by Thomas Stone
Arriving, he gave the receptionist his name. "Oh yes, here we are. Harrison Irons, room 331. Take the escalator to the right, Mr. Irons."
"Thank you." He should have been happy, excited at the prospects. Under the circumstances, he wasn't.
He found the room easily enough and entered. A secretary looked up from her computer screen. "Yes. Can I help you?"
Harry looked around. He stood in a small outer office. Down a hall, other corporate employees passed from room to room, some with papers in hand, all with serious faces.
"My name's Harrison Irons. I was told to report here."
The secretary looked at her monitor. "Just a moment, please. Yes, there you are." She raised an eyebrow. "You were selected as an alternate survey team member?"
"Yes."
"Well, Mr. Irons, it looks as though you're no longer an alternate. Your status has been changed to active. Congratulations."
"Thanks," Harry said automatically. He held back the rush of excitement, reminding himself of how he got the job.
"We have a lot to do. There are forms to fill out, doctor's examinations, and inoculations. Oh, and your team is meeting in forty-five minutes. Well, we'll do as much as we can now and work around your schedule to finish up."
For the remainder of the hour, Harry was passed from one representative to another. They asked him about his background, his family, his education, practically everything that could be written down or recorded. When it was time to attend the team meeting they still hadn't finished with him. He was told to return later to complete the paperwork and check on the time for his medical examination.
He learned that the team meeting for survey crew 101 was not in the same building. Instead, it was in a smaller building across the street. As Harry crossed the street en route to his meeting, he mused with the idea that he could just walk away. He could leave now and follow his conscience, or he could follow the path of least resistance and make himself and his family wealthy, as well as fulfill his childhood dreams. In the end, the latter argument won out. Harry walked into the building and was directed to his meeting.
Because he was not yet listed in the security database, the door to the room wouldn't open. He had to get a security guard to let him in. When the door opened, both he and the guard stared at Harry's new team. They, in turn, returned the stare. Finally, Kathleen said, "It's Harry!"
The security guard disappeared and the redhead, Doris, Harry remembered, stepped forward and offered her hand. "Hello Harrison, do you remember me? My name is Doris Leonelda Ilyich. I am the corporation Executive Officer for Mission Number 101." Harry shook her hand and noted that Doris spoke with a Russian accent.
"Welcome, we are so happy to have you with us. We familiarized ourselves with your folder this morning and I must say we are all very impressed with your qualifications."
"And," Kathleen added, "he plays zoomball almost as well as Edward."
They all nodded appreciatively.
Doris proceeded to introduce the other members of the crew. She motioned toward Bart and Kathleen. "You already know these two." Kathleen smiled and Bart roused himself from his reverie long enough to nod in Harry's direction.
"And," the XO continued, "You've met Dr. Parker, our medical doctor."
"Hello Harrison." The young doctor said.
"Hello Doc."
The doctor visibly ruffled at the familiarity but said nothing.
Doris faced the remaining two. She looked at a large, well-built black woman. "This is Nadine Waddell Watson."
"Now Doris, don't go telling people my middle name. You know I don't like that." She leaned forward and shook Harry's hand. She was as tall as Harry and quite sturdy, big-boned, and muscular. She was also attractive, in an Amazon sort of way. "How are you, Harry?"
"Fine, thanks."
"Nadine handles our navigations and any celestial mechanics problems. Like you, she has a good head for computers." Doris turned to the final team member.
"This is William Bonner. William is our systems engineer. He is also our mechanical expert and maintains the propulsion systems."
Bonner was tall and had a potbelly. He looked like the sort of man who liked to tinker. He wore a ball cap with the Braithwaite insignia and, unlike the others, dressed as though he was ready at any moment to slide under a ground shuttle and check the control struts.
"Call me Bill, glad to have you aboard."
"Thanks, where's Edward?"
