to a small lift suspended over a huge open area. The place was so big that I think I could have flown a ring shuttle through it. Directly across from our lift were a couple of enormous cylinders like two giant spacescopes standing next to each other, balanced on their lenses. I squinted to see what they were made of, but the black metal was punctured with an assortment of bright yellow, green, and white lights that made it hard to tell. I could see that each pillar was constructed from odd-size sections stacked one upon the other and that the sections were simply too numerous to count. Theodore would have tried to count them, though, I thought.