by M. D. Cooper
“And we’re traveling further from New Eden every minute—seems counter-intuitive,” Tanis sighed.
Joe nodded and sat beside Tanis. They enjoyed the silence for some time, simply staring out into space, arms around each other’s shoulders. Eventually Tanis looked at Joe, “We’ll have to do this often during our thaws.”
“Absolutely.”
After finishing the glasses of wine, they discussed the route to the stern of the ship. While serving on the Intrepid, they had spent the majority of their time in the dorsal arch. Rather than travelling through familiar territory, they opted to work their way down through several dozen decks below them, and travel through the sections of the ship directly above the particle accelerator.
Outside the observation lounge, the utilitarian corridors felt even more stark than on the way in.
Their HUD overlays led them to a wide vertical shaft, which dropped over thirty meters, and rose several hundred more above them. It was lined with various pipes, waveguides, and conduit. Several bots flitted up and down, a few swerving out of the way, as a lift rose up the shaft.
Tanis and Joe stepped on the lift, and she punched the button for the lowest level. The lift waited a moment, then dropped down the shaft. With the low gravity—due to the particle accelerator running on empty—there was a moment her feet lifted off the platform.
“That was a bit disconcerting,” Joe said.
“You’re telling me,” Tanis said as she looked over the railing. “It’s quite the drop.”
The bottom of the shaft pierced the ceiling of yet another vast chamber, one which appeared to be at least a hundred meters wide, and several hundred long. Above them, the roof of the chamber was punctuated by several other shafts, like the one they had just entered through. Bots flitted in and out of them, appearing to be working on the large object below.
“This must be the main scoop’s field generator,” Tanis said, as the realization dawned on her.
“I’ve never seen one that looked like this before,” Joe commented, as the lift settled next to a catwalk.
“You’ve never seen one that can emit a field over ten thousand kilometers wide.”
“Touché.”
They stood a moment longer, looking at one of the Intrepid’s many hearts.
“Well, let’s roll,” Tanis said, as she picked up her bag. “We have a long way to go.”
The rest of the day was spent passing through endless kilometers of corridor, bay, and chamber. The posh lounge, looking out over the ramscoop emitter should have prepared them, but they were still surprised by what lay in the nooks and crannies of the ship.
Rounding a corner, near one of the hydroponics chambers, they stumbled upon a statue in the middle of an intersection. It appeared to be a life-sized goat made of solid crystal. Upon closer inspection, they realized that the crystal was data storage, containing the DNA and all knowledge associated with every known bacteria going back to the twentieth century, cross-referenced with every time each bacterium had been found in a goat.
There also appeared to be a personal 2D vid collection of goats stored in the crystal. Many of them depicted people yelling at goats, which seemed to cause the goats to seize up and fall over.
“Wow, someone really likes goats,” Joe commented.
“Maybe a bit too much,” Tanis chuckled.
Not long after, they entered another corridor that was a clear tube surrounded by what appeared to be a brownish substance. Tanis leaned close and let out a small cry.
“It’s just dirt!”
Joe frowned and peered closer. “What? What for?”
“I think it’s a giant ant farm.”
Joe walked down the tube, running his hand along the plas. “Huh, so it is. The sign down here says it’s the personal property of some guy named Pete, and, that no one's to mess with it.”
Tanis laughed, “well, I guess we’d best be on our way.”
After several more kilometers of ship, Joe yawned and stretched. “I know we’ve only been at it for a few hours, but I’d worked a full day before stasis, and I’m bushed. What say we find some place to crash?”
“Sure,” Tanis agreed. “Ironically, we’re not far from my quarters, just sixty-two decks down.”
“That would take all the fun out of the adventure!” Joe looked shocked. “We need to bivouac somewhere exciting.”
“There’s a security duty station, not far from here, that had some bunks for folks pulling back-to-back shifts,” Tanis offered. “Does that satisfy your sense of adventure?”
“Humph…I guess it’ll have to do.”
The next day brought them to the ship’s transverse cargo corridor. A memory of that first trip, through the kilometer-wide portal came to Tanis. She remembered first meeting a younger, somehow softer Amy Lee. All the while trying not to gawk at a cargo hatch many of the a star cruisers she’d served on could fly through.
“I remember when they were building this thing,” Joe said, apparently on the same train of thought. “I flew a fighter in here, and buzzed a bunch of haulers that some MOS guys were driving. They were a bit upset, to say the least.”
Tanis laughed. “No wonder they knew you weren’t up to running security and brought me in.”
“You act as though that wasn’t my master plan.”
“Angela, girl!” Joe said. “I was beginning to wonder if you were still with us.”
“Which ‘us’?” Tanis asked. “Organics or AI?”
“Uh…forget I asked,” Tanis laughed.
From the transverse corridor they debated whether to go through one of the cylinders, or to take the maglev that ran along the particle accelerator to Engine.