"Oh, you won't be seeing much of him until the mission actually gets underway. We've got quite a bit to do before then. Shall we get started?" She motioned for Harry to take a seat.
Harry sat in one of the chairs surrounding a moderately-sized conference table. Kathleen slid in next to him. The others, except for Doris, took a seat as well.
The XO stepped to the front. "Is he paying attention?" Doris spoke to Kathleen but pointed to Bart. "Um-hm." Kathleen murmured.
Bart opened his eyes and winked at Doris. "Yes, ma'am. Present and accounted for."
"Yes, well, we've got a lot of work to do in the next six weeks. Beginning tomorrow, we will begin procedural training in the simulators. I want you all to talk to the legal department and payroll immediately, settle any outstanding affairs, make sure your will is up-to-date. You can do that this afternoon and tomorrow morning." She directed herself to Harry. "You need to get a security card immediately. You can't go anywhere without one."
"I'll take him to personnel," Kathleen volunteered.
"All right. But I want Dr. Blane to remain here."
Bart responded immediately, "Wait a minute. I don't like being alone."
"You won't be alone, we'll be here with you."
Kathleen waved a hand. "Come on, Bart." Don't be a baby.
Bart sulked until he spied a plug-in jack on the side of the table. He smiled and waved at Kathleen. "Go on, I'll be fine."
Before Harry and Kathleen left, Doris again congratulated Harry for joining the team. "I look forward to working with you and I know everyone feels the same." Harry thought she was going a little overboard and mentioned it to Kathleen when they stepped out of the room.
"Oh, Doris is one of the corporate people. Most of the Executive Officers are. Gung-ho."
"Aren't we all corporate people?"
Kathleen rolled her eyes. "Well, in the organization, there are corporate people and there are corporate people -- with a lot of different people in between. People with different reasons for being here."
"Why are you here?"
"Why do you think?"
Harry thought about it for a moment. "Somehow, I don't think it's for the money." Harry gave her a sidelong glance. "It's for the stars."
"What?"
"The stars. You want to go to the stars."
Kathleen smiled. "Doesn't everybody?"
They walked back to the corporate offices and Kathleen led Harry to personnel. Typically, Harry got caught up in the bureaucracy and had to wait. Kathleen was patient for a full minute, then excused herself. She hadn't been gone five minutes when a clerk rushed in and apologized profusely for keeping Harry waiting.
"I'm so sorry, I was taking my break."
She took Harry's picture and attached it to his security card. "There you are." She handed him the card. "And sorry about keeping you waiting."
"Forget it."
Kathleen was waiting outside. "Did you get it?"
Harry held up the card.
"Now you can go where you please. Where would you like to go?"
"You mean I can go where I want in corporate space?"
Kathleen laughed. "Corporate space? That's funny. Yeah. You're a corporate survey team specialist. You can go pretty much where you want. So, what do you want to see?"
"I want to see the ship."
Kathleen frowned. "Ah, can't do that. The ship's waiting in orbit. Edward's planning some kind of christening ceremony. He wants us all to be together the first time we see it. I kind of like the idea. Don't you?"
"Yeah, I guess so." At the mention of Fagen's name, Harry again thought about the air-limo crash.
Kathleen pouted and touched Harry's cheek. "Oh, you're disappointed. I have another idea. Let me show you the simulator. It's the next best thing to the ship. What about it?"
"Sure, why not? But first a side trip to payroll."
"Always the practical one, eh?"
She took him out of personnel to a bank of keyboards where she keyed in Harry's name. After going through a series of menus she arrived at the corporation banking facilities.
"Now Harry, key in the access number on your security card and you can look at your numbers."
He did so and blinked when his salary was displayed.
"What's the matter?" Kathleen asked.
Harry smiled. "I didn't know I was going to get paid so much." Harry began issuing commands from the keyboard, and in a matter a minutes, he had redirected over half his salary to his mother's bank account. In another moment he directed half of what remained into commodities. The rest was his, and it was more than he had ever had at one time. Money may not bring you happiness, but it can make you smile. Then Harry remembered the flames coming from the limo as it fell out of sight and he frowned.