In the end, they opted to take the maglev, because they could stop at Earnest’s observation lounge, which would give them a great view of Sol, and a last glimpse of Estrella de la Muerte, before its dim red point of light disappeared from view.
Arriving in the lounge a half hour later, Tanis remembered how much she loved seeing the Intrepid from here. It was only a dozen decks above the SOC, and she had come often to collect her thoughts.
Below, the two habitation cylinders rotated, reflecting starlight onto the dorsal rail, cargo cubes and lattice of struts that wrapped the rear half of the ship.
Just over sixteen kilometers away, the engines rose up beyond the cylinders, one side still blackened and twisted. The main engines were inactive; without the main scoop, there was insufficient fuel to light them up, and without the port side A1 fusion engine, a balanced thrust was impossible.
Instead, the two smaller engines were running at low power, pushing the ship ever faster toward The Kap.
“Looks a little worse for wear,” Joe said.
Tanis nodded. “We’ve pinned a lot of hope to this ark, drifting alone in the black.”
“Not really an ark,” Joe mused. “It’s not as though Sol is drowning.”
“Are you so sure?” Tanis asked. “I’m here because I’m fed up with the TSF and Sol politics, but many believe all of Sol is doomed.”
“I know some people think that, but I didn’t know you did—at least not in so many words,” Joe replied.
“Thing is; Sol doesn’t really need humans anymore—but there are trillions of them. Pretty soon, they’ll all be able to live forever, but heavy elements are getting rare enough to cause concern.”
She paused contemplatively. “Unless something changes, they’re going to have some very big conflicts, and soon.”
Joe nodded. “You’re not wrong. But there have always been shortages and conflicts. They’ll survive.”
“Some will,” Tanis agreed. “But that’s m
akes this an ark. We’re taking the best of the best, and the tools to build a new Sol.”
“What New Eden will be like?” Joe replied.
Angela paused.
Tanis nodded slowly. “You wonder if we’ll end up staying; if Terrance and the Reddings will crack open the picotech.”
Joe leaned against the window, and ran a hand down his cheek. “Do you think they would? They’d risk letting the whole crew and colony know.”
“Hard to say,” Tanis replied. “It may be that repairing the scoop emitter and the annihilator would be a lot easier with pico. I imagine the annihilator would be. I’m more concerned about building around a red dwarf.”
“The Kap is an old, old girl, I doubt she has much kick left in her,” Joe said.
Tanis reached an arm around Joe. “Let’s hope she takes it easy for the next couple of centuries.”
“Centuries?” Joe gave Tanis a startled look. “I thought we were only going to be there for fifty years or so.”
“It’ll still take seventy to get there,” Tanis replied. “Either way, let’s hope a temperamental red dwarf is the worst of our problems.”
A HOME WITHIN A HOME
STELLAR DATE: 3245116 / 09.22.4172 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: ISS Intrepid
REGION: Interstellar space, en route to Kapteyn’s Star
“I’m dying for some greenery,” Joe said. “What say we hit one of the cylinders this time? Lil’ Sue or Old Sam?”
It was their eleventh random wakeup; Tanis and Joe were doing their fourth full-ship walkabout. While they had visited several smaller parks, it was not the same as the wide-open spaces within a cylinder.
“Sounds good, let’s visit Old Sam this time. I vote we take a maglev and skip the boring parts,” Tanis replied.
Joe nodded his agreement and Tanis flashed him a smile.
“Last one to the train’s a…whatever!” She said and broke into a run.
“Seriously?” Joe called out as he chased after her. “A whatever?”
Old Sam was roughly as Tanis remembered; lakes, trees, plains—over one hundred and fifty square kilometers of it. Small bots flitted through the air, maintaining the cylinder’s systems and ensuring the wildlife remained in balance.
“We could spend weeks in here just wandering around,” Tanis said as they picked their way down an overgrown path.
Old Sam was in its summer cycle and the long sun which ran down the cylinder’s center beat down on them mercilessly. Tanis looked back at Joe and smiled at his red cheeks.
“First the race and now this,” Joe grimaced. “You’re dying for an adventure, aren’t you?”
Tanis laughed, relishing the fact that she didn’t hear her voice echo back from bulkheads. “The danger quotient in my blood is alarmingly low.”
“Well, there’s that low escarpment a few miles from here; it would make a fun climbing exercise.” Joe replied.
“In full gravity? After months of low-g on the ship? Not sure how the docs would feel if I woke them up to fix my broken neck.”
“Tanis Richards turning down a challenge?” It was Joe’s turn to laugh. “I’ll have to save this conversation to use on you later.”
“You asked for it!” Tanis broke into a lope that brought her up to ten kilometers per-hour, not her top speed, but more than Joe could pull off.
“Not fair,” Joe called out from behind her. “Augments are cheating.”
To her right was a stretch of young trees with a lake visible between their trunks. To her left was a patch of bramble that contained a mixture of plants, which indicated a garden had been the genesis of the growth.
What really had her attention was the cabin beyond the overgrown garden.
It was a single story structure with a small veranda on the front. A pair of homey windows looked out, though one was broken, with a branch growing through it—likely belonging to the tree that had broken through the roof and was now over ten meters high.
Joe stopped beside her, his breathing heavy. He put a steadying hand on Tanis’s shoulder.
“What’s up?”
Tanis took a moment to reply. “I think this is Ouri’s cabin.”
A slow smile crept over Tanis’s face and she turned to look at Joe. “I have an idea…”
DOG STAR
STELLAR DATE: 3246187 / 08.29.4175 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Brilliance Station
REGION: Lucent, Luminescent Space, Sirian Hegemony
The shuttle began its final docking procedure with Brilliance Station. Slight vibrations rippled through the deck as thrusters fired periodically to match velocity and attitude with the station.
Markus stretched his long spacers’ legs out into the aisle, trying to work out a kink in his right knee that had been building for the last hour. Beside him, Simon shifted uncomfortably, his three-meter frame pressed up against the windowless bulkhead, head cocked to the side in the small space.
Markus felt a little bad that his younger companion had the worse of the two seats, but he had spent many long trips against the bulkhead of Luminescent shuttles in his youth. The next generation could pay their dues too.
“You going to make it?” He asked Simon.
“Hard to say, I may never stand up straight again.”
Markus chuckled.
This was the final leg of the multi-week journey from their mining platform to Brilliance Station. Most of the trip had been spent aboard an in-system Noctus ore hauler, and while it wasn’t spacious—there was room to move. Somehow, the five-hour journey, while sitting in the Noctus section of this shuttle, felt considerably longer.
A little food would have helped, but the Lumins didn’t think it was a worthwhile investment to give the Noctus passengers food when they could simply not.
Markus hardly noticed anymore. He had been in Luminescent Space enough that he was no longer fazed by the opulence and decadence of the people—which they denied to the Noctus at every opportunity. For Simon, this was his first visit. The short glimpse he’d gotten of the first class cabin when they had entered the shuttle made the young man slack-jawed.
An attendant opened the door into the rear cabin and cast an eye across the lower-class passengers, making certain they were all seated and orderly for the docking. The two metal studs gleaming on the bridge of her nose marked her as a member of one of the lesser families. High ranking families in Luminescent Society had metal studs from their nose up into their hairline.
Her survey only lasted moments and then the door was closed with a sharp snap
“Damn shorts,” Simon muttered. “Would it kill them to show us common courtesy?”
“Boy,” Markus snapped. “Watch your mouth; you never know who might overhear you, and what they might say. You will not utter that word in Luminescent Space.”
Simon sighed, but didn’t say anything else disparaging about the Lumins. Something so innocuous as calling them “shorts” could put you in front of a judge, getting fined, or even a jail sentence.
The Lumins really had no sense of proportion, or humor for that matter.
A clang echoed through the ship, and the pull of gravity tugged at the passengers. The station’s grappling mechanism pulled the shuttle into the dock, and centripetal force began to take effect. Within a minute, Luminescent-normal gravity of 1.0g was in effect.
“Agh, I feel like I can’t breathe,” Simon felt his chest and swallowed. “How do they survive like this?” he asked.
“It’s not the most pleasant thing, but keep your discomfort to yourself, it doesn’t do to let them see you stooping or pulling at your clothes.”
A second clang heralded the umbilical latching onto the ship.
Markus stood before the ‘remain seated’ lights switched off. Beside him, Simon leaned across both seats, stretching as much as the space would allow.
“We’ve now completed our docking procedure,” the captain’s voice came across the ship’s auditory systems. “First class passengers may begin debarkation. Other passengers please wait until our first class guests have finished clearing the shuttle.”
The captain was most certainly a short. He didn’t speak with their accent, which meant he came from one of the outer habitats at the edge of Luminescent Space. The way he emphasized the word “other” spoke volumes. Moreover, there was only one first-class passenger; Markus had seen her in the debarkation area on Glorious Station.
The boarding area back on Glorious Station was sparsely appointed. Few Lumins had been present, but she stood out because she was quite tall for one of them, perhaps just over two meters—more with the heels she wore. Her hair was a brilliant red and it reminded Markus of Angie before she had died in an asteroid accident.
The Lumins loved talking about light, and it was apparent in everything, from the naming of their stations to the clothes they wore. The latest trend in Lumin fashion was a skin-tight covering of some glowing iridescent material. Some were brilliantly white, almost hard to look at, but this woman’s was muted to a dull pewter.
Simon had stared at her for at least a solid minute before Markus elbowed him. With studs nearly to the top of her forehead, she was likely one of the first upper-class Lumins the boy had ever seen. Not to mention that Simon had never seen a woman exude so much sexual power while simply standing still.
Markus had to admit she was quite striking and would have liked to soak in her beauty for some time as well, but doing so would have earned a visit from a security drone.