Kathleen asked what the trouble was.
"I feel bad about how I got the assignment."
"You shouldn't feel bad about it. You had nothing to do with it. It was an accident. Pure chance."
"Maybe not."
"What do you mean?"
He told her about his conversation with Edward and how Edward said he would try to do something.
Kathleen shook her head. "No Harry, you don't know Edward. He didn't like the guy the board forced him to take. He told them so. He told them he wanted a strong crew for this trip. But he wouldn't have done something like that."
"How long have you known Fagen?"
"A few years. I met him before his fourth trip, before he got the scar. Edward met Blane at a conference sponsored by MIT. Immediately, he wanted Blane for his next crew, Blane wouldn't go without me or one of the other people he's connected to. I was the only one who was qualified. I'm a botanist, you know. Anyway, at first Edward didn't want to take us both. When he returned after his fourth trip, he phoned me and asked if the deal was still on. I said yes and here we are."
"But what about the selection process and all that? I mean, I understand Fagen tries to sponsor his own crew, but he has to contend with other sponsors, right?"
"Well," Kathleen thought about it, "quite simply, yes, that's right."
"Then how was he able to sponsor two instead of just one?"
"Oh," Kathleen said, "I'm a sponsor too. With Edward's help, I bought myself in."
Harry stared at the young woman.
Kathleen laughed. "Didn't I tell you I was rich?"
*
A short time later, Harry and Kathleen walked into the simulator control lab. A technician sat at a console and waved to Kathleen.
"Carl, feed us the Neptune orbital simulation." Kathleen turned and faced Harry. "I like the colors."
Harry grinned.
Set on stilts in the middle of an auditorium-sized room, the simulator was much larger than Harry had imagined. They climbed a gantry-way and entered the simulator through an open hatch. Inside was a duplicate of the interior of a corporation spaceship bridge.
"Everything looks and works like the real thing." Kathleen explained. She punched a button beside the hatch and the door slid shut.
It was more spacious than Harry had imagined. There was room for six at the vacant positions. "Which spot shall I take?"
"For now, let's take the commander's position. Since you and I won't be running the ship, Edward will relegate us to positions in the back during actual flight. " Kathleen sat before a console and began flipping switches. She leaned forward to a microphone.
"Carl, can you hear me?"
"Loud and clear," came the reply. "Ready when you are."
"All right, give us a minute to hook up." She handed Harry a headset. "Here, put this on, then you can hear everything that's going on."
Harry put on the headset and adjusted the tiny microphone that dangled before his mouth. Through the earpieces he heard periodic navigational reports as well as the buzz and pop of simulated radio interference.
"All right Carl, I'm going to open the viewports. You can leave us alone for awhile." Without waiting for an answer, Kathleen pressed a switch and the metal louvers that covered the viewports began to slide back. As they moved out of the way, they revealed a scene that took Harry's breath away.
In the upper half of his field of vision, Neptune appeared to float in a blackened sky, the great rings so close that Harry could see the individual boulders and ice. In the background, stars shined through, illuminating the velvet carpet of sky.
"What do you think?"
"It's... amazing."
"And it's not even the real thing."
"You could've fooled me." Harry again began to feel the rising excitement. It was what he had dreamed about for so long that he was afraid he would wake up and it wouldn't be real. But now here he was, a Braithwaite Corporation employee, a survey team member, poised to fly into the unknown and explore the stars.
Chapter 8
The days and weeks that followed were lost in a blur of training sessions and preparations. It was a time of discovery and excitement for Harry, as well as big changes. For the first time since his father died, there was money for his family. Complying with corporation rules, Harry moved into survey team quarters. Compared to what he was used to, his suite was luxurious. Unfortunately, due to an arduous training schedule, he didn't get to spend much time there.
The part of the day he most looked forward to was his ninety minutes in holographic situations. Typically they weren't as difficult as those encountered during the testing, but they were just as interesting.
In one of the sessions, he found himself alone, squatting on a dirt floor inside a mud hut with small, smelly, furry creatures seated across from him.
They passed him a bowl filled with a putrefied liquid and watched him, giving no indication of what they expected. Harry sniffed at the disgusting concoction. He knew it was a holographic image, but it looked, smelled, and even felt like it was real. After a moment's hesitation, he turned up the bowl and drank the liquid.
Immediately, the holographic display disappeared and an image of Mr. Thanopolous appeared.
"Sorry, Harrison," he said. "You died. If you had looked closely enough, you would have noticed that the aliens poured the liquid on their heads. It wasn't meant to be consumed. Let's try another one." With that, Harry was transported to another scene and underwent a similar exercise.
This time, he was on the bridge of a spacecraft. A man dressed in the uniform of a survey team commander looked at him expectantly.
"Well?" He said and pointed to a display readout. "What does it mean?"
Harry looked at the display. It contained a series of hieroglyphs. Next to the display Harry noticed a scratchpad in his own handwriting that contained a matrix of symbols and glyphs. He began to compare the symbols on the screen with those in the matrix.
A woman's voice came over the intercom. "Sir, we're detecting some unusual solar activity. Radiation levels are climbing."
The commander frowned and urged Harry to decipher the message.
Harry concentrated and, within minutes, translated the message. It was a warning: a solar flare was imminent. Harry reported his findings to the commander who then ordered the ship to be taken out of orbit and directed towards deep space.
The bridge disappeared and Thanopolous reappeared. "Very good, Harrison, that'll be all for today."
Harry was almost disappointed the session was finished.
As usual, afterwards the team gathered to discuss their experiences and run additional exercises. Doris moderated the sessions.
"Help Nadine plot a course." Doris instructed Bonner. Bonner shrugged and step
ped to the navigations console where Nadine sat. Nadine ignored him.
"Bart?" Doris hated speaking to the wirehead. "Would you assist Harry with his calculations?"
Bart sat at his chair with his eyes closed. His expression never changed.
"Bart, did you hear me?"
He opened his eyes. "What do you want me to do?"
"Help Harry with his calculation."
Bart sighed. "Okay. Harry, the approach vector is 5 degrees from the initial entry. That's with a correction of plus or minus .23659 degrees thrown in for drift."
Doris stood with her arms folded. "That's not what I meant. I want you to watch him go through the steps to see that he knows how to do it. It's very important that we cross-train in our various disciplines in case one of you has to take over for the other."
Nadine said. "I can't be expected to learn umpteen dozen different languages to take over for Harry!"
"No, you can't," replied Doris. "There are accepted limitations. On the other hand, Bart can access the language archives in the data bank. Similarly, Kathleen is cross-trained by Charlie to perform the standard corporation tests on bio-organisms."
Parker reacted. "Please call me Charles."
Harry almost winced. Earlier, he'd overheard the doctor speaking to Kathleen in a training session. Parker complained when Kathleen mixed substances in a different order than Parker had.
"Do the acetic acid first, then the base."
"What difference does it make?" Kathleen asked.
Parker stared at her. "Because it's the order I learned. It's the correct method."
"But the results are the same."
"As far as you know. Is it necessary that I give the standard lecture on lab practices?"
"No, no," Kathleen backed off, laughing, "I'll take your word for it, Chuck."
Parker bristled at the nickname but said nothing.
If Harry found Parker to be the most abrasive, with Doris running a close second, he found Bill Bonner to be the most easygoing among the group. Usually, the engineer was paired with Nadine, but he got along with everyone equally well. Bill had been raised on a hog farm, pursuing engineering, so he said, to get away from the smell. As a result, he was friendly, earthy, and used an array of pithy, down-home phrases to prove it.